Brush back that mullet and adjust your ill-fitting halter tops folks ’cause Palm’s newest webOS device has been spotted at Walmart. This pair of Pixi lovelies was ogled overnight inside one of Sam Walton’s finest Tennessee locations reportedly sporting a $400 price tag and little else — it wasn’t in Walmart’s system so it wasn’t yet available for purchase. Something that should be rectified in time for Sunday’s official launch with Sprint ($100 on contract) if not sooner.

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm Pixi arrives early for the people of Walmart originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The venerable 2001 classic of an OS, Windows XP, strikes again. The scribes over at Laptop have put together a rather damning battery life comparison between old greybeard and the fresh Windows 7, which finds that on average netbooks get 47 minutes less battery life with the upgraded software. In the case of the ASUS 1008HA, that deficit was a meaty 57 minutes, or 16.7%. Liliputing and jkOnTheRun have run their own tests which invariably reached the same conclusion. Adding these data to an earlier comparison with Snow Leopard, where Windows 7 was again markedly worse than its competitor, leads us to the conclusion that perhaps Microsoft’s 7th heaven hasn’t quite been optimized for the mobile mavens out there… yet.

Read - Stick with XP? Windows 7 Battery Life Worse on Netbooks
Read - Windows 7 + netbooks = lower battery life?
Read - Netbook Battery Tests: Windows XP vs Windows 7

Filed under: Laptops, Software

Windows 7 bested by XP in netbook battery life tests originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While great in concept, solar powered gadgets just never seem to be very practical at the end of the day. Regen’s tweak on the formula might help a little, by stuffing a battery into the solar panel itself, meaning you don’t have to keep your iPod plugged in for a painfully long trickle charge or juggle multiple elements to make it work (there’s a USB plug on the side). ReNu also has batteries in its various docking accessories as well, all of which can be charged by the ReNu panel or by AC power. It’s not going to turn the emerging market on its head, and at $199 for the ReNu unit by itself it’s not cheap either, but it seems like a logical direction for sun-fueled devices — and looks pretty cool doing it.

Filed under: Peripherals

Regen’s ReNu solar panel system in the flesh originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Digital ‘Cloud’ could form over London for the 2012 Olympics

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Digital ‘Cloud’ could form over London for the 2012 Olympics originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You could certainly argue that many of today’s gaming laptops are fungible, but if you’re scouting a new beast with a Core i7 within and plenty of customizable options, iBuyPower has one of the few available today. The outfit has just launched its Battalion 101 W870CU, a 17.3-inch behemoth with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution LCD, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 GPU, up to 500GB of hard drive space, an optional Blu-ray drive, built-in 7-in-1 card reader, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi and Windows 7 Home Premium. It’s up for order as we speak, but you’ll be coughing up at least $2,505 for the privilege. Or, you know, you could just snap up ASUS’ Core i7-equipped G51J, which retails for just $1,499…

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

iBuyPower ships Core i7-powered Battalion 101 W870CU gaming laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Optoma doesn’t have a price, release date or even a name for this thing, but it’s a pretty solid idea: a portfolio-style case with slots for a pico projector and miscellanea on one side, with a pop-up miniature projector screen on the other half. We guess you could call it a “pico screen” if you don’t mind odd looks from math nerds who actually know what pico means. We’ll let you know if this thing gets any more official, or if we think of a better title for it.

Filed under: Displays, Peripherals

Optoma’s screen-in-a-bag actually makes a lot of sense originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Any time a company both enables our gadget addiction and discourages wanton battery consumption we have to consider it a good thing — and, indeed, Sanyo’s wicked-rechargeable Eneloop batteries already have quite a few fans here at Engadget HQ. But what’s a busy gadget hound to do on the go, you ask? Try this one on for size: the Eneloop Stick Booster ships with two AAs and can be used to charge them, via any USB source. From that point the device can be used to power your PMP for roughly 90 minutes. How great is that? To be released in Japan on December 1 for an unspecified price, and worldwide whenever the company sees fit. PR after the break.

[Via Akihabara]

Continue reading Eneloop Stick Booster supplies emergency power to your portable devices

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Eneloop Stick Booster supplies emergency power to your portable devices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

Wistron: Readius-like ereader with pull-out flexible display launching in 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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