ASUS has announced that they are bringing the P527 Smartphone which runs Windows Mobile 6 to the US early this year. Among its claimed features, the P527 sports two features dubbed Travelog and Location Courier, both working with GPS to enable various location-based features. Otherwise, the device features a 2MP camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, an FM radio, and works on GPRS/GSM networks. It works on 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 GSM networks. The hardware is based on a TI OMAP 200MHz processor, comes with 64MBs of RAM, 128MBs of ROM, has a microSD slot for additional memory, an integrated SiRF Star III GPS chipset, and a 320×240 color display. Personally, I think it looks like a payphone shrunk down to pocket size, but with this feature set, it might just be nice. Pricing, release date, and carrier information was not released, but we can imagine its likely AT&T or T-Mobile or any of the other GSM-based carriers.

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, mobile, news

HP, deeply invested in its iPAQ line-up, has announced a new navigation service for its various devices. The service will allow you to create trips with multiple stops over many days online, then pass that data to your device. The service also features an expansive Points Of Interest directory, which I would assume HP would update on a regular basis. From what I can tell, the service is free to iPAQ owners.

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, news, service

Lenovo, the company who bought IBM’s consumer computers line, has unveiled a new line of consumer-oriented laptops dubbed the IdeaPad. First up is the Y510, a 15.4″ widescreen lappy which sports an anemic 1280×800 resolution, 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo CPU with a slow 667MHz front-side bus, a reasonable 250GB drive, 2GBs of RAM (4GB max.), an in-built 1.3MP camera, and a Dolby Labs designed sound system. To round it out, the whole thing weighs in at an unacceptable 6.4 lbs. If that’s not enough, there’s also the Y710, a 17″ version, which likely weighs in at 7-8 lbs. The only bright spot in the group is the U110, an 11.1″ ultra portable which won’t be available until March. There are no pricing details as of yet.

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, mobile, news

Rounding out our hard drive Hat Trick for today is Verbatim’s announcement of the first fruit to ripen from its acquisition of SmartDisk last year, a bushel of portable, bus-powered 2.5″ drives. Ranging in capacities from 120GB to 320GB, these drives will be available starting at US$99 starting later this month. Verbatim is playing up Mac compatibility, even going as far as mentioning Time Machine support, but is mindful of reminding consumers that they also play with Windows. The company website has not yet been updated with these new products.

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, hardware, news

Hot on the heels of my WD 320GB lappy drive review comes Hitachi’s announcement of their new 400 and 500GB 2.5″ SATA drives, the TravelStar 5K500. The drives will be available by the end of February, though no pricing details have been released. These drives are 2.5″ SATA types, run at 5400RPM, have drop protection, and a reasonable 12ms access time.

Hitachi, in conjunction with ASUS, also announced that ASUS is producing a dual drive laptop based on the 500GB model, making it the first 1TB laptop. Of course, since the 500GB model will likely only offer 480GB usable, it won’t really be a Terabyte lappy. Close enough for rock & roll, as we used to say!

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, hardware, news

Not long after announcing that FIC had spun off the OpenMoko project, they have announced that Dash Navigation, the makers of the internet connected GPS device, the Dash Express, is powered by the OpenMoko platform. Whether this portends OpenMoko itself going into the GPS market or not is still unclear, though my guess would be that they plan on forging more relationships to expand the brand.

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, mobile, news

Well, Quicklogic certainly isn’t pulling any punches. In its Pre-CES announcement the company has stated that it is now offering OEM/ODM services to other companies (this is B2B stuff, folks) for the following product categories: 802.11G and Bluetooth 2.0 EDR wireless hard drive, hard drive and solid state memory based GPS devices, PDAs, HSDPA wireless cards, 3G handsets, PMPs, and even a UMPC. Looks like HTC has some competition. Finally!

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, hardware, news

FIC, the Taiwanese motherboard and OEM gear manufacturer, has announced that they have spun off their OpenMoko open source project into an actual company (ala RedHat). The new OpenMoko group will dedicate its resources to creating Free Open Source Software (FOSS) handheld devices for mobile and wireless uses. While there are no additional details just yet, their initial announcement indicates that they will soon be announcing a partnership with a US-based carrier. Should be interesting. Their first product may very well be their already popular developer platform, the Neo1973.

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, mobile, news

Though I’m no fan of SanDisk (long story) their new Cruzer Titanium Plus looks interesting. Via a service offered by SanDisk, all data which is added to the Cruzer Titanium Plus is also uploaded to be available online. This allows all of your data to remain available, even if the USB memory stick is destroyed, lost, or stolen. The 4GB device will retail for US$59.99 which includes six months of free mirroring service. After that crack-like taste, you owe them US$29.99 per year for ongoing service. Oh, and it only works with Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. Sorry, Mac users.

written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: CES, hardware, news, service