Palm Pre Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless
• Operating System: Palm webOS
• Display: 3.1-inch 320×480 multi-touch
• Camera: 3.0 Megapixel Camera + Flash
• Music: MP3, WAV, AAC/AAC+
• Video: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
• Memory: 16GB internal, 512MB RAM
• Dimensions: 3.9L x 2.3W x .67D inches
• Battery: 5 hours talk time | 350 hours stand-by
• Wireless: WiFi 802.11 b/g & Bluetooth 2.1+

The Body: 4.5/5 stars
The Palm Pre Plus weighs under five ounces and looks like a smooth glossy black stone. The body has a soft feel and offers a great grip. It’s probably one of the best looking phones I’ve come across recently. It definitely offers a friendly and welcoming feeling compared to devices such as the robotic Droid. There’s a volume rocker, a switch to silence your phone, and a microUSB port on the right side. Accessing the charging/data USB port was easier than on the Palm Pixi, however it needs to be relocated to the bottom. If you are holding your phone to your ear while it’s charging, it’s a nuisance since the cable extends out sideways. I also was cautious each time I tried to open the flap that covers the port since it’s quite flimsy. It is also quite tricky to get the flap open; I found myself using nails to pry it open. I feel that Palm has a secret agenda to get us to buy their Wireless Touchstone Charger by annoying us with the charging port. The back of the phone is a rear “face-plate” that comes pre-enabled for wireless charging unlike on the original Pre. Palm also offers a variety of custom artistic styles for those tired of the all-black look. Although there’s 16GB of on-board storage, which is twice that of the original Pre, there’s still no microSD expansion. The only thing under the rear cover is the interchangeable battery pack. The 3 megapixel camera, a LED flash, and speakers are on the upper rear part of the Palm Pre. The power button and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack are on the top. The front of the phone houses the slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a gesture area, and a 3.1 inch display from bottom to top. I found the curvature of the slide out keyboard aesthetically appealing and comfortable for typing. There’s also a reflective mirror hidden behind the upper portion of the phone that becomes visible when the keyboard is extended. It definitely comes in handy for taking self portraits. I’m still fascinated with how well Palm has reinvented themselves with a new generation of hardware, but it has already been over a year and it’s time for another major release.

Gesture Area: 5/5 stars
Palm made one major cosmetic change to the Pre, they removed the physical touch button and replaced it with a touchpad that’s hidden under the casing. It now looks cleaner and simpler. It, however, almost feels as though they forgot to put something on it. This gesture area is a thin touch-sensitive slit between the display and keyboard. It’s unique and makes using the phone much more intuitive. For example, to move back a page in the browser, just do a quick swipe to the left. The pad illuminates the direction you swiped with a neat little animation. To get back to the home screen, just swipe up. The Pre Plus also lights up the gesture area to indicate that the phone is busy performing a task. It’s definitely a more intuitive take on the simple physical home key that’s prominently featured on the Apple iPhone. It’s a lot more convenient than having to double or triple tap to perform commands.

The Display: 4/5 stars
The Palm Pre Plus’s display looks stunning. The screen seems to reach out at you due to the curvature of the body. It doesn’t appear recessed into the body like the iPhone but rather runs edge-to-edge. The 3.1 inch display is about a half-inch larger than the screen on the Palm Pixi, but still smaller than the Droid and iPhone. The interface offer plenty of space for viewing web pages. It’s still unfortunately nothing compared to the Motorola Droid’s whopping 480×854 pixel display. While the Pixi we reviewed last year only had 18-bits of color, the Pre Plus features 24-bits. Despite the boost, I doubt anyone could point out the difference unless told about it. The multi-touch functionality performed accurately and responsively. It was easy to pinch a webpage with two fingers to zoom out or in. The accelerometer was also very responsive and would kick in quickly to change orientations when rotated. The gesture pad also conveniently changed from the page navigating mode to scrolling. The Sprint Palm Pixi, on the other hand, rarely rotated properly. I should point out that since this phone doesn’t feature an on-screen keyboard, you’ll have to switch back to portrait mode to type. I was also worried that the glossy finish would make reading the screen difficult in direct sunlight or under bright lights, however the ambient light sensor brightens everything up enough so that it’s not much of a problem.

The Keyboard: 3.5/5 stars
When I first saw the Pre Plus, I expected a comfortable keyboard especially since it’s a fairly premium device. However, after a few days of use, I have to say otherwise. Although the four rows of keys are decently sized and spaced out, the keyboard lacks the same tactile feel the Pixi’s keyboard offers. The buttons almost seem sticky and I had a surprisingly difficult time getting accustomed to it. The keys are too flat and don’t offer enough of a click when pressed. Typing messages on the Pre Plus took longer than it did on the Pixi. I had to exert more pressure on each key and take time to ensure an accepted input. It isn’t necessarily hard to type messages, but takes more getting used to than with other phones. It also would have helped if the phone featured a decent virtual auto-correction tool as found on the iPhone and Droid. I feel that Palm should consider revamping or entirely redesigning the keyboard on a future iteration. It’s an essential part of the phone and it’s currently lacking.

Operating System: 4/5 stars
A smartphone’s ability to properly bring a desktop-like experience to a handheld is essential.  One of those important features includes the ability to multi-task. For instance, the Apple iPhone has taken much heat for lacking that ability. Fortunately the Palm Pre Plus breezes through this with webOS 1.3.5.1. In addition, since the Pre Plus sports double the RAM, it can handle running twice as many applications at once. I managed to run nearly 10 apps at once without any issues, however having too many open can take a steep toll on battery life. Even if there’s enough RAM, the CPU will become a bottleneck as it can no longer handle all the processes. Running multiple programs definitely handled better than the Sprint Pixi that easily froze up and wouldn’t even let me make a phone call at times. The home screen, interface, and major components are still pretty much the same as with last year’s webOS. The default calendar, phonebook, contacts, and mail apps are essentially identical. The Synergy feature does an excellent job which I’ll get to in the next section. The web browser does an excellent job of rendering web pages and that’s expected since it’s called the webOS after all. The pinch to zoom works seamlessly which even the North American Motorola Droid doesn’t have yet. It’s still not as great as the iPhone’s Safari Browser, but it’s drastically superior to both Windows Mobile’s IE and BlackBerry’s browser. Moving on, the Google Maps application is wonderful as always, but still isn’t the Google Maps Navigation software found on Android devices that offers turn-by-turn directions. Verizon customers will have to opt to use the VZW Navigator which costs $10/month. A new v5.0 of the GPS software with major changes should become available in a few weeks. As for getting real work done, a built in Document Viewer lets you access Excel, Word, and PowerPoint documents. If you are ready to grab some new programs, the App Catalog has come a long way. There’s a lot more it has to offer, but it’s still far from offering numbers close to the 100,000 in the Apple App Store. Despite that, there’s a great selection of quality applications for everyone to appreciate. The UI is quite intuitive and I still love the idea of being able to “toss” a program up to close it. The home screen could better use the empty space with some sort of widgets as seen on Android devices, but you can at least customize backgrounds unlike the iPhone. Even with improved support for higher quality games, the Palm webOS probably needs some more ground-breaking features such as Synergy to truly take on competition.

Synergy: 5/5 stars
There’s one way to explain Synergy: WOW. It’s just that awesome. The Palm Pre’s webOS offers a single central interface to pull information in from a variety of accounts. These include Google Sync, Facebook, Microsoft Exchange, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. After a single login, my Calendars, Contacts, and Emails started pouring in. I definitely recommend syncing over a fast WiFi connection the first time. Instead of creating havoc with a mess of duplicate contacts and data, the Synergy technology handles it quite well. It merges duplicate contacts without destroying your data. For instance, if you have “Jon Doe” on both Facebook and LinkedIn, it will create a merged contact card. If you happen to make any changes to your contacts, updates are automatically relayed to the server. I was truly glad to see that just about all my Facebook contacts appeared along with profile photos, email addresses, and phone numbers. This was by far the easiest and most convenient way to fetch data. If most of your data is already in the ‘Cloud,’ there no reason to have to deal with manually re-entering data, Bluetooth sync, CSV sheets, or VCards. The next step would be to make this feature more powerful. Adding support for more popular web services and offering a clean way to manually select which contacts to sync would go a long way. Palm has an edge over competitors in this segment and needs to keep running with features like these.

Messaging: 4/5 stars
As for messaging, both the webOS is great. All my emails were setup for delivery with Synergy’s magic. It has great support for Gmail folders and features. When an email arrives, the phone alerts the user with a popup and a notification icon at the bottom of the screen. The same row displays alerts for texts, missed calls, voicemails, calendar appointments, alarms, and more. To dismiss an alert, you can either slide it off to the side to acknowledge that you’ve seen it or click on it to open the respective application. Composing and reply to emails and texts was an easy task. The conversation logs are neatly organized as well. The option to forward items often comes in handy. Copy and paste saves the hassle and time of having to remember and retype things. The only thing that would have improved the experience would have been a better predictive text tool and spell checker that will both speed up typing and correct typos.

Call Quality + Network: 5/5 stars
The Palm Pre performs on par with most smarphone devices. It wasn’t as amazing at eliminating external noises such as the Droid, but still got the job done. I was clearly able to hear the party on the other end and vice versa. I almost always had a decent number of bars throughout the Sacramento and Davis area. Verizon’s network didn’t drop just one call since I had this phone, which was rare in my opinion. I’ve humorously seen the iPhone running on AT&T try and repeatedly fail to make calls from the same areas even though the device reported full signal. I was always able to communicate without issues. I found the ability to call someone by simply starting to type their name while on the home screen a convenient method instead of scrolling through the contact list. There’s a clean list that displays all incoming, outgoing, and missed calls. I also was glad to see that you could delete specific items from the call history, which I can’t do on the iPhone. 3G data reliability was also pretty great, which I’ll get into more details in the Hotspot section. However, if you for some reason can’t fetch a strong signal, you can always opt to use WiFi.

Multimedia: 3.5/5 stars
The Palm Pre Plus streamed videos impressively well from YouTube. I was a bit dissappoitned to find that VCast wasn’t included on this phone. I truly enjoyed having the Sprint TV streaming service available to enjoy ESPN on the Palm Pixi. Considering the price of a data plan, that should definitely be thrown in. I copied some video podcasts and MP4 movies over the device. Some appeared in the video application, but others with certain codecs didn’t. I was further disappointed to find that some files that played just fine on my iPhone didn’t play past a few frames. The video formats are a bit limited at the time and could sure use some improvements. As for music, things were a lot better. Although iTunes sync support is not reliable since Apple keeps disabling support, programs such as Windows Media Player get the job done. If that doesn’t work for you, simply connecting it as a mass storage device with any machine and dragging files onto the device will work just fine. The phone also supports Bluetooth AD2p stereo profiles for devices such as the Jabra Halo, Altec-Lansing BackBeat, or Nokia BT-905. Speaking of music, Pandora worked quite well with this phone. Especially great since I can let it run in the background unlike with the iPhone. I had it connected to my car’s stereo through an AUX jack. It streamed music impressively well without any major pauses for buffering. While it’s still no iPod when it comes to multimedia, it should be able to replace the need for an additional MP3 player for most consumers.

Camera & Camcorder: 3.5/5 stars
The Pre Plus sports a 3.0 megapixel camera, which is a step up from the 2 megapixel camera on the Pixi, but no match versus other smartphones. The phone once again entirely lacks the ability to record videos. A v1.4 webOS update should become available this month that will enable video recording and editing amongst other new features. Getting back to the camera, it fails to impress. I was disappointed to see how long it took for the camera to start up. Once it was up and running, it was actually fairly responsive and the interface was simple, clean, and easy to use. However, it falls flat in terms of custom settings. I was only able to enable, disable, or set the flash to auto. There are no other special effects, filters, resolution settings, or anything else. Browsing through your library of photos was slow to load. Sliding images to the left or right to get to another one would take a moment to render. However, zoom in and out with the pinch gesture was smooth and quick. I was glad to see that I could email, MMS, or upload photos to Facebook right from the gallery. It’s a neat addition, but it’s unfortunate that the camera isn’t better. The colors were decent at best. Bright objects became easily over exposed. Images that aren’t taken in anything less than a brightly  lit area appear grainy. The flash helps with close up head shots in dark settings, but is still not bright enough. Fortunately the turnaround time for snapping each image was fairly quick. But the fact remains, it lacks features even inexpensive or free flip phones have. There’s a lot of work Palm needs to put into this element of the phone.

WiFi & Mobile Hot Spot: 5/5 stars
This was by far one of my most favorite features. There’s a pre-installed App for Mobile Hotspot that lets you use Verizon 3G network and share it with up to 5 nearby WiFi enabled devices. The App lets you pick a network name (SSID), set a WPA/WPA2 security passphrase, or even leave it as an open network. I put it to the test with a couple of machines including an Asus netbook, Dell Mini, Apple iPhone, and Dell XPS Laptop. Mostly using a single device at a time, speeds were actually quite impressive. After several tests in Northern California (San Jose, Davis, and Sacramento), we found download speeds averaging around 1.1 MB/s and upload at 0.30 MB/s. I also noticed that even if multiple connected computers weren’t necessarily using data at a given instance, speeds did slow down a bit. Also, if you are using the Pre Plus as a WiFi Hotspot, you definitely should find a source of power as the built in battery will drain quickly. And of course with any neat feature comes a price. Enabling the Palm Plus for use as a 3G hotspot costs $40/month. That’s the same cost as it is with other smartphones. But the advantage of the Pre Plus, like a MiFi, internet access isn’t just limited to one device. You can take your iPod Touch, Sony PSP, Nintendo DSi, or any WiFi enabled device online easily.

