CrunchGear

Fly Or Die: Amazon Kindle Fire HD
Dyson’s New DC44 Is The Halo Plasma Pistol Of Home Vacuums
Next iPhone Will Reportedly Be Compatible With LTE Around The World
The RAZR M, Motorola’s Clever Answer To The $99 iPhone 4S
Kickstarter Hit Instacube Adds Facebook Photo Streaming In Addition To Instagram
As The Dockpocalypse Nears, Bluetooth-Enabled iPhone Substitutes Abound
More Evidence For September 21 Ship Date For iPhone 5

Posted: 07 Sep 2012 05:53 PM PDT

The Kindle Fire HD is a big deal. Big.

It has rather excellent specs — a 1280×800 7-inch display, TI OMAP processor, dual stereo speakers, and dual-antennae Wifi (with MIMO) — and it comes at a ridiculously low price: $199.

If the original Fire was competitive (and trust me, it was), this one is about to entirely disrupt the tablet space. We all agree. For the perhaps the first time ever, John, Matt and I all believe that the Kindle Fire HD is a fly.

The build quality is superior to the Nexus 7, which is the tablet’s only direct competition. The display resolution is on par (but doesn’t quite beat) the new iPad. The form factor is all the rage. Plus, it has a bevy of new features including Whispersync for Games, X-Ray for movies, and Parental Controls. Why wouldn’t this tablet be a fly?

Oh, and let’s not forget, it’s hooked into Amazon’s incredibly bountiful ecosystem. Winning on all counts.

Until the iPad Mini…

Dyson’s New DC44 Is The Halo Plasma Pistol Of Home Vacuums

Posted: 07 Sep 2012 05:14 PM PDT

We’ve covered Dyson fans and vacuums for years now, being constantly amazed at the utility and wild designs that come out of James Dyson’s wee English workshop. He makes things that suck and blow and his latest, the DC44 “digital” vacuum sucks with the best of them.

The DC44 is a hand-held vacuum that essentially replaces the DC31 and adds a few tricks to the hand-held magic show. The DC44 has a number of attachments, including a long “motorized floor tool” that allows you to extend the handheld’s reach all the way to the floor.

At first blush, it’s easy to underestimate the DC44. It’s amazingly small with a compact collection bin and an seemingly weak motor. Whereas the previous models sounded like jet planes taking off and actually offered an odd sensation of torque on ignition, the DC44 has a tiny “digital pulse motor” that apparently moves at 104,000 RPM and emits a shrill whine. The suckage, however, is quite impressive. We were able to easily sweep the kitchen and hard wood with the longer attachment and it’s an excellent solution for picking up scraps the kids throw off of the kitchen counter.

The best thing about the DC44, however, is the 20 minute battery life and dual speeds. We’ve used the old model, the DC16, for years and over time the battery life has dropped down to about two minutes. To have a vacuum this tiny and with such a long life is arguably exciting. The extra speed boost is a bit of a placebo – it’s already plenty powerful – but it’s nice to see a dedicated button for adding a little bit more oomph.

The charging solution is also unique. The Dyson mounts on the wall upside down, which means if you fill up the front tube you’ll have dust and dirt falling out of the mouth when you go to plug it in. They’ve designed it so the holder can hold all of the accessories – the long motorized sweeper included – but you need plenty of wall space to get the whole thing to stay put.

Now is this thing worth the $400 you need to spend to get super-sexy Dyson suckage? I’m not quite sure. It doesn’t quite replace a real upright – the floor tool is still too small to really vacuum and entire room (although you could try) – and plenty of hand-held vacs can be had for much, much less.

Dyson is the Apple of vacuums and, depending on your opinion of Apple you’re either paying for quality or for marketing and cool design. While I would argue that the DC44 is definitely a strong replacement to the older crop of Dyson handheld vacuums, you may need to examine a few models before deciding on this mini-vac. As a primary vacuum it’s a possible alternative to bulky bag or canister models but as an alternative to cheaper hand vacs it’s definitely worth the price.

Product Page

Click to view slideshow.

Next iPhone Will Reportedly Be Compatible With LTE Around The World

Posted: 07 Sep 2012 03:43 PM PDT

Apple’s new iPhone, which the company is set to unveil next Wednesday, will have better worldwide support for LTE than the latest iPad, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. While the iPad supports LTE spectrum bands used only in the U.S. and Canada, the new iPhone will apparently work with multiple bands, making it compatible with networks in Europe and Asia as well.

