Archive for May, 2011

iHome iDM12 Rechargeable Portable Bluetooth Speaker System

Posted in iHome by Conner Flynn on May 9th, 2011

The iHome iDM12 is a portable wireless speaker system designed for your iPad, iPhone, and iPod. Basically a small soundbar that provides two active speaker drivers and one passive radiator to produce excellent sound quality.

It’s pretty handy for your Apple gadgets since it also features a removable iPad stand and a built-in Lithium-ion rechargeable battery. The iHome iDM12 comes with a protective magnetic casing that easily detaches to use as a stand for either portrait or landscape orientations. Pretty handy speaker system.

Smart Hydro “Intelligent” Bath Tub

Posted in Home by Conner Flynn on May 9th, 2011

The Smart Hydro looks like an ordinary bathtub, but it has two transparent walls made from a highly-resistant glass, some aluminum handrails, and a very advanced control system. This means that you can set the exact temperature of the water, and it will alert you when the temperature has been reached. Your tub can’t do that.

There’s also a Keep Warm function that will keep the water temperature at a constant level. Other features include a self-cleaning system and even several connectivity options. You can activate its functions from your smartphone and monitor the water’s temperature in real time if you are on your way home and want a bath ready. No word on pricing yet.

Casio ProTrek PRW5000Y-1 Watch

Posted in Casio by Conner Flynn on May 9th, 2011

Here’s another sporty looking watch from casio. It doesn’t look half bad with the blue and black combo. This is Casio America’s new ProTrek PRW5000Y-1 watch. Okay, it looks pretty sweet, but what else does it do?

The watch features solar charging, an atomic time sync, a compass and altitude/barometric pressure differential pointer. Adventurers can now have a watch that is stylish. The Casio ProTrek PRW5000Y-1 watch will be released this month for $480.

Samsung unveils 75-inch D9500 3D LCD HDTV

Posted in Samsung by Conner Flynn on May 9th, 2011

Samsung has now gone one better than LG’s 72-inch LZ9700, which was previously the world’s largest LED-backlit 3D LCD HDTV, but it is now beaten by the Samsung 75-inch D9500. Aside from being huge, the TV also has some nice features too, like a QWERTY integrated remote so you can use this 240Hz display for browsing the internet.

Samsung is using active shutter 3D technology with this one too, with a price of ₩19,000,000 ($17,600). Nice if you can afford it.

PSN To Be Fully Online By May 31

Posted in PS3 by Conner Flynn on May 9th, 2011

Sony has now come out and declared that the PlayStation Network will be fully operational by May 31. Talking to financial website Bloomberg, Sony spokesman Shigenori Yoshida said that the company is uncertain as to when individual services will be restored for the PlayStation 3 and PSP.

The plan is for all services to be fully restored by May 31. This is nearly six weeks after the network was taken down, for those keeping score at home. Sony had originally planned to start relaunching individual network services last weekend. One thing is for sure, it will be nice to play our online games again.

Fujitsu’s Stylistic Q550 business tablet available for US pre-orders

Posted in Fujitsu by Conner Flynn on May 9th, 2011

Whether this tablet is stylistic or not is debatable, but one thing is for sure, most tablets don’t have Smart Card readers, fingerprint scanners and TPM modules, but the Fujitsu Q550 has one of each. That’s a bonus for sure.

The Oak Trail-powered Windows 7 tablet sporting it’s 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 IPS screen is now ready for US pre-orders. The base model is $729 with a 30GB solid state drive and a two-cell rechargeable battery. For $849 you get 62GB of storage and a four cell swappable Lithium-ion battery. Both have front and rear cameras, HDMI out, a bootable USB 2.0 port, a full-size SD slot and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi.

HTC Facebook phones, ChaCha and Salsa, available for Amazon pre-order

Posted in HTC by Reuben Drake on May 9th, 2011

So you’ve been waiting for a phone with a dedicated Facebook button. Drooling in fact. Well, Amazon UK is ready to take pre-orders for the Salsa and ChaCha handsets with a June 26th delivery. The ChaCha boasts a portrait QWERTY keyboard and a 2.6-inch touchscreen.

The Salsa packs in a 3.4 inches does without the keys. Both also have 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processors and 512MB of RAM, and Android with the Sense overlay. It is £250 ($409) for the ChaCha and £320 ($524) for the Salsa.

Hyperkin 3DS Powerplus extends your 3DS battery

Posted in Nintendo 3DS by Reuben Drake on May 9th, 2011

The Nintendo 3DS has a very limited battery life, but with Hyperkin’s new 3DS Powerplus, you can extend that life. The 2.2-ounce accessory slips on to the back of your console, allowing access to the cartridge port, SD card and game controls, while adding an extra 1800mAh to the device’s standard 1300mAh battery. It will be available this summer.