Conclusion:
The Pre Plus definitely packs a punch and seems appealing until you look at competition. The webOS, Synergy, and the hardware are all great, but it’s definitely a notch down from what both the Motorola Droid and Apple iPhone have to offer. It’s especially in the shadows compared to the Google HTC Nexus One. If you’re a Verizon Wireless customer or planning on switching to their network, the Droid is only $50 more, offers more features, and has the same monthly fees. Although the Droid may not have the ability to host a personal WiFi Hotspot, I doubt many customers will opt to pay the extra $40 each month in addition to a calling + data + texting plans. I should note that the Palm Pre is definitely easier to use and has a friendlier feel, but I truly have a hard time recommending it over the Droid. For example, the Pre Plus requires a $10/month fee for using VZ Navigator, while the Droid has the free Google Navigator. The Palm Pre hasn’t really seen any major changes other than the new gesture pad and doubling the RAM and Flash Storage. It was a unique product and fairly decent device about a year ago when it first launched, but it has definitely begun to look old compared to newer phones. The Pre Plus is really due for a major hardware upgrade along with new cutting edge software features to stay afloat. Plus with a few disadvantages such as a mediocre camera, no voice commands, a slow CPU, and a lacking App Catalog, there’s not much it offers versus other smartphones at nearly the same price range. However I should note that there isn’t anything particularly wrong about the device. It’s a wonderful creation, has a great polish, and does what it’s designed to do but simply can’t stand up against competition. If you simply like the aesthetics, the webOS, or need the hotspot feature, then this phone won’t disappoint.

Buy: $150 for Palm Pre Plus
Links: VerizonWireless.com Palm Pre Plus

“iPad is our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad creates and defines an entirely new category of devices that will connect users with their apps and content in a much more intimate, intuitive and fun way”

The Hardware
The Apple iPad is about a half-inch thick, 9.56 inches tall, and 7.47 inches wide. The WiFi-only model weighs just 1.5 pounds. It sports a 9.7-inch capacitive touch screen IPS display with a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution. There’s plenty of connectivity as well, with support for WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1. It is also offered in a 3G flavor for AT&T’s network. It works well with mapping software since it has an assisted GPS module and can also use cellular towers for better accuracy. The unit comes in four storage capacities: 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash storage. It runs at 1 GHz on Apple’s own A4 custom-designed processor. Like the iPhone, it of course features an Accelerometer to detect when rotated and an Ambient light sensor to automatically control display brightness. For video formats, it should be able to play just about all the formats that the iPhone and iPod Touch support, but in HD quality. Just like the iPhone OS, it supports display all the office file formats that the email client currently supports. (e.g. jpg, pdf, doc, xls, ppt) There’s no physical keyboard, but rather an on-keyboard that’s apparently large enough to type on with two hands. Apple did demonstrate a special keyboard dock accessory. There’s a built-in non-replaceable battery that Apple claims will offer 10 hours of productivity on a full charge. A regular Apple USB cable charges the device with an AC adapter or with a computer. Other than that, it has a regular 3.5mm headphone jack, speakers, a microphone, but no webcam.

The Apps
The iPad’s OS isn’t the same as the iPhone OS or even Mac OS X. It’s a special version that stands between the two. If anything, it’s more like the iPhone OS. That’s because it can run just about any App that’s currently available for the iPod Touch or iPhone. If you didn’t notice the screen’s quite larger. That means that an iPhone-optimized App won’t fit properly. Apple lets you run the App surrounded by unusually large black border in the center of the screen. If you prefer, there’s a magnify button that doubles the size of the App, however leaving you with a low-resolution program. It doesn’t seem to support multi-tasking or running multiple programs simultaneously. While that might take previous iPhone and iPod Touch owners some getting used to, the built-in programs are fortunately redesigned and well polished. Everything from the Safari web browser to mail client, photo viewer, maps, notes, calendar, contacts, and more have all be optimized for a 9.7-inch display with plenty of new features. Even multimedia support has improved with an improved iTunes browser interface for browsing and purchasing content on the go. The iPod app now has an interface that looks somewhat of a mix between the desktop version of iTunes and the iPhone player. It all seems a bit risky of a play on Apple’s part, however we’ll see how it holds up and if it plays well with customers in sometime.

iBooks
Yes that’s right, Apple did just take a stab at the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook. The iPad makes for a better device than the iPhone for reading books since it has a larger display. As expected, all books will be available for purchase through a new section in the iTunes Store. Books from both independent and major publishers will be available. Apple demonstrated a “Bookshelf-like” interface for browsing through a collection of downloaded titles.

Notice: Sorry for the delay, we were having some server issues, we’ve updated the content below.

iWork
Apple also ported the famous productivity suite, iWork, over to the iPad’s keyboard-lacking touch-screen interface. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers won’t just be document viewers, but rather will allow creating and modifying documents. And of course, the entire package works seamlessly in a multi-touch environment. It supposedly supports handling Microsoft Office documents as well. Each of the iWork Apps will run you $9.99. It’s hard to tell whether being truly productive and working at a fast pace with solely an on-screen keyboard will be possible.

Pricing
As mentioned previously, the iPad will be available in two versions. The WiFi-only model will be available worldwide in late March at retail price of $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, and $699 for the 64GB model. The WiFi + 3G model will become available in April at a slightly higher cost: $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB model, and $829 for the 64GB model. The 3G version will surprisingly sell without a AT&T contract with two data plans offered. A $15/month plan has a 250MB data transfer cap while $30/month plan offers unlimited data. As a bonus, iPad users will have free access to AT&T’s WiFi hotspots as well if subscribed to a plan.

Links: Apple.com iPad

BlackBerry Curve 8530 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless
• Operating System: BlackBErry v5.0
• Display: 2.5-inch 320×240 pixel TFT LCD
• Camera: 2.0 megapixel camera
• Music: MP3, WMA, AAC/AAC+
• Video: MPEG4, WMV, H.263, H.264
• Memory: 256MB internal + microSD expansion
• Dimensions: 4.29H x 2.36W x .55D inches
• Battery: 270 mins talk time | 252 hours stand-by
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1+ | WiFi b/g

Hardware
At just under four ounces, the Curve is a featherweight both smaller and lighter than an iPhone. With a rubber backing and sturdy frame, the Curve seems rugged at first touch. However, the plastic buttons on the front feel flimsy and take away from the build quality and durability. Instead of pronounced buttons like the ones found on the keyboard, the navigation and media controls are flush with the body of the phone and aren’t the most accessible.

Media keys on the top of the body provide quick access to media player controls. You can pause, play, and skip songs without taking the Curve out of your pocket. These controls can’t be locked, but the strategic location of the buttons on top of the phone might help to prevent accidental song changes. This coupled with the standard 3.5mm headphone jack provides the essentials for a decent media player.

It is clear that RIM did not make the Curve’s screen a top priority. The phone sports a mediocre 2.5 inch, 320×250 pixel display. This is not necessarily terrible, especially when you consider the fact that the iPod Classic has a similar screen size. It will seem a bit pixilated to the keen eye and those accustomed to high definition screens, and the low depth of 65,000 colors does not do much for video quality either. Battery life will suffer from the lack of proximity and light sensors, but this probably isn’t a deal breaker. The Curve’s screen does well in cafés and buses, but you can forget about reading email outside on a particularly sunny day. If you intend to use the phone outdoors more often than indoors, I would find a brighter screen.

• Build Quality – 3/5
• Navigation – 3/5
• Screen – 2/5

Touchpad and Keyboard
The famous trackball is one gripe I have always had with the BlackBerry. The old trackball often failed because dirt, oil, and grime had a tendency to collect on the sensor. RIM recently introduced an optical track pad that takes care of those issues and it’s featured on this phone. The track pad is a vast improvement over the trackball and is easily my favorite feature. It works like a combination between the old trackball and your laptop’s touchpad – just glide your finger over the pad in the direction you want to move the cursor. The web browser is infinitely easier to use because the touch pad allows you to navigate sites with a cursor rather than cycling through clickable items. More importantly, I was able to improve my BrickBreaker score by a couple thousand.

Seasoned veterans of the Curve are some of the fastest mobile typists I’ve encountered, and they swear by this layout. The keyboard has a standard QWERTY layout with 35 backlit keys, similar to the keyboards found on older Curve models. The shape of the keys and a slight bow in the layout make typing on the Curve’s keyboard almost as natural as typing on a full sized keyboard. One downside is the keys are a bit small and will take some getting used to.

• Touchpad – 5/5
• Keyboard – 5/5

Software
The BlackBerry OS has not changed much over the years, with only a few variations from model to model. This makes transitioning from BlackBerry to BlackBerry simple, but those who are new to the interface may have a tough time getting used to it. That’s not to say that a BlackBerry is harder to learn than other phones, but the BlackBerry OS is not nearly as intuitive as some of its competitors such as the Android and iPhone OS. For example, both Android and BlackBerry phones have a configurable central notification area. However, the location of the notification area on the BlackBerry OS isn’t as obvious as on the Android OS.

Although capable of displaying full web pages, the BlackBerry’s browser is seriously lacking in speed. Even on Wi-Fi, pages render much too slow to compete with other smartphones. The Curve’s touch pad, as mentioned before, does make the browser easy to navigate. Adobe mentioned in 2009 that they are working with RIM to incorporate Flash Player into the BlackBerry browser, so we may see an upgraded browser early this year.

As for application availability, BlackBerry has the basics covered with Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, document viewers, and a few useful utilities preloaded. BBM users will have to head to the BlackBerry App World to get the latest BlackBerry Messenger; oddly enough the Curve does not have it loaded out-of-the-box.

• Operating System – 4/5
• Web Browser – 2/5
• Applications – 3/5

Call Quality and Signal
Verizon Wireless customers are probably already familiar with the inability to access the Internet and make phone calls simultaneously on a single device. This impediment has lead to issues with lost email in the past. The BlackBerry Curve 8530 has Wi-Fi in addition to CDMA, so it is possible to make calls and use data simultaneously in areas with WIFI signal. The 8530 also has notable advantages over its GMRS sibling, the Curve 8520, in that it is 3G enabled and has GPS.

The phone’s signal quality is not nearly as good as other Verizon phones. The Motorola Droid, for example, had full 3G bars at my desk, while the Curve could barely muster up a single bar in the same spot. But even with full bars on both ends, the audio quality is just average. It doesn’t filter out background noise well enough to use in busy or loud areas, but in general calls are as clear as on any other cell phone.

A note for Google Voice users: the Google Voice application is currently buggy on this phone. It seems to integrate well with the address book, but your contacts do not sync regularly and outgoing calls are seldom connected successfully.

• Signal Strength – 2/5
• Call Quality – 3/5

Camera and Camcorder
Most of the new BlackBerry models have 3.2 megapixel camera, which seems to be the standard for many manufacturers. The Curve’s, however, is a measly 2.0 megapixel, fixed focus, flash-less camera. Zooming is all digital (up to 5x), so in the end there isn’t much of a zoom function at all. With only 256 megabytes of flash memory to share, the Curve’s camera system was outdated before it even hit store shelves. You will need to insert a MicroSD card to use the video camera function. The phone’s memory is expandable up to 16 gigabytes with a MicroSD card, though some users have reported problems with cards larger than 4 gigabytes.

One thing I will say the camera does well is sharing. In addition to standard MMS and email sharing, the camera software takes advantage of the preloaded social networking apps by allowing you to upload pictures and videos directly to Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr. The sharing features are convenient and fast, and I hope to see more from BlackBerry in this area.

• Camera and Camcorder – 2/5
• Sharing and MMS – 5/5

Navigation
The preloaded BlackBerry Maps application has come through for me in a pinch a few times, although it could use a bit of improvement in terms of speed. It takes far too long to acquire satellites; it can take over a minute to get going, even when outdoors in areas where other Verizon phones have great GPS signal. BlackBerry Maps gives reliable directions, but it lacks voice guidance and features found in turn-by-turn navigators. If you are looking for a navigator with turn-by-turn directions, Google Maps or VZW Maps will have to do. Google Maps is normally a fantastic feature-packed alternative that easily fulfils this role, though it does not seem to use the GPS properly on this phone and gives poor approximations. Either way, the Curve won’t be replacing your Garmin any time soon. If you are looking for a phone that will fulfill that role, Android phones like the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One will impress you with a fantastic navigation interface and a huge screen.

• Navigation – 3/5

Media Player
The media player is surprisingly easy to use. In fact, the interface and workflow is in many ways similar to the iPod’s interface. It does take more effort on the user’s part to manage the library since the phone does not come with software like iTunes. The media player supports a variety of formats, including MP3, WMA9, AMR, AAC, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, and WMV9 audio and video. The 3.5mm headphone jack puts out more than adequate audio quality, considering this is a BlackBerry and not something commonly used as a primary portable music player. The external speaker can be very loud, though music sounds how you might expect it to sound on a phone: a ringtone. While I wouldn’t use the Curve to replace my iPod, RIM is taking huge steps in that direction with other models like the Storm.

