theVooner's weblog

A weblog for theVooner.com where the best cool gear and gadgets get reviewed.

last modified Jul 15, 2003 at 1:45

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Spy Disk w/ card reader

So you want to be a spy? Well this is a super cool gadget to have. From Japan, its a Pen that has a built in USB memory drive. More importantly, it's also a card reader for SD cards. So you can "copy" files or photos without anyone knowing... Neat.

I'll be away for a few days again so this may go dark for a few days. Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 7:01 | 0 comments

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Teacube PC - Smallest PC in the world

Japan Personal Media corp displayed their Teacube PC last week which is only 5 square centimeters. It's a super small box that is an amazing look at the future of PC. Unfortunately, the Teacube currently runs on its own OS platform so its not really an average PC that is shrunk down. Still, a very cool look at the future of things to come...

But I don't care... cuz I just bought the smallest laptop in the world! YEAH!!!! I just received my Sony Vaio U70 and am putting it through the works. An update/review should happen very soon.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 1:25 | 2 comments

Sunday, June 27, 2004

New Review: Sony Ericsson T630

Hey all. Sorry I've been away for a wedding. Anyway, we posted up a review of the SE T630 which is the upgrade to the T610. In short, its a good, cheap replacement phone for the market now.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 19:40 | 0 comments

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Sony Network Walkman NW-E98

Sony continues to roll out their Network Walkman's which are pretty cool, little MP3 players. Of course, Sony prefers to rely on its ATRAC3 format more. The devices themselves are very small and attractive looking. The latest model, the NW-E95 will be out in early July. With a mere 512MB of memory though, many will likely give it a pass even if it does look look nice. The devices probably do much better in domestic Japan where there is plenty of support for ATRAC3. Personally, Sony's Vaio Pocket player looks much more attractive.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 20:42 | 0 comments

Monday, June 21, 2004

Sweaty Palms? Nyko Air-flow...

I'm not really sure what kind of sites you surf or what games you play, but assuming you are prone to "sweaty" palms, Nyko has come up with number of products that will keep your hands dry. The Air-Flo Mouse has a built in fan that keeps your hands dry for longer game play or whatever it is you need dry handst for. They also have cool game controllers and stuff that will keep you gaming for hours. Now they only need to invent something to help you eat, drink, and go to the bathroom while you're gaming and you'd never have to leave your chair/couch.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 22:49 | 0 comments

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

2 new Sony PSX models

Strangely enough, when I was in Osaka, I didn't see very many Sony PSX's. They just weren't around. Well Sony launched two new models, the DESR 7100 and 5100 which has a 250GB and 160GB drive respectively built in. That's a massive amount of storage and is clearly designed for recording of video. I was pretty keen on the PSX as I thought it would be a great idea, but unfortunately, it never lived up to the task. Instead, I'm looking forward to the PSP handheld which looks really cool. I'm getting one of those for sure!

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 21:42 | 0 comments

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Nokia 6630 3G handset

As a 3G user, I have to admit that it pretty much stinks I have about 6 handset models to choose from in TOTAL at the moment. So hurray for Nokia to announce that it has finally gotten better behind 3G and has a new handset out there. The 6630 looks like a very cool 3G handset. It has all the looks and functionality of 3G in a nice 2G design. So far, the 3G models we have are static and dull. With a 1.3 Megapixel camera, we're finally moving int he right direction. I can't wait to get it!

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 1:10 | 0 comments

Monday, June 14, 2004

Nokia 7610 1MP mobile phone

Looks like Nokia is launching one of the first 1 mega-pixel GSM phones in the market. The 7610 is now available and is one of the first (if not the first) GSM mobile handset to have a 1MP camera built in. It's got kind of a weird keypad, but it's got some very nice specs. For most of this year, Nokia has dropped the ball and been way too repetitive in their design and formats. Other manufacturers have caught up very quickly. They were late to design a clamshell model, late to incorporate high-end color screens, and late with phones that incorporate cameras. But this time, they're leading the way with a high-resolution camera. Let's see if the gamble works. I like it and have inquired about it...

