Features:

• 24-inch 1080p 3D Display
• 240Hz Refresh Rate
• Includes One Game, HDMI Cable, And One Pair Of 3D Glasses
• Supports Dual-Player Gaming, Each Player Sees a Different Screen
• MSRP: $499

Pros:

• Excellent build quality
• Cool 3D dual-gaming feature
• Bright, crisp video

Cons:

• Oddly-placed buttons
• Screen is glossy and reflective
• Not all games are supported

What Is It?
Back at E3, the gaming world let out a collective groan when Sony announced they were making a special 3D TV for the PS3. However, that groan swiftly turned into a clamor of adoration once it was explained that the TV, in addition to displaying 3D content, would also allow two players to play side by side, seeing different displays through two pairs of 3D glasses. Called SimulView, it was pretty darn cool.

Fast forward to December and the 24-inch TV has shipped and costs $499. The display has two HDMI ports and little else – you plug in a PS3 and start playing games and Blu-Ray disks. Is this PS3-branded widescreen 1080p monitor good? Definitely. But is it a necessary accessory for gamers and non-gamers alike? That remains to be seen. Read on.

What Do You Get In The Box?
First, I’ll admit that a 24-inch widescreen monitor for $500 is a hard sell. But you get a lot for your money.

The screen has two HDMI ports, stereo inputs, and component jacks on the side. There is also a stereo headphone jack. There are control buttons on the lower right side which makes for some nice hunting and pecking when you’re trying to turn things on. However, I suspect Sony believes many will just plug this thing in and connect a PS3 with little tweaking and I suspect they may be right. It’s a pure-play gaming monitor and the lack of a VGA or DVI jack bears that out.

PlayStation 3D display includes one pair of 3D glasses, a copy of MotorStorm: Apocalypse, and an HDMI cable. There is no remote control and there is no independent TV tuner.

The display is surprisingly thin and quite light, even with the small base attached. Although MSRP is $500, this thing is as low as $399 on Amazon and Wal-Mart right now, which prices it more in the realm of possibility for many gamers.

The Good
The picture was excellent in both 2D and 3D modes. I was able to try a few games and Blu-Ray disks on this thing and I was pleased enough to keep watching. The display has internal stereo speakers with subwoofer, LED backlighting, and a bright 1920×1080 pixel screen.

Setup is dead simple – HDMI in, power, turn it on. There are a few mode settings but most games will handle the jump from 2D to 3D with aplomb. The worst part is trying to find games that support 3D, a feat that could frustrate first-time players who pick this up expecting everything to start flying at them through the screen. You’re going to want to check this list for games that support 3D. For example, I put in Need For Speed: The Run, incorrectly assuming it was 3D-compatible, and spent a few moments switching modes before realizing it wasn’t. It’s not a big deal, especially if you’re, you know, literate and can perform a simple Google search, but clearly I am not.

That said, the games that do work in 3D are as good as you’d expect. I’ve played 3D titles on the PC and I found this screen to be equal if not superior to the older gear I’ve had for about two years. There was a slight dimming in 3D mode, but it became less noticeable over time. The high refresh rate ensures little crosstalk between lenses and 3D content is deep and clear without artifacts. Most of this is thanks to the PS3′s own graphics processor, but the display had a bit to do with it as well.

The Bad
First, it was nearly impossible to get a good shot of this thing in the wild. The glossy screen is very reflective, a fact not noted in the marketing materials. It also takes fingerprints quite enthusiastically.

The buttons are definitely in the wrong place. Sony could have put a mode and power button on the front and, although it works with the Sony Playstation Remote, a small remote would have been a nice touch even for audio control.

Other than that, this 3D display is spot on, but I can’t say the same for its price tag. $500 is pretty darn steep, even for a 3D LCD, but clearly Sony has aimed this as a niche product for hardcore fans, so the market can probably support that price.

Bottom Line
To be completely fair, you could get a 24-inch (non-3D) 1080p display (with a tuner built-in) for much less than $500 (although pricing has settled to around $400 right now with sales). However, the Playstation 3D Display is made for one thing – playing games – and it’s tuned to play PS3 games as well as it possibly can. It is definitely not a TV replacement and it’s not even a good 3D monitor for PCs (although the Xbox 360 looks great on it as well). It is, in short, a display made for gaming and, more precisely, 3D gaming.

Is it worth the investment? If you have a small room and a friend, then “Yes.” The SimulView feature is amazingly clever and the screen renders 1080p content beautifully although 720p is a bit more interpolated than I’d like. If you watch a lot of HD video and play newer games, you won’t notice any issues.

If this is supposed to be your primary screen, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. The display does not have enough features to act as a standalone media consumption monitor. You can feasibly use it with a PC if you so desire, but you’re probably better off picking up a dedicated, cheaper monitor. Extra glasses cost $50 if you want to play SimulView, which is the real draw here.

Again, this isn’t for everyone but if you’re a die-hard PS3 player and need a monitor for your bed- or dorm-room, you could do worse than to pick up this clever, cool, and ultra-thin display.

Orb Audio is roundly seen as being a company that produces decent to excellent mini speakers at a price that is, at the very least, acceptable to a wide strata of the speaker-buying public. We reviewed a set of Orb home theater speakers and our reviewer found them excellent for cinema playback. The company, seeing a niche, has just released the Orb Audio Booster kit, a $356 package with two basic speakers and a little amp, for computer use.

Installation is dead simple: you plug in the speaker wires into a port on the back and then connect the speakers using simple, push-type mounts. You can then add up to four inputs – two RCA and two mini-jacks – and an optional $299 Super Eight subwoofer. Orb, to their credit, screws the speaker wire to the small green connector cage out of the box.

The front has power, volume, and mute buttons along with a light to indiciate current inputs. A clipping indicator rounds out the package. It has a “large/small” switch for use with the “Mod2″ configuration (two Orb spheres on top of each other, daisy-chained).

The Good
Orbs have excellent clarity. What do I mean? Well, when gaming and watching movies over my PC I often found cheaper speaker systems – most notably a Logitech set with tiny subwoofer – to mash most of the instruments and effects into one dense miasma of sound. These on the other hand, offer extremely distinct audio reproduction, allowing for a perceived separation of sound.

Even at high volume these little balls won’t distort and coupled with a Orb’s own subwoofer they create a sound-field that is unmuddied and quite listenable. They’re solid, American-made speakers that look fun and offer excellent reproduction for the price. They are all hand-polished and finished and contain a 3-inch driver.

Because of their small size and simple mounting system you can place these nearly anywhere in a room without much fuss. I usually hate setting up home theatre gear but because the Orbs are small, light, and surprisingly configurable I had no problems with this kit.

The Bad
Without the subwoofer you had better really enjoy the high-end. These speakers offer excellent separation and high-end reproduction but absolutely no bass without a subwoofer. If you have a powered subwoofer lying around the house – perhaps from an old stereo – you can quite simply add it to this kit and experience a considerable improvement in audio.

The Super Eight I tested is a 200 Watt BASH amp with a solid 12x12x12 cabinet and 8-inch driver. This subwoofer, when not tuned correctly, can really shake the room. Thankfully Orb includes a well-written manual so that novices can set their crossover frequencies and set the volume correctly.

That said, you can survive without a sub, but $300 extra will make you much happier.

Finally, one little problem keeps bothering me: the Booster itself. While it’s a handsome device – metal-clad and clearly labelled – it looks surprisingly generic. At CES each year there is a whole hall dedicated to OEM hardware straight out of the assembly lines in China. While the audio sounds fine, it would be a shame to discover that Orb is selling a $10 audio amp at a considerable mark-up and, given the generic nature of the device, I’m sure someone will find an example of it on monoprice or alibaba.com. I’m well aware of the value proposition of commodity hardware but folks who spend nearly a thousand dollars on audio gear may take umbrage at cost-cutting.

Orb Audio states that isn’t the case at all: rather, the Booster was designed and made in the United States, and sports a few features (subwoofer output, four inputs, large/small speaker switch) that are still uncommon on some other amps.

Bottom Line

High-end audio is, arguably, a maze. “Cheap” solutions abound and every audiophile will look down with disdain on your choice, citing various nebulous forum quotes in order to salt the ground before they begin their own exegesis on the value of carbon fiber over composite and how Amp X is better than Amp Y. But most of us just want our music to sound decent.

At $356 for two speakers and a Booster you’re not paying very much for excellent sound. For example, I’m a big fan of a pair of M-Audio studio monitors that are priced at about $800 and offer a full range of audio in a fairly small package. These little Orbs, on the other hand, offer similar sound in a much smaller package and with far-superior bass reproduction, provided you go the Super Eight route.

