Motorola RIZR Z8

The first thing one notices about the Motorola RIZR Z8 is its black fluorescent green casing which is so impressive that people were flocking around it since the day it came in the market. The Z8 is jam packed with many features that will keep you entertained throughout the day.

It runs on the Symbian OS which supports the third party software such as Quick office which enables the users to view Microsoft Office documents from the handset itself, and since it is installed with HSDPA 3.5 G surfing, Internet access has become much easier and faster.

This handset has UIQ 3 support which provides an excellent support for themes and allows the user to customize the looks of almost all graphical UI elements. It comes with a high resolution screen with display of up to 16 million colors.

The screen is 2.2 inches in size and with a display of 240 till 320 pixels. It also has a 2 mega pixel camera with 8X digital zoom and an LED flash light, which provides the users with same high quality settings and effects as a digital camera.

Along with all these imaging facilities, users of the Z8 can also capture video footage and can record and play them at a speed of 30 frames per second. This handset has a built in music player which comes with a skip feature and shuffle facility, it also supports MP3 and polyphonic sound ringing tones and the users can also enjoy their music without wires using Bluetooth wireless technology with a Bluetooth stereo headset.

The Z8 has a Picture Caller Identification feature, which allows the users to add photos with their contacts, it also includes instant messaging, email, multimedia messaging, text messaging. The email service is supported by SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 and SSL or TLS2 formats which allows the users to send and receive their emails on the handset.

Therefore, this multimedia monster, with its unique style and high tech features is definitely a grabber. Unlike other slider phones, it does not feel like it's going to fly out of the top of your hand, hats off to the designers here.

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Optical Mouse, Skype Phone Combo

I only delve into gadget territory occasionally, but this one is too good to pass up.

Sony announced the launch of the MouseTalk (trying to find an English link), a new VAIO PC peripheral that acts as both an optical mouse and an Internet phone.

The clamshell mouse, which will be Skype certified, flips open to become an Internet phone to make and receive calls around the world through Skype. Features include: mouse wheel controlled mute, volume and number select controls, echo-cancellation technology and a hands free mode.

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Vonage V-Phone

Vonage, the VoIP company with an incredibly annoying theme song ("Woo Hoo") just released the V Phone, a VoIP phone contained inside a USB thumb drive which we mentioned a few days ago. I've been playing around with it for a while and can state conclusively that, yes, it is a phone and, yes, it does work.

As the hype from Vongage suggests, it really is just a matter of plugging the USB drive into a Windows based PC's USB port (again, us Mac and Linux folks get the shaft) and waiting for under a minute for the software to automatically run. From there, a simple GUI greets the user, where the only input field visible is the space for a phone number.

I gave our favorite News Editor John Biggs a call and his sweet, soothing voice came through just fine. It doesn't sound as good as POTS, but since we've gotten used to cellphones that sound like 9s7f4m NES sound effects, the V Phone gets the job done. The included headphones resemble the earbuds packaged with the iPod and the mic works well enough for what it's tasked to do.

As an added bonus, I took to repeatedly inserting and removing the V Phone from the USB port without properly un-mounting the drive first, just to see how durable it really is. Several insertions and removals later, it still worked, so there should be no problem if you forget to properly unmount the drive first.

The Vonage V Phone works as advertised, and if you're already a Vonage customer, the $39.99 price tag isn't unreasonable. But if you're not a Vonage customer, there's really no need to all of a sudden become one, especially since its much-touted portability is no match for that cellphone you've got in your pocket.

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RCA S2501 Jet Stream

RCA's new S2501 Jet Stream is geared toward gym goers and offers a wireless listening experience, but it doesn't use Blue tooth to achieve it.

The new technology, from Kleer, operates between 2,400 MHz and 2,480 MHz and sounds much better than Bluetooth 2.0 audio (which, frankly, isn't hard to do), but the ear buds that come with the Jet Stream, while providing decent range, are uncomfortable and don't fit securely in your ears, spoiling the audio quality.

Throw in a tiny 1GB of storage, a dismal interface, and limited video and photo viewing capabilities, and you've got a player that disappoints in the gym and everywhere else.

In an attempt to woo the workout crowd, the Jet Stream features a built in pedometer, a stopwatch, and a water resistant body. In fact, the device looks more like a sports timepiece than a portable media player. The water resistant rubber and plastic exterior houses a tiny 1 inch display and an iPod esque control panel.

The buttons on the panel, unlike those of an iPod, are often very hard to press in all the way. The lower panel of the player has flip open rubber covers hiding a mini USB connector and the headphone jack. Up top there's a menu and a wireless on-off button. Both wired and wireless earphones are included.

The quality of the former is predictably subpar, but the quality of the latter is more troubling, in that they could deliver decent sound if the fit were better. The end result is ear buds that sound good only when you press them firmly into your ears but otherwise lack any real low end. This seriously compromises the wireless experience.

(Admittedly, though, sound quality might be less of an issue in the gym than in other listening situations.) Plus, the wireless ear buds look a bit goofy with their optional ear clip stabilizers and a connecting, behind the neck cable.

Another drawback is an interface that's incredibly frustrating to navigate. Selecting a menu with the central button actually selects the first file and starts playing it. Yes, the central button is play or pause, but the menu wants you to use the forward button to select the menu and navigate it not very intuitive.

Also, even though the tiny display manages to cram in some useful information, including file type and bit rate, it uselessly attempts to display album art in a square smaller and at a seriously low budget 96 by 96 resolution. Why bother?

The Jet Stream handles JPEG photos and video with Xvid with AVI extensions only, so you'll need to convert most of your files with the provided software. Alas, viewing photos and videos is not the Jet Stream's strong suit.

If you were to replace the two included sets of earphones with a better pair, you'd discover some decent audio quality, but seeing as that would eliminate the wireless capability of the device its claim to fame this fact is beside the point. The file support is also a bit of a disappointment. It can handle only WMA, MP3, and Audible files.

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Portable PC Theater: All In One PC and Projector

We've seen a few combination DVD players and projectors, but Google tells me that so far there aren't any computers with built in projectors.

Enter the Portable PC Theater, one of the more plausible concepts we've seen at Yanko Design.

The unit has a fold out keyboard, a removable projector, and retractable speakers. We don't know why the size is specified: it's a concept after all, so dimensions are meaningless.

Otherwise, though, a very smart idea, and so obvious it really should be for sale. I could have done with one of these back in the Summer. It would have been much easier than dragging a projector, stereo and laptop out onto the terraza.

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