slider
Latest
Unreleased Nokia N95 follow-up pops up on YouTube
YouTuber Mr. Mobile shows off HMD's prototype phone that could've served as a sequel to the classic Nokia N95.
Planet Computers' Astro Slide is a smartphone and PDA in one
Planet Computers is continuing to build very unique physical keyboard smartphones with the launch of its latest flagship, the crowdfunded Astro Slide. It's a phone with surprisingly robust specs, but the key trick is that it can be used either as a standard 6.53-inch touchscreen smartphone or as a PDA, thanks to the "RockUp" slide hinge mechansm.
Lenovo built a slider phone with 12GB of RAM
While Lenovo continues to push the Motorola brand in the West, it's also been busy doing its own thing back in China. Just last month, the company brought us the Z5 Pro all-screen slider phone which, to our surprise, packed mid-tier specs to woo the budget-conscious consumers. That's all well and good, but surely such a special form factor deserves the best specs available, right? This is where the new Z5 Pro GT comes in. Announced at the Beijing event today, this new Android phone comes loaded with up to 12GB of RAM -- a new record for smartphones -- along with up to 512GB of storage. It's also the second smartphone confirmed to feature Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 855 chipset, though unlike OnePlus' yet-to-be-named flagship device, Lenovo's slider won't be packing 5G radio.
Honor's Magic 2 is yet another notch-free slider phone
Another day, another brand new all-screen Android phone from China. Merely days after the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 and hours after the Nubia X, today's official unveiling of the Honor Magic 2 brings little surprise given its recent viral campaign. Still, there are some interesting tidbits: The Magic 2 bears the same 6.39-inch 2,340 x 1,080 AMOLED screen as the Mix 3, but rather than packing the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, it uses Huawei's very own HiSilicon Kirin 980 chip -- the same "AI" brain inside the premium Mate 20 series -- made with the more advanced 7nm process. It even has an in-display fingerprint reader, a slightly bigger 3,500 mAh battery plus a total of six cameras from both sides. Take that, Galaxy A9!
Xiaomi's all-screen Mi Mix 3 slider comes with up to 10GB RAM
It was a little over a year ago when I bumped into Xiaomi president Lin Bin at his flagship store in Beijing. Pointing at the then-freshly launched, near-bezel-less Mi Mix 2, Lin asked me, "Are you fine with having the front camera in the chin [in order to avoid the notch]?" My short answer was yes, even if that meant I had to rotate the phone for better selfies. Still, Xiaomi would eventually cave in by adding a notch to the Mi 8 series. Soon afterwards, though, Vivo and Oppo surprised us all with their all-screen smartphones. Not to be outdone by its local rivals, Xiaomi (and also Honor next week, for that matter) is striking back with its Mi Mix 3, a notch-free all-screen device that relies on a sliding screen instead of a pop-up camera. And yes, you still get a ceramic back for that extra premium look and feel.
Honor Magic 2's sliding screen unveiled a week before launch
While the notch has become an unfortunate trend in the smartphone market, Vivo and Oppo have shown the world how a proper all-screen design should be done -- by stuffing the front cameras into a motorized pop-up module. About two months later, Honor caught up by showing off a vague Magic 2 teaser, in which you could make out what appeared to be a pop-up camera as well. But thanks to the help of six lucky Chinese celebrities, today we finally see the phone in action ahead of its October 31st launch, and as it turns out, we're actually looking at a different all-screen implementation here.
Huawei's Honor is bringing the slider phone back
How to solve the problem of too much screen? After Honor showcased its new gaming phone to the IFA masses, it had a surprise extra announcement: The Honor Magic 2 (What? Never heard of the original Honor Magic?) It looks to be a phone that's (once again) all screen, no bezel, but has another solution for where to hide the pesky front-facing camera: In a slider component behind the front. Like the T-Mobile SideKick, and decades-old Samsung and Nokia phones, it looks like Honor are betting on the slider to solve the problem of all-screen smartphones. It's not the dumbest solution, Oppo's Find X does a similar trick, albeit with an internal mechanism. It's early days, though and other details are scant. You can expect advanced safe fast-charging and Huawei's next smartphone chip, the Kirin 980 -- which hasn't even been announced yet. Watch the unveiling after the break: We've skipped to the main part.
