[Review] - LG optimus S Sprint

Virgin Mobile's LG Optimus V priced at $149

That the LG Optimus One -- one of our favorite entry-level Android smartphones these days -- will be coming to Virgin Mobile as the Optimus V has hardly been a secret. Looks like price may now be nailed down, set at $149.99. That's in line with a post at Howard Forums, so it's looking fairly solid at this point. As for when it'll be on sale? Stay tuned.
This post is from Androidcentral.com by Phil Nickinson

Motorola Xoom launching February 17th at Best Buy (update: priced at $700)

When we stumbled upon an $800 price for the Motorola Xoom yesterday, our instinctive reaction was to leap forward to the next obvious question: when? Well, that call has now been answered by an internal Best Buy document that's just dropped into our inbox, which explicitly pinpoints February 17th as the launch date for Moto's highly touted, Honeycomb-equipped tablet. Stock is expected to land at the big box retailer on February 16th, with the big party going down the day after. There's a note confirming that the Xoom will come with its promised 32GB of onboard storage, but anyone looking for confirmation or denial of the earlier pricing leak will be left disappointed. Guess we'll all have to set our calendar alerts for about a month from now and exercise patience in the mean time.
[Thanks, dajarbot]
Update: Our tipster has also uncovered a price: $699.99. That's a hundred green leaves south of Verizon's supposed pricing and should soothe a few agitated souls. 

 

This post is from Engadget.com by Vlad Savov 

Samsung Forte is the SCH-R910, brings TouchWiz LTE action to MetroPCS (video)

Look familiar? You've actually seen it twice before, once as a QWERTY slider and once as an unidentified LTE smartphone. Well, it just so happens that a new batch of eighteen pictures have surfaced, and the two phones are actually one -- this is the Samsung Forte for MetroPCS, which is presently running a recent build of Android 2.2.1. While we still don't know if it's got the 1GHz processor and 5 megapixel camera that lovingly accompanied the original rumor, it appears to have Samsung's custom TouchWiz UI on board, lending extra credence to the possibility that the handset might receive Galaxy S branding when it materializes in stores. We've got just one last note here, and that's this whole reveal feels rather... planted to us. Watch the video after the break to see what we mean, and find plenty more pictures at the link below.

This post is from Engadget.com by  Sean Hollister 

Hackers disguise phone as keyboard, use it to attack PCs via USB

We've seen hackers use keyboards to deliver malicious code to computers, and we've seen smartphones used as remote controls for cars and TV -- but we've never seen a smartphone disguised as a keyboard used to control a computer, until now. A couple folks at this year's Black Hat DC conference have devised a clever bit of code that allows a rooted smartphone -- connected to a PC through USB -- to pose as a keyboard or mouse in order to attack and control the computer. The hack takes advantage of USB's inability to authenticate connected devices coupled with operating systems' inability to filter USB packets, which would enable users to thwart such an attack. While utilizing a digital costume to hack a computer is a nifty idea, it doesn't pose much additional risk to users because the method still requires physical access to a USB port to work -- and most of us would probably notice someone plugging a smartphone into our laptop while we're using it.

This post is from Engadget.com by Michael Gorman

LG Optimus 2X goes on sale in Korea, teases white version for February

 

No big surprises here, unless you count that snowy white number up above. Yep, LG's not only stolen a march on Motorola in introducing the world's first dual-core smartphone, it's also about to beat Apple to the white handset punch as well. The 1080p-recording, Tegra 2-wielding Optimus 2X is now available in its home market of South Korea and, if LG stays true to its roadmap, should be filtering through into Europe before this month is out. We don't know if its white variant will ever escape the clutches of Korea (and we sure hope it does), but it should be making its bodacious debut over there in February. 

 

This post is from Engadget.com by  Vlad Savov

1.2GHz Tegra 2 3D chips suggested by leaked slide, coming 'spring 2011'

Darn, we've barely started getting acquainted with Tegra 2, yet NVIDIA seems to already be preparing the stage for a sort of Tegra 2.5 -- a 1.2GHz dual-core chip that'll be marketed as a 3D-capable mobile processor. This T25 silicon is apparently set for mass production in the first quarter of this year, with availability coming up in the spring. Given the noises we keep hearing about 3D going mobile, this is one rumor that makes a lot of sense -- and even if you're a staunch supporter of the 2D creed, you can't deny that a sped-up Tegra 2 CPU sounds pretty delicious. We've managed to also track down some technical chatter about adding support to Chromium OS for a 1.2GHz T25 from NVIDIA, seemingly corroborating the leaked image above. Oh boy, it's gonna be a hot summer for mobile computing this year!
This post is from Engadget.com by Vlad Savov