Category: Gadgetry

Here’s one from the “Who the hell is their market?” department:

Xentex has a fold-out laptop computer. It starts out life as a 12-pound, normal laptop-sized bundle, but them folds out in four sections into a…ah…VastTop with a 20″ dual TFT screen.

Um…kinda cool and all, but where the hell would you use it? Not on a plane, train or in an automobile. It’s hard enough finding space for a regular desktop-replacement-sized laptop on the go, let alone, this big-boned boy. I also wonder about the dual screens, which they make a big about, like it’ll greatly boost your efficiency. To me, it smells like they tried to make something positive out of a design problem (how to deal with a bi-folding screen). C’mon, there can’t be a sustainable market for this thing, can there? Oh yeah, this baby’ll put ya back five Gs.

[Thanks to Sean Carton]

Infosync has some great news on Nokia’s latest phones. Nokia will be releasing the 2100, 5100, 6100, 6800, 7250, and 8910i, all with a wide variety of features, including MMS, J2ME, GPRS and color screens. The one pictured here is the 6800, which according to Infosync has all the above plus SyncML and an integrated FM radio. Most radical of all though is the physical design, which has a numeric keyboard on the outside that when fliped up reveals a full (split) QWERTY keyboard with the screen in the center rotated. Go to Infosync for all the specs and pics.

Tablet PCs — Microsoft’s next big thing — are due to debut next week in New York and points around the globe. The tablet PCs are “powered” by a special version of Windows that adds handwriting recognition and touch-screen compatibility to allow users to skip the keyboard for taking notes. Many manufacturers are getting into this biz, with either a laptop version like this one from Acer with a flip around screen (pictured right) or the sans-keyboard version like this one from Electrovaya (pictured under “read more”) that’s more like a very large Pocket PC. Click “read more” for my predictions on tablet PCs…

If you couldn’t tell what’s on my X-mas wishlist, here’s another hint. This is the new Archos hard-drive-based MP3 player. Sporting a new look much like their new Multimedia player (except with a monochrome screen rather than a color one), this 20 gig MP3-only player, imaginatively called the Jukebox FM Recorder 20 is sleeker than previous units at only 4.45″ x 3.11″ x 1.18.” That’s not iPod size, but not too bad, either. Price is only $300, significantly less than the iPod.

More than just the shape has changed from the old Archos Jukebox — it now uses USB 2.0 for fast transfering of MP3s from PC, and it also records MP3s from any source including the built-in FM tuner. It also has this very cool feature called “retro-recording” which means that if you’re listening to the radio and decide after the song starts that you want to record it, you press record and the unit will record from 30 seconds before you hit the button! I think this must work through some faster-than-light technology, but the company’s keeping mum about any violation of the laws of physics. Actually, it sort of reminds me of an idea I had a few years ago about a device that would constantly record the last 30 seconds of your own conversations, so that if somebody said something you thought you might want to remember later, you’d just press a button to save that part, effectively creating a retro-voice reminder. I should have patented the concept….

Palm has officially announced two new high-end devices — the Tungsten T, available now, and the Tungsten W, available after X-mas. The Tungsten T is the unit that we’ve posted pics of here before, with a sliding keyboard, etc. The T is the first unit available with Palm OS5, running on a 144 MHz processor with 16 megs of RAM (14 available) and a 320×320 screen, as predicted. In a first for Palm, it has a stereo headphone jack, microphone and high quality speaker, so it can do voice memos (though no native MP3 capablility). It also has built-in wireless communication via Bluetooth. Go to Palm for the full specs. Price is US$500.

The Tungsten W (pictured) will run OS4.1 on the old DragonBall 33 MHz chip, but will add GSM/GPRS capabilities, allowing users to make phone calls (via headset) and have access to the Web. The W will also have a built-in keyboard rather than the usual Graffiti. Price is $550. Specs at Palm.

Ok, so I took an old PC that had formerly been at work and brought it home, but it needed a modem. Throwing caution to the wind, I bought the cheapest modem card Walmart had, the Broadxent v.92. Never mind that it’s a subsidiary of Creative, a company who, by most accounts, makes crappy Winmodems.
The punchline: it works great! I’ve never gotten >2k/sec throughput in my life with something this cheap. I’m all aglow. And it cost $30, less if you shop around.

Pros: Cheap. Works. Comes with fax software.
Cons: I had to unplug and re-insert the card before win2k would properly recognize the card, but that’s just part of the Plug ‘n’ Pray experience.

Infosync has a review of the very first phone to utilize Microsoft’s Pocket PC SmartPhone operating system, designed to integrate phone, PDA, and multimedia functions all in one unit. The phone, called the SPV from UK wireless carrier Orange, is the first to market with this OS, and it’s likely to hit the shores in the US fairly soon. It has a 132MHz TI processor and 16MB RAM with an SD/MMC slot for expansion. The screen is 176×220-pixel screen with 65k colors. Price is around $300 in the UK. Full-size pic under “read more” and the full review from Infosync.

The Alphasmart Dana is a new release from Alphasmart, a longtime maker of unusual small screen, very basic tablet-laptop-like devices. The Dana is Palm OS based, with full compatibility with the Palm 10,000 program software library, plus comes with special versions of Blue Nomad’s Alphaword, Palm reader and Printboy. The Dana has two SD/MMC slots, an IR port and 8 megs of internal RAM. Most unusual for a Palm device, it’s got a built-in keyboard and 560×160 gray-scale screen. The screen allows full-width spreadsheet viewing and word-processing, while any other programs not designed to take advantage of the extra width are displayed only in the center, while the “soft” grafitti area can be displayed on either side of the main screen. It weighs just 2 lbs, and has rechargable batteries and can also use 3 AA batteries or the AC adapter. Price is $400 from Palm.com, but I imagine the price for educational markets is probably significantly lower.

This Sanyo 5300 is one cool looking gadget; integrated 640×480 pixel digital camera *with flash* and digital zoom, plus dual color LCD displays – one for the outside caller ID/ picture display and a 2.2″ 65,000 color one inside for all the other features. Price is expected to be around $400, available next month from Sprint. Hit “read more” for bigger pic.

Toshiba has been been making a pretty big splash in the Pocket PC world by releasing new PDAs almost as fast as Sony does for the Palm platform. The newest from Toshiba is the e330 which shares the same form as the super-slender e310, but replaces the 206 MHz ARM processor with a 300 MHz X-Scale processor and adds an extra 32 megs of RAM for a total of 64. USB-host is possible with the optional cable (printers, hard drives, keyboards and other peripherals, depending on driver availability). Price is just $350 — pretty low for a Pocket PC.

Also available today is a flip cover that should fit it; The Pocket Solution is a flip cover designed for many different PDAs, and is selling now for $20. For those who have wanted a flip cover for their PDA, this might be an inexpensive solution, though the use of Velcro and (apparent) lack of ability to lay flat may turn some off.