MobileTechReview has published an in-depth review of the Palm Treo 750 Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone.

“No, it’s not an earth-shattering Treo, but it’s by no means a re-warmed Treo 700wx either. The Treo 750 offers very good performance, an improved camera, enhanced video playback, a more solid Bluetooth implementation in a lighter, slimmer, antenna-less casing. And best of all for Cingular customers, a Windows Mobile Treo is finally available for GSM! While we found some Treo models too quiet (i.e.: the Treo 650) and only average on call quality, the Treo 750 is both loud and land line clear.”

Read the full review at: http://www.mobiletechreview.com/phones/Treo-750.htm

I saw this post on engadget.com and have to say that this is one of the cooler things I have seen recently; keep in mind I just came back from CES.

The designer’s own words:

“There has been little development of the toaster since the start of the century, whilst other appliances have developed and improved incorporating new technologies and thinking, toaster have remained relatively untouched. When the toaster was first invented eating toast was a social activity that took place on the breakfast table, these days toasters have been relegated to cheap plastic objects hidden away in the kitchen landscape. This toaster is designed to engage the user, re-invigorating the social context of toasting by questioning everything about what we toast with today. I was also keen to make playful object to be proud of having on your breakfast table. Slip moulded bone china allowed me create this intricate and sculptural form, but also provided the material longevity that I required. This is a toaster that brings life and joy to a stagnant domestic appliance, and iconic object for the home.”

http://www.designboom.com/contest/view.php?contest_pk=16&item_pk=11744&p=1

“You remember Origami right? This was the consumer friendly name for the UMPC. When the first one of these came out from Samsung, it showed promise but was too big, the battery life was too short, it didn’t have WAN networking, and the touch screen keyboard wasn’t very good. It was also too expensive and the full OS got in the way of the “simple” concept of getting access to a few core applications that would drive the device like multimedia consumption and email.

Someone listened and unfortunately for Microsoft (who came up with the idea) it was Apple. Now Microsoft isn’t the only company looking foolish right now, IBM actually came up with this idea before Microsoft did and every survey I did on the class, which was called Modular Computing at the time, indicated it would be massively successful if it was done right. And had it been done right, it likely could have done for both Microsoft and IBM what the iPod did for Apple. But Microsoft under-funded their effort and IBM didn’t even try in the first place. ”

http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback164.html

We just got back from the PepCom Digital Media Experience event…Pirates was the theme this year…ARRR!!.  Seriously they had pirates and pirate booty with all the trimmings. PepCom puts on one great party.

The new OQO is very sleek and sexy. It features a 1.5GHz VIA C7M processor with 1GB DDR2 ram and packs a 60GB hard drive. Naturally it’s packing Microsoft Vista and a bevy of wireless options like 3G EV-DO, WiFi A/B/G and Bluetooth. Oh, and it has an HDMI digital port…mmmm yummy.

The unit was fast and responsive and the slide mechanism has been redesigned giving it is positive secure feeling. The screen is gorgeous and very easy to read. We will have a full review of a unit in the coming weeks, stay tuned.

Here are some pics:

It’s been quite a while since we did the last Vaja case review. The last one from a few years ago detailed some cases for the very popular, yet now near forgotten, iPAQ 3800 series.

Back then, we were doing a lot of case reviews, and the Vaja offering was definitely at the top of the heap. Excellent fit and finish, great usability, never bulky, and always classy.

The new lines do not deviate at all from this standard of quality.

Recently they sent me four new cases, as well as the new clip mechanism to check out. I received two cases for the iPod video and two for the iPod Mini.

Click to read our full review of the Vaja iPod cases…

Time to get rolling on CES 2007 news, we will be there next week.

A-DATA “info SD” has won the 2007 CES Best of Innovations Award in the Computer Accessories category. The info SD flash card is also the only product in that category to win the Best of Innovations from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

A-DATA’s info SD flash card is the world’s first SecureDigital (SD) flash card that utilizes bi-stable display technology, allowing the independent display of the available space on the card at any time without additional power. It is capable of showing 2 characters for name and 4 digits for free capacity via auto-calculation.

Dimension: Completely conform to SDA dimension
Operation Voltage: 2.7V~3.6V
Capacity: 512MB, 1GB, 2GB

http://www.adata.com.tw/

I saw this on downloadsquad and thought is was neat.

“This program gives you pretty much everything you can get from the Windows task manager, and then some. Running processes, check. System devices, got it. Sort system process by CPU usage or RAM, check your IP configuration or you know, close active programs. There’s also a registry editor packed in there.”

New features in 2.6:

- the Run manager has been adapted
- some minor bugs have been fixed
- allows to see only desired tabs
- can switch between tabs by selectable hardware button (tested only on himalaya)
- can disable services
- can stop devices and restart for some of them
- minor layout adaptations

http://buzzdev.net/index.php?option=com_phorum&Itemid=125&phorum_query=read,27,15027,page=1

Pharos Introduces its First GPS Smartphone and they named it….drum roll please; GPS Phone. Wow that’s inspired. While the name may not be creative the device surely is. The GPS Phone features quad-band, GPRS, EDGE, WiFi and Bluetooth - all in a lightweight, slim smartphone running the Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC platform; no UMTS/HSDPA however. They even managed to include an FM radio and the battery has up to 5 hours talk time; 15 hours PDA use; and 160 hours standby.

The digital camera has 1200x1600 (two mega-pixel) pixel resolution; GPS location stamping capability for future “navigation by image” function…whatever that means. Having the GPS location stamping is a great feature and they toss in Microsoft Streets & Trips for trip planning on a PC. They also offer a free three-month subscription to Pharos Smart Navigator Web-based location services.

http://pharosgps.com/news/press/20070103.htm

The NetFront LocationFree Player for Pocket PC runs with Sony’s LocationFree software and enables users to view TV programs and video content from various locations even outside the home via an Internet connection. Users can operate and view TVs and devices such as DVD recorders on their Pocket PCs as if they were at home. In addition to supporting images from external devices such as DVD recorders and video cameras, the NetFront LocationFree Player for Pocket PC also features advanced remote functionality, which allows users to operate external devices through a screen and play-back, stop, or fast-forward. This new software supports Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC and Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, and uses MPEG4.

http://www.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=23859