'Minecraft' looks like a completely different game in 4K
The best demonstration of the Xbox One X's 4K capabilities comes from an unlikely, blocky source: Minecraft. Behind closed doors at E3 2017, Microsoft showed off a handful of games it upgraded to 4K just for the Xbox One X, including Gears of War 4, but Mojang's cube-based crafting game clearly got the most drastic upgrade. When the free 4K update and the Super Duper Graphics Pack lands in the fall, those blobs of grass will transform into blades. See for yourself:
BlackBerry's Android-powered Venice phone surfaces in the wild
BlackBerry's Android-based Venice smartphone isn't just a figment of someone's imagination... at least, if you believe Vietnamese resident Ba Minh Duc. He claims to have photos of the slider in action, complete with its hideaway QWERTY keyboard, 18-megapixel camera and curvy screen. This isn't quite the phone you remember from 3D renders (or the once-teased BlackBerry 10 version), though. BlackBerry appears to have moved the power button to the side, and the body isn't as slender in person as the renders would suggest. This is undoubtedly a work in progress, and it won't be surprising if the Venice design changes more between now and release. Still, this is exciting stuff if you've been yearning for a phone that melds BlackBerry's hardware and services with Android's customization and wider app selection.
BlackBerry's Android-powered slider phone gets shown in motion
Want a closer look at Blackberry's rumored, occasionally leaked Android, keyboard-toting smartphone? Evan Blass (of @evleaks) has unearthed some device videos that offer a closer look at that all-important sliding keyboard, as well as that increasingly obligatory segmented-here's-all-the-parts-of-the-camera-lens-render popularized by Nokia a few years ago. If the return of a physical keyboard wasn't weird enough any more, then how about if the phone, codenamed 'Venice' landing in two different iterations? Certainly, two devices are shown in the video, lining up along each other. Crackberry muses that Android and BlackBerry 10 iterations could land alongside each other, although there's no other hint that back up the notion of smartphone twins.
BlackBerry's 'Venice' Android slider is coming to AT&T (update)
Rumors of a fully Android-powered BlackBerry device popped up again last month, and today Evan Blass aka evleaks has posted a picture showing a glimpse of the phone. Specs for the alleged "Venice" popped up on N4BB a couple of weeks ago, calling it a slider with a 5.4-inch screen, 18MP rear camera and 1.8GHz Hexa-core CPU. According to Blass, the Venice will run Android, and is coming to AT&T first. Update: We're told the picture is of the old Passport with the screen mocked up, but the "Venice" is coming, and should have a more sensible profile.
Rhino Slider Evo is a modular camera motion tool
We don't cover a ton of pro-level camera gear here at Engadget (though it's far from unheard of). But, a cool gadget is a cool gadget whatever it's for -- and this new motorized slider system from Rhino is one of them. For the uninitiated, sliders are what allow videographers and photographers to get those smooth, gliding shots. As for Rhino, they came to my attention through their GoPro accessories -- in particular the 360 swivel mount which is about the most fun way to wear your action camera. While camera gear can get pretty expensive (and complex) very quickly, my experience with Rhino's GoPro kit has been that is sits right in the "prosumer" sweet spot, so when I heard the company was making a motorized slider, I was particularly keen to try it out. The Rhino Slider Evo is currently launching on Kickstarter (it's fully funded already), but I managed to get some time with a pre-production unit to test it out.
BlackBerry will release a curved-screen slider phone later this year
BlackBerry's recovery relies on the company's reinvention as a software and services business, which has enabled its hardware designers to go a little bit wild. At Mobile World Congress, BB's handset chief Ron Louks just pulled out a prototype of a handset that looks like the holy union between the Leap and the Passport. There's no name for the device just yet, but the company describes it as a "dual-curved, all-touch display with a keyboard," with that latter component situated on an old-fashioned slider beneath the display.
Mozilla is bringing Firefox OS to flip-phones and sliders
Mozilla has always positioned Firefox OS as an alternative platform for entry-level smartphones, but now it's targeting the feature phone market too. At Mobile World Congress, the company announced a new partnership with LG and carriers Verizon, Telefónica, KDDI and U+ to create a fresh range of flip-phones, sliders and touchscreen "slate" handsets. Firefox OS will look a little different on these devices -- Mozilla says the group is developing a "more intuitive and easy-to-use" software experience for their planned launch in 2016. It promises to balance the simplicity of feature phones with basic smartphone functionality, such as email, web browsing and music playback.
The 'mouse' and its many mutations
Since its inception in the mid-'60s, the "mouse," as it came to be known, has morphed and mutated into a diverse assortment of styles to accommodate efficiency, ergonomics and portability. In this week's Rewind we surf through the history of the device from its humble beginnings to its current futuristic incarnations.
