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Samsung BlackJack and Motorola Q, mano-a-mano
Q, meet BlackJack. BlackJack, Q. Now play nice, fellas.
Motorola Q officially launches on Sprint, gets reviewed
Those of you patiently waiting for Sprint to officially launch (and make available) its rendition of the Motorola Q can finally breathe a sigh of relief, but you'll still have to wait just a bit longer to actually grab one. Slated to hit webstores "around mid-January" and retail outlets the month after, Sprint's Q isn't quite available to the masses just yet, but LAPTOP Mag got their palms around a pre-production release and promptly threw it on the testing block. Mimicking remarks we made earlier, reviewers noticed the lack of upgrades aside from the Sprint splash screen, logos, and unique "dark grey" hue, and they also found the "less rubberized" feel compared to Verizon's black version less enjoyable to handle. Noting the possibility of including a dedicated volume switch (as on the BlackJack), the crew was also let down by the omitted backlight underneath the keyboard, which Verizon's unit is blessed with. Additionally, surfing the web proved quite a bit slower when compared to Verizon's flavor, but Sprint suggested that "finalized units" wouldn't suffer the same fate. Nevertheless, not all was doom and gloom, as they did take note of the exclusive NFL Mobile functionality as well as the bundled Handmark application -- dubbed On Demand -- that loaded up "news, weather, directions, and other information optimized for the Moto Q's screen within seconds." Overall, this Q proved to be a bit of letdown considering what it could have been, and if only Sprint would've taken the time to add support for its Sprint TV and Music services, at least something would've stood out from the competition. As it stands, however, the Q still isn't a bad choice, and it was noted that Sprint's cheap unlimited data could swing contract-less buyers in its direction, but if you were hoping for a revamped, refreshed offering from big yellow, you'll be sorely disappointed.Read - Motorola Q officially launches on SprintRead - LAPTOP Mag reviews Sprint's Motorola Q
Heavenly Star: From Lumines II to iTunes
Q Entertainment recently announced that Heavenly Star, an original song from the recently released Lumines II, is now available on the iTunes Music Store in the U.S. and Japan. What's more, five remixes of the song will be coming to Apple's download service soon, and the song and video will be available as part of the "Heavenly Star Pack" for the Xbox 360's Lumines Live in January. Because, really, who doesn't enjoy paying more for content that should have been in the original game. Cheap gamers who want to sample the Miziguchi-produced song and video without paying can check it out below. Hopefully this announcement will open the floodgates and lead to a wide variety of original game music being made legally available through simple download instead of expensive import. We'd personally love to see some OSTs for Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy and DDR, thrown up on iTunes. Until then, I guess there's always OCRemix. What game soundtracks would you like made available on iTunes?[Via GameSetWatch]
Verizon debuts Motorola Q Black
We've still got our eyes on Sprint's Q-with-extra-sexy they've been prepping, but for now Verizon continues to bogart Moto's slim smartphone, and has just released the new medium-sexy Motorola Q Black as expected. The new Q bears the same $199 pricetag of its silver counterpart, but features a $50 rebate instead of the $100 rebate of its sibling, giving Black a $50 premium over its drab companion. Instead of the original's holster, the Black features a carrying case, and there's that "MOL2" update to enjoy, but otherwise there isn't much new to see here. The black coloring apparently isn't only skin deep, so scratches shouldn't reveal anything embarrassing, so that's good news. While you can snag this thing right now online, it won't be showing up in retail until January 12th, according do our tipsters last week. We should also be seeing that MOL2 software update, which irons out a few kinks and improves battery life, rolled out to those gen 1 Qs shortly.[Via Qusers]
Verizon Wireless to launch Black Motorola Q December 12th
Release dates have played with our emotions in the past and we are sure they will be played with again, but this time we have some faith in our tipster. Looks like Verizon Wireless has decided to internally announce their newest Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone to the lineup, the Black Motorola Q. Now, we know that it looks similar to its silver brother externally, but it comes with a software update named MOL2. This update corrects such issues as the Goodlink data stall issue, adds jog dial control via Bluetooth headset and improves battery life. Expect this black bad boy to cost an extra $50 across the board and to be out on the web December 12th and in retail January 12th. So how far behind will Sprint be? Guesses, anyone??[Thanks, Corys00 and HTC Kid]
Pictures emerge of Sprint's Motorola Q
What, exactly, would a Motorola Q look like all dressed up in Sprint livery? If you guessed "like any other Q but with Sprint logos strategically placed about its exterior," you'd only be partially correct. From these press shots, it looks like Sprint will be launching out of the gate with the new (arguably hotter-looking) black variant, a color that we've already heard CDMA rival Verizon would be picking up itself in the near future. Otherwise, we get a revised Sprint-specific theme slapped onto the handset's Windows Mobile UI, the aforementioned Sprint logos front and rear, and that's about it. We still don't have an exact drop date, but current rumors have customers being able to get their QWERTY on some time between mid-December and early January. Click on for more eye candy!
