Best Buy today has kicked off a post-Thanksgiving sale with a heavy emphasis on iPods. If you buy an 8GB fourth-generation iPod touch, you get a free GPS unit from the store’s in-house Insignia brand. Other iPods are also on sale, ranging from $5 for a fourth-generation iPod shuffle to $10 off new iPod nanos and $15 off the iPod classic.

It’s a good day to buy an iPod it seems. Zune too. If you want a Zune HD, you can also get a deal, as those who buy the 16GB or 32GB models can get a Zune HD AV Dock for free.

Sony Ericsson has started the first wave of Android 2.1 upgrades for the Xperia X8. Some of the mid-range smartphones will get the upgrades today and this should be followed by a “gradual” rollout to every carrier and country that supports the X8. We don’t have a solid timeframe since it depends on approvals from each carrier.

Some additional Xperia X10s are also getting the upgrade. The X8 updates are the same as for the X10 mini and mini pro, which didn’t get the full-size X10′s 720p video recording but did add support for media sharing with TVs, new versions of Sony Ericsson’s custom Mediaspace and Timespace layers, and the updated app and compatibility support inherent to Android 2.1.

The new Shuffle is tiny, so Elecom’s Actrail headphones cut out the middleman, plugging the Shuffle in next to the right earpiece. Awesome design. You can only attach the current-generation Shuffle to the Actrails right now.

They’re available in pink or white for $50 in Japan, but it won’t be long until others copy the design and offer it up in the States. it doesn’t get more wireless than that.

We have a ton of features in today’s smartphones and sadly that means more drain on the battery. It’s just a fact of life. As we can do more, battery life is sacrificed. Well, Elecom wants to help.

They have come up with a pocket battery that was specially designed to recharge your smartphone. Inside, it holds a 1600mAh battery that will feature special tips for phones from various manufacturers including Apple, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. Hopefully this will hit the US market soon too.

Panasonic has sat out of the smartphone explosion of recent years, but now it apparently wants a slice of the pie. At a news conference today, the head of Panasonic’s mobile division said that the company “misjudged the speed at which smartphones would be taken up in the Japanese market,” and that “with the rapid shift to Android, we want to catch up quickly.”

Panasonic’s phones will be based on Android, and the company hopes to differentiate them by emphasizing their networking capabilities with other Panasonic devices. Panasonic will kick off sales in Japan next year, with overseas markets following in 2012.

LG has announced that its Windows Phone 7 for the U.S. market, the LG Quantum, is now available through AT&T stores. To refresh your memory, the LG Quantum features a landscape-oriented sliding QWERTY keyboard with a 3.5-inch display. The device is powered by a 1 GHz processor.

Other specs include 16 GB of memory, and access to Windows Phone Marketplace for downloading apps. It launches with 10 free apps on board already. Since it is a Windows Phone 7 device, there’s also Live Tiles and Hubs. It will cost you $199.99 on a two-year contract through AT&T’s stores or through AT&T’s website.

Marshall is finally making their debut personal headgear products official. The headliner is called the Major, which are the collapsible headphones shown above. It comes with both 3.5mm and 6.3mm (via an adapter) connectability and “super soft” cushions to keep your ears comfortable. The exterior of the headband is made from the same vinyl Marshall uses on its amplifiers and the price is $99.

The Minor set of in-ear drivers are $59. These boast a tangle-resistant fabric cord with an integrated mic and a patented EarClick system. Too bad they have already sold out.

Now that iOS, Windows Phone 7 and seemingly every game console are streaming Netflix video, the company is focusing on Android. In early 2011, Netflix will appear on “select Android devices,” according to the company’s blog, which promises a “standard, platform-wide solution” for Android in the future.

So why did it take so long? And you might also be asking why Netflix will be limited to particular handsets when it first rolls out? They have an answer. “The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android,”

Windows Phone 7 isn’t for everyone. Maybe Android is your flavor. If you live in India, Dell has just introduced a pair of new Android phones designed specifically to be sold without a carrier subsidy. The XCD28 sports a 2.8-inch display, a 3.2 megapixel cam, 200MB of internal storage expandable with up to 16GB via microSD, and an FM radio; it sells for the equivalent of $247 without a contract.

The $382 XCD35 has a 3.5-inch capacitive display. Both devices have 3G support for India’s high-speed networks, WiFi, Bluetooth.

AT&T workers in stores have said that Microsoft is currently working on a fix to stabilize the whole microSD memory card slot reliability issue. AT&T employees have been told not install microSD memory cards in Samsung Focus phones until further notice. Meaning, until a fix is available.

They also advise customers not to upgrade the phones themselves. We have no idea when this “fix” will arrive, but some have gone ahead and successfully installed new memory cards themselves.

We’ve seen more than our share of third-party Bluetooth devices being offered for Apple’s devices, so it would make sense for Apple to make their own. So it is no surprise that Apple might want in on the Bluetooth accessory game business.

Apple has just acquired Wi-Gear, a company that made a stereo headset called iMuffs. One of the company’s co-founders now lists himself as an iOS Bluetooth Engineer at Apple and it looks like Wi-Gear has ceased operations.

We’ve had cameras in our phones forever now. We typically call them camera phones. Really they are phones with a camera inside. The phone is the priority, hence the crappy pictures that camera phones take. Well, LG has unveiled a new device that is a true camera phone. The device not only has a 12.1MP image sensor, but it also looks more like a camera than a phone.

It also features an ISO range of up to 3200 and has a Pentax 1:3.6-5.5 lens with 3x optical zoom. The LG L-03C can also record 720p HD video and has GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G. If you want a decent camera with a phone, this would be it.

The Sharp SH-07C e-Book reader is now available in Japan via DoCoMo’s network. The device weighs in at 240 grams and the 3G e-Book reader features a 5.5-inch color LCD with a 1024×600 resolution.

Some other features include 32GB of internal storage space and support for the new XMDF eBook format. Sadly, we don;t have any info on pricing or availability yet. When we hear something, we’ll let you know.

HTC knows how to make cool and popular phone designs. So naturally they want to have their very own App Store. The cloud-based site that they propose seems to be a HD Desire 2 exclusive one. It will be called htcsense.com and very soon you will see that name in adverts all over the place.

Future high-end phones will have support for this feature. We can never have too many apps after all. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Rocketfish, Best Buy’s in-house brand, has rolled out their own four-port WirelessHD kit for those who hate wires. The kit consists of a couple of pieces which will work together to send 1080p content from up to four HDMI sources to a single HDMI-equipped display (Not at the same time though).

It supports 3D video, CEC remote functionality and surround sound, along with an auto-sense ability to figure out which HDMI socket is active, changing over automatically. It retails for $299.99.