• Media Player – 4/5
• Audio Quality – 4/5
• Speakers – 3/5

Battery Life
The Curve’s battery life is disappointingly short. RIM reports a 3G talk time of about 4.5 hours and a standby time of 10.5 days, but I find the latter to be a little unbelievable. I used this unit sparingly on most days and was lucky to go a full 24 hours on one charge. There were days when I could barely squeeze a full 16 hours out of it after a full night of recharging. I expected a short battery life and a daily recharge; most smartphones, even the iPhone and Droid, have notoriously short battery lives. However, I never thought it would run out of juice before I did on such a regular basis.

• Battery Life – 2/5

Conclusion
As a lower-end version of the Bold, some of the Curve’s shortcomings in terms of build quality are expected. Current BlackBerry users, especially those who have owned the Curve, will love the familiarity of the BlackBerry OS and the physical keyboard. Don’t count on the Curve replacing your MP3 player and GPS device, though it will do a great job complementing your current devices. If you frequently take photos and videos with your phone, I recommend checking out the Motorola Droid, which has all the great sharing features found on the Curve but also has a 5.0 megapixel camera with flash for higher quality images. Business users, travelers, and BlackBerry enthusiasts should take a look at the more robust models like the Bold and the Tour. If you are looking for the BlackBerry experience on a budget, you can’t go wrong with the Curve. All nitpicking aside, the 8530 is a decent smartphone and a great addition to the Curve family. If you’re ready to pick to pick one up, it’s available for $50 after signing a new two-year contract with Verizon Wireless.

Buy: FREE BlackBerry Curve with contract
Links: VerizonWireless.com BlackBerry Curve 8530

Sprint’s Overdrive is the first 4G-powered mobile hotspot. All predecessors from other carriers have only supported 3G networks to date. Sprint’s 4G coverage extends only to 27 markets at this time, but they’ve announced plans to expand to Boston, Huston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. this year. You can check if you are in the included coverage area here. Fortunately, the Overdrive is entirely backwards compatible with Sprint’s 3G network as well. Although slower, it’s widely available nationwide.

So here’s how it works. Just press the power button and wait a few seconds for the device to turn on, connect to Sprint, and start the local hotspot. The SSID and secure key appears on the display. Just turn on any WiFi enabled device such as a Laptop, Netbook, Sony PSP, Nintendo DSi, Zune, or iPod Touch. (Even works with the iPhone’s Wi-Fi if AT&T’s network is being spotty.) The Overdrive allows up to five simultaneous connections. Portable hotspots, unlike embedded mobile broadband chips and external USB cards, offer the freedom to share internet access with more than a device.

Sprint was kind enough to lend us a 4G mobile broadband card while we were in Las Vegas for CES, one of their 4G markets. Although I’ll leave the details in the full review of the U300 4G card, speeds often reached up to 6MB/s. (Theoretically 10Mb/s!) That’s faster than many home DSL lines and is plenty of bandwidth for streaming music from Pandora, videos from Hulu, and Skype video calls.

Sprint has sent us a sample unit for a full review, but it’s still in transit. However, a couple of unique features worth mentioning now. The Overdrive has a microSD card expansion (16GB max) to create a mini network shared drive for connected devices. The LCD displays active users, signal strength, battery life, and a few more details. Sierra Wireless, the manufacturers of the Overdrive, claims a 150 foot WiFi range. In regards to battery life, it’s expected to last up to 3 hours in use and 36 hours on standby. If you run out of juice, there’s a microUSB cable to recharge the device. The device just hit stores on January 10th and will run you about $99 after signing a two-year contract and sending in a $50 mail-in-rebate.

For more details on this and to read our full review, stay tuned. You can subscribe to our RSS Feed or sign up for Email Subscriptions. If you haven’t heard, we’re also on Facebook and Twitter!

Links: Sprint.com/Overdrive

No stranger to the audio world, Audio-Technica is a major player in today’s high-end consumer and professional market. Reaping in a well deserved Innovations Design and Engineering Award at this year’s 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Audio-Technica is spearheading the active noise cancelling market with the brand new ATH-ANC7b QuietPoint headphones. While Skatter Tech wasn’t able to acquire this award winner for review just yet, Audio-Technica did graciously provide us with their ATH-ANC3 active noise canceling earphones. If you’re thinking, “Earphones? Did you guys just settle for cheap, low-end, earphones?” While that might have been your initial thought, the sound that followed was quite impressive.

Packaging & Accessories:
The ATH-ANC3 comes packaged in a neat and professional looking box which displays the earphones and active noise control unit through a plastic window. The box advertises, “Up to 85% noise reduction (20dB) of background noise,” and displays a little diagram of how the active noise cancelling technology works. We know this product is for users who are always on the go, citing pictures of an airplane, commuter train, and office desk on the packaging.

Moving into the packaging, we find a fair amount “extras” bundled with the earphones. We were pleasantly surprised with Audio-Technica’s forethought into all the accessories. Included with the ATH-ANC3 earphones is a 1.6 foot long (.5 meter) extension cable, cleaning tool, airline adapter, soft rubber tips, AAA battery, and a rather large nylon carrying case to store all the included goods. The rubber tips are softer than the ones included with most earphones and came in small, medium, and large sizes to suit various ears. We found these very comfy and enjoyable. For those that like storing their audio player in a backpack or near the belt-line, the 1.6 foot long extension cable will prove helpful. To further protect your earphones, Audio-Technica includes pre-inserted filters at the openings of the sound canals. This helps prevent dirt and debris from getting in. Should something manage to get in, the cleaning tool helps remove any earwax that builds up over time; I guarantee that it will be handy. The airline adapter will take the two mono lines from the airplane and combine them into stereo sound for the ATH-ANC3 earphones. Audio-Technica even includes a AAA battery so you can start enjoying the active noise cancelling abilities as soon as you open the box. The nylon case has internal storage nets for accessory organization. We even found that it’s the perfect size to carry your iPod Touch in addition to the ATH-ANC3 earphones.

The main components consist of the ATH-ANC3 earphones mated to the active noise cancelling unit. Combined they total at  3.3 feet (1 meter) in length. Design-wise, these earphones are more of a ”half in-ear-monitor.” Despite sitting in your ear canal, they are too shallow to earn the in-ear-monitor label.  A clip behind the active noise cancelling unit helps distribute the weight since it houses the heavy AAA battery. There’s an “ON/OFF” slider to enable the active noise canceling feature and a “monitor” button, which temporarily disables it when held down, allowing you to hear your surroundings. The wire is soft and flexible, but was thankfully robust. All of the plastics seemed durable and suited to last for years.

Sound Quality:
Based on previous encounters with earphones, we weren’t expecting a lot coming from active noise canceling devices. However, we were truly impressed with the ATH-ANC3’s performance. While active noise cancelling has been known to slightly degrade audio quality, the difference was barely noticeable due to Audio-Technica’s excellent implementation. We instantly noticed that the highs had definition and articulation which earphones and smaller headphones generally lack. Cymbals were crisp and clear to the point where we thought for ourselves, “Why can’t all earphones do this?” Needless to say, the highs were very enjoyable, despite being slightly recessed.

With the good highs coming from the ATH-ANC3s, we were also glad to hear quality bass. Being a high-end professional audio company, Audio-Technica knows the innate importance of a well balanced sound. That’s just the impression we were left with listening to the low-end of the ATH-ANC3s. The bass had a good depth, a nicely punchy articulation, and the perfect amount of synergy with the mid and high range. It was quite pleasing to hear a quality bass that wasn’t over emphasized by any means. If we could change one thing, we would have preferred slightly more impact in the bass. Feeling the “thud” and beat of the music enhances the experience. That doesn’t by any way mean the volume or intensity of the bass, but rather the actual physical kick that you feel running through you.

The sweet spot for these earphones came in the midrange. To be exact, the lower midrange. Male voices and lower midrange instruments came through beautifully. They gave off a rich sound filled with passion. While rich, the sound wasn’t altered by feeling colored or warm, yet you could tell it had been well tuned. Moving a little higher, the upper midrange was the only area where these earphones didn’t impress us. High female voices tended to get a bit harsh during climaxes in the music and didn’t have as rich of a sound as male voices. We also found them to feel slightly veiled and airy as if they could have used a bit more substance and prominence. Even with these shortfalls, the upper midrange maintained the rest of the sounds’ separation and articulation.

Overall, the ATH-ANC3 earphones carry on a great Audio-Technica house sound. The overall experience is neutral, yet not boring or tediously analytical. There’s no major emphasis on any region of the frequency range and this lends to a very balanced and well-rounded sound. Being earphones, these don’t have a stellar sound stage. However, as we’ve been consistently saying, these are definitely better than most earphones.

Noise Cancelling:
Seeing as the active noise cancelling unit is one of the primary features of the ATH-ANC3s, we thought we might elaborate on it a bit. With the one AAA battery that Audio-Technica provides, the active noise cancelling unit is still reasonably light and shouldn’t be an issue for those that don’t like extra baggage. On the box, Audio-Technica claims up to 85% of noise reduction. Listening to the these on the plane ride back from CES in Las Vegas, we can say that Audio-Technica’s figures sound pretty accurate. Unfortunately, while not listening to music, the attenuated sound of voices is still easily distinguishable. Passively, we estimate around 5-10dB of isolation, which isn’t much. If you are looking for complete passive attenuation, grab a full in-ear-monitor. Without music playing, we found that the active noise canceling gave everything an underwater feel. When trying to drown out ambient noise, the result leaves you feeling as though you are wearing a full fishbowl over your head.

Conclusion:
The AudioTechnica ATH-ANC3 QuietPoint Earphones are a strong player in the active noise cancelling earphone market. With an MSRP of $169.95, the price may seem a bit high, but street price seems to hover around $60 on Amazon.com. At this price the ATH-ANC3s are quite a good deal and easily earn Skatter Tech’s recommendation. Although intended for commuters or frequent fliers, these earphones will serve equally well in a home setting. The ATH-ANC3’s excellent performance has gotten us excited to get our hands on the brand new ATH-ANC7b headphones we saw at CES.

Buy: ATH-ANC3 for $50-60 on Amazon
Links: Audio-Technica ATH-ANC3 QuietPoint Earphones

11:02 AM – Preview of FLO TV. A IPTV streaming service. Getting good content and channels was first priority. It happened.

11:04 AM – New hardware piece announcement. It’s for cars. Companies have to install it into their vehicles. It allows the TV service platform to be delivered to cars.

11:06 AM – Mainly focusing on in-car technologies. However, this year talking about Flo TV’s PTV. It’s a handheld portable version. It allows watching that TV content in your hands.

11:07 AM – Some kid apparently asked for a Flo TV (PTV) when Obama was asking children what they want for Christmas. Audiovox seems damn excited about the free PR. However, I don’t think Obama knows what it was considering he wasn’t too familiar with the Nintendo DS.

11:09 AM – Back to rear seat entertainment for FLO TV. Want to bring that to a larger mass market.

11:10 AM – Portable DVD players are fairly boring. People don’t use it that often. Now Audiovox created a portable DVD player with FLO TV built in. They are trying to appeal to a new market.

11:11 AM – Partnership with PlayStation 2. Audiovox built a in-car version of the PS2 for back seats. Everything built in. Audio goes through car. TV screen is overhead. And controllers are same PS2 controllers. Seems awesome, but didn’t the PS3 come out? We want HD and Blu-Ray in cars!

11:13 AM – Sirius dock for iPhone for cars. Doesn’t seem to interesting. Just an FM transmitter for the car with 3G music streaming. Cool?

11:14 AM – Digital Photo Frames. Nothing special. Just has a tool to auto generate photo albums. Has a music box playback and movie playback. One again, this isn’t too interesting. These have already been around. There’s plenty of WiFi models, this doesn’t even have it.

11:15 AM – Only cool photo frame technology is the one without a frame. Just a display. You have to use your own frame. It’s the size of a standard sized photo, just put your own frame over it. Looks like a a very minimal and thin design.

11:16 AM – eReader announced. Can’t compete with Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook. So they decided to partner with Barnes and Noble. All their content will be available through their item. Biggest difference: it doesn’t have WiFi or 3G. You need to connect to computer for new content.

11:18 AM – Personal GPS tracker for children. Drop a little flash-drive sized gizmo into child’s backpack. It tracks it through a web interface. Can setup virtual boundaries and notifications.

11:19 AM – Another speaker takes the stage. He’s from the accessories department. Talking about many items including Universal Remotes, Networking, etc.

11:20 AM – Voice controlling remote announced. Can control your home theater with voice commands. Just need to speak to it. Sounds great, but how does this work exactly. If the sound in your theater is on, won’t it drow out your voice? This sounds impractical!

11:21 AM – Another remote, Smart Control. Can control all audio, video, and gaming. A cheap MSRP of $29

11:23 AM – New applications for home control through Blackberry. Can open garage, control TV, and audio. Apparently also works with iPhone with same features. Cost about $69 for RIM Blackberry and $79 or Apple iPhone. Also have a technology to use a Blackberry to control music playing on an iPhone or iPod Touch. Who has both? Seriously?

11:24 AM – A wireless speaker system for homes. Have a single transmitter technology. Just play music from one place, it will broadcast to all the places in a home. For outdoors, they have a weatherproof model. Can survive outdoors all year.

11:30 AM – New Powerline technology to provide an internet connection to parts of the home. I don’t know why we can’t just go to WiFi yet. However, I’m sure there’s a small market of people who have brick or concrete walls that WiFi can’t penetrate.

11:32 AM – Wireless HDMI transmitter and receiver. We’ve got to see how well it works and from how far.