Orb audio deserves a look – they’re a strong, small company dedicated to direct-to-consumer sales of good audio gear. They aren’t “audiophile” speakers, whatever that means, but they are a far sight better than what came out of the box that your Dell came in and they’re far superior to anything you can get from your average pair of PC speakers.

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Product Page

As a fan of barefoot shoes I jumped (not very high, because you don’t get a lot of air with bare feet) at the chance to try out Fila’s new Skele-Toes EZ Slide barefoot shoes AKA the crazy monkey shoes not made by Vibram.

These shoes are marketed as “casual” monkey shoes and are not designed for running. They are, luckily, fairly attractive in a “weird dude who wears barefoot shoes” kind of way but the first thing you’ll notice is that they have four toes instead of five. This is the EZ part of the name and they make them considerably easier to put on and take off. They also make you feel like Fred Flintstone.

They’re quite sturdy, with a thick rubber sole (relatively thick when compared to Vibrams) and two huge velcro straps along the heel and instep. The shoes fit more like sneakers than running shoes which is obviously why Fila is selling these to casual users. Sadly, most of this odd design is intentional. Vibram recently sued Fila for patent infringement and I suspect most of the 2.0 improvements are based on not trying to look like Five Fingers shoes.

I wore these around the neighborhood last weekend and did a bit of biking in them. While I don’t want to equate them with 21st century Crocs, I worry that this style may soon trickle out of the world of high-performance running (and the fat people like me who think barefoot running helps them a bit on their short runs) and into the world of backyard barbecues and 30-something Dads toddling through Disneyland, much as I imagine myself doing in the next few years.

I found the Skele-Toes to be quite comfortable if slightly less abrasively ugly than Vibrams. Fila made these into sports shoes rather than performance foot gloves and while I wouldn’t go marathoning in them they’re fine for treadmills and biking. At $60 they’re also a bit less expensive than Five Fingers ($80 for the Sprints, for example and few online sales to be found). I’m generally inclined to recommend these to folks who may want to dip a toe (chortle) into barefoot running but, to be clear, these aren’t “performance” shoes. However, for six bills (and these are Filas so they’ll probably go on sale sooner than later), you’ve got some conversation starters, to be sure.

Product Page

Short Version: The Archos 80 G9 tablet isn’t necessarily something I’d recommend for the hardcore tablet enthusiast, but it certainly gets the job done. Powered by pure Android 3.2 Honeycomb, the tab offers everything you’d expect out of Android and a nice variety of ports, albeit with a somewhat rough build-quality.

Features:

• 8-inch 1024×768 capacitive touchscreen
• 8GB, 16GB and 250GB (hard drive) storage options
• Android 3.2 Honeycomb
• 1GHz dual-core processor
• Front-facing web cam for 720p video chat

Pros:

• Stock Android install works fine
• Battery life exceeded the amount advertised, which is unheard of/lovely
• HD 1080p video via HDMI-out was an unexpected treat

Cons:

• Really poor build quality
• To put it nicely, it’s not the most gorgeous tablet I’ve seen
• Wi-Fi only, yet it teases you with a slot for a 3G dongle which will only work in Europe

Long Version:

Body

While it’s not exactly fitting with my tastes, I wouldn’t say the Archos G9 is ugly. The slate deviates from your more minimalist designs like the iPad and the Galaxy Tab, and instead adds a little flare. The G9 sports a dark grey bezel, along with a lighter grey plastic casing that has rounded edges. Along the side you’ll find a microUSB port for charging, HDMI out, and the lock button. There’s also a full-sized USB port that’s meant to hold a 3G dongle, but unfortunately that’ll only work in Europe. To those of us in the States, it’ll merely act as a full-sized USB slot.

The build of the Archos 80 G9 tablet is probably what I have the most beef with. Granted, it comes with a totally sturdy little kickstand, which is a useful addition, but on the whole you can tell that is isn’t a top-quality build. If you press just slightly against the smooth plastic back panel, either on the 3G USB port or the kickstand area, the plastic depresses and makes a bit of a cracking noise. Worse, the plastic depresses enough to affect the display, making it look like you’ve been pressing way too hard on the touchscreen.

In terms of size, the G9 is just right. I’ve played around with plenty of 10- and 7-inch tabs, but the 8-inch segment seems to be somewhat untouched. I found that its a great size for gaming, as you aren’t sacrificing too much screen real estate for a better grip.

Processor/Battery

The processing power on this little guy had me impressed. Android 3.2 Honeycomb ran like a dream powered by the G9′s dual-core OMAP 4 SoC chip. Even with a little stress test — me zipping my finger across the interface/web pages as fast as possible — the tab had no trouble keeping up. However, once I had a few things going at once (a few apps, a movie, and the browser), the processor certainly lost pace. I started to feel the lag when I tried to add a few more tasks to the list and the next app I launched abruptly crashed.

Battery life, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. Archos promises 7 hours of video playback, which the G9 stood up to brilliantly. I spent an entire day conducting work from the G9 last week, and though it wasn’t the most efficiently I’ve ever worked, the G9 stuck with me throughout the day. It’s worth noting, however, that the tablet gets slower and slower as battery life decreases. With a full charge, hitting the lock button wakes the G9 up almost immediately. Once battery life gets low, it takes a few seconds to wake up and perceive gestures.

Display

The 1024×768 LCD display on the G9 was better than expected, showing very minimal differentiation from pixel to pixel. This becomes most clear while watching HD movies, which I did plenty of. Even better, this is the kind of tablet that many people can enjoy viewing content on at once. Even at a 45 degree angle off to the side, the screen still displays great quality and color. Thanks to the kickstand, I guestimate you can have up to five or six people watching a movie at once. However, the screen becomes increasingly difficult to see from lower or higher angles.

Taking it outdoors isn’t necessarily ideal, but with screen brightness turned all the way up I was still able to use it as an e-reader. Viewing video and pictures was more difficult, though.

Sound

Audio, on the other hand, may make it difficult for you and your friends to enjoy the movie. Before I turned on my air conditioner, my roommates and I were comfortably watching a few music videos. After the AC went on, we had to turn the volume all the way up to the max just to hear it. In the same vein, audio sounded a bit fuzzy, especially when pushed to the max. As far as tablets go, audio quality was adequate but nothing to get excited about.

Camera

Unfortunately, the G9′s front-facing web cam was not all that pleasurable to use. At first, it didn’t work at all until I downloaded a firmware update. Ever since it’s worked, but been super buggy. At times, the viewfinder simply goes black. If you happen to take a picture during the “black periods,” the picture is also a large rectangle of black. When it does work it’s unsurprisingly grainy, but at least gets the job done where it counts: video chat.

Conclusion

At just under $300, the Archos G9 is a fine slate. It comes packed with all the essentials, and has a battery life that should last around as long as you do. But if you’re looking for a high-quality tablet, this probably isn’t it. I’d recommend it as a Christmas gift for a tween, or perhaps a mobile computing device for someone older (who does mostly simple tasks like browsing the web and answering email). Size-wise it’s a great fit for someone who enjoys gaming, and it’s certainly light enough to travel with you.

This is not a tech geek’s tablet, and if high-quality is what you’re expecting out of it, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Configuration options:

• Archos 80 G9 8GB: $299.99
• Archos 80 G9 16GB Turbo (processor boost to 1.2GHz): $319.99
• Archos 80 G9 250GB Turbo: $369.99
• Archos 101 G9 8GB: $369.99
• Archos 101 G9 16GB Turbo: $399.99
• Archos 101 G9 250GB Turbo: $449.99

This thing has been sitting on my desk for most of the summer, like a sad-eyed puppy. It wanted me to review it, but like a petulant, spoiled child, I ignored it. “You’re just a scanner,” I said. “Who cares?”

“You’ll care eventually,” said the NeatDesk For Mac. “And when you do, I may not be there for you.”

Features:

• 50-sheet scanner
• Scans multiple sizes
• Double-sided scanning
• Automatically categorizes receipts, business cards, and documents
• MSRP: $400

Quick
Unobtrusive
Quiet

Software is a bit confusing
Paper jams every few batches
Smaller receipts can get crinkled

Then one day I slipped a paper into her maw and then another. Then a receipt, then a business card. I pressed the scan button and in a few seconds I had an OCRed copy of the document on my screen. I could add pages to Evernote or search with a few keystrokes. I could add – and throw away – all of the business cards I collected. I could build expense reports in a few minutes. “Why didn’t you tell me you could do this for me?” I said.

