FTN wrote:found the 32 gig model, but only want the 16.

hmmm

I found one from zones, but something doesn't sit right with me about that site. I read somewhere HP is adding more in the next few days, so I might just hold off.

on the news they just said actual stores will get some more in on thursday. so maybe check out your local best buy early thursday morning?

Just got this today: Homedics MCS-700H Total Coverage back massager
Hopefully this can do what physical therapy and muscle relaxers could not.

phatj wrote:Just got this today: Homedics MCS-700H Total Coverage back massager
Hopefully this can do what physical therapy and muscle relaxers could not.

hmmmm

http://store.artlebedev.com/electronics/optimus/

A full keyboard, each key of which contains a 64x64 OLED screen that can be changed to display whatever. So the keyboard can change from Qwerty to Dvorak layout, or to Cyrillic, or other languages, or for touch typists can just display eye candy instead of any kind of letters. Or it can be used as something entirely other than a keyboard - a 113-key control panel for a particular application, for instance.

Downside? It's two grand.

So there's now a $99 android ice-cream split tablet. Only 7", but supposed to be pretty dang good. Sold out for now...

http://www.ainovo.com/

I bought a HP TouchPad as part of a laptop/TouchPad bundle at Best Buy back in early November. I like the TouchPad and webOS. It's too bad most webOS devices (i.e. pretty much all the smartphones except the never commercially released HP Pre 3) have crappy hardware.

As for other bitchin' gadgets, I nominate:

1) ASUS Transformer Prime - this quad-core tablet with detachable keyboard dock (making it a Android netbook computer) points toward the future of large tablets/netbooks/small ultrabooks IMO and builds upon the success of the original ASUS Transformer (which was frequently out-of-stock for a few months after it was released). Even though I tend to be anti-Apple due to their desire to want you to do things their way and only their way, I'd LOVE if Apple came out with something similar (i.e. integrated but detachable keyboard dock) with the iPad 3; I'd seriously consider picking one up if it was a reasonable price.

2) Pretty much any Windows Phone OS device - seriously, regardless if you use an Android, an iPhone, a Blackberry, or something else, you'll probably be impressed by the smoothness, live tile content, and overall user interface/experience if you play around with a Windows Phone. The Metro UI and WP OS is very different than the Windows OS on a PC (or for that matter, Windows Mobile, at least based on what I've read).

Bucky wrote:So there's now a $99 android ice-cream split tablet. Only 7", but supposed to be pretty dang good. Sold out for now...

http://www.ainovo.com/

Hopefully it isn't like the Maylong M-150 tablet.

Send it to ET.

I picked up a RIM Blackberry Playbook 16 GB about 1 1/2 weeks ago. I like it, and I especially like the gesture, webOS-like user interface. The Playbook is a well-made piece of hardware too.

think my phone is finally dead. its not recognizing my SD card anymore.

torn on what to get. kinda want to get that new RAZR MAXX but not sure whats on the horizon.

jamiethekiller wrote:think my phone is finally dead. its not recognizing my SD card anymore.

torn on what to get. kinda want to get that new RAZR MAXX but not sure whats on the horizon.

you can't wait for the next-better option because it is always coming out tomorrow.

thephan wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:think my phone is finally dead. its not recognizing my SD card anymore.

torn on what to get. kinda want to get that new RAZR MAXX but not sure whats on the horizon.

you can't wait for the next-better option because it is always coming out tomorrow.

yeah, thats what i'm afraid of. but when is the next big tech advancement though? the razr maxx was the extended battery life.

Not really a tech advancement; it's bigger than the regular RAZR to accommodate a bigger battery.

One of the neat things that's starting to be implemented in phones is NFC (Near Field Communication) which allows two phones, or a phone and another device, that are very close to one another (like, so close they're touching) to exchange data. There isn't much that uses this yet, but one of the things expected is a sort of virtual wallet - so you could just tap your smartphone on the little gadget at the register like you can today with certain debit cards. There are all sorts of other possibilities for NFC as well. I'd look for a phone that has an NFC chip in it.

The next big thing is announced approximately two weeks after you get something.

NFC for payment has been done in markets not American for about the last 5 years. We are just very slow to adop such things. Part of it is cooperating with banks, hardware manufacturers and deployed readers. I saw an identity card for an Asian providence that did banking and interfaced with the public transportation system back in 05/06. The UAE had a chip card that tied identity to various benefits and they were looking at bank sponsorship.There were phone examples then too. There were 2 or 3 chip players pioneering work that essentially came down to a small linux kernel running on the chip and fire walling information. I have not worked in that end of industry for a while, but it has to be far past where it was.

phatj wrote:Not really a tech advancement; it's bigger than the regular RAZR to accommodate a bigger battery.

One of the neat things that's starting to be implemented in phones is NFC (Near Field Communication) which allows two phones, or a phone and another device, that are very close to one another (like, so close they're touching) to exchange data. There isn't much that uses this yet, but one of the things expected is a sort of virtual wallet - so you could just tap your smartphone on the little gadget at the register like you can today with certain debit cards. There are all sorts of other possibilities for NFC as well. I'd look for a phone that has an NFC chip in it.

well, the new RAZR crammed a humongous battery into a very very slim profile. its definitely the slimmest of all of the phones and has more than twice the battery than any other competitor. i call it the big advancement because its been proven that it can be done and all of the other phone manufacturers are going to have to do that to keep up.


as an update: My phone recognized my SD card out of no where at some point this afternoon. feels good

NFC doesn't excite me at all. With the credit cards, it's possible to have your credit card info stolen by a device while the card is in your pocket. I'm not sure how often this happens today, but as technology expands, so will incidents of this happening. I'm sure they'll come up with a way to stop this with encryption or something, but I wouldn't hold out for a phone with NFC at this point, it'll be more than a year before the technology really takes off, if it ever does. Then once it does, you'll have to store all your cc info inside an app, like google wallet, and make all your payments through that. For device to device communication Bluetooth is on every thing today and can accomplish pretty much what ever you want it to.

Bill McNeal wrote:NFC doesn't excite me at all. With the credit cards, it's possible to have your credit card info stolen by a device while the card is in your pocket. I'm not sure how often this happens today, but as technology expands, so will incidents of this happening. I'm sure they'll come up with a way to stop this with encryption or something, but I wouldn't hold out for a phone with NFC at this point, it'll be more than a year before the technology really takes off, if it ever does. Then once it does, you'll have to store all your cc info inside an app, like google wallet, and make all your payments through that. For device to device communication Bluetooth is on every thing today and can accomplish pretty much what ever you want it to.

The difference between smart phones and smart cards is that there's no way to control the latter - the chip in the card can at least theoretically be accessed by anything in range. But in a smart phone the NFC chip can be turned off through software; e.g. unless you're in an app that uses NFC, the chip isn't even on.

Just buy what's cool now. Quad-cores will be here late Q2, but they'll look obsolete by next year's CES. Never stops.