pre-sales
Latest
Black Gold opens up preorders
Black Gold Online is launching as a free-to-play game, but there's no reason you should let that simple fact stop you from pre-ordering it! Admittedly, it's not so much the game you're ordering but a retail box that also comes with a variety of goodies contained therein, but still. Pre-orders are now open, letting you plop down $20 to unlock a variety of perks in the game when it goes live this summer. The pre-order package includes a special horse, special clothing, high-end crafting ingredients, and around $20 of in-game currency, which would serve to offset the cost of the boxed edition quite nicely. Aforementioned boxed copies will be shipping alongside the game's full launch this summer. If this is right up your alley, the game's official pre-order page will direct you to the retailers offering this deal; you can also check out the full press release just past the break.
Acer Iconia Tab A510 with Tegra 3, Android 4.0 arriving in the US and Canada for $450
The curious thing about the Acer Iconia Tab A510 is that it's been out in the open for months -- we've even handled it -- but for whatever reason, Acer's never publicly acknowledged it as the successor to last year's A500. When we got hands-on at CES, for example, it wasn't at Acer's suite, but NVIDIA's booth (this is Acer's first Tegra 3 tablet, don'tcha know). Well, the company's finally ready to come out and say, "Yes, we made this thing." The A510 is up for pre-order today in the US and Canada, with a price of $450. Though you can get it in black or white, it's available in one 32GB configuration for now. To recap, this is a quad-core slate with 1GB of RAM, a 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) display, 5-megapixel auto-focusing rear camera and a single-megapixel shooter up front. And though it loses the USB 2.0 port that made the A500 fairly distinctive, it gains a battery rated for 12 hours of video playback -- a good thing, since it'll have stiff competition from ASUS, Apple and Samsung in the endurance department. Acer also confirmed the tablet will ship with Android 4.0, with the company's usual light OS tweaks in tow. Still no word on when, exactly, it'll ship, but if you want to get a feel for it in the meantime be sure to hit up our hands-on from CES if you missed it the first time around.
It's official: Motorola pushes up Atrix 4G launch to Feb. 22
And there you have it, kids: the rumored in-store date for the Atrix 4G has become a reality, with pre-orders shipping on February 21 and handsets finding their giddy new owners as soon as February 22.
Motorola pushes up Atrix 4G launch to Feb. 22, shoves Xoom pre-sales back to Feb. 20th?
The best laid plans of Motorola may be in disarray, as we hear the device manufacturer is shuffling release dates for its hottest new Android devices. Supposedly, AT&T customer service reps are getting the above message in their inbox, which suggests the modular Atrix 4G smartphone may arrive more than a week earlier than planned, while a Best Buy memo (image after the break) pegs Xoom tablet pre-sales for February 20th, three days after the date originally communicated. Still, we haven't heard anything to suggest that the Xoom won't be 100 percent ready for purchase on February 24th, so you should be just fine saving your eight Benjamins for then. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Motorola Atrix 4G pre-orders begin at AT&T
March 6th is the official street date, but you can lay down your money for Motorola's modular smartphone right now, as the Atrix 4G and its suite of incredible Webtop docks are now available for pre-order. $200 buys you the biometric HSPA+ smartphone on a two-year contract, and it'll cost you an additional $300 to turn it into a portable netbook of sorts -- though as we feared, you'll need to pay $45 a month for the DataPro 4GB + Tethering data plan (on top of your phone bill) to actually use it on the go. Another bummer is that the HD Multimedia Dock (enabling desktop-like functionality) will run $130, a good bit more than we thought we'd see it for. All in all, the Atrix is looking like quite an investment, so perhaps you'd be best served waiting for our full review. But don't let us tell you what to do with your hard-earned dough! [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Fujifilm FinePix X100 pre-orders begin, retro beauty is yours for $1,200
We've yet to snap a single photograph with Fujifilm's FinePix X100, but we don't let little things like substantive testing get in the way of love -- it's destiny that we and this gorgeous camera be together, no matter the cost. Of course, considering that cost is presently $1,200 at Adorama, where the 12.3 megapixel APS-C shooter just appeared for pre-sales, you may not feel the same way. That's just fine. You'll probably have until March to longingly gaze upon that F2 Fujinon lens, hybrid viewfinder and gorgeous magnesium curves before you make up your troubled mind.
