If you’re a tablet PC fan that’s a bit overwhelmed by the day’s iPhone madness, this one should brighten things up a bit. Details of Lenovo’s new X200 tablet PC have leaked out, and the specs are pretty impressive. The new machines will feature Intel Core 2 Duo chips running at up to 2.4 Ghz, 12″ display,  optional WiMAX, WWAN, GPS, WiFi, UWB, and Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, a Blu-ray drive option, and a whole lot more. All of this connectivity clocks in at a reasonable 2.93lbs, and the battery should give you upwards of 9 Hrs of operating time. Impressed yet? Yeah, we thought you might be. No word on pricing or availability, but we’re hoping this bad boy drops sooner rather than later. 

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You already know the drill by now — rumor alert — but we can’t hold back from posting this juicy bit of information we just got. We’ve heard the Nokia N810 with WiMAX (we heard it actually is still called the N810, not the N830) is going to launch April 1st. What day is April 1st, you’re asking? The start of CTIA, peoples! Again, we’ve yet to confirm this ourselves, but figured we’d give y’all a heads up. Any takers?

Thanks, tipster!

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Tisk tisk Best Buy. It looks like you might have jumped the gun with that latest round of product shots! Word on the street has been that a new version of Nokia’s N810 is on the way, and the rumors seem to be pretty in line with what might be a small Best Buy blunder. The image above is a screen shot from the February edition of Best Buy’s online mobile buyer’s guide. Plenty of sharp-looking Nokia devices indeed, but something about that N830 looks a but odd. Black Case? Orange backlighting under the keypad? Could this be the rumored N810 update that will pack WiMAX for Sprint’s upcoming network launch? The start of CTIA is thought to be a possible announcement date, which would give Nokia the typical announcement-to-launch window before Sprint’s WiMAX goes live. WiMAX compatibility could be just what the doctor ordered to give the new tablet a much-needed sales boost. Only time will tell but we definitely wouldn’t mind getting our hands on a WiMAX-packing N830, that’s for sure…Read

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We should state from the jump here that we didn’t get much time to play with this thing. About 30 seconds after we picked it up a Samsung PR rep scurried up and told us to stop taking pictures…what could they be hiding? We’re not entirely sure, but we’ll let you know what we did discover. The SWT-W100K appears to be a South Korea-only device (judging from the conspicuous Anycall branding). It sports an embedded WiMAX radio, 4.3" WVGA touch screen, Bluetooth, GPS, media player, DMB mobile TV support, Opera Browser, 2 megapixel rear-facing and VGA front-facing camera, and more. The response time of the device is quick, and the menu system seems to be pretty clearly organized (though much of the text was in Korean). We’re guessing that the odds of this thing landing on American soil are effectively null, but you know where to send that review unit, right Sammy?

Click on over to our Samsung SWT-W100K Mobile Internet Device hands on!

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Can’t wait to get your hands on some WiMAX goodies? Neither could we, so we headed down to the XOHM booth here at CES to get our fix. The company is working with Sprint and other partners to bring some 4G into our lives. It’s a noble mission, and if today’s demo is any inidication, they have some nice things in store for us. We got to play with an OQO 2 with embedded WiMAX. The unit is cosmetically identical to the existing retail version of the OQO 2, but it sports an integrated WiMAX radio instead of the current model’s EV-DO chipset. The difference, from our entirely non-scientific tests, is remarkable, with super fast download speeds. Overall we were very impressed. The booth also had a prototype of an Asus Eee PC sporting embedded WiMAX. The prototype didn’t seem to be terribly functional, but if the Asus can get this one off without raising the Eee PC price too much we think they’ll have a successful upgrade on their hands. XOHM told us that they are currently running a soft rollout in select markets, with wider commercial expected sometime around April of this year. Not too shabby, right?

Click on over to our WiMAX OQO 02 and ASUS Eee PC gallery!

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ASUS is forecasting 3.8 million Eee PCs out the door in the coming fiscal year and some recent developments with regards to their upcoming models should certainly help them along the road to their goal. Perhaps one of the biggest complaints that critics have is the small 7" 800 x 480 pixel display on the current line of Eee PCs. Upcoming models however, will increase the Eee’s display real estate by just under 2" with an 8.9" 1024 x 600 pixel screen. Furthermore, ASUS looks to be adopting WiMAX by way of Intel’s Menlow UMPC platform announced earlier this year. The Eee will be moving in the right direction on several levels in adopting Menlow, which will help provide advanced connectivity as well as the increased efficiency of the Silverthorne processor. The next generation Eee PCs will be showcased next week at CES of course, and it’s looking like the ASUS booth will be buzzing.

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This could mean trouble for the WiMAX network we’ve all been patiently waiting for. Sprint and Clearwire have decided to sever their relationship, dissolving a partnership that was built around the pursuit of WiMAX network infrastructure. So sad. According to the press release, the split has to do with "the complexities of the transaction and the departure last month of (Sprint CEO) Gary Forsee." It feels like there’s something missing here…perhaps Sprint’s lack of disposable income, coupled with the incredible cost of establishing a new network had something to do with it? Either way, we hope that WiMAX is able to perservere, as we could really use some 4G wireless broadband in our lives.

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Could this be the end of the road for CDMA? Both Verizon and Vodafone have announced that they will be running their 4th generation data networks on LTE, which is the GSM Association’s 4G protocol. The specifics of LTE, which stands for Long Term Evolution, have yet to be fully solidified, but one thing is certain. There’s not a bit of CDMA compatibility in sight. This bit of news, coupled with Sprint’s recent adoption of WiMax in lieu of EV-DO Rev. C leads one to believe that, well, CDMA could finally be on its way out the door. The lack of global interoperability, lack of SIM card provisioning, and much more means that this departure is a welcome one, to say the least. That said, we wouldn’t shut the books on CDMA just yet. There are no immediate plans to begin LTE network rollout, so the switch, if it does come, won’t arrive for quite a while. We can hardly wait.

Thanks, Rob!

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Isn’t it nice when two big companies work together for the greater good? In this case, the greater good happens to be an ultra high speed wireless data network in the heart of New York city. Excited yet? Sprint, which has already committed up to $5 billion for New York WiMax infrastructure development, has "awarded" the NY market to Samsung, which can now count NY, along with Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Providence, and Boston as part of its WiMax trophy case. The contract, insofar as we can tell, gives Samsung fist dibs on providing compatible devices and chipsets, in exchange for the installation of network hardware and infrastructure. Sounds pretty peachy, right? There’s still no concrete estimate on when the network may (or may not) launch, but given the preliminary nature of the current proceedings, we wouldn’t hold our breath for anything in the immediate future.

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