Back in September of 2008 we talked about the Microsoft SideWinder X8 gaming mouse. The gaming rodent was delayed and didn’t show up on store shelves until recently. Today I am going to take a hands on look at the SideWinder X8 gaming mouse, which is the first gaming mouse to use Microsoft’s BlueTrack technology. Read on for all of the details.

The tough guys over at Spotlight were nice enough to send us a few samples of their their small rechargeable 12V flashlight to try out for ourselves we have to admit that we were impressed. Now, the Spotlight has but only a couple features and is no new radical cutting-edge technology but we would consider it a gadget nonetheless. Also, its refreshing to see a very simple and useful gadget come across the desk from time to time.

The Spotlight is just like it sounds; it’s a small flashlight measuring a mere 2 inches and weighing in at a svelte 1.8 ounces. What makes this little guy so handy is it’s small size which is by no coincidence the same size as many automotive outlets. The flashlight alone fit in 4 of the 6 different car outlets we tried and emits a glowing red light to let you know it’s charging. For those outlets that don’t quite fit, Spotlight provides a small length adapter and a Super Socket adapter (separately) to allow it to fit just about any vehicle.

We’ve gotten our hands on some pretty cool and powerful lasers in the past, but never one of quite this magnitude. If you were wondering if there really is a difference between laser pointers, or if there is a difference between a $300 laser and a $1700 laser; well we’re here to tell you that there is.

From the time we opened the box of the Spyder II GX we could tell that this one meant business. The Spyder II is another green laser with a beam that can be seen from miles and miles away, literally. It’s powered by a special single LI-ION 18650 rechargeable battery (the device comes with 2 of them and a charger) and is housed in a military grade, water resistant case. It operates by a rubber toggle switch in the back that keeps it on until you press it again, unlike the Elite Series which requires you to hold it to keep the laser on.

The iTrip is a pretty simple device. The idea is that you plug one end into your car cigarette lighter socket and the other into the earphone jack of your MP3 player, replacing your car radio with the soothing sounds of your own music collection playing through FM radio.

It’s just that simple. Just plug it in and find a frequency where you hear only static. You’ll get better results if you find one that has some neighboring frequencies with static. Then use the + or - buttons to tune your MP3 player to the same frequency. Just like that your player has replaced your car radio.

Back in the early days of the computer if you needed to carry data files with you from one machine to the other you used floppy discs. The floppy gave way to the CD and DVD as a method for moving files form one computer to another and taking data with you on the road. As those methods became a paid for computer users, a new type of storage device emerged — the flash drive.

Today flash drives can be used for all sorts of things form backing up data from your computer to carrying files with you from desk to desk or office to office. The flash drive is growing in capacity, but with the majority of flash drives using USB they aren’t growing in performance much.

Anyone who owns a TV, knows how to read, or listens to the radio knows that the global economy sucks today and will continue to be poor for most of 2009 and possibly into 2010 depending on whom you listen to. That means that all sorts of retailers are having a hard time with many of the largest electronics and computer firms announcing major losses and layoffs.

Despite the poor economy one sector of the computer market is continuing to grow impressively is the netbook market. The reason for the continued growth of the netbook market is simple — the machines are cheap. The average netbook sells for under $400 and offers portability and battery life that makes working on the road less of a chore for many users.

Powerful laser pointers are something that many people are often curious about, however not too often does someone get a chance to handle one. The folks over at WarnLaser recently gave us at the ‘Brick a chance to try out one of their lasers to see what we thought. This is not the first time we’ve had our hands on a laser of this caliber and through this we’ve learned that all lasers are not created equal.

The sample we received is a 120mW Tiger Series GX, running on a couple of standard AAA batteries in a frame about the size of a large pen. In fact, this laser has pen-like clip and can pretty easily fit in a shirt pocket, but might be a little bit heavier than most of the items in your pocket protector at 55 grams. The Tiger Series is a nice balance between power and portability in the array of lasers from WarnLaser. It’s about in the middle of the road - you can get weaker lasers and you can get them much more powerful.

The folks over at OtterBox, protectors of gadgets for the active and accident-prone, gave us a chance to try out one of their defensive products to see just how well it holds up. In this case, OtterBox sent us a protective case for the Blackberry Curve, a device I have with me day in and day out.

Since the case from OtterBox is protecting something I own and depend on daily, we did not put it through the usual drops, dunks and vodka-proof trials that we would normally do. But, despite this we can tell you that this case blows away any other protective case we’ve had our hands on, for any mobile device.

The Clarion MiND appears to be a GPS navigation device at heart, but expanded into a special type of mobile internet hybrid device packed with connectivity and applications bringing dangerously close to a mobile PC, but just not quite. The mobile device has many addition features such as an internet browser, YouTube viewer, media player, file storage, weather, news, maps and of course navigation but runs its own type of hard-wired OS that leaves little for customizations.