“You never asked,” said the scanner.

Sure, she sometimes jams, sometimes takes two cards at once instead of one. Sometimes my tiny taxi receipts get crumpled up. But it’s never jammed to the point of paper destruction and the NeatDesk has become my de facto spot for holding all of the papers I hold dear. Writing contracts? NeatDesk. Business cards? NeatDesk. Tax junk? NeatDesk.

“I told you you would love me,” said the scanner.

“But it’s not love,” I said. “There are plenty more like you. Before I had you, I had a ScanSnap scanner. A scanner is a scanner is a scanner.”

“I’m really good for receipts and business cards,” said the scanner. “I have a good desktop application, NeatWorks.”

“You are, but your OCR on documents was a bit rough,” I said. I scanned in a document printed in Courier and got back an acceptable facsimile of the same when I pasted the scanned text back into a text editor. However, my handwriting (“PORK LOIN” written in black ink) came back as “pC/<K U\,J" – not quite what I was looking for.

That said, having all of my scanned documents in one place is quite handy. The product is available for Macs and PCs and it is designed to look more like a sexy space pod than a scanner. Curved lines and edges make for a pleasing desktop accompaniment and a simple latch opens the scanner when it’s in need of service. A dedicated power switch makes it easy to turn off and two buttons – Scan and PDF – do exactly what they say. Scan scans a document into NeatWorks and PDF scans it to a folder.

“Look at how I scan receipts,” said the scanner.

“You certainly are good at that. I’m not doubting you’re great for smaller documents.”

“So we’re a couple then,” said the scanner.

“For a little while, until something better comes along. I’m trying to keep my options open, you know. I just want to have fun,” I said.

“You’ll be back.”

“I’m sure I will,” I said.

“Incidentally, it takes 75 pounds of opposing pressure to crush a human femur, less if it’s the bones of your hand,” said the scanner.

“You don’t have the motor for that,” I said.

“I have friends,” said the scanner.

Product Page

It’s amazing that in 2011, roughly 1,000 years after the earbud was originally created, a model could come along that’s actually innovative. But Bowers & Wilkins actually did it. The C5 in-ear headphones debuted several weeks back and I’ve been testing a pair for a while. In short: I’m in love. Oh, it’s not just that they sound great; they’re made by B&W so I would expect nothing less. It’s their design that makes me smile.

Bowers & Wilkins has long made some of the very best loudspeakers on the planet. A few years ago they dove into the world of iPod docks with the Zeppelin and then a short while later, the Zeppelin Mini. This move frightened some in the snobby world of audiophiles, but B&W did fine job maintaining their trademark high-end feel with their general consumer line. Enter the C5 in-ear headphones.

These in-ears are not the company’s first attempt at headphones, as they also sell the over-the-ear P5s. Those retro cans cost $299 and more than hold their own at that price point dominated by hip-hop-endorsed headphones.

The C5 in-ear headphones are more of the same. They’re a great value at $179 and can easily rival in-ears costing north of $200. They don’t sound as good as the P5s, but they feel great and are much more versatile than the over-the-ear set.

Most in-ears either just rest in your ear canal or have a sort of hook that wraps around your ear, but not the C5s. The headphone wire expands through the earbud itself into the inner ridge of your ear’s outer cartilage, providing a secure and surprisingly comfortable hold. This causes just the slightest amount of pressure, but it’s on the outside of your ear, rather than inside the ear canal. The tungsten earbud itself is weighted more towards the tip, which helps further anchor them in place.

You can’t knock these things out. They’ll likely withstand bouncing on a pogo stick during an earthquake — not that I tested it as such. Still, they stayed put during a quick test involving jumping jacks, running in place, and eventually lots of heavy breathing. Unlike other so-called athletic earbuds, the C5s don’t look like they’re a Nike design experiment from the year 2050, and they even work well with glasses.

B&W clearly designed these in-ears for digital media: there’s an in-line controller and the cable is appropriately short. I can’t test a B&W product with just Pandora though — these are Bee and Dubyas, man — so I broke out the ol’ Pioneer turntable and The Beatles’s classic White Album. Using the much more expensive Beats Pro over-the-ear cans as a reference, the B&W C5s held their own with solid mid-range response and a full sound. The clarity is surprising and the low-end sufficient but not overpowering — at least with The Beatles.

Circle of Animals’ Destroy The Light vinyl turned out to be too much for the C5s. The little earbuds simply couldn’t reproduce the sustained low-pass tones or the extremely tight electronic static resulting in a much flatter sound than I’m used to hearing.

It was clear after a few more vinyl records that the C5s aren’t designed for audiophiles — not that I’ll ever claim to be one — so I turned to Rdio and the C5s started to shine. B&W managed to pack an incredible amount of sound into these little guys. They light up once they’re fed music compressed for portability. The C5s even sounded better than the more expensive Shure SE315 in-ears. The sound was fuller even though the bass response wasn’t as powerful, while the highs were much sharper. Plus, the C5s are so much more comfy.

The C5s are excellent mid-range earphones for the digital medium. I wish they featured active noise canceling, as the soft tip only cuts out some ambient noise. Still, at $179, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better sounding or fitting earphones. Buy these.

Product page

Features:

• 12.3-Megapixel Live MOS image sensor
• Tilting 3.0-inch screen
• 3D Photo support
• ISO up to 12800
• 1080/60i AVCHD or AVI video recording
• MSRP: $699

Pros:

• Amazingly small
• Excellent video recording
• Fast shutter speed

Cons:

• Pricey
• Lenses are pricier
• No flash

Short Version
It’s hard to recommend the E-PL3 over the more powerful and touchscreen-equipped E-P3 but if you’re in the market for a much more compact micro 4/3s shooter and you can survive without a built-in flash, this may be the camera for you.

As Olympus perfects its micro 4/3s chops, it’s interesting to watch the products they produce improve and, more importantly, shrink. The E-PL3 is the “light” version of the original PEN line but it is not the entry level model. At $699 it’s still a mite expensive for the average shooter but I find that the more I use micro 4/3s hardware the more I like it.

This model is newer and sexier than the bulkier E-P3. It has an improved UI and features a 12.3-Megapixel Live MOS image sensor and TruePic VI Image Processing Engine. It also has an impressive autofocus system called FAST (Frequency Acceleration Sensor Technology). There are also a number of improved art filters and it supports 3D shooting, albeit with iffy results.

The best thing about the E-PL3, however, is the size. It is about as big as a Canon G12 and supports all of Olympus’ micro 4/3s lenses, from the pancake 17mm to the ultrazoom 40-150mm. To shrink the camera down properly, however, Olympus had to remove the built-in flash (a hot-shoe accessory is available) and, like the rest of the line, this model eschews an optical viewfinder.

Fans of simpler camera will be pleased with this model as it is almost barren when it comes to function buttons. There is a basic mode setting dial on the top, a dedicated video record button, and a few display and menu buttons. There are no dials for various manual functions and, due to a lack of a touchscreen, it may be a bit hard to tweak things just right if you’re not familiar with the interface.

Outdoors, this camera shines. I actually noticed slightly better photos out of the E-PL3 than the EP3 in some conditions, although indoor shots were a little iffy and often blurred in non-auto modes. Obviously the camera is only as good as its lens and the focus and clarity of all of the Olympus line is quite high if not excellent for this class of lens. I did notice some purple fringing but that’s the reality of consumer-level hardware.

Autofocus is amazingly fast – a far cry from the original PEN line’s slow and steady focus. It has 35 auto-focus points and focused surprisingly quickly in video mode. It records in 1080i or 720p — I’d go with 720p.

The camera, if you care, comes in white, black, and red.

Conclusion

Coming at this from an amateur’s standpoint, I find the E-PL3 slightly lacking, especially when compared to its slightly larger cousins. However, it was a dream to carry around on vacation and it’s surprisingly easy for almost anyone to use, making it a good second camera for the home. While I believe something like the E-P3 gives entry-level DSLRs a run for their money, the E-PL3 is a more subtle camera, requiring real buy-in and understanding before it becomes clear why you would spend $700 on this versus a Canon Rebel.

That said, if you’re looking for the ease of a point-and-shoot with the versatility of a DSLR, this can’t be beat. Whether this particular model is the one you want is still up in the air, however. I’d recommend looking at both and deciding on a model depending on your dependence on flash indoors. If you’re a big party photographer, I’d aim for the E-P3. If you’re looking for something compact for street shooting, you can’t go wrong with this unit.

If you’d like to see a more exhaustive look at this camera, pop over here to read Photography Blog’s Fountainhead-sized review.

