For a quick solution, especially for something like a laptop that can't even get a better quality bit of hardware, it's probably worth taking a look at. A "Pro" version should be out soon that includes a remote.

Read - ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0 [ViperLair]

Gravis G-Pod Reviewed

Gravis, a division of the snowboarding outfitter Burton (and not related to the gamepad and soundcard company, to my knowledge) sent me one of their G-Pod third-generation iPod cases to review, and I have to say I'm fairly impressed. There's a number of subtle but intelligent decisions apparent in the design, like a stiff, sturdy nylon that protects almost the whole unit except for the top left corner, where the remote/minijack plug resides (I'll presume they had a reason for covering up the hold switch, since it wouldn't have affected the design in the least to move the flap to the other side). Essentially two, hard flaps of material held together by an elastic mesh, the G-Pod really seems to hold tight to the iPod -- maybe too tight, if you ever want to pull it out of the case -- and protects the unit from damage by sticking out a little past the edges of the iPod. Unless you clipped the exposed corner, your iPod should stay pretty much unscathed.

MT3d Reviewed

Scribus 1.1.6 Reviewed

Yahoo 360 Reviewed

Rio Carbon Reviewed

Pocket-Lint manages to score the first proper Rio Carbon review I've seen, and certainly the first to use Guns & Roses as their test music. One thing that is a nice is the Carbon's drag-and-drop ability, because while music managing software can be very nice, it's also nice to have the option to just copy over some music (or whatever) via Windows' Explorer or the Mac's Finder. From the sound of it, it seems Rio has a real winner in the 5GB hard disk music player. The question is, will the consumer market think so?

Read - Rio Carbon - First Look [Pocket-Lint]

Related
Rio Carbon: 5GB iPod Mini Fighter [Gizmodo]

iRiver PMP-140 (P)Reviewed

Soroban Geek's Portable Media World got their webbed hands on a pre-release version of the iRiver PMP-140, the upcoming personal media player that is the one that isn't the Windows-branded Portable Media Center (that's the PMC- models). Although the review is a little heavy on pictures and a little light on opinion, they seem fairly impressed with the device. It does look nice enough (from a feature perspective, at least; its case is ugly as sin), and I've got fairly high hopes for this one. DRM-free means, if nothing else, greater ease of use as a rule of thumb.

Read - Teasing Preview iRIVER PMP-140 (UK/US) [PMW.SorobanGeeks]

Related
Sony HMP-A1 VAIO Video Pocket Review [Gizmodo]
More iRiver PMP and PMC Details [Gizmodo]

First DVD+R9 Burners Reviewed

Reviewed: SWF Desktop

Find out more about interactive desktop creator in Brian's review.

Like Pixels? Check out MacDesign

Mac OS X Unwired Reviewed

No Noise PC Reviewed

Reviewed: Documents To Go 6

Find out how version 6 can dramatically increase the value of your Palm in Brian's review.

Like Pixels? Check out MacDesign

Neuros II Reviewed

The Register has a properly in-depth review of the Neuros II 20GB HDD music player, a bulky and sort of awkward device whose main claim to fame is swappable 'backpacks' that allow additional hard drives to be added without the need for buying a whole different unit. Sadly, it seems that the implementation is less than the sum of its concepts, although I have to say I was intrigued by one aspect of its direct-to-MP3 recording of FM radio. By using a service called HiSi ("Hear it. Save it.") the Neuros is able to identify - after being plugged back into your computer - songs you've recorded from the radio by comparing short audio snippets to those in HiSi's database, which returns the correct ID3 tag. It even color codes the results depending on how certain it is that it's identified the song correctly.

Unfortunately, that's about the best part. The 20GB Neuros II is a pretty good value, though - an 80GB model can be had for just $450.

Re ad - Neuros II 20GB HDD music player [TheRegisterUK]

Spider-Man 2 Reviewed

Rio Carbon Reviewed Some More

< img src="http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/images/gearlive_carbon.jpg" alt="gearlive_carbon.jpg image" width="398" height="299" class="center border"/>GearLive got a hold of the Carbon, Rio's 5GB player that just came out a few weeks back. I like the Carbon a lot and not just because of the extra gig of space over the iPod mini. Rio has a nasty habit of making seriously quality products that get passed over too often.

