We just got a hot tip from one of our Verizon buddies. Apparently Verizon Wireless is starting a new BOGO campaign tomorrow that includes both of its Android handsets the Droid and Eris both Palm phones the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus along with the LG Chocolate Touch and Samsung Alias 2 features phones. We hear the promotion will allow you to mix and match any of the eligible handsets or even a Winmo/feature phone of equal or lesser value. Of course the buyer will be required to sign a two year contract but that's par for the course on these types of deals.

Our tipster says the stores have been prepped and the promo is set to begin tomorrow. No word on how long it will run so you better get your new phones soon.

Scammers beware though, remember Verizon recently hiked its ETFs on most advanced devices to counter those that were taking advantage of Verizon's genius nature. It's no longer worth it to simply get two new phones, pay the ETF and hawk the other one on eBay for a quick profit.

Samsung seems to be popular this week for unboxing videos this week. We follow on from the N220 unboxed to the X120. Like the N220, the X120 is currently not shipping in America.

The Samsung X120 falls in the CULV category as it features the Intel CULV processor. The X120 features an 11.6 inch display and a full sized keyboard. The left and right mouse buttons are located either side of the trackpad, which for some may hinder the use of the built in mouse, especially if you're used to the right and left buttons being located under the trackpad. The guys over at Netbook News received the X120 and have posted an unboxing video along with first impressions design wise. Like the other Samsung netbooks, the accessories include a neoprene sleeve to protect the netbook, however it's noted that no manual is included, not even a quick start guide. The X120 also has the trademark chrome border. Looking at the underneath, it appears that the HDD and RAM are easily accessible for those who wish to upgrade either. You can view the full unboxing and first impressions video after the jump.

via

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Samsung X120 unboxing video

By Senior Editor Kris Smith (@croncast)

Intel wanted to knock the socks of CES attendees this year with its booth and found a great way to succeed.

They created Infoscape, a massive 7 1/2 foot square double HD (4k) partial cube with custom software to pull XML feeds in real-time and display them as a series of hundreds to thousands of rotating cubes.

They didn't stop there, however. They swung for the fences by adding interactivity with the two walls by integrating touch. Anyone could come up to the wall and touch the cubes to trigger the selection of that cube's content.

The best way to describe it would be that it was like clicking a photo online and having it popup in a lightbox with a transparent background, but with many open at once.

It turns out that this was only a display element for the booth and not a real product. The intention was highlight the i7 processor. This chip has over 600 million transistors on it and is the size of a dime. One single chip powered both screens.

3D wishes it had the juice that this wall did. If this wall were the future of television I'd feel a whole lot better about what Samsung, Panasonic and Sony were shilling.

This thing just goes to show that sometimes the best products are accidents. Look for Intel to find other uses for Infoscape this year.

Related articles by Zemanta

• CES video: Intel's amazing Infoscape touch wall o' feeds (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• CES 2010: Three things I learned in Las Vegas (guardian.co.uk)
• Asus Core i7 Laptop Claims 12-Hour Battery Life [Laptops] (gizmodo.com)

Intel Touch Wall Infoscape #CES is a post from: TechStartups.com

Its taken a bit longer than we all might have hoped, but it seems that Android is really starting to pick up the steam it deserves. Be it Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson.. if they're a big gun in the mobile manufacturing world (Well, outside of certain obvious exclusions), they're probably working on an Android handset or two. The first off the bat and the most dedicated so far has been HTC - and if the latest rumors hold true, they might be looking to throw even more weight behind it.

According to the Digitimes, HTC may be looking to put the Droid onto as much as fifty percent of their handsets. Now, HTC doesn't push'em out as fast as some other manufacturers (by the way, Samsung, we're totally talking about you), but they still pump out a good number of'em each year. And of their lineup, almost the entirety is Windows Mobile. Digitimes also adds that HTC is aiming for around 30% of their handsets this year to be Android-based. We can think of about 5 or 6 we're expecting to see by years end (including those that have launched already) -f it that's 30% and HTC continues to make around as many total devices next year, we can probably expect at least 9 or 10 Droidphones from them next year. Fuzzy math? Absolutely. But we can hope, can't we?

[Via EngadgetMobile]

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Samsung's Pixon 12: a dozen megapixels of cameraphone nonsense in June After failing to show at the Mobile World Congress event in February, Samsung's rumored 12 megapixel cameraphone has finally arrived. Meet the Pixon 12 and its 3.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a Sammy promise of fast shutter speeds and quick browsing.