• Waterproof and dustproof body
• 3.7″ 854×480 LCD with Gorilla Glass
• Android 2.1 with MOTOBLUR social web widgets and interface
• 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 2GB internal storage, MicroSD slot
• MSRP: $99.99 with new contract (or $49.99 at Walmart)

Pros:

• Light and attractive
• Bright, sharp, good-size screen
• Definitely waterproof

Cons:

• 2.1 and MOTOBLUR chug a little
• Despite rugged nature, feels cheap sometimes
• I don’t trust these little flaps

Full review:

I knew going into this that there would be parts of this handset that I’d like and some I wouldn’t like. But the Defy has surprised me and won me over more than I expected. The truth is, however, that I’m not the target demographic for its social-web-heavy MOTOBLUR interface and widgets, so I may sell those short. However, they’re not much different from any other MOTO phone, so I wouldn’t have lingered on them much anyway. I’ll focus on what’s specific to this phone.

Hardware

The Defy is being billed as “life-proof,” which is a bit of an exaggeration but we’ll forgive them. Their reasoning for calling it that is that it’s weather-sealed, and that’s no lie. The Defy can live underwater for minutes or probably hours at a time, and living in a bag filled with crumbs or dirt is no problem. This eases one’s worries but let’s be honest, most of us have gotten into the habit of protecting our phones from that stuff anyway.

That’s not to say the sealing isn’t welcome. Not having to worry where you put the phone down or what pocket it’s going in is something I could easily get used to. And the screen (covered as it often is with oils from your fingers) sheds water amazingly fast and is very usable even when wet.

The phone is surprisingly light and compact; I don’t know what I was expecting, but with a 3.7″ screen, you kind of expect a certain weight and size. The Defy is a little thick, but not offensively so, and its other dimensions are admirably small. The screen takes up almost the whole face of the phone, with very little bezel and the standard Android touch-sensitive buttons (menu, home, back, search) at the very bottom. Power and headphone jack are on the top, volume buttons are on the right (a little weird), and USB port on the left. The back panel has the five-megapixel camera and flash, and the panel is removable by sliding a mechanism at the bottom, which also works as a seal tightener when putting it back on. There is a single LED at the top left that seems to only have amber and green, but it’s welcome anyway.

The headphone and USB ports are protected by little flaps you must move aside to connect. The headphone one is flexible rubber and seems to make a nice little seal when you press it in. But the USB flap is far less convincing, and reminds me of the one on the bottom of the G1, which broke off after a few months. I doubt this one is quite as fragile, but the way it rotates and the rather weak-feeling seal it makes aren’t heartening. With luck it’s a cheap fix if it does break.

The phone as a whole doesn’t feel “nice,” though, the way the G2 does. Of course, the Defy costs significantly less and plastic is way easier to weather-proof, so this isn’t an oversight exactly, but the lightness combined with the plastic make this feel cheaper than it should. It’s important that I note that it doesn’t feel fragile, exactly, but the buttons and general experience won’t impress anyone.

The duotone look may not be your style but I like it. It makes it look like diving equipment, which I suppose it kind of is.

I love the screen. 854×480 at 3.7″ is extremely sharp, and it’s bright enough to work in bright lighting. The touchscreen was responsive and accurate even when wet (though not underwater), though things didn’t seem nearly as smooth as the G2 despite having similar specs. I blame MOTOBLUR. The keyboard for some reason struck me as a little small, which may just be in my mind, but it and Swype worked perfectly well, so there’s no real complaint there.

Camera

Nothing special here, but nothing wrong either. Five muddy megapixels and a harsh but usable flash, pretty much like any other phone out there. Have some sample shots, my friend:

The center one used the flash, and turned out pretty poorly. There’s actually a good amount of detail in the jade plant and screen, but the lighting was pretty good. I’d say you’re getting about two effective megapixels out of this, which is standard for a camera phone.

Software and performance

The first thing I did when I turned this sucker on was throw away a bunch of the enormous widgets that are on by default. I’m more of a vanilla Android guy, so I can’t hold it against Motorola, but there really is quite a lot of bloatware on this thing. If you aren’t careful, you could end up with two or three channels for every email, SMS, and social web account out there. For a non-savvy user, this could be an extremely confusing experience, and the initial MOTOBLUR setup failed to register my second Gmail address (and then failed to alert me of that failure), something not every user would notice right away.

There’s an improved music app with access to some online services, but it’s still pretty weak compared with the iPhone or third-party apps. It’s good that people are trying to upgrade the player, but Google is the one who needs to step up here, not HTC and Motorola.

My issue is that even if you don’t want or need, say, the “family room” suite of apps (which to its credit detected every member of my family in my contacts automatically), you can throw them away, but they’re still lurking along with the other bloat apps, and you’ll often see them referred to when you’re setting up this or that or adding widgets. The phone also chugs a bit, especially with lots of widgets and apps installed. There’s really no excuse for this when similarly-specced phones offer smooth experiences. Or rather, excuses are running out and phones really should be shipping with 2.2 by this time.

To be honest, this phone would work a lot better with a generic 2.2 install. MOTOBLUR doesn’t do it any favors and it’s not clear why a phone for which the focus is go-anywhere should have a social/family/connectivity focus. On the CLIQ it seemed natural, but this phone seems like it should be loaded with outdoor apps like My Tracks, or have some other rugged-specific stuff on it.

Conclusion

The Defy is a solid phone at a good price (you can get it for $50 if you look), it’s got a great screen, and with luck, 2.2 will be rolling out to the Motorola lineup soon, which should bring some much-needed speed improvements and a few nice standard features. I continue to be unimpressed by MOTOBLUR, but the Defy itself is a great handset. Recommended for the moisture-wary consumer.

Product page: Motorola Defy on T-Mobile

• 3.7″ S-TFT LCD display (800×480)
• 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230, 512MB RAM, 4GB internal, MicroSD slot (comes with 8GB)
• Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
• HSPA+ access where available
• 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, autofocus, 720p video

Pros:

• Beautiful and solid construction
• Screen extremely bright and sharp
• HSPA+ really is ridiculously fast
• Quick and responsive in every way

Cons:

• Perhaps a little too solid (heavy, bulky)
• Keyboard not my style (may be yours)
• Troublesome slide mechanism – damn thing keeps pinching me
• “Vanilla” Android 2.2 may not be enough, yet pre-installed apps too much, for some

Full review:

I’m not going to lie: the G2 was the first phone I was really looking forward to since the Nexus One. I’ve been using a G1 as my “actual” phone (as opposed to a review phone or backup) and I thought it would be appropriate to jump from one to the next. As it turns out, while I can’t say I’m disappointed exactly, I think the G2 isn’t a match for me. The thing is, they’ve made it a bit more extreme in a few ways, ways that will be extremely compelling for some people, but put off others.

Hardware

Let’s start with the phone itself. I haven’t had anyone see this phone without admiring it. The two-tone grey/metal body and black screen bezel make it look a little MacBook-ish at first glance, but on close inspection it has an understated and confident style that make it look simultaneously high-tech and accessible. The front is pleasantly symmetrical, and the back is pleasantly asymmetrical. There is a feeling of solidity and quality throughout, with no piece feeling cheap or out of place. Whoever HTC had on the ID team for the G2 should be given bonuses. It’s a thing of beauty.

It’s also a thing of mass. On being handed the phone, many have remarked that while it feels very solid, it’s also surprisingly heavy. At 6.7oz, it’s an ounce heavier than the larger Epic 4G and two ounces heavier than an iPhone. Sure, that doesn’t seem like a lot, but I assure you that it’s noticeable. Not that it’s uncomfortably heavy, but it will drag your pocket down, and when it falls, it sounds like you’ve dropped a dumbbell.

The sliding mechanism is a complicated one, and not everyone will dig it. I think it’s great when it works, but I feel this is one of the areas of the G2 in which the designers got ahead of themselves and made something that’s more cool than functional. It doesn’t really slide so much as it rises and falls in an arc, and not even a shallow arc. There’s a good third of an inch or more between the two halves of the G2 sandwich when you open it up, and although I know this is probably not the case, those little hinges don’t look like they’re going to last two months, let alone two years. But people said the same thing about the G1′s unorthodox slide method.

The thing that bothers me about the slide mechanism on the G2 is that it’s easy to get it wrong. Most slider phones require only that you apply pressure on the horizontal. With the G2, you must apply horizontal pressure, but only from below. If your thumb is even slightly above the horizontal, the slight downward pressure that creates acts against the mechanism, preventing the screen from sliding. It doesn’t sound like much of an issue, but think about it. You’re cradling the phone in your right hand. Where is your thumb? Above the phone. You have to reach across it and down to slide out the keyboard with that hand, and it is very close to impossible to open it from that position. In the left hand it’s child’s play, but in the right it’s way more difficult than it should be.