< b>Read - Rio Carbon Review [GearLive]

Related
Rio Carbon Archives [Gizmodo]

Vonage reviewed

The Edison, New Jersey based company gives you one Cisco ATA186 and a phone number in an area code of your choosing (I had a little piece of northern New Jersey in my living room). You have a choice of two different levels of service to go along with this box: for $25.99/month you get unlimited local/regional calling (where local/regional is defined by the area code you choose for your phone number) and 500 minutes of free US long distance, and for $39.99/month you get unlimited long distance. And you also get international rates that rivals most common calling cards. The only problem is that the service only delivers one ATA186, and that specific model is required to use the service -- no other SIP compatible devices are supported yet. If you want to use more than one phone with the box, you will either have to rig up a network of telephone splitters and wires; or you can do what some have done and hack your house to plug the Cisco box into your house's in wall telephone network.

IBM ThinkPad R51 Reviewed

BIOS reviews the IBM ThinkPad R51 and finds it to be an excellent value for a solid laptop, as long as you stay away from adding lots of the overpriced options from IBM's catalog (generally good advice when buying any laptop, really). For less that thousand dollars you can bring home a ThinkPad of your own, albeit one that is wholly unsuitable for gaming or other performance-intensive activities. That's okay, though - it's still a ThinkPad, one of the best laptops you can buy.

ThinkPad R51 Review [BIOS]

Sharp LL-151-3D Reviewed

There's no doubt that the Sharp LL-151-3D is a cool product—3D displays without any goofy headgear is the double pluses. But are any of you guys actually using them? I can think of a few situations (medical, 3D imaging) where they'd be handy, but the 15-inch size seems a little down market for hot-to-trot medical researchers/Science Officers. And it's too expensive for gaming, costing more than most gaming PCs do in total. Anyway, just curious. There's got to be a way I can justify buying one for work.

Sharp LL-151-3D - 3D LCD Monitor [TrustedReviews]

Athlon 64 3400+ Reviewed

Security reviewed after Blair hit

Yellow Dog Linux 4.0 Reviewed

Fuji FinePix S20 Pro Reviewed

PhotographyBlog reviews the Fuji FinePix S20 Pro, a $1,000 camera that Fuji is positioning to compete with some of the Digital SLRs out there, claiming its Super CCD SR sensor can compete with the rest of them -- despite being only 3-megapixels (it interpolates up to 6 megapixel). According to Fuji, the new sensor (which is also used in the Fuji FinePix F700 Zoom) offers a "four-fold increase in dynamic range when compared to other conventional digital cameras," but Mark Goldstein finds that claim dubious, and you can look at the same comparison shots to make your judgement, as well. It's not that it's a bad camera, exactly, but for the price there are many more attractive and capable options.
Read - Fuji FinePix S20 Pro [PhotographyBlog]

Verizon XV6600 Reviewed

The fact that the Verizon XV6600 (that recent Pocket PC HTC Blue Angel PDA phone) is EV-DO compatible just slipped right past me. That's sort of, you know, encouraging (the EV-DO part, not my slipping mind)—I've been waiting for handsets to come out that would take advantage of their recently lit-up high-speed wireless network. And even better, according to this review on Dave's iPaq, you can do a little hackery and actually use the XV6600 as a modem for your laptop, meaning you don't have to buy another $100 PCMCIA card just to get only. The monthly rates are still too expensive (not to mention the cost of the PDA itself), but it's getting close. This might be the year that high-speed wireless access actually becomes practical.

Verizon's XV6600 deliveres the best PocketPC Phone on the market. [DavesIpaq]

Dialogue Flybook Reviewed

If an ultra-portable laptop/tablet with a SIM card slot -- yes, like those found normally in GSM mobile phones -- makes your gadget dork fluff up a bit, you might want to check out this review of the Dialogue Flybook -- the first English review I've seen. Besides being tiny, the best thing about the Flybook is its extra connectivity. Not only does it have the standard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but it also has GSM/GPRS capabilities (hence the SIM card) so that you can, in lieu of any other, faster connection, hop on your cellular carrier's GSM network and get internet wherever you are.

The Flybook technically isn't a handtop, but it's not too hefty, either, as you can see in the picture. It does look bigger than a DVD case, though -- no matter what Handtops.com says.
Read - FlyBook review [Handtops]

Spider-Man 2 Reviewed [updated]

Shuttle XPC SB81P Reviewed

ExtremeTech reviews the new Shuttle XPC SB81P, a slightly larger than usual desktop cube PC, which goes up a notch in size to provide a 350 watt power supply - critical in this new era of high-power CPUs and PCI-Express graphics cards. There are some sacrifices made in the layout to accommodate the new Intel chipset and double-wide daughter cards, but even at $400 - and that's without a CPU or anything else - the SB81P still looks like a typical high-quality Shuttle machine.