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 1:20 | 2 comments

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Sony XYZ Car AV navigation system w/ 3D CG GPS

Sony has a really cool looking on-board dash LCD screen for the car. The XYZ series of screens adds multimedia function to the car. The software seems to be very much like a PDA/PC menu structure which allows among other things downloads, picture playback, etc. The device is removable from the car so it can connect to a PC.

The coolest function though has to be the new 3D CG screens of the roadmaps of Japan. This takes GPS to the very next level and is definitely something that I would look at if I were there. Wonder how long it will be till they do something like this in the rest of the world? I'm sure someone will do it for big cities in the US eventually. But who has all the time to map out everything?

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 21:34 | 4 comments

Thursday, June 10, 2004

The end of the PDA?

Sony announced over the past few weeks that it was pulling out of the PDA market on an international level, i.e. probably only Japanese PDAs would continue to exist for now. I haven't really read much into it, but thought now I would throw in my 2 cents. There are lots of issues on the table here so lets take a look at a few.

The larger question this raises is of course: Is the PDA dead? Does Sony know something that the rest of the market is going to take another 12 months to learn (and in the process lose lots of money)? Are they cutting the losses now and getting out before it hurts them too much? Maybe. I can't say for sure, but my bet is that the PDA gets folded into more areas and that a standalone PDA becomes a smaller and smaller niche market. Only a few, like HP (iPaq) and maybe Palm will continue to have a small (albeit shrinking) following. I purely believe this is because gadget freaks like me are slowly moving away from PDAs.

There's a number of reasons for this. First, PDA functions can now be found in things like mobile handsets. And with Smartphones become more the rage, there's little need for a standalone PDA. Pretty soon, more of us will have a Blackberry/Treo/XDA/P900/etc- type handset because we will want (and are forced to) have access to a phone and to our e-mails. With 3G later on, we will be getting more out of our phones. Second, laptops are going to shrink to near PDA sizes. Ok, it will be years before they get down to PDA sizes, but there are a number of new mini-subnotebooks that have the full PC ability with the near-size of the PDA. Sony has already launched one with the U50/U70. I just saw one the other day and let me say its a beauty. Others like OQO are on the way. I've always felt a PDA to be fairly limited and it will be cool to see if we can get PDA sized laptops with the power of a full PC. Third, and for me this is getting to be more true, we have too many gadgets already. Imagine, a travelling gadget lover like me -- how many devices do I carry, not to mention chargers and adapters. Laptop and mobile phone is essential. Then probably a digital camera. MP3 player? Then a PDA? (Yes, I realise that a PDA can be an MP3 player, but hey, will a PDA last 10 hours of playback and have Gigabytes of space? Probably not.) Anyway, you get my point. I am trying harder and harder to bring less with me. So a PDA is a distant 4th at best and I don't really need it. I'm sure others are getting that way as well. Lastly, one thing that I noticed about PDAs is that there is a significantly less compelling reason to upgrade. There haven't been much new improvement in the product in the past year that has invoked much of an upgrade. In contrast, I think mobile phones, digital cameras, MP3 players and even laptops have all seen new designs, improvement in technologies, etc. The only change in PDAs have been the evolution of SmartPhones. And that is what could eventually end the life of the PDA.

In terms of CLIE's themselves, my main complaint has always been: that the PPC is probably a better fit than Palm for Sony. Although there are clearly two camps here, the PPC seems to be doing well enough and for what Sony wants to incorporate into the PDA (and with its other products) Palm OS probably wasn't the right choice. We could go on and on, but I think I'll stop here.

At the end of the day, yes, I think the PDA days as a standalone is nearing completion. A small market will continue to exist, but the number of players probably could be just a handful. For those true PDA fans out there, look to Palm and HP(iPaq) for your gadget fix. The others like me will look to other gadgets altogether.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 2:17 | 0 comments

Wednesday, June 9, 2004

Pretec 12GB CF card!

