Tech Gadgets Reviews

Samsung will be making yet another attempt at the “ultra portable” notebook market with the P200. This relatively lightweight solution will come with the following specifications :-

• Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 graphics card
• 12.1″ display
• 1.3 megapixel webcam
• Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
• 6-in-1 memory card reader
• PCI Express slot
• Two USB 2.0 ports

So far, the speculated price stands at approximately $1,500, which is just about right considering what it has to offer. The only issue is that 4.1lbs isn’t really an ultra-mobile. It is a thing and light - at best. It’s really not as exciting as many would like to you to believe.

As a cell-phone user who was eager for a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard, I was eager to finally try out the BlackBerry 8830.

The BlackBerry 8830 World Edition is definitely designed for business people on the go. In fact, it claims to be “the first CDMA smartphone capable of roaming globally on GSM/GPRS networks”. This means you can pretty much travel the world without having to change your phone, your phone number, or your e-mail.

I had to admit that using a BlackBerry takes a little getting used to. The 8830 has this tiny track-ball mouse for interface that is reminiscent of Atari’s Centipede video game. However, once I used the Setup Wizard, the BlackBerry opened up to me.

In a matter of minutes, I had figured out how to view my email online, and could surf the web. As a newbie to smartphones, I have quickly discovered that there are some limitations to surfing the web online with a tiny screen.

Just to reiterate a point, the blackberry 8830 is for businesspeople. There is no camera, but there is a microSD. That SD is tough to access, as a user must remove the entire battery cover to get to it. However, everything else works like clockwork once you get used to it.

As for the price of the BlackBerry 8830, it is available for $399.99 with a two-year contract from Verizon. In fact, you can even get it here for a $100 discount.

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Posted Mar 3rd 2008 2:36PM by Donald Melanson
Filed under: cellphones

It’s barely been a month since Acer dropped a big chunk of cash to buy up 75% of Packard Bell, but it looks like the company still had plenty of money left to throw around, as it’s now parted with a hefty $290 million to buy up 100% of Glofiish smartphone-maker E-Ten. According to Acer itself, the boards of both E-Ten and Acer approved the deal unanimously, and they expect the acquisition to close sometime during the third quarter of this year. Any other details, however, are expectedly light, including any word on how future devices would be branded, with Acer chairmen J.T. Wang only saying that the “acquisition of E-TEN increases Acer’s global footprint by giving us a strong and highly credible presence in the mobility segment.” No word on any future moves by Acer just yet but, given its recent spending spree, we wouldn’t be surprised if it tried to expand that “global footprint” even further.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Aah, the old "wire is wire" debate, in which demanding audiophiles insist or deny that you need premium cables to get decent sound.

The latest ammo comes from a couple of wisacres at Audioholics, who did a blind listening test of of a high-end system where the only difference was the speaker connection — $100 Monster cables, premium Belden wire and straightened coat hangers. By and large, the panel couldn’t tell the difference.

Do Coat Hangers Sound As Good Monster Cables? [The Consumerist]

Ever wonder what happens if you push your iphone’s stopwatch feature to the limit? Me, neither. But that was a burning issue for at least one person, Travis "A College Education Is Obviously A Great Investment"  Taylor, who let the timer on his Love Brick run uninterrupted for more than 40 days to see what happens when it hits the magic 1,000-hour mark.

So as not to spoil the suspense of the video, we’ll just say the outcome rhymes with "duh thing."

An interview with the 1,000 hours iPhone stopwatch dude [RedEye]

Since the Asus Eee PC took off with great success, Asus has spotted yet another market opportunity by unveiling a whole slew of Eee PC accessories. You will be able to check out the Ai Guru U1 VoIP phone that hooks up to USB, allowing you to chat with friends via IM programs, while it doubles up as a pair of headphones as well. The Eee AP is but a functional 802.11g wireless access point. As for the The USB “3.5G HSDPA Card”, you get to rock to 3.6Mbps download speeds (theoretical) with GSM900/1800/1900 and WCDMA2100/1900/850 bands without turning any heads due to a virtually non-sexy deisgn. Last but not least we have the slim DVD-RW drive. No idea on pricing or availability as at press time, but they shouldn’t cause massive damage to your pockets.

Apple MB029LL/A 80GB IPOD SILVER 80GB ipod classic Video

Amazing The iPod classic lets you carry everything in your collection, up to 20,000 songs or up to 100 hours of video, in your pocket. This thinner, all-metal design offers 80GB of storage space, has an enhanced interface, sleeker design, and Apples own Cover Flow menu.

Technorati Tags: Apple

Posted Mar 3rd 2008 4:42AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

So we hurried on over to the Meizu booth in sweaty-palmed anticipation of laying fleshy bits upon a working M8 MiniOne. It’s gotta be here, right? After all, Meizu CEO Jack Wong promised it his damn self. Nope. Oh sure, they did bring that siliconless, plastic mockup already seen kicking around the Nets for awhile and they offered to show us a laptop-based demo of the UI if we come back tomorrow. Although even the demo is feature incomplete. Nevertheless, Meizu is confident that it will begin shipping the M8 in China in the next “half year” while remaining coy for a rest-of-world launch. Guess reverse engineering the iphone isn’t so easy, eh Jackson?

I knew it. Vista simply wasn’t ready for prime time. Some internal documents that emerged from a class-action lawsuit over Vista Capable illustrated that hardware vendor, Dell, pushed back on Microsoft to fix issues with Vista before launching. Microsoft knew fully well of Dell’s feedback as early as Aug 2005.

Microsoft has evolved considerably since their days of dubious business practices and shoddy software. Windows XP is actually a pretty stable OS and I’m not afraid that Windows 2003 Server is about to crash every day, so this news surprises me a bit. On the other hand, I suppose old habits die hard. *sigh*

Great, so we now have this category called the “mini UMPC”? I thought UMPCs were as small as they could get, and if technology progresses further, will we be seeing micro UMPCs in the future? But I digress - this mobile wonder features the following :-

• Windows CE
• WiFi connectivity
• ARM 926EJ 266MHz processor
• miniSD memory card slot
• TV-out connectivity
• Support for MP3, WMA, ASF, WAV, AVI, ASF, WMV, 3GP, DivX file formats
• 2 megapixel camera

No idea on how much it costs though.