Shure SE115m+ Specifications:

• Speaker Type: Dynamic MicroSpeaker II
• Sensitivity (1mW): 105 dB SPL/mW
• Impedance (1kHz): 16
• Frequency Range: 22Hz – 17.5kHz
• Cable Length: 54 in
• Colors: Black, Red, Blue and Pink

The SE115m+ utilizes Shure’s second generation dynamic driver versus the balanced armature driver featured on the SE110, but both have the same state frequency range from 22 Hz to 17.5 kHz. As with any pair of Shure headphones, there’s plenty of included tips: a set of rubber and foam tips in small, medium, and large sizes. With the variety of tips included, it’s almost guaranteed that there’s a size to fit anyone. If you still can’t find your fit, Shure offers additional sleeves such as tri-flanges on their website. A tight and comfortable fit is important since it’s essential to retain sound isolation from external detriments. There’s a small cleaning tool to remove any ear wax or dirt that may have entered the headset. Keeping the inner tube that reaches the speaker clean helps deliver unobstructed audio. Compared to most Shure headsets which offer a modular cable that disconnects right before the ‘Y’ split, the SE115m+ is a single 54 inch cable. While some may not have an issue with it, I felt as though it’s a neat safety precaution that won’t damage the audio port on your device since it can de-attach easily with a forceful tug. A shorter cable is also handy especially if you’re connecting your iPhone or another device to an armband. Moving forwards, the only other item included in the packaging is a soft-case to protect your headphones and store those extra sleeves.

Aside from audio quality, the next most important aspect of the SE115m+ is the remote control featuring compatibility with Apple’s 3-button system. The buttons work in the same manner as the Apple earphones that have a remote and microphone. Answering and making calls are simple and easy, but difficulty comes when navigating an iPod. The issue arises because the top and bottom button are solely used for adjusting volume, making the rest of functions completely reliant on the single center button. This can get confusing quickly. I should mention that this isn’t Shure’s fault, but rather Apple’s weird way of trying to simplify things. While confusing, the button is easy to find, feels good, and works well. On the other hand, the volume buttons aren’t too well though through. Taking a closer look, you’ll notice that those two buttons are nearly flush with the casing. That means when you aren’t looking at the controller, it’s often difficult to feel where those buttons are. While Shure emphasizes compatibility with Apple products, these will still work just fine with other devices featuring a 3.5mm headphone jack. However the controls might not necessarily function as intended.

In terms of audio quality, the SE115m+’s offer incredible value. The SE115m+’s aren’t exactly high-end headphones, but are a great option for those making their first steps into the realm high quality audio. In comparison, these in-ear-monitors will sound vastly superior to the earbuds included with an Apple product, BlackBerry device, Microsoft Zune, or any other digital audio player. If compared to the now-discontinued Shure SE110 earphones, the SE115m+ clearly have a fuller bass with a wider soundstage due to the new second generation dynamic driver. Although it’s great for music with a low beat, I would have liked to see Shure increase the quality of the high and mid range audio. Unfortunately this is where the SE115’s begin to falter. I also found the quality of vocals to be less than expected. While these are supposed to be used for phone calls in addition to music, I expected better audio quality, especially for vocals.

Making audio calls with the built-in microphone showed the strengths and weaknesses of the SE115m+. The microphone was actually quite good and other listeners were able to hear me quite well. In contrast, it seemed as if the incoming call quality was directly related to the disappointing vocals while listening to music. People sounded higher pitched than normal and almost tinny. Seeing as being able to make phone calls is one of the distinguishing features of the SE115m+, the call quality was disappointing.

For those looking for an entry-level earphone, skip the SE115m+ and move along to the SE210 earphones. While better than the SE110, they succeeded, the SE115m+’s price is nearly the same as that of the SE210 to justify going for that one instead. However, if you own an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch, the SE115m+ offers special functionality which is worth consideration. Shure is a reputable brand name and these will work as advertised, although don’t expect crystal clear calls. The SE115m+ have been available for retail through Apple Stores for a short period and are going on sale through Shure.com and at other retailers this month. Amazon has it available on pre-order for an MSRP of $119.

Buy: SE115m+ on Amazon for $119
Links: Shure.com

Special thanks to Powermat (@powermat) for sponsoring our giveaway!

How to enter the contest:

1. Become a Facebook Fan of Skatter Tech
2. Use Facebook Connect to leave a comment below

Some Rules Apply:

• Don’t try to enter more than once. (We have robots!)
• Must live in the United States. 13 and older only.
• Winner is randomly chosen by computer generator.
• Entries close after Thursday 12/03/09 11:59 PM (PST).
• Winner will be announced on this post on 12/04/09.
• Winner has 24 hours to respond to Facebook Message.

That’s pretty much it. If you don’t know what Facebook Connect is, it’s simple. Just click on “FB Connect” next to the comment box and login with your Facebook Account. When you post a comment you’ll see your mugshot and name in the comments! If you do that and become a Fan of Skatter Tech, you’re in!

Update 12/04/09: After throwing the names into Excel and using the Rand function, we finally came up with a winner who had both left a comment and was a Facebook Fan of Skatter Tech.

Congratulations: Arjun Patel!

We hope that you send us a snap of the Powermat in use and tell everyone what you think about it!

Using Powermat is quite easy. There’s only one cable needed to power the Powermat itself. Gadgets can be placed on any of the three magnetic charging spots on the device. It plays a futuristic sound and display an LED indicator to verify that it’s charging. If you begin to get annoyed with the sounds once the “coolness-factor” fades, there are buttons on the back to adjust the volume and indicator brightness level as well. An additional powered USB port has been conveniently added to the back to charge legacy devices that don’t yet have support for the Powermat.

Here’s when it gets tricky. The devices you own just don’t charge on their own if you place them on the Powermat. You’ll first need to place them in special Powermat sleeves. There are a number of receivers offered, however we were provided with three: iPod Touch Sleeve, Nintendo DSi Sleeve, and iPod Dock. Their website reveals sleeves for other devices including popular models of the RIM Blackberry. The Powermat representative we spoke with stated that many more accessories for popular gadgets are on their way.

The first device I tested was the iPod Touch Sleeve. I slipped the iPod Touch into the case and placed it on the Powermat. After the Powermat did it’s thing, played a sound and lit up the LED, the iPod Touch displayed the charging screen after a short delay. The case was actually quite a decent one and seemed like it would do a fairly good job of protecting my device. It did unfortunately have that obtruding portion on the back which is necessary for this technology to function. The case also required that I use a little headset dongle and their own USB cable since neither a standard headphone cable or iPod Connector would reach through the case. Although I didn’t see any negative impact to the performance of WiFi on the iPod Touch, I’m not sure if it would cause any signal issues on the case for the iPhone they are releasing this month. Charging worked perfectly and just about as fast, but the need for a headphone dongle made it seem a bit annoying.

The next receiver I tried was the Powermat iPod Dock. At the moment this is a workaround for charging an iPhone 3GS. However the dock also works with the majority of iPods on the market with a few exceptions. It detected and charged both a 2nd generation iPod Nano and iPod Touch perfectly. It also has an adjustable backrest to adjust for the various sizes of these Apple devices. This accessory also seemed to wirelessly charge a device in just about the same time a traditional wired charger would.

Although we only had a standard Nintendo DS, we were able to borrow a Nintendo DSi to test it’s sleeve device briefly. It snapped on easily and immediately began to charge the device. It does add a bit of bulk and make holding the Nintendo DSi a bit more awkward, but it wasn’t too big of an issue. And it was a lot more convenient to place the DSi on the Powermat rather than having to reach for a cable that is probably tangled up or fallen off a desk.

The final accessory we tested the Powermat with was the included and highly versatile Powercube. This was one of my favorite aspects of the entire product. It’s a simple cube that’s placed on the mat with a cable coming out of it. There are plenty of adapters for devices such as Apple, LG, Samsung, Sony, Nintendo, and mini/micro USB products included. Although its not really making anything more cable free, it’s almost a universal charger for the majority of devices out there. We’ve got plenty of gadgets coming in and out at Skatter Tech and this could probably charge just about all of them. Powermat even includes a little storage box that magnetically attaches to the Powercube to carry around a couple of the adapter tips you use most. While this certainly isn’t as awesome as simply placing your iPod or BlackBerry on the Powermat, it’s definitely a welcome addition.

The Powermat works exactly as advertised. We didn’t face any issues or problems. The version we tested is the “Home and Office” version, but Powermat also offers a foldable portable version for travel. A question that a couple of friends asked was, “Is this safe?”.  After a little investigating, I found that there’s nothing to be concerned about. The device is fairly low voltage and it wouldn’t have been approved for sale if there were potential health risks. It doesn’t damage any other devices placed near or on it either.

So does the Powermat have a catch? Yes, the price. The base unit sells for about $100 alone. Although it includes a Powercube and those set of adapters pictured above, it’s still expensive. Plus, each of the device-specific sleeves sell separately for around $30 each. Sure, if you’ve got the cash to spare, go for it. It works. I loved the simplicity of  not having to plug my devices in, but I don’t necessarily think it’s worth spending that much. Plus this technology has already been natively implemented into devices such as the Palm Pre. Dell even showed off the Latitude Z laptop that charges without cables. This technology is closer than ever and I wouldn’t be surprised if it appeared in a lot more gadgets we use everyday. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of those as early next year during the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. In the meantime, it might just be best for the rest of us to wait until prices drop or until it becomes a built-in feature of new versions of gadgets that hit the streets.

Buy: Powermat for $99 | Accessories
Related: Powermat Video Demo
Links: Powermat.com

If there is anything you should take from that last paragraph, it should be that I am hypercritical when it comes to reviewing smart phones because I have yet to experience the recipe for a so-called “iPhone-Killer”. So when I say that the Motorola Droid is my new favorite phone, you can take me seriously. Yes, yes, all of the smart phones in this generation do just about everything short of cooking for you. But the Droid just does it better with Motorola’s feature-packed hardware, Android’s new open source operating system, and Verizon’s high quality network. I’ll explain.

The Hardware
This phone is built like a tank. It weighs about an ounce more than the iPhone, but the extra weight just makes the Droid feel like it’s expensive and has a lot to offer rather than just a heavy burden. I was initially concerned about the sliding mechanism for the keyboard, which is often the first to break on phones with a similar form factor. However, this isn’t the case. The Droid is far from flimsy. Although the phone doesn’t sit flush on a flat surface; the shape of the back elevates the phone just enough so that it doesn’t vibrate off of a table or let the camera get scratched. The lip below the screen didn’t seem to serve any purpose, but I soon realized that it houses the microphone and helps the user to tell the speaker from the microphone.

I only have a few small complaints. My first complaint is with the external buttons. Don’t get me wrong, all three power, volume, and camera keys work fine, but they sit loosely in the frame, which feels as though it takes away from the quality of the build. My second complaint is with the battery compartment cover. It slides off rather easily. It even came off once when I pulled it out of a tight pocket in my backpack. I suppose that’s better than not being able to take it off at all, but it’s something to keep in mind if you like your jeans extra tight.

• Overall Quality – 5/5
• Mechanical Parts – 5/5
• External Buttons – 4/5

The Display
Measuring 3.7 inches and 480 x 854 pixel resolution, the Droid’s touch-screen display is beautiful, bright, enormous, and knocks competitor’s displays out of the park. The screen is both larger than the one found on the iPhone and also has over two times screen resolution. That means it can easily fit and render websites normally designed for computers. Plus, it’s large enough of a resolution to playback DVD quality movies. It’s also accurate and sensitive enough to register touches properly. Like all glossy touch screen phones, the screen tends to get covered with fingerprints and smudges, but it’s nothing your t-shirt can’t fix.

• Size – 5/5
• Resolution – 5/5
• Brightness – 5/5
• Quality – 5/5

The Keyboard
The Droid offers both a physical keyboard and an on-screen keyboard to suit your taste. The on-screen keyboard works perfectly in both horizontal and landscape modes. A key press results in both a sound and/or haptic (vibration) feedback. In fact, the on-screen keyboard is almost the same as the iPhone’s, so it should be an easy transition for those used to Apple’s keyboard.

The physical keyboard is pretty standard. The buttons are square and the keys become illuminated when it’s dark. There’s nothing incredibly special or annoying about it. The only issue is the layout. Rather than having slightly offset keys as found on standard keyboards, everything is aligned in a perfect grid. However, just like any other phone, you get used to what you have after a day of use. I shouldn’t understate the keyboard. Many smart phone owners are first time buyers who are accustomed to the traditional click and feel of physical keyboards. The Droid wouldn’t have been as interesting of a phone if it didn’t have one.

One major drawback to the keyboards is the lack of language interchangeability. Android does not offer native on-the-fly language switching. There are a few applications on the Android Marketplace that will do this for you, and something may be in the works for future upgrades, but I’m disappointed that the Droid can’t handle more languages than I can out of the box.

• On-Screen Keyboard – 5/5
• Physical Keyboard – 4/5
• Language Options – 2/5

The Interface
The touch screen interface is flawless, responsive, and frequently used, which makes the Droid extremely intuitive. Surprisingly the Droid lacks multi-touch gestures, while the European version, called the Milestone, offers it. I can’t imagine why they left this out, but hopefully it can get fixed with a future software update. But even without that, the Droid is just as easy to get along with. I felt that the double-tab to zoom command was easier than the pinch-to-zoom since it can be done with just one finger.