The Powerplus also has an enhanced grip and an LED indicator that can tell you how much battery life you have left. The $19.99 device will more than double your 3DS’ battery life, according to the company.

Samsung Galaxy S II hits 3 million pre-orders

Posted in Samsung by Conner Flynn on May 8th, 2011

Samsung is celebrating tonight as they have announced that they have reached up to three million pre-orders worldwide for its dual-core Android phone by the end of April, when it went on sale in Korea. Orders were expected to only go up like this as the phone reached global scale and peaked at 120 countries.

I’d call that a success. In Samsung’s home country, it sold 120,000 of the phones in the first few days. The company had initially predicted 10 million Galaxy S IIs shipping for the entire year. These numbers will level off, but they help Samsung threaten competitors like Apple.

Nexus S 4G on sale today

Posted in Mobile Phones by Conner Flynn on May 8th, 2011

Sprint’s Nexus S 4G has one major difference from the original and that’s the fact that it has a WiMAX radio. It also has Android Gingerbread and goes on sale today, right on schedule. To refresh your memory, this smartphone features a 4-inch curved Super AMOLED screen, a 1GHz Hummingbird chip and NFC capabilities, along with the promise of Google Talk video chat.

Sound good? Well, it will cost you $200 on-contract from Sprint, or $50 less if you’re a brand-new customer and get it from Best Buy.

Dell XPS 15z Ultra-thin Laptop Spotted in the Wild

Posted in Dell by Conner Flynn on May 8th, 2011

A successor to the Dell Adamo ultra-thin laptop has been in the works and it is almost time for its retail debut. The first pictures of the device, supposedly called XPS 15z, have now shown up online. They first appeared on Mobile Review on Thursday.

The images show off the 15.6-inch Dell XPS 15z’s island-style keyboard flanked by speakers, two USB ports, a FireWire port and an HDMI output. All we know about the insides is that it will be powered by second-generation Core i5 and i7 processors. Sources say that it will be under $1000.

Star Wars Cookie Cutter Set

Posted in Star Wars by Conner Flynn on May 8th, 2011

We all love cookies and some of us also love Star Wars. So if you are looking for a way to geek up your cookies fresh from the oven, then check out these Star Wars cookie cutters. Now you can take a bite out of any character who annoys you or soak up some force energy from any of the good guys.

The set comes with eight cutters featuring different characters from the movies. Each one is spring-loaded, so that your cookies turn out good. Just press on the button at the back to push the dough out of the cutter.

Amazon UK prices upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad X1 at $2,120

Posted in Lenovo by Conner Flynn on May 8th, 2011

Amazon UK has listed the upcoming 13-inch Lenovo Thinkpad X1 at the equivalent of $2,120. This Macbook Air competitor is set to arrive in the UK on May 20. It may be priced higher than an equivalent Macbook Air, but it packs in a current generation 2.5GHz Core i5-2520M and includes 4GB of Ram and 320GB of hard disk space.

As for thinness, the notebook is just 0.85-inches thin at it’s thinnest point and you can have the hard drive swapped for a 160GB SSD if you want, and it can accept an 8GB of ram in a single slot. There’s also a USB 3.0 port, an eSATA port and an SDXC slot. Battery life is 8 hours. Other features include a Gorilla Glass scratch resistant screen and a backlit keyboard.

Creative ZiiSound Dx Wireless Modular Speakers

Posted in Creative by Conner Flynn on May 8th, 2011

Creative is on a roll. Now the company has announced the availability of the ZiiSound Dx series of pure wireless modular speakers. The ZiiSound Dx series includes the ZiiSound D3x wireless modular speaker, ZiiSound D3x wireless one-piece speaker and ZiiSound DSx wireless subwoofer.

These speakers are sure to sound great and they connect independently to stereo Bluetooth devices like your iPhone, Blackberry, Android smartphone, iPad or Creative ZiiO tablet. The ZiiSound Dx series also uses apt-X audio technology for superior sound.

Creative unveils ZEN M300 portable media player

Posted in Creative by Conner Flynn on May 8th, 2011

It’s been a while since Creative unveiled a new PMP. And now Creative has announced the new ZEN M300 portable music player. The device features a micro-SD slot and FM radio with Bluetooth support.

The M300 looks pretty stylish and is available in red, black, yellow and white. It comes in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities, with a 1.45″ screen and it measures 55 x 44 x 12 mm with feather touch buttons. Looks like a great way to carry your music with you.