Because the screen part is thin, also, and because there is very little bezel on the sides of it, I tended to hit my email icon when I opened the phone (it unlocks automatically). That’s something you can get used to, but it’s still annoying. The volume button is also placed right where I tend to grip it, but that may not be a problem for you.

And as a last note on the slide mechanism, this little bastard keeps pinching me! Because the arc has a near-vertical start and end, there is room for a tiny bit of your finger or palm to get stuck in between. Now, some of you may say I just have flabby palms. But I tell you that is not the case. I’ve developed a method of avoiding being pinched, but hasty or negligent operation results in a little nip. Bad G2! No biting!

There are external buttons for the camera, power, volume, and battery release. They all have different feels, which I suppose is intentional. The volume button is a bit too easy to hit (it’s long and activates easily) while the power button is a bit too hard (it’s nearly flush with the case, and tilted back somewhat). The camera button is great, though, allowing you to hold it halfway down to focus and then trigger the exposure at will. The battery release is snappy, convenient, and hard to hit by accident. The charge port is about a quarter of the way up the left side — not convenient for any kind of cradle, but not as bad as having one on the top.

Under the attractive back panel you’ll find the battery, of course, which must be removed in order to switch SIM and MicroSD cards. I would have preferred being able to swap SD externally, but it’s not that big of a deal, especially with the size of MicroSD growing.

The face buttons (home, menu, back, search) all activate willingly and I rarely hit them by accident. Their activation area is pretty small, but I almost never had to look to hit the correct button. The trackpoint was responsive and worked just as well as a trackball, which is not much of a surprise. I would have preferred a matte finish on it… but really, that’s beyond nitpicking.

The 3.7″ “super LCD” display is super indeed. It’s extremely bright, perfectly visible in daylight, and showed colors extremely well. Its 800×480 resolution isn’t quite the pixel density of the iPhone 4, but is still excellent. Contrast is excellent, and at minimum brightness it gives out very little light (great for clock/alarm apps like Bedside). No complaints at all about it.

While there is an LED that lights up at the top of the phone when you’re charging, it is not used for notifications. Instead, the trackpad has a soft backlight that pulses on and off. I understand they were going for a monochrome thing, but color LED notifications are extremely practical and I wish the G2 had them. The subtle light-up notification is at least tasteful, however.

Keyboard

I suspect I may be in the minority on this one, but I didn’t particularly enjoy using the G2′s keyboard. The keys feel crisp when I press them with my index finger, but under my thumb they feel soft and smooshy. It feels a bit cramped vertically, though the spacing seems adequate objectively. I just don’t know what it is about the keyboard, but I can’t seem to type confidently, even after using it for more than a week straight. The slightly raised border at the bottom also interferes with my pressing of the bottom row of keys.

I can’t describe it adequately, and it’s certainly just my opinion (it’s clearly not bad), but I just didn’t enjoy the keyboard on this phone. It may be totally different for you, but I recommend getting it in your hands before pulling the trigger. They should have them on display all over the place, so take the time to stop in to a T-Mobile store and give it a test run.

Camera

The camera is 5 megapixels and has both autofocus and an LED flash. The results I got were mixed, and I wouldn’t say this is a particularly good example of a camera phone. It’ll take pictures when you need it to, sure, and on Facebook or printed out as 3x5s they’ll look fine, but the usual artifacting, noise, and smeary look of the small sensor camera are present in every shot. The flash, however, is powerful and shots taken with it turned out pretty decent.

Here are a couple sample shots; click for full resolution. You can really see how terrifying the sensor smear is on that one with the tree, and the exposure ain’t so hot either.

The stock camera app isn’t a powerful one, but I found it responsive and good enough for most basic shots. Touch to focus would have been really nice, though, and although I don’t like them I know people appreciate in-camera effects and presets.

Software and performance

Although the G2 is running a processor that’s 200MHz slower than other high-end smartphones on the market, it felt more responsive than any I’ve used. It installed, launched, and quit applications without the slightest hesitation. Navigation in my picture galleries and music collection was quick, and so was media when launched. Touches, drags, and gestures were accurate and it never ignored or forgot any interactions, as some phones do when they’re “thinking.” Angry Birds played as smoothly as it does on my iPad.

The browser is your basic Froyo browser, and it performs admirably here. Multi-touch is in full effect and I feel I’m truly getting the same mobile full-internet experience that I’ve always envied on iPhones.

The software kit shipped with the G2 is extensive: it comes with many “optional” Google applications pre-installed: Earth, Sky Map, Translate, Listen, Finance, Navigation, Latitude, and a few more. The idea they’re approaching, of course, is that eventually they’ll be able to provide you with pretty much everything you need pre-installed, minus a few personal apps and games.

Unfortunately, T-Mobile felt the need to install a few extra uninstallable apps. Photobucket and Web2Go are the most obvious, and Facebook and Twitter are non-removable as well. In fact, all the apps it comes with are non-removable, Google or not. It’s a bit disconcerting that this thing ships with more apps than I had in total on my G1.

There are a few bugs I noticed, though others haven’t affected me (like the random power-off issue mentioned in the comments). The keyboard backlight, for instance, tends to just shut off or turn on whenever it likes, whether I’m SMSing, emailing, or what have you. And I’ve noticed a lot of extra notifications — one email causes the phone to ding twice. By and large it’s a pretty polished experience, though; I don’t recall seeing any apps hang, fail to rotate, etc.

HSPA+ speeds are a little hard to gauge right now, but the G2 performed above normal 3G speeds even with only one “H” bar. Latency was extremely low, which is great when browsing the web. In an informal test against another phone running on 3G, I had a CrunchGear post fully loaded on the G2 before the other had even started rendering the page (both having launched from Google at the same time). It really felt nearly as fast as broadband on my desktop browser, though of course quite a bit smaller. How it compares to 4G I can’t say, but right now the areas where you have both good 4G coverage and good HSPA+ coverage are pretty few and far between, so I doubt many people will have to choose between them over the next few months. Incidentally, though, I’d go with the G2 over the Epic 4G now that I’ve played with them both.

The best speeds I got were around 8Mb/s, which is to say between 900KB/s and 1MB/s. I have no doubt that the phone could easily manage the maximum theoretical speed of the HSPA+ network, which is around 21Mb/s. The important thing is that I never felt limited by the network, as I often do even with a good 3G signal.

Conclusion

My favorite part of using the G2 was how everything seems to work together, and work well. There has clearly been much optimization, and having an app download, install, and launch all within four or five seconds is thrilling. My least favorite part was the hardware, though admittedly the hardware is still better than 90% of the phones out there. If you want what is essentially a Google-powered pocket computer weighing down your jacket, the G2 is an absolutely smashing phone. If you need something lightweight and simple, the G2 is overkill by miles. I’d go so far as saying this is the premier Android handset on the market right now, if the form factor is to your liking. Highly recommended — but as with any other major tech purchase, get it in your hand before you pull the trigger.

Product page: T-Mobile G2

This is a super simple app, and provides a nice front end to the website. You plug in what kind of activities you want to see, a date range (today, this weekend, next 7 days), and define a range (5 miles, 30 miles, 60 miles, etc). The app will query the A Day’s Outing site and return a list of things going on. You can toggle between list view and map view, and you can get driving directions to any destination you select.

If you don’t have an iPhone, you can simply use your smartphone’s browser to access the website to get the same functionality: it’ll just involve a bit more scrolling around on the page.

I like the presentation of this app. I find it calming. It’s simple and uncluttered. My only gripe is that the back button is a little too small for my meaty fingers.

If you’re making a cross-country road trip with your family, or just visiting in-laws for the weekend, A Day’s Outing ought to let you find something interesting to do. It’s only $3.

• 4″ Super AMOLED screen
• 1GHz processor
• 16GB internal storage, 512MB RAM
• 5MP camera with autofocus (and LED flash on Fascinate)
• MSRP: $199 with 2-yr contract (AT&T)

Pros:

• Bright, responsive, good-sized screen
• Slim and light body with great detailing
• Solid battery life
• Runs Android with gusto (2.1 as reviewed, 2.2 on the way)

Cons:

• Samsung’s custom interface and apps aren’t really an improvement
• Screen could be sharper
• No directional pad for making small adjustments in text

Full review:

There are a total of five Galaxy S-based handsets: The AT&T Captivate, which I have here in my hand, the T-Mobile Vibrant, the Verizon Fascinate (identical to the Vibrant except for an LED flash), the Sprint Epic 4G (with slide-out keyboard), and the “vanilla” international Galaxy S. They’re much the same but have some features setting them apart, mainly in the body department. Even so, the experience on one should be pretty similar to the experience for another, so consider this our review of the Galaxy S line — with the caveat that your mileage may vary slightly on the other models.