There are four touch-sensitive spots below the screen: back, menu, home, and search. The interface controls for nearly every application stay in an orderly manner, so the touch sensitive keys work perfectly everywhere. My favorite by far is search, which looks through both your phone and Google. Thanks to the Droid’s ability to multitask, this feature can be used at just about any time without losing your work. For example, say you are in a call with a friend and need to find the address of a restaurant. Just hit search and type in the name of the restaurant. If the information is not already saved in your address book, it will search Google and display results while remaining on the line.

• Multitasking – 5/5
• Touch Interface – 5/5

Voice Recognition
Android’s voice recognition engine is unparalleled and works with almost everything. That includes slang and even thick accents; “Call Kreestan” works just as well as “Call Kristen”. Android was even able to recognize my French and (bad) Spanish without changing any settings. “Direcciones al gymnasio” (Spanish for “directions to the gym”) gave me a list of nearby gyms while my locale was still set to English. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow using this feature to dictate text messages, but if it did I would image it would work better than the Samsung Rogue. With laws prohibiting texting while driving, it would be a great idea to let you speak your texts through a hands free device.

• Voice Recognition – 5/5

Phone Calls
With all the other stunning aspects of the Droid, it’s quite easy to lose sight of its primary function: a phone. The Droid does not fall short in this category. Calls are as clear as ever and the microphone intelligently cancels out background noises. During one particular call, a caravan of buses passed by not three feet away from me, and the person on the other end didn’t even notice. Until I mentioned the busses to see if anything was heard, the caller thought I was in a quiet room. Signal strength was strong just about anywhere I went in Northern California and I didn’t face any dropped calls. And as I’ve mentioned before, it’s easy to multitask while on the phone. You can add callers, look up contacts, search for information – the only thing you can’t do while on the phone is use the microphone.

• Call Quality – 5/5
• Signal Strength – 5/5

The Android Roadtrip
The Motorola Droid’s features integrate incredibly well with its operating system, Android 2.0, so it’s hard to talk about one without the other. I decided the best way to really discover the capabilities of both by taking the phone on the road and use the Droid for everything and really push it to the limit.

We had no idea where we were going, but we knew what route we wanted to take, so we packed a lunch, hopped in the car, plugged the Droid into the stereo, and created a station for The Kills on Pandora.

Navigation
The Motorola Droid on Verizon is the first device to feature Google Maps Navigation. It’s a completely free service that offers 3D maps with voice guided turn-by-turn directions. The VZ Navigator available on most Verizon Wireless phones costs an additional $10 a month for use. A decent turn-by-turn direction App on the iPhone sells for a one time fee of nearly $80-$100. On the other hand Google Maps Navigation is entire free and is offers a lot more.

Our journey through Sacramento was a familiar one. Kristen (my lovely driver) and I were feeling the familiar drone of the autopilot set in, and decided that a caffeine fix was necessary. The Droid features a “Car Home” mode, which offers quick access to on-the-road navigation features. I hit Quick Search and asked for “directions to Starbucks”. The voice recognition registered all the terms successfully and gave me directions to a Starbucks right off of the highway in Folsom. The navigator showed us a Google Street View of our destination, so it was easy to point out where it was upon arrival. If I had the official dashboard mount, the Droid could have easily replaced my current GPS.

The drive through El Dorado National Forest is beautiful. There were lots of trees and mountains that probably should have thrown off the GPS or at least our streaming soundtrack, but both remained strong. We lost GPS signal once while weaving through mountain roads, but that lasted less than five seconds, and the only reason we noticed was because the navigation voice started to give us alternative directions. After seeing a couple small rivers running along side the highway, we had the urge to go find a waterfall. With the GPS and Pandora still running, I searched for “nearby waterfalls”. The browser remained fast even while driving through a forest with the other programs running in the background. I was given results relative to our location – our new destination was Vikingsholm in South Lake Tahoe.

• Navigation Interface – 5/5
• Accuracy of Directions – 5/5
• GPS Accuracy – 5/5

Camera & Camcorder
The Droid sports a 5-megapixel camera. It produces images with a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels. The scenic road through El Dorado was a perfect place to give the camera a shot. With 16GB of memory on the included Micro-SD card, I wasn’t afraid to keep snapping. The camera took some great shots, though I did find that the automatic stabilization function needed the camera to remain still for a few extra seconds to work properly. The digital zoom produced some pretty grainy pictures, as expected. The flash kicked in at appropriate times and improved pictures taken in darker environments. Plus the geo-tagging feature marked coordinates of where those photos were snapped. With a program such as Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto, you can easily import and view your photo library on a visual map.

The Droid’s large screen is great for reviewing photos and videos, though I was most impressed when I played back the captured videos on my laptop. Videos are shot at an impressive 720×480 pixel resolution at 24 FPS. The quality was excellent and it didn’t jitter at all. Android also supports sending images and videos via MMS, email, or uploading to services such as Facebook and YouTube. The Droid’s camera won’t be replacing a traditional camera anytime soon, but it’s a big step up from other camera phones.

• Photo Quality – 5/5
• Video Quality – 5/5
• Camera Interface – 5/5
• Media Sharing – 5/5

Notification System
Android has a centralized notification system to keep track of the things happening on the phone. By simply dragging down the top toolbar, you can view alerts for new emails, texts, missed calls, finished downloads, calendar reminders, and voicemail. On the other hand, the iPhone simply places a number above Apps that have an alert, but that requires swiping through multiple pages to check on them. The BlackBerry Storm2 probably has the most similar ability with its built in news feed. Simply organizing those updates into one place makes thing easy and responding to those alerts is just a single click away. The system also provides a simple interface to access applications that are running in the background. For example, it will show what song it playing on Pandora. It’s definitely going to be hard to go back to other systems after giving this a shot.

• Notification System – 5/5

Speakers & Headphones
The Droid uses a standard 3.5mm audio jack and has no problem putting out high quality sound. It sounded just as good as my iPod Touch. But using headphones on this trip would have been selfish, so I cranked up the volume of the external speakers so that Kristen could listen in. The speaker’s sound quality was absolutely fantastic; they sounded better than my three-year-old Macbook’s speakers! The speakers would not put out much bass, but surprisingly they did not garble the rest of the audio. From ten yards away with a river running in the background, Kristen was able to clearly comprehend Jack White’s lyrics.

• Speaker Quality – 5/5
• Headphones – 5/5

Media Player
While listening to Pandora, I came across a song I really liked by the White Stripes. I clicked on the “Buy” button in the menu and it took me straight to the song’s page on the Amazon MP3 store. I bought the song and opened up Music for an encore. The purchased song was added into my music library with the existing songs from the White Stripes album. Although the phone’s media player offers all the basic functionalities such as browsing by Artist, Album, Genre, or Songs it does have a few issues. For example, you can’t view all the songs by a single Artist, but rather have to jump back and forth through the Albums by that Artist one at a time. Edit: The media player does allow you to view all songs by a single artist, but it was a little tricky to figure out how (touch and hold the desired artist, select “Play”, and hit the “Playlist” button to view all songs). It’s a well developed player and includes Album Art, a shuffle and a repeat feature. Although it could use a few tweaks, it’s a completely viable alternative to purchasing a dedicated MP3 player.

• Music Player – 4/5

Syncing
Before my road trip, I manually copied a few hundred songs from my computer to the phone with the included Micro-USB cable. The phone appeared as a mass storage device and didn’t require any software. Android automatically recognized the music and other content. Although people despise the bloated iTunes software, it offers an easy syncing relationship between a computer and an iPhone/iPod. Unfortunately, neither Motorola nor Verizon suggest nor include a tool to manage your media. Edit: Scratch that, Motorola just released a tool called Media Link which easily lets you manage music, photos, and videos. Computer geeks will find a solution that suites their needs, but others will be left in confusion.

• Library Management – 4/5

Battery Life
The battery was at about 75% when we left Davis. After four hours of multitasking, the Droid was just about finished with a little bit of juice left to take a few pictures, exceeding my expectations completely. The official specs claim 6.4 hours of 3G talk time and about 11 days of standby.

As we headed to the car to start our trip home, after four hours of heavy multitasking, the Droid gave me a low battery notification. It wasn’t just a standard, single-line message; it brought up a panel that displayed the power consumption of each running application. Right at the top of the list were my power hungry applications. I knew where we were going, so with 5% battery left, I closed all applications and put the Droid on standby. It stayed on for another hour, which was both unexpected and impressive, though I would recommend purchasing a car charge if trips like these are a regular occurrence. It only took about three hours to completely charge the phone once we got home.

• Battery Life – 4/5
• Power Management – 5/5

The Bottom Line
So that brings us to the big question, “Would you recommend the Motorola Droid over the Apple iPhone?” Yes and No. In terms of technical specs, yes the Droid is better. Yes, the Droid does have more features. And yes, I would absolutely recommend that you check it out, but in the end it is a matter of preference. I don’t believe the Droid will be the mythical “iPhone-Killer”, but there’s a good chance the Android platform will. For example the HTC Hero which we reviewed last week and the upcoming Samsung Moment on Sprint both run on the Android platform. This means all the same set of applications downloaded through the Android Market, similar to the iTunes App Store, will run on any of those devices. Unless Apple drops a bomb in the near future with some major changes to the hardware and opens up the software, Android has a clear shot to take out the iPhone.

If you’re convinced and ready to buy a Motorola Droid, it’s going to hit Verizon Wireless stores this Friday, November 6th, 2009. Due to high demand, Verizon is opening all it’s stores earlier than normal at 7 AM. It’s not that expensive either considering the powerful camera, GPS Navigator, and 16GB MP3 player it packs inside. It will only set you back about $199 after signing a new 2-year contract and sending in a $100 mail-in-rebate. If you’re an existing customer who’s eligible for an upgrade, you should be entitled to an additional $50 or $100 discount based of the price of your current calling plan.

Links: VerizonWireless.com Motorola Droid

Note: This review was edited by Sahas Katta.

The Hardware: 5/5 stars
Although the HTC Hero shares similar elements of style from it’s European predecessor, this model has a new and revised body. The distinctive bottom lip (Jay Leno chin?) that characterized the original Hero has been replaced with a more traditional rounded edge. I never spent much time handling the chin-ed version, but I’m satisfied with the comfort the new HTC Hero offers. There’s a large illuminated trackball centered below the display. A send and end button are on the far left and right of the bottom portion, respectively. A Menu and Home key are on the left of the trackball while the search and back key are on the right. The mini USB port is on the bottom, the camera is centered on the top portion of the back side, and the headphone jack is on the top of the phone. The trackball was quite responsive and the inclusion of physical keys for answer and ending calls suited my taste. The phone isn’t the most fancy device on the market by any means, but it’s smoke gray coat with gun-metal accents look elegant. The phone’s also has a great grip to it and feels durable enough to survive a few small drops.

Touch Screen Display: 4/5 stars
The HTC Hero features a 3.2 inch 320×480 HVGA display. I should note that this is one of the few Android devices that supports multi-touch gestures. Even the Motorola Droid on Verizon lacks it. The screen is pretty bright and sharp. It isn’t extraordinary, but meets the standard of other smartphone displays. The default touch sensitivity was just right and was quite responsive. Since the phone doesn’t have a physical keyboard, the on-screen keyboard is the only option. It takes a bit of getting used to especially if you are moving over from a device that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. Even with a bit of practice, it’s still isn’t as easy to use as the virtual keyboard on an iPhone. The screen is a bit smaller and slower to respond. Photos and Videos either captured by the phone or transferred over all looked great on the display.

Battery Life: 2.5/5 stars
After using the phone for about a week or so, I have become quite disappointed with the battery life. A full charge should be able to last at least a full day. And of course, bearing in mind that you only run a fair amount of applications at a time. I found myself having to cut back down on checking emails, refreshing Facebook, and browsing Twitter just to save enough charge. Although HTC claims 5 hours of talk time and 360 hours of standby, I can testify that it didn’t last nearly as long. I did however see standby time improve after disabling the GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, however features such as those are what make this phone a good phone. I feel as though improvements could be made as easily as by releasing a software upgrade to manage power usage better.

User Interface: 4/5 stars
The user interface is a distinguishable factor of the phone. Dubbed “HTC Sense”, the interface is composed of seven customizable panels. These provide a wrap around panoramic view of everything going on. The panels are fully customizable offering you the power to select which widgets or application shortcuts appear. I found that the preloaded layout to be quite adequate for the average user, but it’s fun and useful to spend a few minutes and pick the things that fit your needs and taste. I wish more freedom was offered to rearrange items on the home screen. Overall, the interface looks quite wonderful, colorful, and exciting. Plus the widgets offer plenty of information on those panels without even having to open applications. The HTC Hero runs on v1.5 of the Android OS, but rumor states that an upgrade to the v2.0 OS will be possible in the near future.

Messaging + Email: 4/5 stars
The preloaded messaging app has a solid set of features. For SMS, it displays history of conversations between you and your contacts. Following a threaded message is more convenient than a mess most phones call an inbox. The default options such as quick text and attaching files are available. Unlike the the iPhone prior to the 3.0 OS, the Android supports copy and paste. Multimedia messaging worked seamlessly with Sprint’s network. Although the casual texter should be satisfied with the default app and a quick search on the Android Market will uncover more powerful messaging tools for the power users. Email on the Hero was quite remarkable. The setup process was easy and I didn’t have any configuration issues with any of the accounts I added in. The Mail App even provides the ability to consolidate multiple email accounts into a single view. Emails can also be tagged or labeled for organization. The Android 2.0 OS takes it a step further with more features, but even the current version offers just about all the features anyone would want on a mobile device.

