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Everex's $400 VA1500V laptop now available
If the bargain priced Cloudbook was just a touch too small for your tastes, open wide for Everex's 15.4-inch VA1500V. Available now at NewEgg, this 5.3-pound rig features a 1.5GHz VIA C7-M processor, WXGA+ (1,440 x 900) resolution panel, half a gig of DDR2 RAM, a 60GB 5400RPM hard drive, DVD combo drive and a lackluster integrated graphics set. As expected, you'll also find the firm's gOS v2 "Rocket" operating system, an Ethernet port, 802.11b/g WiFi, three USB ports, VGA out, audio in / out and a 3-cell Li-ion sure to last an eternity. Still, you can't kvetch too loudly for $399.99, now can you?[Via Laptoping]
$10 cellphone may be coming in two years
With Motorola not making a heckuva lot of profit these days, can it and the other handset makers really get a $10 handset to market? Some at UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) say that it may be possible to get a $10 cellphone -- likely targeted at emerging markets -- on the streets. Still, can it be done from a cost and logistics perspective? CITRIS in California (no pun intended) believes such a handset could be on the global market within a few years if any Taiwanese contract manufacturers care to sign up to the vision. With Taiwan's Quanta being the top maker of the $100 OLPC laptop computer system that is shipping, perhaps a $10 cellphone can, in fact, be done. After all, the MOTOFONE ain't that far away.
Amoi launches four Windows Mobile Smartphones for China
Normally, low-end Windows Mobile Smartphones destined for China aren't anything to get terribly excited about, but Amoi's new quartet of handsets share a distinction that'll hopefully set a trend for the industry. The E72, E75, E76, and E78 Smartphones rock all manner of form factors (QWERTY included) but share largely common guts, and here's where it gets interesting: there's a TI OMAPV1030 "Vox" in there running the show at 200MHz. The Vox core is typically associated with high-function dumbphones; Amoi's use of it to power a smartphone could (and hopefully will) push the market toward ever-cheaper convergence devices that can run effectively on ultra low-cost processors. Despite skimping on the internals, the spec sheet holds its own with EDGE data, 128MB of internal storage, Bluetooth, and a 2 megapixel cam (1.3 megapixel in the E72). The first of the bunch to hit store shelves will be the E72, which will be available for under $250 -- when you consider that's an unsubsidized price, that's quite impressive indeed. Look for all four to be available in China by early '07.[Via the::unwired]
Motorola MOTOFONE F3 gets by FCC
The FCC is many things to many people, but for us, it's a library and an informant. In its latter capacity, the agency has scooped literally dozens upon dozens of phones for us; in its former, it serves as one of the most comprehensive sources of mobile phone user's manuals on the 'net. They're putting on their starched, three-piece suits and playing their librarian role this time around, releasing a cornucopia of PDFs relating to Motorola's low-cost MOTOFONE F3. The draft manual is a breath of fresh air for the manual haters among us -- we know who you are -- if it carries through to production in its current form, bearing just 10 (yes, ten) panels of important information on what appears to be a foldable pamphlet. Ultra low-end or not, we have to admit an irrational excitement is building around Engadget HQ to play around with this thing -- especially if the brief documentation suggests it's going to take like 90 seconds to learn.