Hardware

The Galaxy phones fit in between the medium-sized Android phones like the Nexus One and the mega-phones like the Droid X. At 4″ diagonally, the screen doesn’t sound much smaller than the 4.3″ Droid and EVO, but it does make a difference, as every millimeter counts when you’re dealing with something you’ll hold in your hand every day. For my money, the 4″ is pretty much the maximum and perhaps even a little bit too big, but of course that’s a matter for you to figure out yourself.

The hardware differs between the carriers, but you’ve got a few things in common: the Galaxy series is extremely thin, quite light, and has little in the way of bezel. With its shiny border and single hard bottom button, you could be forgiven for thinking the Vibrant, Fascinate, or reference Galaxy S was a slightly larger iPhone 3GS. I much prefer the AT&T model: in addition to having a dedicated search button, it has a more striking shape (real corners!) and an excellent back plate. The back plate is worth describing here: it’s a barely-there carbon-fiber-looking sheet that provides a little grip, looks awesome, and resists fingerprints. Taking it off is ridiculously easy, yet I’m not afraid it’s going to happen on accident. Kudos to the body design people for the Captivate.

The display is Samsung’s vaunted Super AMOLED technology, and while it’s a nice screen, it’s far from perfect. I’ll leave it to dedicated display reviewers to obsess over the color gamut and temperature bias, but I found it to be extremely bright, high-contrast, and fairly vibrant. On the other hand, it has a visible screen door effect, noticeable especially at borders of text and boxes, where there is visible sawtoothing. This has, I think, to do with the sub-pixel layout and dot-sharing that goes on behind the scenes of the display. It won’t bother most people, and the benefits of super-high contrast are probably worth the trade-off. It was especially nice as an alarm clock on my nightstand; black pixels produce almost no light at all, making it an admirable alarm clock.

It does employ soft buttons on the bottom, which aren’t everybody’s cup of tea. Personally, I like them, but Greg doesn’t, and the fact that they’re not always lit up means you will occasionally hit the wrong one even a year into ownership. It’s easy to design something so that users can tell where they’re putting their fingers, Samsung. Just do it!

Samsung also neglected to include any sort of navigational tool like a trackball or optical pad. I don’t expect those to be around forever, but until you create a replacement for it, you can’t just leave it out. The iPhone does fine without one because of its excellent cursor-placement tool. There is no such tool on this phone, so you end up repeatedly jabbing at the screen to get the cursor in the right place. As much Google’s fault as Samsung’s. (Or you can hold the number/symbol key to bring up a separate set of navigational buttons, which I completely missed)

There are two cameras, one front and one rear. There aren’t many uses for the front-facing one right now, but it’s nice to know that it’s there (sorry – it’s only on the Epic 4G and vanilla Galaxy S; the above picture is not a camera on the Captivate, the camera is on the right side in any pic of the handsets mentioned). The rear camera is five megapixels and functions as you would expect. It’s pretty nice. The macro mode was surprisingly functional, and I found most gross details to be very well-represented, though the lens and sensor have trouble making sense of, say, the leaves of trees or brick patterns. Here are a few shots I took; as you can see, the autofocus isn’t entirely reliable, but with a small amount of patience you can easily get some great point-and-shoot quality shots on it. Note that only the Verizon Fascinate has a flash on the back. A puzzling omission from the other phones, if you ask me, but perhaps we ask for too much standard.

One other omission, nearly fatal to my liking for these phones, was that of an LED indicator light. Why, Samsung, why? Those things are just handy as hell! (Update: Apparently the Epic has one, my mistake)

Call quality seemed fine to me, and no one complained about my voice — about the tone or volume, anyway.

Battery life was, I thought, extremely good. Depending on how much you’ve got syncing in the background, of course. It lasted from morning to late night every day I used it, and never approached dangerous levels. It does have a bad habit of announcing in a dialog box that it’s charged, though, which will be showing up every morning if I’m not mistaken. Really, Samsung? Why not overlay “100%” on the battery indicator?

One inter-handset note: there are very few hard buttons on the Galaxy family. The AT&T one has a leg up on the others, though, because they wisely moved the sleep/wake button up a bit; on the Vibrant and vanilla Galaxy, it’s exactly on the opposite side from the volume buttons, and I ended up hitting both on accident many a time (but not on the Captivate).

Interface

Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the stock Android 2.1 interface has been taken over by Samsung’s TouchWiz and Social Hub, which is not a trivial change but not as major as something like Sense.

Instead of an app drawer, the applications button opens up a truly blatant aping of the iPhone’s app layout. It’s organized by date downloaded, which would be nice except for the fact that the non-removable apps Samsung and AT&T are front and center. You can change the order, as well, but isolating your garbage apps in a “jail” screen is time-consuming. There’s also a list view in alphabetical order, though — which is convenient and quick to navigate. Then there are the omnipresent bottom four buttons, which are switch-out-able, but irk me for some reason. Don’t trust ‘em.

Samsung has included a few widgets and apps of varying usefulness: the bright pink “feeds” widget seems a bit limited compared to other apps’, but the “Buddies Now” quick contact rolodex seemed handy for keeping your top five or six contacts ready for quick access. The “Daily Briefing” is similarly handy, though it seems ridiculous to only show a single news article at a time, often with the headline so truncated as to remove all meaning (Democrats Face Un…).

Some apps are included as well, though they’re also hit-and-miss. Question: How many options do you need with which to update your Facebook status? If you answered four or more, this is the phone for you. In all honesty, it’s good to have a choice, but I don’t see myself using the inexplicably wood-themed “Write and Go” when I already have widgets and apps coming out of my ears. That said, the phone does also come helpfully pre-supplied with handy apps like Layar, Thinkfree (a mobile MS Office client), and an e-book reader.

The on-screen keyboard is responsive, but less so when you put on predictive text. Fortunately, I found the predictive text mostly useless, so I avoided it. That meant some annoyance in that that it’s all or nothing — “youll” won’t become “you’ll” even though hello, obvious? The handwriting recognition alternative was fun but not really practical, and it had a lot of trouble recognizing a lower-case “i”.

The unlock screen is another low point. There’s no unifying functionality at all: you swipe in any direction to unlock (not really pocket-proof), but you have to swipe in a particular direction to answer or kill a call. You have to drag a puzzle piece onto an empty space to answer an SMS, but you have to unlock normally and drag down notifications to answer an email. Why aren’t there just different puzzle pieces? The lock screen is attractive, but pretty useless. Let’s get a little more functionality in there, Samsung.

The usual quibbles found in Android (finicky text input, occasional weird delays or slowdowns) are present, but no more so than any other phone, in my opinion.

Getting things on and off the phone is a pain unless you use software that Samsung does not provide — in fact, they seem to go out of their way not to mention it, except deep in the manual. You can download Samsung Kies here, which is an powerful and intuitive syncing and file management app for the handset. I can only guess why it isn’t being actively promoted; setup was easy. Furthermore, I was unable to mount the phone on my PC without it, so there’s that. But check it out, it’s super handy:

Looking back, it seems like I’m really laying into this thing, but the part I haven’t mentioned is that otherwise, it runs Android extremely well. The 1GHz processor launches and closes apps quickly, and navigating scrolling areas and web pages was very quick, limited only by the data connection.

Update: Some points I forgot or have encountered since writing the review. Although the phone is light, I have found it to be quite sturdy. I’ve knocked it off a few tables and sat on it (sorry, Samsung), but it caused no problems and I see no blemishes.

Also, I’ve encountered a few more slowdowns than I’d like — for some reason it will occasionally take several seconds before returning to the home screen, and the camera app once took about 10 seconds to load. Yeah yeah, big inconvenience, right? But on a top-shelf phone with (supposedly) a faster processor than the iPad, this kind of slowdown is unacceptable.

I have not been able to replicate the GPS issues people have mentioned, but I’ll update this if I do.

