In case you missed it, Palm has officially announced their latest handset, the Palm Treo Pro. Interestingly enough, Palm apparently doesn’t even make this one. HTC does, or at least that’s the rumor. Another thing which marks the Treo Pro as a different Palm is that it runs Windows Mobile 6.1 and there’s no Palm version in sight. That’s a real shame, since even the old, somewhat tired, patchy Palm OS is far more reliable and capable than WinMo will seemingly ever be. All I can say is what I always do; time will tell.

written by Tyler Regas

Lenovo has been busy since buying the mobile systems division from IBM a few years ago and they’ve grown. In the course of that growth they have added the consumer-oriented IdeaPad line to be a less intimidating line next to the journeyman ThinkPad line. Now Lenovo is jumping fully into the Netbook and MID markets with the U8, U9, and U10. We will see the U9 and U10 in the US later this year, but apparently we won’t be seeing the U8 Stateside. Of course, like anything, this can change but if Lenovo doesn’t see a market for MIDs in the US, you’ll be getting your U8’s from an importer.

written by Tyler Regas

I’m a bit on the fence with this for the moment. I’ll need to work with one for a while before I can really make a judgement about such a device. Regardless, Peek is about to start selling the Peek at  stores for US$99 with a US$20 per month service fee. Why? The Peek is a portable email-only handheld wireless device, somewhat like the early days of RIM’s BlackBerry when it didn’t have a phone component. It certainly looks slick, and I’m sure it works well, but nerds won’t want it. Then again, they may want to hack it, so then it might be cool.

written by Tyler Regas

If you’ve been drooling over the Vista-capable, pocket fitting, slider having, keyboard sporting, 1Seg TV tuner jamming Willcom D4 personal MIDtop PC (also known as the Sharp WS016SH), Jenn Lee over at Pocketables has a very, very complete review of one. Aside from the fact that Vista is a productivity sapper and 1Seg doesn’t work outside of Japan, its a nifty if costly device with a few flaws. Be sure to check out the video which is about half way down the very long page.

written by Tyler Regas

If you’ve got yourself a Chrysler car and you’ve been dying to get ubiquitous internet on the go, then your prayers have been answered. Chrysler is now offering options for their UConnect EV-DO in-car system for 2007, 2008, and even some pre-2007 cars. The service is US$499 to get installed (there’s no factory installed option just yet), costs US$35-50 to put in, US$35 to activate, and US$29 per month for service.

written by Tyler Regas

Its not all that surprising that there’s another netbook to add to the already crowded list, but Raon Digital has decided to issue a first, regardless. The upcoming Raon Digital Everun Note is the first netbook to officially run a dual core CPU, specifically AMD’s Turion  64×2 unit running at 1.2GHz. The 7″ device also features 1GB of RAM, a 1024×600 widescreen display, a 60GB HDD, wi-fi, Bluetooth, USB, and a bunch more. It will be made available in the US and South Korea in September, though pricing has not yet been announced. Raon also hasn’t added it to their website just yet. [Source: Gizmodo]

written by Tyler Regas

Its starting to look like a paradigm shift. It happened in HDTVs when people like Kodak and Westinghouse started putting their names on big flat panel sets (disclosure: I have a Westinghouse LCD HDTV, and it rocks the socks off of locks, knox). Now, a company called Digital Gadgets is using the Sylvania name on their new g netbook MESO line of micro lappies. There’s really nothing special about it, either. Its an 8.9″ lappy with a 1.6GHz Atom CPU and integrated wireless. They will come in Linux and XP Home versions and have similar specs to the scads of other netbooks now or soon to be flooding the market. Pricing appears to be starting around US$399 and up and they should be available within the next 30 days.

written by Tyler Regas

I’m not really sure why the other gadget sites have been mocking and maligning this thing. I personally think its kinda cool, even if it does look like a feature-free phone. The new Kodak Zi6 HD-quality handheld video camera, which is not quite available just yet but up for pre-order, captures in 720p, has a 2.4″ color display, and an integrated USB jack for YouTube uploads. The unit comes with 128MBs of RAM and an SDHC slot for up to 32GBs more space. My biggest concern is jiggle, a good thing in some situations, but not always. It does have a standard tripod mount on the bottom, though. Pricing is set at US$179.95.

written by Tyler Regas

Addonics is now selling their new Portable Dual Drive RAID Enclosure. Its a small, black box which holds two 2.5″ SATA drives or, with an adapter, four CompactFlash drives. Once drives are installed, the enclosure supports RAID0, RAID1, JBOD, and some things called BIG, SAFE50, and SAFE33. It sports USB 2.0 and eSATA 3GB/s ports on the back and a range of tools built in. Its available now for US$99.99 each.

written by Tyler Regas

In what can only be called an odd choice for Lenovo, the news is that they will only be pre-installing Windows XP Home Edition for the US model. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to waste a netbook on Windows, but what’s worse is that we in the US are forced to pay the Microsoft tax just to get one. Sad. I still want one.

written by Tyler Regas