Lenovo announces Y-series notebooks and flashy Q / H-series desktop systems
Lenovo is busting out a bevy of new notebooks and desktops today in the Asia Pacific realm. Its Y-series laptops and Q / H-series desktops were unveiled, each diverting from the traditional paths previously taken on (the admittedly bland) IBM-branded counterparts. The yet-to-be-priced 13-inch widescreen Y300 touts discrete NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 graphics, a built-in webcam that automatically recognizes its owners face to log them in, and weights just 4.85 pounds. The Y400 maintains the "same design theme" on the Y300, but packs a 14-inch LCD, a "flush-mounted" touchpad, and swaps in a two-watt "subwoofer" for the uber-snazzy webcam. On the desktop side, the Q lineup starts at $1,017 and offers a stylish, trendy design, detachable swivel webcam, multimedia jog dial, tower speakers, ATi Radeon X1300 graphics card, VGA / S-Video outputs, Sonic Gear HS555 headset, and an optional 19- or 20-inch LCD. If you're scouting a design-focused PC on the cheap, the H series hits at just $699, offers an optional 17- or 19-inch widescreen display, touts an "anti-bacterial keyboard," and boasts its ability to be a "basic, family-friendly computing system." While Levovo certainly spruced up its latest offerings, warranty lengths were slashed right along with prices (just 30 days of free phone support and one-year of coverage), and while the desktop systems will begin shipping anytime, the fancy new notebooks won't hit shelves until mid-December.Read - Lenovo Y Series notebooksRead - Lenovo Q / H Series desktops
Motorola "Norman" (aka Q Pro) in the flesh
We've suspected that an upgraded Q (sometimes referred to as the Q Pro) was in the works, and it now looks like a Hungarian operation has managed to score the first live shots of the ultra-anticipated device. Bearing a Vodafone logo on its posterior, it seems safe to say that the smartphone (codenamed "Norman" of all things -- though the original Q's "Franklin" wasn't any better) is destined for Europe; whether it'll make the jump to US shores remains unknown, but we'd love to see this monster live to do battle against the i607 "Blackjack" on Cingular in the coming months. The Norman's spec sheet is mostly speculation at this point, but besides support for UMTS and HSDPA, it'll rock a flattened keyboard (directly addressing a major complaint of the original) and a 2 megapixel cam. If we close our eyes and click our heels together three times, it might pack WiFi too -- but no promises.[Via the::unwired, thanks Gwailo00852]
Amp'd to get upgraded Motorola Q?
A microscopic, grayscale image is about all we have to go on right now, but that little sliver of evidence seems to corroborate the claim that Amp'd Mobile is all geared up to take on a variant of Motorola's Q smartphone. On account of Amp'd's target demographic, we might normally argue that there are other carriers in the world better suited to take on a business-oriented device like the Q -- but if the rumored upgrades are anywhere close to real (three megapixel cam, "new UI," and integrated SlingPlayer) at the also-rumored price point of $100 -- not to mention the nifty black shell -- Amp'd subscribers would be crazy not to dig it. Could this be the rumored Q Pro?[Thanks, MRa]Update: Better eye candy of the Amp'd Q has surfaced, once again on HowardForums -- click through for the goods.
