With online discount and mail-in rebate a mere US$300 will get you a Palm Treo 755p Smartphone and a two year contract with Verizon. The 755p is an updated 700p with internal antenna and ’soft-touch feel’, it also sports a QWERTY keyboard, 1.3 mp camera and support for MS Office docs and pdfs.

There’s a miniSD memory slot so this sucker can expand up to 4 GB, a 320 x 320 color display, bluetooth connectivity and the Pam OS (5.4.9). The 755p also offers VersaMail which has

built-in Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync(R) support for Microsoft Direct Push Technology that delivers e-mail and calendar updates from a home or office PC using Outlook(R). Businesses connected to a Microsoft Exchange Server get fast, automatic wireless updates of e-mail, calendar and contact information with added IT security and remote manageability.

If this interests you more, stroll on over to Verizon for more details.

Source: Verizon

Featured tags: palm treo 755p verizon

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Belkin have just released a new 802.11n wireless router, the Vision N1, and quite a looker it is too with its curved top and bottom edges plus a snazzy blue LCD display letting you know everything from your current connection speed to how much ’school research’ little Johnnie is downloading onto his PC.

The Vision N1 sports 802.11n wireless connectivity using 3×3 MIMO which according to the spec on Amazon

This “Multiple In, Multiple Out” (MIMO) technology multiplies the effective data rate, and unlike ordinary wireless networking technologies that are confused by signal reflections, MIMO actually uses these reflections to increase the range and reduce “dead spots” in the wireless coverage area. The signal travels farther, maintaining wireless connections up to four times farther than the previous standard Wireless-G.

Sound good, eh? Well this little sucker will set you back just US$200 over at Amazon and give you 300 Mbps over a vast range of 1600 feet and it will still talk nicely to ‘b’ and ‘g’ spec devices meaning you don’t have to update the whole shooting match if you go for one of these babies. It sports the usual encryption to keep your expanded network safe from your neighbours and also has four Gigabit ports for the ‘wired’ amongst us.

Featured tags: belkin router vision n1 wireless router

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Addonics have released their latest addition to the sit on the fence brigade when it comes to HD formats. Their new external player, the Zebra, sports the ability to play both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs on your PC, an ideal Christmas present for the undecided! Unfortunately it won’t write to discs of either format but fear not, the usual read/write capabilities for CD and DVD are available with a 16x write speed for DVD-R available.

The unit itself looks pretty sturdy with two models available, ZBH63DES and ZBH63DEU, the latter sporting USB 2.0 connectivity whilst both models can hook up to your PC via eSATA. Here are a few more details for ya

* Max read speeds BD-ROM - 6x (215.79 Mbps), HD DVD-ROM - 3x (109.65 Mbps), DVD-ROM - 16x (22.16 MBps), CD-ROM - 40x
* Writes to DVD-R SL & DL, DVD+R SL & DL, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW
* Plays nicely with Windows 98SE thru to Vista, Linux Kernel 2.6, Solaris 10 upwards and Mac OS X 10.4.x
* Has a fan based cooling system for when you’re overloading it with HD data
* Aluminum body giving a total weight of 3.92 lbs (1.87 kg)
* 258 x 168 x 60 mm

These puppies are already available from Addonics at US$409 and US$429 (for the USB 2.0 option) which seems like a good price for a dual format player. However those of us who would like to write as well as read will have to wait for a suitable player.

Source: Addonics

Featured tags: addonics blu ray player hd dvd player zebra

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Buffalo have unleashed a brand new addtion to their TurboUSB range, a 32 GB model, the SHD-U32GS. The 32 GB version is the same physical size as the 16 GB model and according to Buffalo is 16% faster than non TurboUSB models.

It weighs in at a mere 20g, measures a snug 19 x 14 x 91 mm and has a handy switch to prevent accidental removal of your zeroes and ones.

This little sucker is currently only available in Japan for around the US$300 mark, but it should be spreading it wings and appearing in shops overseas soon.

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I must admit I’m always on the lookout for ultra small PCs and the latest PMP from Korean outfit UPOP is almost a winner. Despite marketing it as a personal media player the specs on this sucker scream UMPC.

* 30 or 60 GB hard drive with SD expansion slot
* 800 x 480 res 4.8 inch display
* Handles mp3, wma, mp4, acc, ac3, ogg and wav audio
* Handles avi, wmv, mpg, dat and vob video
* Runs Windows CE 5.0 Pro
* Powerpoint, Excel Office apps
* 84 x 157.7 x 24.4 mm
* 370 g
* Wi-Fi connectivity

One downside is Windows CE - I’m not too sure how good this OS is and what software it supports, but this is a start. Unfortunately the unit is only available in Korea at the moment but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it overseas soon and there’s also no price tag but I’d be keen to see one of these puppies in action, very keen!

Source: DAPReview

Featured tags: pmp umpc UPOP

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As Santa prepares for his ‘big trip’, the format war seems to be gearing up too with Samsung cutting the price of its Blu-Ray player the BD-P1400 almost in half, from their opening tag of US$500 down to a staggering US$270 on Amazon. Whilst still $70 more than the price of the Toshiba HD-A2, the BD-P1400 has a few extra bells and whistles, namely 1080p output, and support for DTS-HD Master Audio decoding.

If you’re still keen here’s a few more bits and pieces on the unit

* 1080p thru HDMI output
* 720p/1080i thru HDMI and component video output
* Handles DVD video along with DVD-R and DVD-RW plus CDs, CD-R, CD-RW and mp3 CDs
* Dolby Digital and DTS decoders built-in
* 12.8 x 12.8 x 3.1 inches
* 9.3 pounds

If you are into Blu-Ray then this sounds like a bargain unless you’re into games as well in which case the PlayStation 3 is probably still the best bet. But it looks as if the Blu-Ray camp are getting serious and probably have a bit more clout than the HD-DVD team, but either way surely the consumer is the winner in the end?

Source: Amazon

Featured tags: BD P1400 samsung

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Toshiba announced their entry into the NAND flash-based SSD market with a selection of units, the most notable of which is 1.8 inch form factor SATA 128 GB unit which unfortunately won’t be in mass production until May next year. The units have a max read speed of 100 MB/s and max write of 40 MB/s with a SATA-2 interface (3 Gbps).

Now that SSDs are becoming a bit more mainstream hopefully the price tags will follow that trend too, but we’ll have to wait and see until May what these suckers from Toshiba will set you back.

And if you want an early sneak preview of these units then get yourself on down to the CES in Las Vegas on Jan 7th as apparently Tosh will be showing them off at the show.

Source: Toshiba

Featured tags: SSD toshiba

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