Look - A Slick, Innovative Cube: Shuttle's XPC SB81P [ExtremeTech]

iRiver H320 Reviewed

SorobanGeeks got their hands on one of the new iRiver H320s, the 20GB hard disk MP3 player with a color screen, USB Host capability, radio, and microphone. It looks excellent, and besides some complaints about the quality of plastic used for the casing, performs as advertised. The USB Host functionality means the H300 series devices can serve as portable hard drives for digital cameras, and I suspect that feature combined with the color screen will make these players a big hit for photographers. They do say the remote is sort of useless since it doesn't have an LCD, but I tend to disagree. Like the iPod's remote, I find that simple remotes are more than useful enough for their main purpose, which is to skip a track or two and to pause your music without pulling out the new device. On the upside, if you need an LCD remote, the units from the iHP120 (an older iRiver player) will work with the HP300 series just fine.
Read [Akiba.SorobanGeeks]

Archos Gmini 400 (P)Reviewed

CNet has reviewed the Archos Gmini400, confirming my suspicions that it is indeed scientifically awesome. Sure it has some downsides, like a less-than-intuitive interface and no ability to multitask, but a 20GB player the size of the iPod with the ability to play back video and an integrated CompactFlash slot? What's not to love?

Okay, maybe the sort of crappy battery is not to love, but I kind suspect that CNet flubbed the numbers when they said 10 hours of video and 5 hours of audio playback. I'm hoping they meant 10 and 15. And for once the video is worth watching, if only to watch James Kim spin it around in his hands. (Thanks, Old!)

Read - Archos Gmini400 [CNet]

Related
Archos Gmini 400: Everything But A Price [Gizmodo]
Archos Gmini 400: First Picture, Specs [Gizmodo]
Arc hos Gmini 400 [Gizmodo]

Update: The Archos site says 5 hours for video, 10 hours for audio. Could be, should be better, but still hot.
Read - Product Page [Archos]

Verizon LG VX8000 Reviewed

Mobiledia has a nice review of the LG VX8000, a pedestrian-looking but otherwise very swanky clamshell that works on Verizon's high-speed EV-DO network. They seem to be pretty impressed with the capabilities that a high-speed cellular network affords, like streaming television and really fast internet (durrr). The VX8000 even has enough oomph to play 3D games, which look sort of awful compared to a PSP, let's say, but decent enough compared to the last generation of mobile gaming gear. On the flip side, it doesn't have Bluetooth or memory cards (two things that would challenge Verizon's ability to sell you content over and over and over again).

That's because you'll be sitting inside Verizon's walled garden to get any of the high-speed content, paying a monthly subscription fee to play games or watch television. I hope you're starting to figure out why that's a bad thing, but if you need a little reminder, Doctorow wrote a great column in this month's Popular Science about just this very problem. By this time next year, I hope we're all using unrestricted smartphones on open cellular networks.

LG VX8000 Review - First Look [Mobiledia]

O2 3G Data card reviewed

Toshiba ET1 Projector Reviewed

Pocket-Lint reviews the pleasingly droid-like Toshiba ET1 projector, a relatively low-quality (848 x 480 pixel) home projector that is most notable for its swiveling base. The idea is to use the ET1 wherever convenient, like a coffee table, say. This would be fine if the native resolution weren't crap -- 800 x 600 is the bare minimum these days as far as I'm concerned. Pocket-Lint likes it, though, and I suppose for regular television or videogaming, it'd probably be fine. £1000 just seems like a lot of money when there are projectors on the market like the Infocus X2 for even less money.
Read [Pocket-Lint]

Trusted Reviews takes a gander at the HP iPaq rx7815, a middle-range Pocket PC that HP is positioning as a "mobile media" device, and they seem to come away somewhat impressed, although to be honest it's sort of a hard review to read (in the 'figure out how they feel' sense not the 'bad English' sense). As for features, the rx3715 is strong enough, with integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (b) and even a decent camera (which is to say, better than VGA), but I think maybe the mezzo-mezzo tone of the review - and here is where I go out a limb, perhaps - is indicative not of HP's failings with this particular iPaq, but just a general malaise that is clouding our feelings about PDAs. We know what they do, they do it fairly well, but nobody is figuring out how to really make them any more useful.