Conclusion

Although I seem to have spent several paragraphs taking Samsung to task for their questionable interface decisions, I still think this is a great handset. It’s thin, gorgeous, has a big bright screen, and runs great with Android 2.1. The fact is, though, that there are a few issues with the interface, and that 2.2 is coming up fast. I can’t say what might change with 2.2, but I’m pretty sure some of these issues will be addressed. Whether you want to wait for that or not is up to you; some of these little problems might be pet peeves of yours (as the lack of LED indicator is for me). But as far as hardware and general usability goes, the Galaxy S is a nice piece of work.

As for the different models, I’d sat that the AT&T Captivate is the nicest, with the T-Mobile Vibrant a close second. The unbranded Galaxy S is third because of its slightly awkward home button and the volume/sleep button problem I mentioned above. We’re still waiting on the Epic 4G, which I suspect will be pretty epic (I’d go with it over the Evo sight unseen) but obviously trades in a little sleekness for that sliding keyboard. I like all four better than the Droid series, though.

Product pages:
Samsung Galaxy S
AT&T Captivate
T-Mobile Vibrant
Sprint Epic 4G
(no official site yet for Verizon Fascinate)

The size of the app is a bit misleading: you actually need a good bit more than that unused on your phone in order for the app to even install. I’ve got an 8GB iPhone 3G, and it took me awhile to trim down my playlists and delete lesser-used apps before I could get the TomTom app to load successfully. Then I had to do it all over again when an update was released. You cannot install or update this app over the air: the file size requires you to install it from your computer.

With a footprint well over a gigabyte, it should be no surprise that the app is slow to load. It takes almost 30 seconds for the app to load into memory and be ready for user input. The application is not particularly snappy, which can be a nuisance if you’re trying to update a route while on the go.

I found the routing to be just fine, and have no complaints about the quality of the maps or the included points of interest. I found the Ukrainian Museum-Archive while tooling around in Cleveland, Ohio. If such a niche is in the POI list, I’m confident that many other interesting places are also included. And to make things even better, the TomTom app also ties into local Google listings, allowing you to hit Google from within the TomTom app itself (obviously a data connection is required for this aspect fo the app).

I particularly liked the automatic “night mode”: when the calculated local sunset occurs the color scheme automatically switches to a darker palette, making the app easier to see in the lower light without blinding your night vision. When the calculated local sunrise occurs, it switches back to the daytime color palette. Both palettes are user-configurable, allowing you to find a scheme that you find comfortable.

A minor nicety of the app is smooth music fading, so that currently playing songs are not awkwardly paused. Instead the music fades nicely, the TomTom voice directions are made over top of the softer music, and then the music is returned to its previous volume.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the TomTom app squeezes a lot of information into a small screen. Along the bottom you can see your current speed, the current road’s speed limit, distance to the next turn, estimated time remaining on your trip, and the current local time. Along the side you see the optional traffic report.

One of the more interesting features of the TomTom app is a TomTom Traffic subscription, which you can purchase from within the app itself. It costs $20 for a one-year subscription, and the traffic updates are integrated extremely well into the app itself. I asked TomTom how it worked, and this was the response:

We start with our own TomTom IQ Routes Technology, which uses anonymous historical speed profile data to give our customers the most efficient route for any time of day or day of week.

We then layer in real-time GPS information from our LIVE, wirelessly connected portable navigation devices, and combine this data with third-party information from a number of sources. These include GPS sensors from fleet operators, Department of Transportation (DoT) traffic cameras, DoT speed sensors, airborne/mobile spotter vehicles, digital scanners that cover many local emergency services, police callouts, and traffic “Tip Lines.”

Our users opt in to provide anonymous speed profile data via our portable navigation devices. This aggregate data is delivered when the user connects the device to a computer that has our free desktop software, TomTom HOME.

Additionally, our wirelessly connected devices (like the GO 740 LIVE) themselves provide anonymous information about real-time traffic information for the benefit of other TomTom users.

In my testing, the traffic details were extremely accurate. It reliably reported rush hour slow downs, holiday congestion, and a couple of accidents on a regular basis. Unfortunately for me, the fastest route was still usually the one through the thick of the congestion, regardless of cause.

Is it worth $20 a year extra for the traffic subscription? That’s a tough question for me to answer. If I were buying this app solely for myself, I’d probably opt not to get it. My guess is that it would simply be too infrequent that the app would be able to effectively route me around a slow down, but that’s just my opinion. If you live on the road and time matters, you might feel differently.

Complaints
I have a couple major complaints about the TomTom app. First, as previously stated, it’s a huge application that is slow to load and a bit sluggish to respond. It’s a total battery hog, so if you’re using this app in the car be sure to bring along a charging cable of some sort to keep your phone alive.

A subtle related issue is processing speed. If you miss your turn, the app re-calculates and suggests the next best turn for you. Unfortunately, it often told me to turn onto the street I was already passing. At 35 miles per hour in a city, you’re often driving faster than the iPhone 3G can calculate. Maybe an iPhone 4 will be better.

Second, the GPS reception on my phone was pretty weak. If I placed the phone on my lap or between the seats next to me, I would consistently lose GPS reception. I’d have to hold the phone up or place it on the dashboard in order to maintain a decent connection to the satellites. When GPS reception is lost, the screen turns monochrome and a status message appears at the top of the display. While driving to and from Lexington, KY, I’d lose signal about once every five minutes.

Third, the TomTom app announces driving directions in a manner that I wasn’t quite expecting. It’ll say “In 300 yards, turn left onto Suchandsuch Street”. Then, after 300 yards, it’ll say “Turn left”. It will not repeat the name of the street onto which I am to turn. This took a little getting used to, and caused me to miss my turn on more than one occasion. My wife considered this a fatal flaw and completely panned my use of the app as a result. Once you know what to expect, it’s not that big a deal; but it would be nicer if the street name would be repeated, for safety sake.

Conclusion
For $50 you get a lot of app. For an extra $20 you get a lot more in the way of a traffic subscription. If you need turn-by-turn directions on your phone and simply can’t (or won’t) buy a dedicated GPS device, the TomTom app is a good choice.

• Slide out keyboard
• World Phone
• 5 megapixel camera
• Unique interface
• $179 with contract

Pros:

• Doubletwist for OS agnostic media syncing
• Lots of social media connectivity
• Interesting UI and Android 2.1

Cons:

• A little big
• Keyboard a bit cramped
• A bit slow

T-Mobile has been on an Android roll lately. With a number of great devices – including the Granddaddy, the G1, and the older uncle, the MyTouch, the company essentially owns the Android space, at least in terms of handset availability. Obviously other folks – ahem Evo cough Droid – own the mindshare, but T-Mo is plugging away like a champ.

The introduction of the MyTouch Slide gives Blackberry and, more importantly, Sidekick lovers something to lust after. The device, which looks like the standard MyTouch 3G, slides down to reveal a small but usable keyboard.

The Good
T-Mobile worked closely with HTC to create a unique but basic Android experience. For example, the MyModes feature allows you to update the look and feel based on your mood and activities. Like a mullet, you can set things up so it’s business up front and party in the back. There is also a Faves feature to replace MyFaves. This new system is basically a carousel of your favorite friends and brings in social media – Twitter and Facebook, mostly – updates as well as contact information.

Otherwise, you’re looking at a stock Android 2.1 install without all of the HTC Sense UI nonsense.

Call quality was strong and I had good reception in Las Vegas and Brooklyn. Your results may vary. Battery life is strong. It lasts about 18 hours with minimal usage and about 7 hours of heavy browsing and calls. It also has a unique and useful voice control function very similar to the iOS voice command system. The phone also has a full-sized headphone jack, which is a mitzvah.

The Bad
The phone is clad in black plastic and feels a bit chintzy. The keyboard, however, has none of the play of previous, similarly shaped phones like the Palm Pre and it pops out with an authoritative click.

In terms of usability, the phone bogs down a bit when usage gets too heavy. The unique contacts carousel is cool, but when there are other things processing in the background the animations start to slow down.

Bottom Line
Other than a few tiny details, I’m quite pleased with the MyTouch. It’s an entry-level phone for messaging addicts and that’s just fine. At about $180 with contract, you really can’t go wrong and HTC worked closely with T-Mobile to offer a unique but pure Android experience.

Who is this for? It’s for folks who miss their Sidekick and want a keyboard for messaging. The MyTouch 3G Slide’s processor won’t win the blue ribbon at the County Fair, but it is an impressive bit of cellphone.

Product Page

Let’s clear the air right away: The Evo 4G isn’t the second coming. It’s not the iPhone slayer. It might not even be the best Android phone available to date. But it is a solid phone with amazing hardware running the consumer-friendly HTC Sense Android release. That’s a good thing.