The WSJ’s sources don’t believe that the new iPhone will manage to be compatible with all worldwide LTE networks, however. That’s not surprising, given that there are aas many as 36 LTE bands around the world, many more than there are for 3G, according to International Data Crop. analyst John Byrne speaking to the WSJ. Making a single device that with the radio antennas required to work on a variety of networks is difficult, but Apple has already pulled off a similar feat with the iPhone 4S.

And as much as it presents an engineering challenge to achieve multi-spectrum capabilities, Apple has one goal in mind for the long-term life of its products, and that’s simplifying manufacturing processes and making it easier to make big profit margins on products sold. Apple’s margins are notoriously high when compared to their competitors, and a big part of what Apple’s success in terms of market cap and cash reserves are based on, more so than simple volume of sales. Making a single iPhone that works on LTE across all of its major markets will be a key help to maintaining those margins.

The RAZR M, Motorola’s Clever Answer To The $99 iPhone 4S

Posted: 07 Sep 2012 02:52 PM PDT

Motorola unveiled the new RAZR family at a big media gala in early September. The company proudly rolled out the supercharged RAZR HD and RAZR HD MAXX. The $99 RAZR M stole the show. The 4.3-inch RAZR M LTE packs a lot of the same goods as its larger counterparts. For just $99. And the M is available now as the others will be released later this fall. Here’s the thing: this is Motorola’s best answer to the iPhone yet.

Apple will introduce the new iPhone next week. It will likely sell for the bargain price of $199, pushing the current model, the iPhone 4S, down to just $99. The 4S still has one of the best cameras, and consumers love Apple’s iOS ecosystem. At just $99, the iPhone 4S will dominate most budget Android handsets. That’s why the RAZR M is available now and why it stands a chance. This is a great phone at a great price.

Click to view slideshow.

I’ve used the M for the last few days. As Jordan shows in the video below, it’s a very capable phone. There’s a touch of lag on the Android 4.0.4 install and the haptic feedback seems off by a few milliseconds. The screen is very bright and sharp. The build quality is fantastic; it feels great in the hand. This is a fine alternative to the iPhone 4S. It’s certainly the best Android phone at this price point.

Walk into most wireless shops and you’ll instantly see a huge variety of large Android phones. And the iPhone 4S. By going big, Android handset makers have left the iPhone to be virtually the sole option with a small form factor. The RAZR M suddenly offers the iPhone 4S some direct competition with a form factor that’s very similar, but with a larger screen and the Android operating system.

The RAZR M uses a large screen in a novel way. Motorola claims the M has very thinnest bezel of any phone. It’s certainly tiny, a few millimeters thinner than the iPhone 4S’s. In fact the M matches up very closely to the proportions of the iPhone 4S. It’s a touch longer, but the two phones have virtually the same thickness and the M is just bit wider. Motorola managed to cram a lot larger screen onto the phone. And that counts for a lot.

Android makers are seemingly throwing everything they have behind a single flagship. These handsets, like the Samsung Galaxy S III and RAZR HD, have massive screens and as many hardware features as possible. They’re superphones. And judging by the Samsung GSIII’s sales numbers, consumers have shown that they like superphones. The smaller iPhone also says that there are a good chunk of people interested in a phone of more modest proportions.

More and more consumers are latching onto smartphones. The market is changing rapidly, and with that, consumers need options at every price point. Not everyone wants the large Moto RAZR HD or Samsung Galaxy S III. Some prefer Android over iOS. Some do not want to spend $200 on a phone. And with the RAZR M, Motorola is providing a fresh handset instead of simply dropping the price on older hardware.

Kickstarter Hit Instacube Adds Facebook Photo Streaming In Addition To Instagram

Posted: 07 Sep 2012 12:24 PM PDT

Current Kickstarter-du-jour Instacube just announced new planned Facebook integration, which will allow it to stream photos from that social network as well as its newly-acquired subsidiary Instagram. The company decided to add Facebook as a stretch goal incentive, and will offer it up when it hits $500,000 in its campaign. Which likely won’t take long, given that it’s at nearly $440,000 as of this writing and still has two weeks to go in its funding campaign.

Instacube started with a relatively lofty goal for its Android-powered digital photo frame at $250,000, but hit that mark pretty quickly (it took less than a week). Since then, the project’s creators have set two stretch goals including the Facebook one announced today. The first were black and white versions, which were unlocked when the project hit $400,000. Then, earlier this week, Instacube announced a partnership with SmartThings, which will allow the cube to display notifications for things like visitors arriving or leaving the lights on. It’ll also be able to control home automation systems that SmartThings can operating, making it much more than just a pretty face.