Camera + Camcorder: 4.5/5 stars
The HTC Hero offers a powerful 5.0 megapixel camera with auto-focus. Unfortunately, a flash is missing and would have been a welcome addition. Photos can be shot in either landscape or portrait mode. Images max out at resolution of 2560×1920 pixels. There are a number of other features found in the setting including self-timer and timestamps. Photos in your library can also be easily uploaded to web services including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. The camcorder functions almost as well. It wasn’t remarkable, but decent for a phone. Recorded videos can also be uploaded to YouTube or shortened clips can be sent out through a MMS.

Music: 5/5 stars
The Hero comes preloaded with an easy to use and functional music app. A widget displays the album cover and offers a few basic controls. Tapping on it will launch the full application. There’s a cover flow view similar to what iPods offer. There’s also a list view which allows browsing by Artists, Albums, and Genres. The phone even has a built in tool to create custom ring tones with your own music, take that iPhone! Sound quality through the speaker was decent. The quality with standard headphones plugged into a 3.5mm headphone jack is a lot better. No cumbersome headphone adapters required! And since Android can handle multitasking, you can do just about anything else you want while listening to music. This is especially handy with Pandora. Once again, iPhone can’t do that either. The Hero utilizes Amazon MP3 as it’s primary music store just as the iPhone does with iTunes.

App Store: 4/5 stars
The Android Market offers over 10,000 applications. That may sound like a lot, but that’s still a 10% of the 100,000 found in Apple’s App Store. Despite that, the quality of the applications I found were quite impressive. The interface allowed an easy way to browse, find, or search for programs. The reviews and ratings also help making decisions towards purchasing paid ones. Installation is as easy as tapping a button. The Android Market continues to grow and I’m fairly confident that with more Android-based phones hitting the market, there will be even more quality applications coming along.

Other Features: 5/5 stars
The web browser is fairly powerful and is close to what the Palm Pre and Apple iPhone offer. It utilizes the same pinch gesture to zoom in and out of web pages. There’s a tabbed interface to browse through different pages. Although it jerks at times, it isn’t too much of an issue. If you have decent amount of signal, pages load fairly quickly on Sprint’s 3G network. Plus with WiFi built in, everything becomes a whole lot faster. I was happy with the GPS performance on the Hero and the ability to use two very powerful navigation tools is a huge advantage over some other phones. Other features like the Sprint TV and Navigation package is a very nice benefit for being with Sprint. With Sprint’s Everything Data plans you have unlimited access to both.

Bottom Line:
The HTC Hero is a powerful smartphone and has a lot to offer. The hardware is excellent and the Android software is truly flexible. If you are currently in the market for a new phone, I would highly recommend taking a look at the Hero. I would definitely rank the Hero as one of Sprint’s best phones along with the Palm Pre. I wouldn’t suggest it for customers that aren’t tech-savvy, want a cheap plan, or don’t need business features. The packaging includes an AC adapter, a USB cable, a 2GB micro SD card, and documentation. If you are ready to grab one, it’s priced at $179.99 with a new 2-yr contract.

Links: Sprint.com HTC Hero | HTC.com HTC Hero Info

Haier HV18A Specs:

• Capacities: 4GB and 8GB
• Screen: 1.8″ LCD Color Display
• Music Format: MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV
• Video Format: .SMV (huh?)
• Other: FM Radio & Microphone
• Connector: Mini USB 2.0
• Price Range: $45-$60

The Body: 4/5 stars
The design of the Haier media player is very simple. The face is slightly elevated, and the edges curve off into the side. Below the 1.8″ screen, the player includes touch sensitive buttons for the menu, volume, left/right, and “ok”. All these keys light up blue and are embedded into the body. That unfortunately means buttons are difficult to find when you aren’t looking at the device. The built in microphone and the power button slider, which also locks the device, are on the left side. There’s a small reset pinhole on the right side, which I hope doesn’t need to be used. Despite the player’s sleek and simple look, the glossy finish and mirrored back makes it a great finger print magnet. I found myself cleaning off the front constantly just to be able to see the display. The sliding key also had a few issues since it’s too small. If you have large hands, it’s hard to be able to slide and hold up for a few seconds to get it to turn off or on. But once again, for the price, I was pleased with the design.

Music: 3.5/5 stars
The music playback features on the Haier were quite satisfying. It includes all the standard actions such as play, pause, and track navigation. There’s even a repeat function and equalizer setting built in. The sound quality was decent for the average person, audiophiles probably won’t be picking this up anyways. The player doesn’t allow viewing images while music is playing. It’s not a big deal, but most other players offer this feature. The biggest lacking was the inability to display album artwork while playing music. This media player also didn’t support shuffle or playlists. Even for an inexpensive player, some of these issues are essential and almost necessary for any music player.

Video: 2/5 stars
When this came in, I assumed that I would be able to play movies on it. I was wrong. I transferred some common .mp4  and few other video formats onto it. Nothing worked. After looking through the manual I was disappointed to find that it only supported a .smv video format. I don’t know much about that format since I’ve never heard of it until I got this. They offered a tool to convert videos into the format, so I downloaded and installed it. I found that even on a fairly fast dual core laptop, it took way too long to convert. I threw in a 890MB for conversion and it took a few minutes for each percent. Music playback was decent, but Video support just isn’t practical. It’s there, but too much of a headache to deal with.

FM Radio: 4/5 stars
If there was one thing that was great on this, it’s the radio. Browsing through radio stations was easy and I was even able to create a list of 20 favorite channels. That’s a convenient so I don’t have to scroll through each station every time I turn the device on. Plus I only listen to a couple of stations in my area anyways. There wasn’t a scan function, but holding the left or right button jump to the channels with the best signal. It’s a fairly small device so the signal quality was disappointing at times, but that’s expected for anything with such a small receiver. For the most part, the radio worked just fine.

Microphone: 4/5 stars
The microphone on the Haier is located on the left side of the player. Surprisingly the audio quality that came out of a few recordings were quite impressive. I recorded a lecture and even a conversation I had with a friend in a quite room. They all sounded pretty clear without any static or interference. Recording duration is only limited by the space on the device. The player unfortunately doesn’t let me delete recordings without having to connect it to a computer first. This might be an issue at times if you run out of space and can’t get to a computer.

Conclusion:
Considering the Haier Video MP3 Player costs around $49 for a 4GB model, you can’t go wrong. The biggest drawback is the limitations of video playback. It’s just not worth spending the time to convert standard and commonly used file formats into something random. Plus with a small 1.8″, I probably wouldn’t want to load much more than a few music videos and YouTube clips onto it. The rest of the device worked fairly well. The inclusion of shuffle and playlist feature would have been appreciated. The best part is the simplicity of syncing. It even worked perfectly with Ubuntu 9.04 in addition to Windows 7. It’s just a simple mass storage device. Anything placed on it will be detected after it’s disconnected. If you are looking for first MP3 player for children, the Haier Video MP3 media player is a great place to start for an affordable price.

Buy: 4GB Model for $44 [via Amazon]
Links: Haier Video MP3

Setting up Dropbox is easy. Just visit GetDropbox.com and download the installer for Windows, Macintosh, or Linux. The program will prompt you to register for an account if you are a first time user. A folder named “My Dropbox” will automatically be created. If you have a second or third computer, install Dropbox on those and login with the same username and password. If you have an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch, grab the free Dropbox App from the iTunes App Store. Next just copy any files or folders into the “My Dropbox” folder. Assuming that you are connected to the internet, the files placed in there will automatically be synced to and stored on all your other computers. If you add, delete, or modify files, the changes are relayed over to all your other devices.

The devices I used to test the service included a HP DV2000 laptop running Windows Vista and an iPod Touch. Skatter Tech’s Senior Editor, Sahas Katta, also tested the service with a Dell XPS M1530 laptop running Windows 7, a Dell Mini 9 netbook running Windows XP, an ancient Desktop running Ubuntu 9.04, and an iPhone 3GS. With Dropbox setup on all those mentioned devices, the service worked across every single device flawlessly. Dropbox is truly a cross-platform marvel.

I tested the service by dropping some documents (PDF, DOC, PPT), music (MP3, AAC), and videos (AVI, MP4) into the “My Dropbox” folder. The small document files only took a few seconds to sync and appear on the other devices, however the larger video files took a lot longer. And say you don’t have access to any of your devices, but need to get to your files. Just visit GetDropbox.com from any web browser, login, and a copy of all your files is accessible through the web interface. The service also creates quick “share links” you can email or instant message to friends to give them access to certain files or folders.

While the free version limits space to just 2GB, you can get more space in two ways. If you invite friends to use the service using the referral program Dropbox recently launched, you’ll be given more space each time someone signs up using your link. And if truly need a lot more space, Dropbox charges $10/month for a 50GB account and $20/month for a 100GB account. As someone who mainly uses for documents, which barely take up any space, the free version suffices. However with how useful the service has been for my productivity since I began using it, if I do end up needing more space I wouldn’t mind paying. Overall, Dropbox is simply a convenient, easy to use, and foolproof service that saves you the time of having to manually manage your data across multiple machines. Plus with their new mobile iPhone App, I can quickly load and view the majority of documents while away from a computer. Other than slow sync times due to my occasionally slow internet connection, I couldn’t find a single flaw in the service. If you constantly move data between two or more machines, give this a shot!

Links: GetDropbox.com
Video: What is Dropbox?

Note: This article was co-written and edited by Sahas Katta.

As the name suggests, this product is the portable version of Kensington’s larger Battery Pack and Charger for iPhone and iPod. While the larger version offer a more powerful battery, the unit is almost the size of an iPhone and requires a cable to connect to your device, which is a bit messy. On the other hand, the Mini Battery Back is only about one third the size of its counter part and plugs directly into your devices dock connector. It clings on well enough that you can continue to use your device while it’s getting charged. The unit is roughly the width and thickness of an iPhone but is only two inches tall, small enough to slip away into your pocket or purse. An included plastic cap prevents dust from building up on the dock contacts and also doubles as stand. It is supposedly suppose to be able to hold your device upright to watch a movie, but it’s quite flimsy and I wouldn’t count on it. Irrespective of that small quirk, it doesn’t deter from the quality of the rest of the product. Kensington also includes a USB cable, which winds up itself, for charging the battery pack.

Kensington uses a lithium-ion polymer battery cell in their device. The Mini Battery Pack is compatible with any iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPod with a dock connector. (Except for 3rd generation iPod.) If you are on the go and your device runs out of fuel, the Mini Battery Pack extends run-time for another 30 hours of music, 6 hours of video, or 3 hours of talk time for iPhones. I tested the battery pack by charging my 2nd generation 32GB iPod Touch starting with fully drained batteries. It was able to bring my dead unit back to a full charge with more power left to spare. Plus it impressively took just about the same time it would have taken to charge my device with my computer. An LED indicator displays how much power is left in the Battery Pack. You can charge both the Mini Battery Pack and your iPhone/iPod Touch at the same time using the included USB Cable.

There’s one major downside for iPod Touch owners, the location of the headphone jack. Since both the headphone jack and dock connector are on the bottom, you won’t be able to plug your headphones in while charging the device. iPhone users on the other hand are safe from this flaw since the headphone jack is on the top. Either way, that won’t stop you from playing games, browsing the web, or using the tons of available applications while recharging.

The Kensington Mini Battery Pack is convenient and compact product, which is great for those who are heavy iPhone or iPod Touch users. It’s also great for road trips or planes when there’s no access to a computer with a USB port for charging. iPhone users will love this as it almost doubles the battery life of their device for tasks such as movie playback. Overall, if you are someone who uses your iPhone enough that it keeps running out of power before the day ends or just travels a lot, this is an excellent solution. It’s available for an affordable price of $32.99 on Amazon.

Buy: Kensington Mini Battery Pack for $32
Links: Kensington.com Mini Battery Pack

The Body – 4/5 stars
The BackBeat 903 headphones weigh 34 grams and rest behind the ear when worn. An 8 inch cable connects the two pieces together behind the neck. The ear pieces are slightly adjustable, allowing extending vertically and sniveling horizontally. There are a call and a play buttons on the left and right ear bud, respectively. A volume switch, which also controls track navigation, is under the right ear piece. The power button and standard micro-USB charging port are on the left ear piece.

Comfort – 4/5 stars
The headphones fit and felt a lot better than both the Kensington Wireless Headphones and the Motorola S9. They still don’t come anywhere close to the comfort a traditional pair of ear buds or over-the-ear headphones offer. These tended to slide off quickly with too much physical movement. Even with adjustments, these just wouldn’t work for me if I were to go for a jog, but would work just fine in an office room situation. To give these a second chance, I asked a couple of friends to give them a try. Just about all of them had no complains about the fit and were overwhelmed by the truly wireless headphone technology. In fact, they wanted to buy a pair too.

Headset Functionality – 4/5 stars
Altec Lansing implemented the ability to use these as a Bluetooth Headset as well as streaming music. The built in microphone sounded crystal clear to those on the other end of the phone. I actually found it to sound better than the expensive Andrea BT200 headset that we previously reviewed. The call button ends calls during an active conversation; answers call waiting and can start voice commands. The one feature the BackBeat lacks, that I would have truly appreciated, would be dual pairing. Things would have been a lot more convenient if it allowed me to stay paired to both my phone to answer calls and to my laptop for music. I’ll currently have to re-pair each time I switch between the devices.

