Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion
The ongoing war between Microsoft & Apple continues. In this new ad, Microsoft exploits Apple’s Achilles heel, being outrageously overpriced. It’s a brilliant ad that hits them right where it hurts. Because it’s true.

The ad shows a customer looking for a laptop for under a $1000. She searches both the Apple store and a conventional electronics store and finally settles on an HP laptop for under $700. Unlike their previous ads, this one works because it actually speaks to the consumer, and what matters to them. Getting a decent computer for a fair price.

We love video games around here. Whether we’re playing the Xbox 360, the PS3 or even an old Atari 2600. We thought we would take a look at the history of gaming consoles from 1972 to the present. You grew up with the vintage consoles, you play the new ones, so take a walk down memory lane and revisit all your favorites from the massive list below.

After CES comes and goes the next big consumer electronics show happens in Germany and is called CeBIT. CeBIT 2009 will be kicking off this month and a slew of new computers, computer accessories and consumer electronics devices will be debuted at the show.

Among the new devices will be a line of external hard drives from Rocstor called Eagleroc. The Eagleroc drives are available with versions supports USB, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and eSATA. Some of the drives use small 2.5-imnch notebook HDDs and some use larger 3.5-inmch drives.

Some interesting looking new portable speakers were on display from i.Sound last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. The Ice Speakers price around $40 and are available now.

The Ice Speakers are designed to work with any audio device which uses a 3.5mm audio jack. These speakers are housed in crystallized PC plastic and provide an interesting look alternative to traditional computer speakers. They also glow with blue LED lights when in use.

The hum of the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show is over but we still have plenty of gadgets announced during the show to write on – so hold on as we dump out the press release mail box and see what we have around. One such goodie announced earlier in the show last week was the inexpensive and stylish Inspiron 15.

The Dell Inspiron 15, with a starting price of around $600, features a 15.6-inch LCD display with a 16:9 aspect ratio. It can be configured with a variety of highlighted features, including up to 4GB of RAM, up to 320GB of hard drive storage, a Web cam and a Blu-ray drive.

OQO showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show this week its new model 2+ small form laptop. The company said will be available in the first half of the year for around $1,000 starting, through pre-orders can be placed now.

The OQO model 2+ weighs less than a pound and measures 5.6- x 3.3- x 1-inches. It sports an embedded Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) display, increased brightness and contrast with better outdoor readability. It is available with a 1.86GHz Intel Atom Z540 CPU and 2GB of RAM.

FyreTV, which first got noticed at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show, kicked off its porn streaming to your home media room via wireless IPTV set-top box service at this year’s CES. The box itself is called, suggestively enough, the BoXXX.

The BoXXX comes with the service, which has a starting price of around $10 a month. For that virtual equivalent to a roll of $1 bills you get access to “streaming DVD quality adult content.” The pay-for options look to be ala cart though, unless you purchase one of the all you can view porn packages (you do get some FyreCredits as part of the service). Otherwise you pay something called 1 FyreCredit roughly per minute of adult entertainment, though this seems to vary depending upon the particular adult production studio content you are watching.

IPEVO announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show an Internet connected digital image frame. It is called the Kaleido R7 and it will be available in March.

The IPEVO Kaleido R7 incorporates what is described as computer-centric behavior in how it provides consumers access to favorite Web content via wireless streaming and syncing. A channel based concept allows users of this frame to subscribe to content from photo-sharing Web sites like Flickr and Picasa, as well as news or blogs via RSS feeds. This is in addition to the traditional method of accessing content stored on computer hard disk or memory storage devices.

Out of all the robots they could have introduced, it had to be the Looj. That gutter cleaning bot that is cool from a practical standpoint, but not so cool as far as robots go.

According to them, it has new features to make it more efficient. It drives easily under gutter straps, propelled by a three-stage auger that dislodges and eliminates all of that nasty dirt and gunk. It sports a new antenna, smart speed, and a battery door that doesn’t need tools to be opened. Yeah, not much to jump up and down about, but hey, gutters will be clean.

Gaming accessories maker ezGear, teaming with a music and gaming technology company out of California, is showing off at the Consumer Electronics Show what it believes is the world’s most advanced video game and music controller. It’s a gaming guitar – the You Rock Guitar – and you’ll have shell out around $150 later this year if you want one.

The You Rock Guitar works with both guitar-based video games as well as music programs like Garage Band on the Mac. It sports a full , multi-touch fret board to accomplish this, including offering raised bars to give the feeling of playing the guitar with strings.

As always, WowWee has some new robots up it’s sleeve, despite branching out into other products. They look interesting as ever. What I like about their robots is that they actually infuse them with some personality.

In this case, Joebot is the large guy. A dancing rhythm robot that responds to beats. He’s the life of the party. The Roborover explorer on the other hand, starts out shy and gets bolder over time. I love the design on these guys. Full press release below.

HP unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show this week a new netbook PC for the on-the-go crowd. It is called the Mini 2140 and it starts pricing around $500.

The Mini 2140 is a 10.1-inch display PC built into a simple aluminum case and starting around 2.6 pounds. It sports a nearly full size QWERTY keyboard, runs off of an Intel Atom processor and has an option available to carry an 80GB solid state drive.

A new 3D Webcam we heard about earlier this year is set to make the rounds at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, followed by early January sales here in the United States. It is called the Minoru 3D Webcam and it will price around $90 when released.

The Minoru is said to provide a 3D stereoscopic image because it is a single piece with two cameras spaced roughly the same distance apart aside. Strange looking similarities to Wall-E aside, the developer of this Webcam says users will tend to look into the eyes of the camera as they light up – perhaps to suck more cash out of one’s pocket.

Canon unveiled prior to the Consumer Electronics Show this week new high definition camcorders and standard definiton camcorders. The HD camcorders, in particular the high-end VIXIA HV40 HDV, are of note because they feature a new Canon digital image processor known as DIGIC DV III.

Canon says its DIGIC DV III image processor has a higher speed engine, offering better color reproduction, clairty and noise reduction. It is also the backbone behind some other new Canon HD camcorder features, including 8-megapixel photo capture, face detection technology and an enhanced auto exposure system.

Iomega is taking the tradeshow road this week to unveil a new network storage solution for media files being showcased in the living room. It is called the Home Media Network Hard Drive and pricing starts around $160.

The Iomega Home Media Network Hard Drive, available in 500GB and 1TB storage sizes, is designed to act as both backup server and also media hub. It supports iTunes and Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) certified devices, allowing it to save, store and stream audio, video and photos to a wide array of home consumer electronics.