Meteos takes it online, DS Fanboy staff asks for help
Turns out Q Entertainment has plans to take the near-perfect gameplay of one of DS Fanboy's best DS games, Meteos, and bring it online. The only problem is that this new and improved formula of Meteos is currently set to grace the PC and not the DS.This is when the person listening to all of this would ask why this is being posted to DS Fanboy, a one-stop-shop for all the DS news big or small and the only reliable place on the inter tubes for such factual information as well as objective, intellectual views on said information. We'd then call this person Timmy and ask that they kindly shut their mouth, unless they wanted us to shut it for them. Permanently.No, we bring this up because we know you're as passionate about the puzzling action of Meteos as we are and would love to see the game be available for play over Wi-Fi. That's why we call on you, fanboys and fangirls, asking that you make this desire known to one and all by sending electronic mails to the game's support address of support-meteosonline [at] qentertainment [dot] com. Together we can make it happen.
Samsung's SGH-i600: an HSDPA and WiFi Smartphone at last
Sure, you like the Motorola Q but hate the fact that it's missing WiFi. And the lack of 3G on the HTC Excalibur is also a deal breaker. Well, look no further for your QWERTY fix brother, 'cause our favorite maker of boxy black devices is showing off their SGH-i600 Smartphone at IFA in Berlin. This tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 baby brings it all: HSDPA, EDGE, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel cam with another up front for video calls, a 2.3-inch, 65k color, 320 x 240 TFT display, Microsoft's Push Mail, and 128MB ROM / 64MB RAM with MicroSD expansion all powered by Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone on a TI OMAP 1710 processor. The phone looks small enough for single-handed operation, can pull double-duty as an HSDPA modem and can even be switched into USB mass storage mode for easy drag-n-drop data transfer off your PC. And yeah, it's FCC approved so the estimated Q4 2006 release date is certainly do-able. Now sop-up the drool and click-on for more pics.[Thanks, Martin]
James Bond's new gadgets in Casino Royale unveiled
Over the years, gadgeteer James Bond has had everything from radioactive lint (On Her Majesty's Secret Service) to a wristwatch with a grappling hook inside (The World is Not Enough). Although we reported last fall that Bond wouldn't have any delicious spy toys in the upcoming Casino Royale, it looks like the movie won't, however, be entirely devoid of gadgets. Here's what we've heard thus far: Bond will get a new Nokia 8800 Aston Martin branded cellphone and his love interest, Vesper Lynd, will get a white Sony Ericsson K618 (or possibly a Sony Ericsson M600). Furthermore, Bond will have a very tense scene that involves an unreleased Sony Vaio, accompanied by a Sony Memory Stick Duo (are we sensing a theme here, Sony?). And yes, Bond gets a new ride (as always), rumored to be the new Aston Martin DBS. After we see the movie, we'll be sure to spill a 40 martini for our man Desmond Llewelyn.[Thanks, Juna]
Run Vista on your Intel Mac with Q
Parallels Desktop is all the rage in Mac virtualization these days, but it doesn't offer one major feature (yet): the ability to run Vista on an Intel Mac (believe it or not, this will be useful to many a Mac user). Sure, they've promised it's coming on their blog, but who wants to wait for Parallels when the open source virtualization project Q can already do it?That's right: if you have a copy of the public beta 2 of Vista (which unfortunately closed not long ago), you can check out their documentation (which boldly welcomes Parallels switchers) with simple instructions for installing Vista as a virtual machine. However: I don't know yet what is and is not supported under Q. Parallels has had issues up until this latest beta with supporting a lot of USB devices, amongst other things. Vista requires some heavy video card support, so I don't know how well it will run depending on how much support Q (and the QEMU project it's based on) has baked in.While I snagged a copy of Q already and installed Ubuntu in it, I'm still turning over every half-empty box in this new townhouse trying to find my Vista images. If you readers beat me to the punch, by all means, share your experience in the comments.
AKU2 for Motorola Q is / is not available
Manufacturer posts OS update, manufacturer discovers update wasn't quite ready for prime time, manufacturer pulls update from web. Sound familiar? Moto teased us with the long-awaited AKU2 update for their Q, but pulled it from their website a scant two days later after "realizing" that it was still in beta. Needless to say, the prerelease cut's still floating around the web and shouldn't be terribly hard for hardcore Q users to get their hands on, but the faint of heart might just be better off for the real deal to drop since it wipes your device clean -- not to mention that Moto's hinting the beta does nasty things to your warranty.