Latest LG phone leak keeps hope alive for keyboard lovers
Smartphones with keyboards are increasingly rare, but LG must see some life left in the category -- @evleaks has just posted a leaked press shot and specs for the Optimus F3Q, a landscape slider reportedly headed to T-Mobile. While the image doesn't do much beyond confirm the five-row keyboard from an abstract image seen last month, the rumored specs suggest that the F3Q won't be much different than its touch-only counterpart. It will supposedly ship with the F3's 4-inch WVGA display, dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon, 5-megapixel camera and 2,460mAh battery; it may even run Android 4.1. There's no mention of launch details in the leak, but the modest spec sheet hints that LG's QWERTY handset will get an entry-level price.
Alleged Motorola Droid 5 pics suggest the QWERTY slider still lives
Fans of hardware keyboards have at least one reason to keep rooting for Motorola's Droid line, and these leaked pics suggest it will continue on. Posted on Weibo, these supposed Droid 5 pics show a QWERTY slider that seeming drops the capacitive buttons of its predecessors, and brings wireless charging, NFC and a "shockproof" water / dust resistant design. The laser cut 5-row keyboard we appreciated on the Droid 4 appears to be intact, along with a screen in the 4.3-inch to 4.5-inch range. The conveniently placed Verizon 4G LTE logos also places it as a higher-end companion to the just-announced LG Enact as Android options for fans of hardware keyboards. Any other details are still up in the air, if you have a login for the Chinese social networking service you can check out the source for yourself at the links below.
LG Enact launches on Verizon, keeps the flame alive for QWERTY slider phones
Verizon isn't just releasing its variant of the HTC One today -- it also has a treat for fans of the oft-neglected QWERTY slider smartphone. The carrier has just launched the once-rumored LG Enact, which hides a landscape keyboard underneath its 4-inch WVGA screen. As you might gather from the display, though, this device is no flagship. The combination of a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 5-megapixel rear camera, a VGA front camera and 8GB of expandable storage puts the Enact at the low end. What's more, it's also stuck on Android 4.1. When LG's new device costs $20 on contract, however, it's inexpensive enough that many fans of hardware keys can afford to take a look.
Verizon LG Enact leaks in press image, proves QWERTY sliders still exist
According to serial leak merchant @evleaks, the LG Enact is days away from making an official appearance on Verizon, a carrier that reckons there's still life in the 'ole keyboard-packed form factor, with a phone that looks a whole lot like the Android sliders of the past. Yep, LG's new Android smartphone houses an increasingly rare full QWERTY keyboard, a pretty old-school four-key capacitive button layout, and a mix of Verizon and LG-skinned app icons. However, we're already wary of how the Enact's keyboard will handle -- with space at a premium on these keyboards, that substantial border either side of the keys could result in some cramped thumbs. However, at this stage we're not certain of the screen-size and dimensions of the slider, so we'll hold our judgement until we get to tap away on it in real life.
Samsung ATIV Q: hands-on with the company's new Windows-Android slider (video)
The products keep coming. The latest announcement from Samsung is a new addition to its ATIV range and it's a hybrid in more ways than one. Similar to the ASUS Transformer Book Trio, announced earlier this month at Computex, Samsung just introduced its own dual-OS portable. It's called the ATIV Q, and it combines Android 4.2 and Windows 8. Under the hood, the device is powered by a Haswell-series Intel Core i5 processor and manages to fit a 13.3-inch, 3,200 x 1,800 touchscreen into a 1.29kg package that measures just 13.9mm thick. Other notable specs include an S Pen with 1,024 degrees of sensitivity. There's space for the stylus to be stored in the bottom corner of the device. Hardware considerations have also been folded into the design, with the processor housed inside the ATIV Q's hinge. Samsung says that this ensures that heat dissipates from the back of the device. A software highlight from this particular Windows 8-Android team-up is the ability to share files (photos, documents... seemingly anything that can be opened with programs on the other OS) and share folders across the operating system divide. We can certainly see the usefulness in this approach -- sharing images to your favorite Android social app and generally unifying how you use the hybrid, regardless of OS. The ATIV Q will launch globally in Q3, and we've been told "in time for the back-to-school season", which sounds like sooner rather than later. We've managed to spend a bit of time with the new multi-talented slider: check out some first impressions after the break. Update: We just added some video.%Gallery-191831%