Remember my in-tent Samsung Q1 Ultra test? 9hrs battery life on the Samsung Q1 with 25% backlight? An average drain of 6.9 watts. It was impressive and since I blew up the Q1 Ultra doing some solar-charging tests, I've been missing those 5, 6 and 7hr figures. I was just getting over the trauma until I read this article about another Samsung Mobile product with great battery life.

Notebook Magazine have just done a full set of battery life tests on the NC10 Netbook and it looks like Samsung have once again worked their magic. The tests included continuous Wifi-on web browsing in battery saving mode which is a very reasonable test to be doing. Far better than the misleading 2001 Jeita test and much more real-life' than the Battery Eater Pro turn everything and and run it at full-steam' approach. The NC10 returned

• 12% screen brightness: 7hrs 34mins representing an average drain of about 7.6w which is just a little bit more than what I saw on the Q1 Ultra.
• 50% screen brightness, the duration dropped to 6hrs 30mins which is an average 8.7W.
• 100% screen brightness, the test result reduced to 4hrs 38 minutes which is 12.3 watts drain.

More after the break

What it highlights is something I've been saying for years. The CPU power drain is not the most important element in determining a devices overall efficiency. In these 10" screens, even the latest LED technology backlight can take a lot of drain. In this case, nearly 5W at full power which is nearly 50% of the total power drain of the whole PC! Obviously, as screens get smaller, the LED power required drops and when you get to a 4.8" screen, you'll see 1-1.5W average drain. If you were to attache that Samsung battery to the Aigo MID, you would see close to 20 hours battery life under similar conditions as the Wifi-on drain is about 3W.

As we move to lower and lower power processors, screens and other components need to follow and the OEM that has access to the best components and the best engineers is always going to have an advantage. Samsung keep proving that.

So how's the rest of the NC10? I was watching a live session at EeePCnews.de a few evenings ago and it was clear that people are really interested in this one. 3000 people watched Sascha, the lead guy there, do live testing and as the session went on you could almost sense people hitting the buy button as Sascha reported positive comment after positive comment! LaptopMag calls it their netbook of choice' right now. From what I've seen, I have no reason to doubt it.

Samsung NC10 links and info in the product database.

Samsung's recent entry into the US market coincided with their release of their first netbook, the NC10. The NC10 is a 10-inch netbook with a big keyboard and looks to be a nice entry into the market for Samsung. Laptop Magazine has published a review of the NC10 and it looks like they have a new favorite:

Samsung's NC10 is the only product that provides comparableand even improvedfeatures for a lower price. Its comfortable, well-positioned keyboard, speedy and spacious hard drive, and more than 7 hours of endurance make the $499 Samsung NC10 the most well-rounded 10-inch netbook on the market.

Have a look at the review and see if you think the NC10 is the netbook of your dreams.

Earlier this month Russian carrier Scartel partnered with Samsung to bring a WiMax network to around 20 million potential customers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They have big plans on expanding that network throughout the country, so it only made sense to turn to Russia's premier design team at Art Lebedev to develop a flagship headset to take advantage of their the WiMax rollout. What they have come up with is a hot looking WiMax, Wi-Fi and triple-band GSM capable handset with a 850 x 480 screen (most likely touch), dual cameras, a five-position joystick and a microSD slot. Again, this device is only in the design stage and there is no word on what OS it will run, but things are definitely looking good for Russian mobile users so far.

[Art Lebedev via Pocket-Lint and Unstrung]

If the rumor mill is correct, Samsung is cooking up a new Symbian S60 slider dubbed the i8510 with some serious specs under the hoodincluding an 8 megapixel camera. The full list of specs are impressive, and would definitely pose a threat to the upcoming Nokia N96 if it is the real deal.

The full list of specs are as follows:

2.8-inch QVGA (240320 pixels), 16m colors
8 megapixel camera with auto-focus, xenon flash and 120 fps video recording
UMTS with HSDPA support, WiFi, GPS, TV out, DivX support, dedicated 3D graphics chip
Optical mouse (same as i780 and i900 Omnia)
200 mAh battery
106.553.916.9 mm metal case
16 GB internal memory (possibly an 8 GB version as well)

Impressive. Conflicting reports have the i8510 running either Feature Pack 1 or 2 and there is no word on whether we are talking tri-band or quad-band GSM here. However, as with any rumor, we will just have to wait and see what holds true. [Forum2 via Estato via IntoMobile via BGR]