Compatibility – 4/5 stars
If you’ve got the fairly new Laptop or Smart Phone sporting Bluetooth 2.1 with stereo profile support, these will probably function just fine. I tested mine with the Dell XPS M1530 Laptop running Windows 7, which paired easily and sounded fairly good. There were occasionally jitters, which wasn’t a big deal. I also attempted to pair it with my Apple iMac, it ended up partially bricking the BackBeat. I had to hold down the power and plug in the charger to reset it. I further went on to test it with the Apple iPhone 3GS, which paired quickly and sounded a whole lot better than music did through my laptop. (It was most likely due to the poor quality of the Bluetooth Module in the XPS.) Even with the latest iPhone 3.1 OS, the previous/next track function doesn’t work due to the lack of the remote control profile support on the device. Hopefully Apple will do something about that soon; it can at least pause and play for now. The remote control function did work with the LG enV Touch and the Samsung Rouge. The bottom line is Altec-Lansing’s technology works; however your device might not support the standard. Before picking these up, read up as to whether your device is compatible with the BackBeat. Altec-Lansing also sells a simple headphone jack to Bluetooth adapter, if you wish to use this with a device that isn’t’ compatible.

Sound Quality – 5/5
Before anyone goes crazy over the rating for this, read this entire paragraph first. As I stated in the intro, these are a step closer to the future, but not yet there. That’s mainly because the sound quality is great, but only great compared to the few Bluetooth Stereo Headphones on the market. These won’t compare with the sound quality offered by Sennheiser, Shure, Ultimate Ears, or V-Moda for the same price. But don’t let that stop you from purchasing these. The average person will probably listen to music from ripped CDs encoded in MP3 or from an online music store such as iTunes or Amazon MP3. With that kept in mind, most will probably not be able to differentiate the quality between a decent pair of headphones and these, especially when fascinated by the freedom offered by the wireless aspect. So yes, for the Bluetooth Headphones I’ve come across so far, these probably one of the best.

Battery Life and Wireless Range – 5/5 stars
I tested these after a full charge. Instead of one unlikely straight drain, I decided to test real life performance. I used it for 30 minutes at a time and turned them off while not in use. I used iTunes to track the songs I had played on my iPhone. When the headphones started beeping to let me know it was at its last throws, I had played back about 5 hours of songs on my phone over the course of two weeks. If you throw in the hour or so of phone calls I may have answered with these, it’s pretty decent. They weren’t too short ranged either. If there are no obstructions such as walls, music kept playing from my iPhone from at least 75 feet or so. In the average household, it can probably make it through a wall or two before quality degrades heavily.

Included Items and Packaging – 4/5 stars
The packaging is minimal and clean. Getting the headphones out was quick. There’s literally nothing included in the box other than the AC Adapter, Bluetooth Headset, and a manual. Which is great due to simplicity. I do wish that Altec Lansing would have thrown in a USB to microUSB cable to allow charging the BackBeat 903 with laptops and USB chargers when a power outlet isn’t available.

Conclusion
The BackBeat 903 headphones are a unique piece of gadgetry that just about any individual will notice. It truly does stand out. They offer the freedom to easily move away from your desktop or laptop. The technology works, it’s easy to setup, and use. The battery lasts for well over an average day’s use. Plus you can use them to answer calls conveniently. The only drawback would be the audio quality, which still lacks compared to traditional headphones. I enjoyed using these and would definitely recommend these. It’s available now for a fairly reasonable price of $55 through retailers such as Amazon.com.

Buy: BackBeat 903 for $55
Links: AltecLansing.com BackBeat 903

iPod Shuffle
The smallest of Apple’s lineup, the iPod Shuffle received a price reduction, some new colors, and an increase in capacity. Pricing starts at just $59 for the 2GB model and $79 for the 4GB model. Both those capacities will be available in silver, black, pink, blue and green. Apple also threw in an extra feature, VoiceOvers. This feature lets the iPod shuffle speak song titles, artists, and playlist names.

iPod Nano
Apple took an interesting step with their next upgrade. They decided to squeeze in a Camera and Microphone into the popular iPod Nano. The new built-in speakers will allow listening to clips that you have recorded. And with the latest version of iTunes, recordings can be easily uploaded to YouTube. Also thrown in was a built-in FM radio, which many competing products such as the Microsoft Zune have had. The radio can also identify and tag songs for future purchase in iTunes.  The Nike workout accessory is no longer needed since the device has a built-in pedometer. Data can be uploaded to Nike when synced as always. Pricing is now set at $149 for 8GB and $179 for 16GB. Both versions will be available in nine colors: silver, black, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, (PRODUCT) RED and pink.

iPod Touch
Apple’s focus at the media event would probably be the iPod Touch. It’s the most powerful of the iPod line up and only a notch below what the iPhone offers. The biggest news would be the extreme price cut. The 8GB now costs just $199. This gives a larger audience much more affordable access to the iTunes Application store. For those who were seeking more storage space, a 32GB model is available for $299 and a 64GB model for $399. Apple also increased the graphical performance making room for better games. Over 20,000 games are already available in the App Store. The one missing feature would probably be the Camera. The iPod Touch will ship with the 3.1 OS.

iTunes 9
The other update of the day was a major upgrade to iTunes. It features an upgraded and redesigned interface, a new iTunes Store, and improved syncing. Home Sharing, also included in the new version, allows easily transferring music, photos, and videos among a maximum of 5 authorized machines. iPhone and iPod Touch users can organize their downloaded Apps from the iTunes interface. There are plenty more minor enhancements, such as Jump Lists for Windows 7, but we won’t go into details. The new version of QuickTime, isn’t included for anyone other than Snow Leopard users.

Final Notes:
The new iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch are all available for purchase in retail stores today. The latest version of iTunes 9 is also available for download on Macintosh and Windows now.

Links: Apple.com | Apple Store
Buy: Amazon.com – New iPods

Installation: Difficult
If you thought getting the flim onto the device was simple, you’re wrong. Installing the invisibleSHIELD onto the iPhone 3GS will take at least 20-30 minutes of your time. Plus I should mention that it’s recommended to let the film settle and dry overnight once applied. This means the phone should be untouched and remain turned off. The invisibleSHIELD is actually a “wet installation”. First step would be to clean off any dirt or fingerprints on the iPhone. Second spraying your fingertips and a piece of the film with the included liquid solution. Then align and place the clear film onto the iPhone. It’s best to work quickly, but can be removed to be readjusted in the first few minutes. The final step would be to use the squeegee to push out any air bubbles caught in between the film and the iPhone’s body. This may not seem like much, but it definitely takes a while. The most interesting part is how horrible it looks immediately after application. There’s usually a ton of micro bubbles and smears. However if you let it settle for the mentioned duration, those work themselves out and turn out looking excellent. Of the included pieces, the film for the the display was the easiest to install. The rear was the most difficult since it has to deal with curvature of the iPhone. Despite that being said, installing one of these isn’t rocket science. If you have the patience and time, it’s well worth the effort.

Protection: Excellent
The ZAGG invisibleSHIELD for the iPhone 3GS (also compatible with the 3G) offers excellent coverage. The entire front portion of the iPhone is covered with only a slit to allow sound to travel through the ear piece. An optional piece is provided to cover the home button. The rear piece of film covers the entire back side leaving openings only for the camera, volume rocker and the silent switch. Other areas left un-covered would be the dock connector, speakers, power button, and headphone jack. The film even wraps around the corners to offer as much protection as possible. Small strips are also provided to cover the bezel on the top and bottom. Once installed and allowed to dry, there’s no way that this invisibleSHIELD will peel off on its own. If you were to attempt to remove it, a decent amount of force would be required. This assures us that the Shield will stay on and defend against nasty scratches.

Usability & Compatibility: Good
Just about every aspect of the iPhone 3GS is just as functional with the invisibleSHIELD applied as without anything. It is thin enough to fit into some iPhone/iPod docks and works with most accessories. Most cases fit on just fine. I did encounter some difficulties getting some exact-fit hard cases on. For instance, the protector added just enough thickness that it didn’t allow the Proporta Crystal Case to snap together. But despite that one issue, the majority of things I attempted to use it with including the OtterBox Impact Case for the iPhone 3G, worked just perfectly.

Feel & Look: Excellent
When held or placed in a pocket, it’s hard to even tell if there’s even something on the device. For example, an observer or onlooker would actually have to inspect the device for a few seconds to realize that there’s actually a thin layer over the body of the iPhone 3GS. The only small quirk I had was the slight texture created by the film. Despite that, it goes almost unnoticed when the display is in use. The ZAGG invisible shield also feels fairly good on the finger. Since the iPhone is a touch screen device, that is a fairly important factor. In the beginning it was a bit “sticky,” but after a little bit of use, it became almost as smooth as the display itself. Almost all sensitivity is retained, so there’s not much to worry about there. Even if a slight amount is lost, it’s a well worth trade off in exchange for protecting your display from the dangers of keys, coins, pens or whatever else might be in your purse or pocket.

Warranty & Replacement Policy: Excellent
Zagg offers one of the best warranty and replacement policies I’ve come across. If for any reason you aren’t satisfied in the first 30 days, you can get all your money back. If you have been using the invisibleSHIELD and it gets scratched, torn, or damaged, they will offer a free replacement. The only catch would be that Zagg requests that you mail then back the damaged screen protector. They inspect them for possible defects to help improve their product. With that being said, I decided to actually tested the warranty service. I purchased another Zagg invisibleSHIELD for another gadget. (Not the one shown in this review which was provided by Zagg.) It actually ended up being a bit defective since a part of it was already scratched right when it came out of the packaging. I called a few day after I installed it too see what they would have to offer. They immediately offered to send out a replacement at no cost. I just had to mail them back the old pieces within 25 days. They suggested I stick to a blank sheet of paper, fold it up, and send it off in standard letter envelope. And that was it!

Conclusion:
I have personally been a huge fan of screen protectors. Zagg’s invisibleSHIELD takes things to the next step by also offering coverage for not just the display, but also the rest of the device. The shield keeps the iPhone 3GS compact, looking stylish, and defends against even the deepest of scratches. Keep in mind, this will help prevent wear and tear, but isn’t a complete alternative for cases. One drop with or without a Zagg invisibleSHIELD will probably yield the same result: a dead iPhone. A simple $20 accessory such as the Proporta Crystal Case, OtterBox Impact Case, or Griffin Wave will go a long way to protect physical damage. Of course, if you have the cash to spend, the best solution would be a combination of both. If you want to grab an indivisibleSHIELD for your iPhone 3G or 3GS, it’s available for $25 for the full protection kit seen in this review. If you wish you can purchase either just the rear or front protection separately for $19 or $15 respectively. Zagg also has a large selection of invisible shields for many other devices including phones, media players, cameras, laptops, and lot more.

Link: Zagg invisibleSHIELD iPhone 3GS
Discount Code: 2pdjw9f (15% Discount on Entire Purchase)
Buy: Full Protection for iPhone 3GS – $18

Phil Schiller, the SVP of Marketing at Apple, filled in for Jobs. He began by presenting a lot of new software applications that would soon become available to Mac users: iLife ‘09 and iWork ‘09.

Let’s start with the applications included in iLife ‘09. The new version of iPhone features Facial Recognition, which will automatically scan through your entire library and tag people in each image once you assign a name to a face. Users will then have the ability to browse through their photos by “Faces” to find every instance that a person appears throughout your entire photo gallery. iPhoto will now also support Geo-tagging, which will take coordinates from GPS enabled imaging devices such as the  iPhone (or Blackberry Storm) and assigns locations to where they were taken. A built-in interactive mapping tool, based on Google Maps, will allow browsing through your photos by locating them as pinpoints on a map. Finally users will also have instant way of uploading images directly to Facebook or Flickr. Tagged faces will be tagged on Facebook while Geo-tagged images will be noted on Flickr. iMovie ‘09 and GarageBand ‘09 also received upgrades which add new functionality. iLife ‘09 will be included on all new Macs, but if you have an older machine it will become available for $79 this month.

Next up was iWork ‘09. Keynote ‘09 now offers the ability to create advance transition effects with simple commands.  The program will be able to support displaying 3D graphs and charts. A new iPhone and iPod Touch application will also become available for 99 cents, turning your portable device into a remote control. Unlike a standard clicker, the application will display presenter notes and slides, which many speakers may soon adore. Pages ’09 and Numbers ‘09 also received upgrades. Apple also announced iWork.com, which allows users to easily upload and share their documents online with others. iWork ‘09 is now available for $79 in retail stores; however it will only run you $49 if you buy it at the time you purchase a new Mac.

Last but not least was the new 17-inch MacBook Pro. When Apple released the new 13-inch MacBook and the 15-inch MacBook Pro late last year, the 17-inch model was left in the dark with the old body. Today Apple refreshed the design giving the 17-inch MacBook Pro the new single piece aluminum body that its smaller siblings share. Most notable about this monstrous machine might be the fact that Apple claims a whopping eight hour battery life. And the unit isn’t too bulky either. It retains .98-inches thick body throughout and weighs about 6.6 pounds making it both the thinnest and lightest 17-inch notebook on the market. The unit is loaded with a LED-backlit 1920×1080 resolution display, now offered in glossy and matte. Also has the newly introduced large glass Multi-Touch trackpad, which clicks. It can be configured with Intel latest Core 2 Duo processor running at 2.93 GHz, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and either a 320GB 7200RPM HDD or a 256GB SSD. And just like the 15-inch MacBook Pro, it comes with both the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and 9600GT for either saving battery life or for high performance, respectively. It all sounds great, but I personally don’t know too many people who are willing to spend $2,799, which is the starting price. But if you happen to be interested, units will begin to ship at the end of this month. Apple has already begun taking pre-orders.

