In the midst of all the super phones we’re eagerly watching pop out of every manufacturer’s hat, it’s nice to take a little breather by enjoying some of the cool gadgets that play the sidekick role.

If you remember the Sony Ericsson LiveView you’d know that it was an Android-driven wristwatch of sorts that could show you notifications, wake you up and let you control your smartphone without taking it out of your backpack. Well it appears that we are just about to see the official announcement of its successor. Read more »

I guess I’m not the only one who has a relatively new HDTV that doesn’t have fancy “Smart TV” or “Connected TV” functionality and thinks the price of the upgrade isn’t worth it. The Samsung inTouch is a curious Android-powered device that solves this problem by adding such functionality (Skype, YouTube, etc.) to any TV with an HDMI port.

It looks like a web cam and indeed features a 3MP camera that can be used for snapping photos or placing 720p video calls on Skype (the inTouch has its own microphone for that). Read more »

Two years after the original, the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 ascends the CES stage. The new version is easier to fly yet more capable than its predecessor. It packs an upgraded camera that shoots HD videos and photos in-flight, as well as a tougher exterior and new sensors.

The apps which control the drone are getting an update to support the new functionality – the update should hit the iOS and Android versions at the same time. The new app makes sharing the videos you shoot easier – one tap lets you share and upload to YouTube. Read more »

We’ve been hearing about the Acer Iconia Tab A700 since November last year. Acer has finally decided to take the wraps off the device and showcase it at this year’s CES.

The biggest rumor was that the A700 would have a full HD display and thankfully that has come true. The A700 has a 10.1-inch, 1920 x 1200 resolution display, that’s the highest of any tablet available right now, including the current Android tablet champ, the ASUS Transformer Prime. Read more »

We had some fun testing Gametel’s Portable Games Controller last month and were impressed with its performance, offering Android devices far better gaming prospects than with touchscreen only controls (Xperia PLAY aside).

Now, in the lead up to CES, makers Fructel have revealed that the hardware gaming goodness is no longer exclusive to phones that favor Google, with iOS getting in on the action in the coming days. Read more »

Last year Nvidia unleashed their Tegra Zone app on the Android Market to steer users towards games optimized for their Tegra-powered Android devices.

This year, Qualcomm look to be joining the fray, with their own Android app dubbed GameCommand, set to launch on the opening day of CES this year. Read more »

The popular file syncing app SugarSync just got an update, which makes it even easier to keep the multimedia files on your computer and your smartphone/tablet synchronized. The update hit both the Android and iOS versions of the app, but the change logs for the two seem a bit different.

On iOS, the SugarSync version number jumped to 2.5 and it got batch uploads for multiple photos and videos. The rest of the changelog follows below: Read more »

The Galaxy S II owners around the world rejoice – Dead Space is now free via Samsung’s proprietary store – Samsung Apps.

The promotion applies for every Galaxy S II phone – whatever the carrier, region, etc. Read more »

The hacking community only managed to gain root access to the Asus Transformer Prime monster of a tablet yesterday, but now everyone is free to try it. Okay, not everyone, as the released tool only supports Windows computers, but we guess that would be good enough for most people.

The rooting procedure is as simple as installing the required USB drivers (if you haven’t done so already) and running the executable file, provided by -viperboy-. Read more »

You’d think that with CES so close Lenovo would have held on to these a bit longer, but it seems they couldn’t contain themselves any longer so they just went ahead and announced nine, yes, nine notebooks all at once.

The first one is a rather interesting hybrid notebook called the ThinkPad X1 Hybrid. The beauty of this machine is that along with Windows as the main operating system it also comes with Android that powers the notebook’s ‘instant on’ mode. The Android installation on the ThinkPad X1 Hybrid is a highly customized version of the OS and although you cannot run Android apps on it you can browse the web, play videos and music, read your mail and add widgets to the three homescreens. Read more »

It feels like it was yesterday that we saw the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus official announcement and we are already welcoming it to our office. Oh wait – the announcement really was yesterday, which makes us especially glad to introduce this one to you.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus has some pretty big shoes to fill as its predecessor is one of the most successful products that the Koreans released in 2011. You don’t need to look much further than our own specs page to see that the original Galaxy Ace has been enjoying tremendous interest, so the Ace Plus needs to be quite an upgrade. Read more »

It looks like another member of AT&T’s quickly growing LTE lineup is about to break its cover. The waterproof Pantech Element tablet is bound to join the 4G party on January 8, and bring a touch of ruggedness to the carrier’s Android lineup.

The Pantech Element will feature a Read more »

I guess very few of you heard about the Optimus 2, a CDMA droid released in the USA. Well, it’s time to fix this gap for you.

The Optimus 2 is a minor upgrade over the widely popular Optimus One. Read more »

RIM promised compatibility with the Android apps for the PlayBook with the upcoming OS 2 update but that won’t be coming before February. So what do you do if you want to, say, use Google+ on your PlayBook right now? The answer is, root it.

CrackBerry.com has gone through the trouble of making an extensive guide that will help you root your PlayBook so you can run Android Market on it and thereby, have access to the Android Apps within. Read more »

We’ve got some good news and some bad news for Asus Transformer Primer owners and future buyers. The company just provided an exact time frame for the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for its slate and it isn’t too far away either.

The ICS update rollout for the Transformer Prime should start on January 12, which is just 9 days away now. The company also said that it’s already working to release a tool that will enable you to unlock the Tegra 3-powered beast bootloader and get all those custom ROMs up and running. Read more »