Samsung Galaxy Player up for pre-order at Amazon UK, £150 buys 8GB worth of Android Market apps
We Americans may not see it until summer, but Samsung's 3.2-inch Galaxy Player is about to call Europe home, as following French presales the PMP has now appeared at Amazon UK. There, it's sporting a tentative January 7th release date and a pair of capacities and prices, with a modest £150 (about $234) nabbing you 8GB of storage and £180 (roughly $280) fully doubling that capacity to 16GB. Apple's iPod touch is the obvious comparison here, and it's shaping up to be a valid one -- while there's no Retina Display to be had here, it's hard to sneeze at the real Android Market and some decent codec (OGG / FLAC / XviD / DivX) support. Unless you've got a cold or something. [Thanks, Paul]
SageTV puts $150 HD Theater 300 up for pre-order, breaks down the specifications
Whoa, welcome to the new decade SageTV! Nearly two full years after introducing the HD Theater HD200, the aforesaid company is hitting back with the HD Theater 300 -- and frankly, the timing couldn't possibly be worse. Last month, a $149.95 price tag on a no-name streamer may have looked attractive, but with the revised Apple TV and price-adjusted Roku line, we get the feeling this one will be a hard sell. At any rate, this new networked set-top box boasts a non-stackable design, a Toslink optical audio jack, HDMI 1.3 socket, a pair of USB jacks and an Ethernet connector. It also supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD/MA (which means you're cleared to bitstream to your HDMI 1.3 receiver), but you'll need to pony up an extra $29.95 for a WiFi dongle. Yeah, bummer. The outfit suggests that you turn this critter into a whole home DVR solution by running SageTV Media Center software alongside of it, but you should probably know that you'll have some trouble if trying to shove DRM'd content through it. It's available for pre-order down in the source link if you're interested. [Thanks, Tom]
Dell Streak retailing for $299 with contract, $549 without; Dell Aero gets launch deets as well
So, Dell still won't say when it will actually start selling and shipping the Streak in the US, but it did clear up a bit of confusion. First off, folks who register with the Streak pre-sale on Dell.com between July 20th and July 27th (yeah, today is the last day) get first access at ordering the phone. Pre-sale-ers will get an email link to buy the phone today, with the handset priced at $299.99 with a two-year AT&T contract, or $549.99 without. Meanwhile, Dell is being even more forthcoming in the Aero. It'll be available on August 9th for $99.99 with a contract and $299.99 without. So, are you ready for Dell to be a US phone manufacturer? Have you braced yourself? Because the time is at hand. [Thanks, Jas] Update: It looks like Dell has pulled its blog post we sourced this from. We'll let you know if the facts change, but for now we're gonna stick with these numbers.
Aion Collector's Edition pre-orders top Steam weekly sales
It's been a stellar week of digital pre-order sales for Aion, with the upcoming title taking top honors on Steam's weekly sales chart. Specifically, it was the Collector's Edition of the game that did so well. Keep in mind that this is not the same as the Limited Collector's Edition, which contains physical items like the Asmodian Daeva figurine that might be too difficult to distribute digitally with our current technology. It does however still contain a handful of in-game items that the regular edition doesn't. The pre-sale of both versions comes with guaranteed access to a couple of closed beta events, as well as an attribute boosting hat, an experience boosting talisman and a "special effects ring".Interestingly, the pre-order for the regular edition didn't crack Steam's top 10. It seems that, just like with the Limited Collector Edition from brick-and-mortar stores, people are happy to pay just a little bit more for that extra something. Steam is selling the regular pre-order for US$49.99 and the collector's edition for US$59.99. The weekly sales chart is based on revenue, so Aion's asking price would have helped it beat popular budget-priced titles.[Via Shacknews]
T-Mobile's G1 presales aren't "even close" to 1.5M
A source close to the situation has chimed in to tell us that T-Mobile's G1 presales -- while very strong, and seemingly making the carrier and HTC very happy campers -- are nowhere near the 1.5 million figure being randomly spouted off by Motley Fool. We don't have an exact figure, but to put things in perspective, it took 74 days of real, actual sales for Apple to hit a million iPhones -- which like the G1 numbers here, counted the US market alone. Real question is, what percentage of the presales have been for that crazy brown model, eh?