The MiND is basically a small mobile computer running on an 800 MHz Intel Atom processor with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage (with an additional MicroSD card slot) and connects to the world via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and of course GPS. It also houses a couple of USB ports for connecting and transferring data, a headphone jack, speaker and docking port for an included dash mounting kit.

Iomega kicked out a couple of new portable hard drives last month, one of which being the rugged 250GB eGo BlackBelt that we’re taking a look at today. The most stand-out feature we found in the BlackBelt was its Drop Guard Xtreme, allowing the portable drive to take a hit to the pavement from as much as 7 feet in the air and keep on ticking.

This ability to take a long drop is largely due to the black rubber “belt” that envelopes the drive (mostly the corners) protecting it from all angles of impact. The rubber belt is not adhered to the drive so it can be removed if you would like, and your left with a smooth, flat-black flask-shaped chasis that’s maybe a little to big for a pants pocket but will easily fit into the pocket of a jacket.

Reviewing a technology gadget is usually is fair amount of work anyway, but trying out the FiTrainer from iTami turned out to be a little more than I had bargained for. The FiTrainer is essentially a customizable, virtual fitness coach with direct access to your current level of exertion and your ears.

The device is essentially a pair of somewhat-large headphones with a built in heart-rate monitor, music and voice prompts to continuously keep you in the “right” zone for your workout. Users enter in the type of workout and their age and then start exercising. The voice inside the headset guides you through the rest.

A common gift people will give themselves for the holiday season is a new phone. With broadband networks getting faster by the minute, a phone that is smart enough to handle surfing the internet, getting email, supporting IM’s and taking pictures becomes more and more attractive. This holiday season we had the opportunity to take a look at a couple of Palm’s smartphones, and in particular we spent some time with the new Olive-colored Palm Centro.

If you’re in the market for your first smartphone or you’re just looking for something that’s slick and easy to use with broadband access you will be well-served to take a look at the Palm Centro. Palm has been getting some mixed reviews lately when placed against some of the latest in smartphone technology such as RIM’s Blackberry or Apple’s iPhone, but we found the Centro to be a refreshing and fun device, and at just the right price.

Anyone in the market for a small MP3 player should definitely take a hard look at the Sansa Clip from Sandisk before making a purchase. Comparable in size to the iPod Shuffle, the Sansa Clip packs in more features and now more storage giving some significant bang for your buck.

The most significant item for us on this particular MP3 player was the storage capacity. This little device now comes with the ability to pack as much as 8GB of music which is really a lot of songs. Connect it to your computer through the included USB cable and quickly transfer music or even use the device as mass storage to go. Also as we had mentioned when the 8GB Clip first came out, the clip provides 4x the storage of the iPod Shuffle for just a small more in price. But the storage is not all you get.

The Drone, a Class-1 Bluetooth adapter brought to us by the Bluetooth obsessed people over at Callpod, packs quite a bit of convenience in such a small package. We had heard talk of the Drone since back in March and the device launched just last month. We were lucky enough to get a sample to try out and see just how well it performed. The Drone boasts a 100 meter (328 foot) range when paired with other Class-1 Bluetooth devices, and will also increase the range at which Class-2 devices will communicate. CallPod states that the device is so simple you “plug-n-play, then walk away” which is pretty true…

One absolutely brilliant aspect of the drone is its ability to auto-magically pair with a headset or headphones (such as the Callpod Dragon), eliminating the need to type zeroes into a prompt making it incredibly easy to use, saves time and avoids inconveniencing you. And out of the box the drone is intended to be used in this fashion, converting your Bluetooth headset into a mic and speaker combo, making it ideal for gamers or people who find themselves regular Skype users. The drone performed wonderfully when paired with a Jawbone aiding in surviving the zombie horde in Left 4 Dead, and as advertised will swap over to Skype if you receive an incoming call. It also gives you a feeling of liberation when you can wander around while streaming music directly to your headset.

As I am sure you are all aware, Verizon Wireless is launching the much-anticipated BlackBerry Storm tomorrow. This device is RIM’s first delve into a touchscreen mobile phone and swing at taking some of the market share away from Apple and the iPhone. We had a chance to get our hands on the Storm on the eve of the launch day and had some fun playing with the touchscreen and its unique clicking technology.

Obviously the most interesting part of the Storm is the single big button of a screen so we’ll just cut to the chase. The touchscreen in general works as you would expect, sensing your touch on the glass and allowing you to scroll through things like lists, menus and across maps. What’s different about the touchscreen on the BlackBerry Storm which sets it apart from other touchscreen phones is that the glass display is like a single large, mechanical button.