Facebook integration is a logical addition, especially since despite Instagram’s success, it’s still far and away the more popular venue for sharing photos with likely over 200 billion shared at this point. For users, that means that the Instacube becomes a much more broadly useful tool, which is likely exactly why the company behind it is using it to see if it can’t stretch out its funding even further beyond the original goal.

As The Dockpocalypse Nears, Bluetooth-Enabled iPhone Substitutes Abound

Posted: 07 Sep 2012 10:01 AM PDT

Next week, Apple is expected to announce a new iPhone complete with a new dock connector, finally putting to bed the 30-pin design that’s been in use since time immemorial (so long as you can’t remember past nine years ago, like me). Rumors are that Apple will market an adapter, but there’s no telling whether that will work with all models and makes of existing iPhone audio docks, so companies have been preparing to reap the benefits of Apple’s planned obsolescence with new Bluetooth-enabled iPhone replacements that will keep those tunes pumping no matter what Apple does to its smartphone’s primary data I/O connection.

Just today TechCrunch received two tips about new products that offer this kind of solution, including the auris, a device from Shenzen-based Touchkraft, LLC that will be starting a $40,000 Kickstarter campaign Monday to fund its production, and the CoolStream, from Exeter, NH-based Exeter Science and Entertainment. The auris plans to offer Kickstarter pre-orders at $24 per unit, and will retail for $40. The CoolStream is already available on Amazon for $40. But if you’re looking for a solution today for less (or more), there are actually already plenty of other options out there.

One that’s consistently well-reviewed on Amazon is the very specifically named “Wireless Bluetooth Music Receiver for Bose Sounddock / Beatbox / B&W Zeppelin / Phillips / JBL and other dock stations,” which is currently listed for $25.43 with free shipping. ThinkGeek also offers one for $39.99 which is currently in stock, and there are a number of other options on Amazon, including this one and this one with varying reviews. For those looking to spend more money (for questionable, if any, added functionality), there’s the iVolare adapter aimed at use with systems from higher-end makers like Tivoli.

What a lot of the reviewers seem to get hung up on, and what is really the biggest drawback of all of these devices, is that none is self-powered, meaning that if you’re using it with a wireless dock like my trusty old Altec Lansing IMT620, you’re out of luck when not plugged into a wall outlet if your dock stops supplying power to your iPhone or whatever’s attached to the dock at that point.

Another would-be entrant in this market was the Pear (so named seemingly only to make the catchy tagline “Pair with Pear” work), but that project ended quickly after a trademark violation complaint from an unnamed source to Kickstarter got it booted off the site. The project creators are promising to return once they’ve cleared things up, but by the time it gets funded and actually ships, people really interested in looking for a solution will likely have found one.

Apple likely will end up making a big change to its connector that will be inconvenient for those with nine years’ worth of accumulated gear, if not a more serious e-waste issue. In the end, though, what users don’t need is another Kickstarter for one of these gadgets, which are readily and abundantly available, but an original design that solves the remaining problem of power draw. Someone throw a watch battery or built-in rechargeable unit in one of these things. I’ll back that in a heartbeat.

Note: I wish I’d coined the term Dockpocalypse, but a simple Google search reveals that at the very least TWiT beat me to it by a few weeks.

More Evidence For September 21 Ship Date For iPhone 5

Posted: 07 Sep 2012 06:49 AM PDT

Back in August, TechCrunch received word that Verizon was planning a vacation blackout for September 21 to September 30, indicating that would be the release date for the new iPhone 5. Now, new info suggests that’s the right date, based on different sources. MacRumors is reporting that FedEx is preparing for “surge volume” demand for shipments between September 21 and September 24.

The info comes in the form of a notice of class postponement for FedEx employee training, indicating that the shipper wants to have all hands on deck when it comes time to get the new iPhone into the hands of folks who pre-ordered and on retail shelves. Additional info received by Geeky Gadgets yesterday also claims to confirm that September 21 will be the release date for the iPhone in the U.S., the U.K. and some other countries. Apple is set to unveil its latest iPhone at a press event to be held next Tuesday at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, and we’ll be there, reporting the details as they come in.

Another interesting point to note: U.K. carriers Orange and T-Mobile U.K. have teamed up to create Everything Everywhere, a combined network that just announced it’ll be holding a special event on September 11, the day before Apple’s event. AndroidCentral says indications are that it’ll unveil a new LTE network at that time, ahead of the iPhone 5′s launch, which would make sense given the iPhone 5′s rumored LTE capabilities.

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