Sonos owners, like most nerds, have been patiently waiting for three things: jetpacks and flying cars to go mainstream and the Spotify music service to play on their beloved whole home wireless audio system. Of these, only one is being announced today. At this very moment, in this very time, upstart media darlings Spotify and Sonos have announced plans to wed… in Europe. Sorry Yanks. When the free 3.3 Sonos software update finally arrives at the end of September, new and existing Spotify Premium (£9.99 per month) customers living in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK will be able to stream millions of Spotify music tracks throughout their Sonos home network. The deal not only brings Spotify its first global hardware partner, it also brings European Sonos owners up to par with US netizens who’ve long enjoyed streaming subscription services from the likes of Rhapsody and Napster. Finally. Click through the break for a demo and the full press release.

Continue reading Sonos and Spotify join hands to stream sweet sweet music, at last

Sonos and Spotify join hands to stream sweet sweet music, at last originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ll admit, we’d kinda figured that HTC’s venture into the seedy underworld of dumbphones with the introduction of the Smart earlier this year was a non-starter and that it’d quietly fade into the night before 2010 was out, but apparently not — at least, not if you ask AT&T. We’ve been slid a couple shots of a new handset from HTC for Ma Bell going by the model number F8181 (it’ll have a fancy name like “Bacon,” “Double Rainbow,” or “Nilay Patel” by the time it launches, obviously) that runs the Brew MP platform Qualcomm has been pushing this year for the sub-smartphone category; of course, it seems to us that smartphone hardware is getting cheap enough to push through nearly every price segment, but if we can expect this to be free on contract, we suppose there might be a market here. No word on dollars or dates just yet, but naturally, we’ll keep you in the loop.

Exclusive: HTC F8181 is AT&T’s Brew MP-equipped dumbphone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Although it’s only just been revealed and won’t actually go on sale for four long weeks, Apple’s new hockey puck is far from the only media streamer on the market — and with Sony’s Netbox and the Boxee Box on the way, the sub-$200 set-top box market is exploding with options. So let’s line up the revised Apple TV against the (post-price cut) Roku HD-XR, Popbox, and even an LG Blu-ray player in the same price range and see what you’re actually getting — and more importantly, getting access to — on each device. Oh, and there’s some choice words from Roku after the break.

Device:	AppleTV	Roku XR	Pop Box	LG BD550
Price:	$99	$99	$129	$130 - $150
Form Factor/Size:	3.9 x 0.9 x 3.9	5 x 5 x 1.75	8 x 1.4 x 6 inches	16.9 x 1.8 x 7.9
Available Content:	HD TV shows from ABC & Fox ($0.99), HD Movie rentals ($4.99/$3.99), Netflix, iTunes, YouTube	Netflix, Amazon VOD (now with $0.99 HD TV show purchases from Fox & ABC), MLB.tv, UFC, NBA GameTime, YouTube, Pandora	YouTube, Revision3, Blip.tv, h.264 / XviD / MPEG-4, MKV / AVI / WMV	Blu-ray discs, VUDU, Netflix, CinemaNow, YouTube, Pandora, Napster
Apps / SDK:	N/A	Roku Channel / SDK available	Popapps Store / SDK available	NetCast widgets
Connectivity:	WiFi N, Ethernet	WiFi N, Ethernet	Ethernet, optional WiFi adapter	Ethernet, Disc
Video Quality:	720p, 5.1 audio	720p (1080p upgrade coming soon), 5.1 audio	1080p, 5.1 audio	1080p, 7.1 audio, DTS-HD MA / Dolby TrueHD audio

Continue reading Apple TV vs. the competition — how does it stack up?

Apple TV vs. the competition — how does it stack up? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, what’s this? Our homey Avner Ronen from Boxee just posted up a little response to Apple’s $99 next-gen Apple TV announcement, and he’s letting it slip that the much-anticipated Boxee Box will be $100 more than Apple’s device, or $199. Avner says Boxee has a “different view of what people want in their living rooms,” and that while his device might be more expensive, it’ll let you watch anything you can watch on your computer on your TV in 1080p — the ATV is still limited to 720p. We certainly know a lot of passionate Boxee fans who agree — now all Avner’s got to do is ship the damn thing and let this play out in the actual market.

P.S.- Yes, we will cover almost anything that includes a YouTube embed of “Rudie Can’t Fail.” Well played, Mr. Ronen. Well played indeed.

Boxee Box priced at $199, Avner Ronen says it’ll give users ‘freedom to watch what you want’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Eager to get on the new Apple TV’s cheap 99-cent TV show rentals but not so pumped to wait four weeks for it to ship? No worries: Amazon’s also now offering 99-cent rentals purchases of various ABC and FOX shows, which means a whole host of Amazon VOD-compatible devices just got some cheaper streaming options as well — and hey, Roku just cut prices on its entire lineup of Amazon- and Netflix- compatible players, so you can get in the game for as little as $60. Of course, the Apple TV also features day-and-date movie rentals, local streaming, AirPlay, and that slick iPhone / iPod touch Remote app, but only your heart truly knows if those are worth an extra few bucks and a month of fevered desire.

