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Everyone's making a sapphire phone, here's Huawei's
Rumors of the next-gen iPhone donning a scratch-proof sapphire screen have been going around since the Apple sapphire plant announcement, and it appears that Huawei wants in on the hype, as it prepares for the launch of a sapphire edition Ascend P7. While no price has been announced just yet (it'll naturally be more expensive, of course), a Huawei rep told us that said phone will be available in its Chinese online store in limited quantity, with the first batch due in September, followed by another lot in November. If all goes well, Huawei will become the first Chinese brand to sell a smartphone with a sapphire screen, but it'll have to act fast as local rivals Xiaomi and Vivo are also rumored to be mulling sapphire devices.
Huawei Ascend P7 review: the best mid-range phone you've never heard of
What is a flagship? For some companies, it's about cramming as many features into a device as physics allows. For Huawei, it means something else entirely: Though it creates smartphones for the power-hungry crowd, its most eye-catching devices typically favor mass appeal over brawn. Exhibit A: the Ascend P7, a smartphone that emphasizes design and user-friendliness over a blowsy spec sheet. When we reviewed its predecessor, the P6, last year, we found a gorgeous phone that struggled due to an underpowered engine and lack of LTE. The company promises it's learned from its mistakes, though. So is the P7 the mid-range smartphone you'll actually be proud to show off?
Bowers & Wilkins launches the P7, its first pair of over-ear headphones
We've seen on-ear and in-ear headphones come out of Bowers & Wilkins' labs for quite some time, but now the company has announced its first over-ear pair. The new P7s boast the style's natural advantages, of course -- ear-covering cushions that mold to the wearer's head, improving noise isolation. B&W crafted new audio drivers for the cans too, which it claims are designed more like "traditional audiophile speaker" than a pair of premium headphones. The device's leather and metal finish looks sleek, but it doesn't come cheap -- a pair will set you back $400 when it comes out this September. Too rich for your blood? Well, you can always opt for one of B&W's relatively more affordable options.
Chuwi rips off Teclast's T56 with its P7 PMP, prices it for the everyman
You know things are getting nasty in Shenzhen when even the KIRF supporters of the world are KIRFing one another. We can't say that's exactly what happened here, but Chuwi's "new" P7 sure looks exactly like Teclast's T56. The 1080p-outputting PMP boasts a 5-inch screen, 8GB of internal storage, a format support list to make your iPod weep and a 600MHz ARM processor running the show. There's also an FM tuner, a sleek silver casing and a 699 yuan price tag, which converts to just over a Benjamin here in the US. So, Teclast -- care to price your own now that the thunder has been sufficiently stolen?[Via PMP Today]
iriver P7 ships in South Korea, Americans look longingly across the sea
Sadly, we're still no closer to understanding when iriver will allow its striking P7 to escape the chains of "pre-order status" here in North America, but geeks in South Korea can now feel free to indulge. 4.3-inches of luscious screen real estate slapped onto an 8GB PMP will set you back just under ₩200,000 ($160), and we're guessing the more capacious 16GB variant will cost just a wee bit more. So yeah, we're going out on a limb here and assuming that a homeland launch foreshadows a splashdown on US soil -- don't let us down, iriver.[Via PMP Today]
iriver P7 shows up for US pre-order
We already saw the iriver P7 teased yesterday alongside the P35 and that intriguing countdown clock, and now we've got a pre-order listing for the touchscreen PMP over at J&R. Priced at two Benjamins, mum's currently the word on a release date, but hopefully we'll know more when the countdown strikes zero on Monday.
iriver P7 does the unboxing thing
We thoroughly enjoyed our CES hands-on time with iriver's slick P7 PMP, but it looks like the touchscreen player is starting to make it out to the wild -- check out these unboxing photos. We're not sure why iriver's chosen "like a magazine" as the tagline here, but we're pretty anxious to get one of our own to try and figure it out.[Via PMP Today]
iriver's gorgeous P7 gets itself a web address
Unfortunately, we're still no closer to finding out when the iriver P7 will be available, but given that it's now showing up on the company's worldwide web portal alongside scads of other beautiful pieces of hardware, we'd say it's certainly closer than before. None of the listed specifications look to have changed, but there sure are a lot of purty images to look at there in the read link. Grab a tissue, place it beneath your chin and head on over.[Via DAP Review, thanks Jeff]
Video: hands-on with the iriver P7
A definite highlight of iriver's CES booth was the P7 PMP and of course we had to get up close and personal with it. The 4.3-inch PMP was chillin' in a docking station among the other P series devices, and we managed to grab some snaps. Just like the WAVE-HOME we caught before it, the interface seemed super smooth. The UI made the most of that expansive (and gorgeous) screen, and the FM tuner seemed to do its job. We got a walkthrough of the device on video after the break, and don't forget to check out the gallery below that shows the device in all its "in the wild" glory.%Gallery-41191%
4.3-inch P7 highlights iriver's CES 2009 PMP lineup
It's a little tough to rip our eyes away from the bizarre WAVE-HOME, but the 4.3-inch P7 is a darn good diversion. Said unit is flying high atop iriver's line of portable media players in Vegas this year, packing a 4.3-inch WQVGA (480 x 272) touchscreen, 4/8/16GB of NAND Flash memory, a microSD expansion slot, SRS WOW HD audio enhancement, a battery good for around 50 hours of audio playback, FM radio, voice recorder, seven equalizer presets and a curiously vague "full movie codec support." Following this guy is the E50, E100 Season II and Mplayer Eyes, all of which we had already known of during the run-up to CES. At any rate, all of the official details are just past the break, though pricing and availability are still being sorted.%Gallery-40249%
Haier, Metalink show off draft-n-equipped TVs
It's been over a year since we first spotted Metalink's draft-802.11n components designed for networked home theater gear, and now it seems that the company has finally found a partner willing to include the technology in a slew of next-generation products. Known as WLANPlus, the chipset family is poised for integration into TVs, DVRs, and DVD players from Chinese manufacturing giant Haier -- perhaps best know around here for the pen-like P7 cellphone -- which will allow consumers to broadcast multiple high definition streams around the house thanks to draft-n transfer speeds in excess of 200Mbps. The two companies revealed their partnership at this year's SINOCES, where Haier had several WiFi-equipped TVs on display in a multi-room setup meant to simulate simultaneous streaming in a household environment. GigaOM points out, however, that it may be awhile before we see actual products stemming from this deal hit the marketplace -- if we ever see them at all -- as Metalink doesn't seem to be in the best financial shape, having already lost $4.1 million in the first quarter of this year alone.[Via GigaOM]
LG's Style-i "hands-free" headset available from Verizon
LG's Style-i, the Bluetooth cellphone accessory that took the "hands-free" out "of "hands-free headset," is now available exclusively from Verizon, and for a little cheaper than the $150 we originally reported. As you'll no doubt recall from our original mocking write-up of the Style-i, this Haier P7-lookalike is designed for the same purpose as other Bluetooth headsets -- to let you make calls while your phone is charging or in a bag -- but without the convenience of, you know, freeing up your hands. Actually, LG almost had us sold on this $130 product until we found out that you can't daisy-chain two of them together -- how are you supposed to pick up a call if both your phone and first Style-i are charging simultaneously?[Thanks, Brett]