I didn't even know they had a 6GB card... but Pretec announced they they were introducing a 12GB CF card. Priced at a mere US$9999, this is one massive memory! My 1GB card takes 303 pictures on my D100 so 12GB will take a whopping 3636 JPEG photos! Of course, for those with the amazing D2H or the EOS Mark II, it will be less, but still probably nearly 1000 RAW images I'm guessing. That price tag is strictly for some high-end photographers I'm guessing. Still, very cool how we keep pushing the technology envelope. I also noticed that they've developed an 80x CF card so speed is also moving up fast.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 2:47 | 0 comments

Tuesday, June 8, 2004

iRiver Multimedia Player

iRiver has a very nice rival to the Sony HMP-A1 and the iPod. It's a 20GB multimedia player. The PMP 120 is a very nice looking video/music player from iRiver. It also is a cool hard drive storage device that can directly connect with digital cameras to download information. Pretty sweet.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 0:30 | 0 comments

Monday, June 7, 2004

palmOne Treo 600

Ok, it's not exactly the newest gadget out there, but I wanted to take a quick peek at what new Smartphones were out there. Recently, I had the chance to meet up with someone that had a Treo 600 and they sang its praise. So I went to a store and tried it out. It's actually a pretty darn good device. I was shocked. I have never liked the Palm and would probably prefer the XDA II, but the Treo 600 was actually pretty good. Still, there are limitations. The screen is pretty weak for a PDA/phone. A rumoured Treo 610 should address some of my issues, but that could be another 6 months out! Oh yeah, and in case you're wondering, I already got rid of my P900 so the door is open for a new handset anytime soon now...

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 0:28 | 0 comments

Saturday, June 5, 2004

Sony's iPod Killer??

Is the new HMP-A1 ,Sony's answer to the iPod, going to also be it's killer? Featuring a really nice COLOR 3.5" screen, the HMP-A1 can playback MPEG4 video as well as audio. Oh yeah! I've seen rumours that Apple plans to launch a color screen iPod but will it be too late? The iPod's dominance is already there, but Sony has a way of muscling into established players (eg. Nintendo). Either way, the A1 looks super cool and I can't wait to see it when it comes out at the end of the month. Personally though, I might just get the U70 laptop as my multimedia device. The worlds smallest laptop looks just too cool...

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 17:56 | 0 comments

Friday, June 4, 2004

iDuck USB drive

I think the iDuck is a fun/silly gadget that is exactly what is needed these days. In an age where high-tech gadgets in general are still boring/structured devices, the iDuck adds some fun to the world of gadgetry. I like silly fun. The iDuck is basically a USB drive with a plastic duck on it that glows when attached to your USB drive! How *cute*... you gotta love the Japanese for these things. Comes in the standard 16MB, 256MB, and "super duck" 512MB model. I like the "camo" duck and the "hearts covered" duck the best. You can even buy all six models in a special box set.

Remember "Howard the Duck?"... Ha ha.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 2:04 | 0 comments

Thursday, June 3, 2004

Sony A series Laptop

In my constant search for another desktop replacement, I've only just noticed Sony's A series. The A series is a full fledged desktop replacement laptop. It's a massive laptop that offers some of the newest features. With all the new models from Toshiba, HP, and Dell that offer comparable set-ups, Sony was a bit late to the game. I do wish the A series had more of a widescreen display. The A series though (like Toshiba) offers a 17" version as well. It all sounds pretty good to me except for the price! At some US$2200-2500 or so, it's on the average US$250-500 more than comparable models in my opinion. But that's typical Sony and I will say that the designs are very nice. Still, I'll probably go buy something else...

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 21:29 | 0 comments

Wednesday, June 2, 2004

New Review -- Nokia 7600

I've been a bad boy and while my gadget buying has not stopped, I'm definitely backlogged on reviews. So here's a phone from earlier this year that still might be of interest to some. Unfortunately, if you are intererested, you should probably just skip it anyway 'cuz it ain't that good.

Read on... theVooner's Nokia 7600 review.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 19:08 | 0 comments

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

Casio 3.2MP Mobile Phone

While for the most of us, we haven't even seen a 1MP mobile phone yet, Japan is already running away with the technology. I'm still waiting for the Sony Ericsson S700 with its 1.3MP, but that's not out till the end of the year. Meanwhile, Casio has just introduced its 3.2MP mobile phone. The A5406CA mobile phone (nice easy model number there!!) looks like a really decent model. From all the other handsets I saw while I was there last month, Japan is a few years ahead of the rest of us...

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 3:21 | 0 comments