Update: As our astute commenters are pointing out, these are actually listed as 99-cent purchases, making this a far better deal entirely. We don’t know if that’s for real or just an error right now, though — we’re double checking and we’ll let you know.

Update 2: Yep, we’ve confirmed that these are 99-cent purchases, making this a much better deal than Apple’s rental model — although only you can decide whether you actually need permanent streaming access to Dollhouse Season 2.

[Thanks, Stephen]

Amazon streaming 99-cent ABC and Fox shows… right now (update: purchases, not rentals!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Zune HD continues to rank among our all-time favorites in terms of industrial design, so it’s good to hear that Microsoft isn’t entirely abandoning the PMP sector for its new Windows Phone 7 hotness. Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet has consulted her tea leaves (and in-the-know tipsters) and emerged with the strong feeling that some new Zune hardware is brewing up in Redmond. Little specificity is available, beyond the obvious postulation that a new ZHD would probably be driven by an ARM CPU and take some software pointers from WP7, but we’re told to look toward to the early 2011 horizon and see if we can’t spot any sexy new media players emerging. A mirage is as likely as the real deal right now, but it’s always fun to look to that horizon, no?

Zune HD could have all-new model in the works originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Been wondering how much T-Mobile’s first HSPA+ phone will set you back? Why, it’s that most generic of all smartphone prices: $199 with a two-year commitment or $499 without. To be fair to T-Mo, the G2 was one phone that it could plausibly have upmarked to, say $249, as Sprint has done with the Epic 4G, but nope, it’s landing squarely in the middle of the well beaten path to smartphone sales. There is the dreaded specter of a $50 mail-in rebate to deal with, but we doubt it’ll be enough to dampen anticipation for what’s looking like the next great Android slider phone.

T-Mobile G2 priced at $199 with contract, $499 without, by latest leak originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, there: it’s that time of year again. You or your loved ones will soon be heading back to school (if you haven’t already). We’ve been trying to help everybody out for the past month with our back to school guides — which you can check out right here — but we thought we’d take it a step further, and give you, our dear readers, a chance to win some of the gear featured in the guides this year. We’ll be doing three total giveaways this week, and here’s what we’ve got for you today.

- Toshiba Mini NB305 worth $380
- Booq Boa Squeeze backpack worth $99
- 8GB Echo Smartpen worth $199
- Mobile Life Studio Plus external hard drive worth $119
- Altec Lansing Octiv Mini worth $40
- Sprint Samsung Intercept worth $99
- T-Mobile Blackberry Curve worth $279

Yes, that’s nearly $1,500 of gear for one lucky winner. All you need to do to win is leave a comment below, and read the full rules after the break. Good luck!!

Special thanks to all the companies for providing us with the gear!

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school giveaway, part one: win $1,500 worth of gear!

Engadget’s back to school giveaway, part one: win $1,500 worth of gear! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve been holding yourself back during these early rounds of the smartphone wars in anticipation of Windows Phone 7, your wait just got a tiny bit shorter. Today Microsoft is announcing that its fancy new mobile operating system has been released to manufacturing, making the idea of you holding an actual WP7 device in your hands that much closer to reality. The finished product is now rolling out to partners around the world where it will be getting carrier and manufacturer tweaks and additions, and going through the kind of pre-launch testing you would expect for a release of this scale. If you had any doubt that the Windows Phone 7 onslaught was close at hand, feel free to abandon them now.

Furthermore, the folks on the 7 team have managed to cram a few last minute goodies into the OS, one of which we’re particularly excited about. As you probably know from our in-depth preview of an early version of the software, we had a lot of issues with overflowing Facebook contacts in our phone. Microsoft has now solved that problem by enabling a contact filter system which looks for pre-existing matches to your Facebook contacts. If it doesn’t find a match, it doesn’t pull that contact into your address book (kind of like how Android filters Facebook friends). It’s a welcome addition and should make the Facebook / Windows Phone 7 combo a lot more palatable to to a lot of people. Furthermore, Microsoft has added functionality into the People Hub which will allow you to “like” someone’s posts, and you’ll be able to comment directly onto someone’s Wall right in the hub. The company has also made tweaks and fixes focusing on feature discoverability (another issue we pointed out in the early look), along with the expected set of polishing and finish you’d expect from a product that’s gone gold master.

Windows Phone 7 goes gold master, begins rolling out to partners for final launch preparations originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Three new iPods under one roof — how could we not throw them on a table and see how they size up against one another? Obviously, the iPod touch is the black sheep here in terms of sheer physical space, but the width / height difference between the nano and shuffle is as marginal as you probably guessed. More pics below!

iPod nano vs touch vs shuffle… fight! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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