Sprint's earnings call reveals Motorolas; Q included
We're sure Verizon's been having a blast with their American exclusivity on the Motorola Q, but the fun and games are about to come to an end -- and another domestic carrier's Windows Mobile-loving customers have cause to celebrate. COO Len Lauer spilled the beans during Sprint's earnings call Thursday, revealing that the company is planning to pick up the honorary RAZR of smartphones (the Q, that is) sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. Speaking of RAZRs, the Moto love continues with a SLVR and RAZR (the V3m, perhaps?) coming down the pike. Between this and the announcement that their Rev. A deployment is ahead of schedule, the good news nearly outweighs the bad stemming from the "earnings" part of the earnings call -- not surprisingly, some analysts are speculating that profits fell short due to Sprint's failure to offer a RAZR thus far.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
"Destination Q" no longer a destination
Well, that was quick. Motorola's Destination Q, a "pop-up" store devoted to the Q on Chicago's Magnificent Mile, has slipped the surly bonds of this mortal plane, moving on to the great EV-DO network in the sky. Moto's calling Destination Q's run "successful," though we don't know exactly what parameters define success here -- yes, they managed to increase the Q's visibility to inescapable proportions in and around downtown Chicago, but as we found out in our visit, the store paled in comparison to Nokia's permanent location down the street. So what's next for Motorola's retail presence? They're not telling us much, but they say they're "actively evaluating and developing" the pop-up concept further; personally, we're hoping a Destination MAXX might lie in Chicago's future.[Thanks, zedwards]
HTC's Q killin' Excalibur depicted?
We've gotta take this one with a grain of salt, thanks to an unconfirmed source and that sketchy paste job on the screen, but if this pic and its accompanying deets prove true, we're in for a treat. Codenamed "Excalibur," we heard about HTC's attempt at a Q/i320 killer last month, and it seems to be shaping up nicely. Beyond the obvious QWERTY action, the quad-band phone will supposedly feature WiFi, and will be 2mm thicker than the i320. To the side of the screen is an interesting touch-jog strip for scrolling (in lieu of the Q's jog dial) with top and bottom touch buttons to open the Start menu and go back. Looking good HTC, now if you'll just confirm the device, mix in some HSDPA and ship a few to the States at $150 each we'll be all set.
N3 demo is up, sample the mediocrity
Already victim to unimpressive reviews and sales in its homeland, Ninety-Nine Nights is about to hit American shores. Soon we will finally have a mindless slasher to compare with Dynasty Warriors 5 -- and Kurosawa fans may shudder when they learn that the game's "story" was inspired by Rashomon. But why wait for the full release when there's a demo up right now? Go forth loyal X360F readers and partake of this demo (available in all regions). Upon its completion return here and tell us what you think. Was it mindless fun, or just mindless?[Thanks, Julian Weisser]
Runthrough with Samsung's Q-killing i320
Slim, wide, full keyboard-packin' WM5 Smartphones might be out and about this side of the pond, but our European friends have yet to get in on the Motorola Q -- making Samsung's release of the i320 even more interesting for them, not to suggest there aren't a few Americans that'll be reading PPCReviews' first impression with bated breath. Unfortunately, the outcome isn't exactly a love fest, with the reviewers knocking the i320's sluggish response, odd speakerphone positioning, under-battery microSD slot and lackluster camera. On the positive side, well, it's a WM5 Smartphone with a full keyboard if you're into that sort of thing, and the QVGA display gets high marks. They were also a bit confused about the inclusion of two batteries, suggesting that the i320 might eat some serious power. We'll wait for a couple more reviews before issuing a final judgment, but the HSDPA Q is looking better every day.[Via Smartphone Thoughts]
99 Nights, 1 hard drive
If you don't have an HDD and you were looking forward to Ninety-Nine Nights, you'd better start saving. QJ reports that Ninety-Nine Nights, releasing this August in the US, will require a hard drive to play. At least that's the story according to Xbox.com. Personally, I find this a little suspect. Surely something like this would have been covered when the game released in Japan. Assuming it's true, without an HDD it's going to cost you at least $160 to play this. Ouch. Of course, you could just skip Ninety-Nine Nights entirely, because it's not supposed to be very good anyway. See an image of the Xbox.com product info after the break. [Via QJ]
