Greetings gadget-philes, it's been quite the week over in reviewtown. We've been hard at work making the new site sing and crafting highly critical reviews (coupled with elegant prose) about the gizmos you actually care about. Our fave gadget of this week? The long delayed, often hyped, incredibly pretty BlackBerry Bold that landed in the United States..finally. Reviewer Christopher Null weighed in with this take on it:
Some improvements are immediately visible, even to novices. The non-touch screen, at 480 x 320 pixels, is now on par with the iPhone, though it's quite a bit smaller at just 2.6 diagonal inches.
Impressively bright, it's easy to read even birdseed type (which you'll probably do a lot) — the web browser is one of the most capable we've seen on a BlackBerry to date.
Read his full BlackBerry Bold review here.
We also had a look at the WD TV from Western Digital. This plucky black box essentially takes media files from a hard drive and streams them direct to a HDTV. Wired Mag Associate Editor Joe Brown, howerver, found a more, uh gripping application for the device. From his write-up:
A certain class of people have long wanted to easily download and play files on their massive flat-panel TVs. This powerful special interest group is responsible for many of the technological innovations that drive our modern economy. They are internet porn addicts, and the WDTV
is the answer to many of their prayers.
Read the full WD TV review right here.
Yes, we managed to have a look at a Panasonic camcorder that uses SD cards as its primary recording format. Reviewer Roger Hibbert had this to say about it:
You've longed to document your fascinating life for some time now, but you just haven't found the right lightweight HD camcorder. Well, here's the perfect tool for it: The Panasonic HDC-SD100 3CMOS camcorder can shoot 1080i HD video or 2.1-megapixel stills, all in a light, easily toted package.
Read the full SD100 review right here.
Additional to the menu was HP's newest netbook, the Mini 1000. Gadget reviewing powerhouse Christopher Null had this to report:
The 1000 is not only extremely thin (less than an inch thick, all around), it's the lightest 10.2-inch netbook we've tested, at just under 2.5 pounds. For the most part, HP doesn't skimp on features to hit this weight, either.: The model we tested includes the now-standard
1.6-GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1 GB of RAM, Windows XP, and an incredibly bright widescreen LCD.
Read the full HP Mini 1000 right here.
Finally our own Terrence Russell spent some quality time with a set of bargain basement priced noise canceling headphones from Able Planet:
From the moment we strapped its jet-black cans to our cranium, it was clear the NC200s are designed for a frugal user. Even with their satisfying heft and plastic/leather-ish accents, these headphones still feel cheap and a little sparse.
Read the full Able Planet NC200 review here.
Until we have RSS capabilities on the new gadget review website (it's still in BETA guys!) we'll be posting links and previews to our reviews here. So remember to hit those links and hit the comments. Anything you guys like? Let us know. Anything that we can do better? Definitely give us any and all suggestions. We'll be standing by.