Finally Schiller announced the new variable pricing scheme on iTunes. Previously all songs were priced at 99-cents; with the new scheme, songs will be available for download for as low as 67-cents, the standard 99-cent price, or for as high as $1.29 cents. Although Schiller claims more songs will become available at the lower price than the higher, time will show whether this will be beneficial to everyone. And as a bonus, Apple will begin to turn 8 million of its 10 million songs DRM Free, by the end of March. Those who wish to upgrade to the DRM Free tracks will have the ability to do so by paying 30 cents per song or 30% of the album price. I’m personally glad to see this day finally coming!

Overall, the entire Keynote seemed to be bummer. Other than the software, there’s wasn’t much that would excite the average Apple Fan or consumer. Unless you’ll planning on buying a notebook for nearly three grand, of course. Either way, CES in Las Vegas gets kicked off tomorrow with Press Day. Skatter Tech will be on the ground with coverage, so stick around!

Links: Apple.com | iLife 09 | iWork 09 | MacBook Pro 17-inch

LG VX8560 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (CDMA 800MHz / 1.9 GHz)
• Form Factor: Flip phone with external display
• Display: 2.2 inch, 320×240 pixels, & 260k colors
• Media: MP3, WMA, & Unprotected AAC(+)
• Imaging: 2.0 mega pixel camera & camcorder
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, GPS, & microUSB
• Others: microSD, FM Transmitter, & 3.5mm headphone
• Size / Weight: 3.87″ H x 1.94″ W x 0.64″ D (inches) / 3.4 oz
• Battery Life: 4.5 hours talk time & 350 hours standby
• Price: $100 with a new 2 year agreement

The Body – 4/5 stars
The Chocolate 3 is fairly compact and can fit into most pockets. It is a bit too long when flipped open and will reach past most people’s ears and mouth in both directions. This is the first officially branded Chocolate phone which isn’t a slider, but rather a flip phone. It retains some elements from its ancestors such as the click wheel on the front, unfortunately it isn’t touch sensitive. The front side of the phone also features an unusually large 1.76 inch display which has a beautiful rotating interface. The camera is also on the front and allows taking self portraits using the external screen. The microSD card reader, the Music key, and lock button can be found on the right side of the phone. The left side contains the 3.5mm headphone jack, the volume toggle, voice command key, and the microUSB port. The inside of the phone is quiet basic; it has a standard numeric keypad, four way navigation, two soft keys, and the Send/END buttons. The only real downside I encountered was finger print magnet nature of the shinny metallic finish on the front side. Other than that body of the phone is well built and should last.

The Display – 3/5 stars
The 1.76 inch external display with a 176 x 220 pixel resolution looks excellent, but unfortunately only in doors. Due to the glossy finish, it is quite difficult to view outdoors or when covered with fingerprints. The 2.2 inch internal display is fortunately much better and looks quite sharp with its 320 x 240 pixel resolution. There’s nothing too impressive here, but is just fine for most simple tasks.

The Interface – 4/5 stars
Verizon once again has used their standard interface on this phone, but it’s got a couple of special themes as most phones do today. Browsing through the menu system was smooth and clean. Navigation was consistent and easy to follow. The external display has a couple of functions: music player, photo gallery, the camera, calendar, and messages. This secondary interface was actually quite polished for once. It easy to use and performed as expected. It was quite easy to take self portraits and listen to music. But regarding the internal interface, there’s not much that has changed in the past couple of years, so hopefully we’ll see something more revolutionary in the near future. All you get with this phone is the standard icon menu which opens up into the classic tabbed interface.

Messaging & Contacts – 4/5 stars
The Chocolate 3 is a fairly decent phone for messaging. Although it has just a numeric keypad, the software allows text, picture, and video messaging. The standard Verizon Wireless Mobile IM client for AOL, MSN, and Yahoo is also available. Email can be accessed through either the WAP browser or the Mobile Email client. The phone supports 1000 contacts with plenty of extra fields for extra numbers. The Chocolate also has the standard call history views for displaying missed, incoming, and outgoing calls.

Music Playback – 4/5 stars
Since the VX-8560 is a music phone, you would expect it to do quite an excellent job at playing music. Although this might be the best Chocolate 3, there has not much improvement that has been made in this area over the past couple of years. To start listening to music, you can just hit the Music key on the side, which will quickly launch the player. As always you can browse your library in different by Albums, Artists, Genres, Songs, or Playlists. There were also some preset equalizers which may help some music sound better. The Chocolate 3 supports pushing the music app into the background allowing performing other tasks. The music is also automatically paused and resumed when a call is received. The player flows between the external and internal display smoothly. So if you start playing a song with the phone open, the interface will move over to the external display when closed. Overall it is a fairly decent player for a phone, but once again there was room for a lot of improvement.

FM Transmitter – 5/5 stars
Lots of people still don’t have an auxiliary port or an iPod connectors built into their vehicles. Most of those people use a FM transmitters to listen to music from their portable device on their stereo. The Chocolate 3 doesn’t need any extra accessories to broadcast music on a station since it’s got that component built right in. All you’ll have to do is find an open frequency, set it on the phone, tune into that channel. The quality was pretty good during most test runs. It is obviously not comparable to Satellite Radio, CDs, or a wired media player; however this is probably the next best thing for many. The only downside might be that battery life takes a steep hit when using this feature. LG claims 24 hours of transmitting FM if the phone is placed into the “music only” mode.

Syncing Music & microSD – 4/5 stars
The LG Chocolate 3 supports up to 8GB microSD cards, which is great for those planning to use it as their music playback device. 8GB cards have also come down in price and can be purchased for as low as $30 through some major online retailers. When you connect your phone to your machine using the included microUSB to USB cable, you can enter the data or sync music mode. The data mode will turn the microSD card into a mass storage device so you can add or remove content directly onto it. The sync music mode will allow syncing media with Windows Media Player 11. Unfortunately Vista users will have no choice but to install the horrid V Cast Music Manager to get the phone working with WMP11. If files are placed directly into the music folder, the phone will manually re-index them the next time the music player is started. So to put all of that together, the phone can be synced as a media player device, a mass storage device, or by using a microSD card reader.

Speakers + Headphones – 4/5 stars
The 3.5mm standard headphone jack is the main feature that gives the Chocolate 3 the ability to call itself a music phone. Users of this phone can now plug-in their own headphones without the need of any additional adapters or a special headset. The playback quality is decent. Audiophiles won’t even consider it; however the majority of people probably won’t be able to tell the difference between the Chocolate and an iPod for instance. The speaker is quite loud and is fairly clear; however I probably would never use them for listening to music. As for the speakerphone functionality, it works just great.

The Camera – 2.5/5 stars
This phone wasn’t really made for taking pictures, but nonetheless it has a simple camera for snapping photos occasionally. It’s got some basic features such as changing brightness, resolution, digital zoom, and some color effects. Nothing is too interesting. The LCD screen which is the view finder will only display a small portion of a picture that is being taken, which is often annoying. The image quality was mediocre; my two year old LG enV was on par if not better than this phone’s camera. The only neat feature might be the ability to take self portraits using the large external display since the camera is already facing you. The phone can also record videos, but those are also not too pretty. One improvement was the gallery which offers many more options on ways to handle the images you have taken. Overall imaging is an extra feature; the music playback is the main focus of this phone.

Extras – 4.5/5 stars
A small feature which I loved was the power supply that was included with the phone. Instead of providing an addition data cable, the power supply is actually a USB cable in disguise. The cable can be unplugged from the head and can be plugged into a USB port to charge or sync data. As for software extras, the phone’s got the standard extra goodies such as Get It Now, WAP Browser, Bluetooth tools, Clocks, Calendar, Calculator, Tip Calculator, Alarm Clock, Notepad, Voice Commands and more.

Conclusion
This phone is a major improvement over the previous two Chocolate phones; however it now has a new form factor which may not be appealing to the owners of the previous models. This is an excellent mid-range phone and will not disappoint. Those who are looking for a high tech phone probably won’t find this too satisfactory. As mentioned before this is a perfect fit for those who are also looking for a phone that can playback music while on the go. The phone is available in stores and online for around $100 with a new two year contract. If you are eligible for upgrade you should be able to knock off $50!

Buy Now: LG Chocolate 3 for $69 (special via Amazon)
Links: Verizon Wireless

High Sierra’s grid is a light-weight sporty backpack that does not disappoint. It has a range of bright, yet not gaudy, color mixes and is very nicely styled for the active day-adventurer. Loaded with functional pockets, the High Sierra Grid makes separating your goods easy and convenient. This pack excels when you need something mobile and comfortable on the fly.

The High Sierra Grid is constructed of 600D “Duralite” material. This is a type of polyester that is incredibly light. While the Duralite construction isn’t as strong as some of the other ballistic nylon and cordura materials used in the other packs, the significant weight savings of Duralite are certainly appreciated. The Grid uses a “waffle-weave” construction which while not necessarily adding more strength, is more aesthetically pleasing and stands out as something different from the other packs. The back of the Grid uses very soft padding covered in vapel mesh. This padding has plenty of play and and is quite comfortable. The same padding can be found generously on the S curve shoulder straps. One interesting thing about the rear padding configuration is the large gaps it leaves around the sides of your back while wearing the pack. This allows for generous amounts of airflow and ventilation. On the inside, the Grid disappoints. A much thinner and weaker material is used. Looking at the stitching in some areas just screams, “cheap!” Looking at the laptop compartment elastic top keeper we see how it’s only held on by a weak cross stitch which isn’t very re-assuring. Where the stitching is most disappointing is the front pocket. The accordian like wings that fold out to hold your items are very poorly stitched and appear as if they’ll rip from the slightest persuasion. Nowhere on this pack are there any signs of double-stitching. While it seems the outside of the pack is sturdy enough with the standard stitching, the extra added peace of mind from double stitching would be nice to see. One thing that is appreciated is the internal frame sheet located in the back adding rigidity and protection for your laptop.

The High Sierra Grid also follows a conventional pouch layout. Located closest to the user is the laptop compartment. This pocket might seem like the main pocket, but is really just meant to hold your laptop and a small spiral notebook or two. Keeping along with the “any laptop compartment can double as a hydration bladder compartment” ideal, this separation of the main pocket and laptop compartment is a great idea as should some water escape from the bladder, it won’t soak your contents in the main pocket. Moving out, we see the main compartment. While not huge, this main compartment is sized normally to carry an everyday load. It’s interesting to see the lower front pocket expand into the bottom of the main compartment though as that could either limit how much you put into the main compartment, or would severely limit the space of the lower front pouch. A small accessory pocket is located up top next. This is a very convenient pouch and is greatly appreciated. The following pouch is the front organizer. High Sierra left a good amount of room here for your writing utensils and gadgets. Unfortunately the key hanger seems very cheaply made and doesn’t seem as if it will last long. The most interesting pouch is the front lower pouch. It has a good amount of room once expanded and seems like the ideal place to stash your lunch or piece of clothing. Unfortunately it intrudes on the main compartment’s inner space and is thus severely hindered. One main difference between the High Sierra Grid and the other packs was the inclusion of the carry handle on the shoulder straps. This method has a sleeker look, but led to a few bugs later. Located on the shoulder straps are a mesh elastic pouch for your keys or cell phone and a zippered mp3 player pouch. The mp3 pouch isn’t very large and the thought of cramming an ipod touch in there is a long shot. It does however work well for flatter cell phones and I ended up swapping spots (cell phone in mp3 pouch, mp3 player in cell phone pouch) frequently. Overall I’d say the Grid contains a very functional and convenient design for everyday use.

The generous amounts of padding make the High Sierra Grid a pleasure to don. The S-shoulder straps provided a very comfortable experience and distributed the weight well. I found it interesting how the majority of the padding on the back was located right down the center of the pack, where your spine is. While this may sound like a bad idea loading up all of the weight on your spine, High Sierra’s implementation of it proved comfortable. With heavier loads the Grid performed well. You knew the weight was there, but it never irritated any one pressure point. Going back a little I mentioned the awkward carrying handle. While walking the handle wasn’t a terrible annoyance. While riding a bicycle however, the handle became very intrusive. If you like to wear your backpacks loosely and let them hang down the carry handle shouldn’t be a problem, but if you’re looking for a proper fit and weight distribution like the pack was designed for the carry handle will be an obstacle. Aside from this single bug, the High Sierra Grid gets high marks for comfort.

Pros:

• Internal frame sheet
• Very cushy padding
• Accessory compartments on shoulder straps
• LOTS of pockets
• Well padded laptop compartment
• Laptop top keeper
• Back Ventilation
• Beefier carry handle
• Strap keepers
• Lifetime warranty
• Zipper Pulls
• Great with full loads

Cons:

• 600D Duralite
• Weak stitches
• Intrusive carry handle
• Weak internal construction
• Useless waist straps
• Weak laptop top keeper
• Doesn’t stand on its own
• Weak/small and non-YKK zippers
• 17″ laptop non-compatible

Price: $70
Buy Now: High Sierra Grid for $51 (no tax + ships free)
Links: HSSC.com (Product Page)

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