Features

• 4.3-inch screen
• HDMI out
• Mobile WiFi hotspot mode
• A kickstand
• 3G/4G capable
• Front and rear cameras
• $199 on contract from Sprint with a data service plan
• June 4th 2010 release date

Pros

• Huge and beautiful screen
• Very thin and fits well in a pocket
• As fast and beautiful as a Ferrari

Cons

• Horrible battery life
• Terrible battery life
• Really, really bad battery life

Display

I don’t think I ever want to go back to a so-called normal cell phone now. The EVO 4G ruined me. The 4.3-inch display offers so much real estate it’s almost overwhelming — but in a good way. The screen is bright, crisp and wonderful. I never felt that it was too large or cumbersome; in fact, I felt it was perfect. It’s a great balance between a standard 3.5-inch cell phone and a small Internet tablet. Saying that the EVO 4G’s screen is too big is like saying, “No thanks, I would rather ride in the back of a cab than in your limo. I like feeling cramped and restricted.”

The bright screen counters sunlight well and it even has a great viewing angle. The touchscreen seems precise and responsive, although I’m sure some test will come out shortly showing that just how accurate, or not accurate, it really is. But simply put, the screen is great and there’s really nothing to complain about.

Form factor

The EVO 4G and it’s slightly-older WinMo cousin, the HTC HD2, are the first of a new breed of “superphones.” These larger-screen options forgo the traditional 3.5-inch screen for something a bit more luxurious. The bigger screen can result in a thicker and therefore less portable device. But that’s not the EVO 4G. Don’t think for a minute that this larger-screen phone is any less pocketable than the iPhone or Droid. In fact I’ll argue that because the EVO 4G’s rear cover is rounded like the iPhone’s, it fits better in a pocket than the squared-off Droid.

I carried around the phone for a good week and never once found it uncomfortable or too big. Sure, it feels slightly larger, but the phone is so damn thin that it’s not awkward in any way.

However, it took some getting used to when holding it up to my ear. That’s when it feels bigger. Because, well, it is although it really isn’t all that wider or longer than the Droid.

Build

The EVO 4G feels good. It’s actually surprisingly light, but yet still feels solid. I like it a lot even thought it’s clearly a modern take on the iPhone with the convex rear panel, very clean lines, flush mounted screen and lack of buttons.

Up top is the lock button and down the right side is a set of toggle buttons. That’s it for physical buttons. The front-facing buttons are touch-sensitive and flush-mounted on the panel.

Around back is the 8MP camera and is actually one of my only gripes about the design. It sticks out a lot. The phone actually rests on the front lip of the metal housing when placed on its back. So much so that I’m actually concerned that the camera will get damaged or the metal casing will harm something else. It made a nasty sound when I slid the phone across a glass tablet top yesterday.

The kickstand is a nice touch, too. A few other early reviews talked about how it felt cheap and stated it will probably break. I don’t get that feeling. It feels solid to me. The kickstand itself is actually built into the phone itself rather than the back panel, as it looks to be in some pictures.

The back panel is held on with a bunch of little plastic clips built onto the rear panel itself. It feels a little cheap when you pry it off with your fingernail. There’s a real chance that one of the little plastic clips will break off if stressed enough, but the back panel is just a thin piece of plastic meaning replacements will probably be cheap. Oh, and the inside looks like a work of modern art. HTC knows how to make things classy.

Camera

The EVO 4G’s 8MP camera is one of the phone’s main selling points and while it does a fine job, it’s not going to replace your pocket shooter. The photos are a tad grainy, blurry and washed out — perfect for Twitpic or Facebook. The dual LED flash helps a bit and tends to fire even under good lighting conditions. Here’s some samples.

The camera actually does great job auto-focusing and firing right away. I don’t know if it’s iPhone-quick, but it’s definitely one of the quicker cell phone camera’s I’ve used, which is more important in my opinion than image quality on a mobile device.

Android

The EVO 4G is rocking HTC’s Android build, Sense. Personally I love it and find it much more enjoyable than plain ol’ Android. It brings a polished finish to the open platform and truly makes it a consumer-friendly device. But that’s just me.

A lot of people prefer a stock Android build, and for good reason, as it will likely be a while before the EVO 4G gets an official version of the latest Android release. It has to come right from HTC and the company has been slow releasing updates for its other handsets. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t do it yourself, though. A video showed up just yesterday showing an EVO 4G running the Android 2.2, although it kills Sense in the process, resulting in a stock Android look.

You must give a Sense-enabled phone a go before you write off Android entirely. Personally I found a stock Android build, like in the Droid, too much work. You have to download a bunch of different widgets and apps just to give the phone a friendly feel. There is no way I would give my wife a Droid. Sense is different. It’s a beautiful alternative with a lot of different customizable options built in. You really don’t have to download any apps (besides Advanced Task Killer) to complete this phone — or any other HTC Android phone like the Incredible or Eris.

Some of these apps make the EVO 4G stand out. The phone ships with a dead-simple WiFi hotspot creator. Just run the app and it quickly creates a WiFi hotspot that can serve up the internet to 8 other devices. It’s too bad that Sprint is charging $30 a month for this feature, although it does come with unlimited data (or so they say).  Don’t want to tether wirelessly? The phone can also share its Internet connection via USB. The video sharing app, Qik, is also pre-loaded on the phone. It’s a great way to utilize the front-facing camera.

A few 3rd party apps really shine on the large screen, too. Of course games like Robo Defense and Radiant do, but Dolphin Browser HD is a must-have app for the EVO 4G. It really should be the stock browser for the new crop of large screen devices. I must say that it’s a tad slower than the standard Android browser, but it renders sites so beautifully on the large screen that’s a great trade-off. It even offers Chrome-like tabs, which are a great function and argument for the larger screen.

The phone’s 1GHz Snapdragon CPU really makes Android fly, too. The only time there is any lag or hesitation in the device is when the phone is installing an app. But otherwise, the EVO is snappy and responsive without any lag under normal circumstances.

Battery

Simply put, the battery sucks. It’s a deal breaker. I’m really sorry to say that, too. In fact it hurts me because I wanted this phone so bad, but the battery life is horrible. The phone will lose a third of its battery sitting overnight with the GPS, WiFi, and 4G turned off. Even with Advanced Task Killer set to aggressive and auto killing apps every hour, the most I can get out of the phone is about ten hours.

Take yesterday: I pulled it off the charger at 9 am, checked my mail and ESPN a couple of times during church, used the GPS navigation for 13 miles, and then checked my mail a few times throughout the afternoon while I was at a family event. The phone died promptly at 6 pm. It’s that bad.

I’ve tried a few different things like using a static background rather than a live background, turning off widget animation, disabling WiFi/4G/GPS, and setting Advanced Task Killer to aggressive. Nothing makes a significant difference. The phone just sucks the battery dry.

So here’s the problem. Power users are the ones that can fully take advantage of the large screen, but the more they use their phone, the faster it dies. The only way I can see to counter this is to plug in the phone whenever possible. When you sit down at your desk, plug it in. Drive to the store, plug it in. Go to bed, plug it in. You might want to invest in one of those instant charge battery packs, too.

Conclusion

The short battery life kills the EVO 4G’s appeal. Like I said, it’s a deal breaker for me. It’s changed my phone habits. I now think twice if I really need to use the phone, as I can’t guarantee that the battery will hold up throughout the day if I use it too much. I should be able to use my phone whenever I want without worrying about the outcome if I do. I keep telling myself that I still want this phone because of the awesome screen and the Froyo Android release will cause unicorns to dance on the phone and fix the battery problem. But it won’t.

It’s a  shame that EVO 4G has such a big deal breaker. I loved this phone. I wanted to marry it, take it to Hawaii and make lots of babies with it. But that’s not going to happen. Its really short battery life outweighs all the EVO 4G’s killer feature. It doesn’t matter how awesome it is to browse the Internet on a 4.3-inch screen or do front-facing video calls if the phone’s battery can’t make it through the day. Recommendation: Use caution.

Must-have accessories and add-ons

• Plenty of charging options
• Portable battery pack
• Dolphin HD Browser
• Advanced Task Killer

Update: Here’s the Battery Use screen for your enjoyment and dissection.

GoodReader is a PDF and text file reader. I’ve been using it for awhile now to enjoy reading books during my commute, and I’ve found it almost perfectly adequate. The biggest selling point for me was the reflow feature:

With the PDF Reflow feature, reading your documents is a pleasure because it extracts pure text from PDF files and automatically wraps words. This amazing feature fits all of the text to your screen perfectly. That means you never have to scroll left and right to read the text.

The only problems with reflow are that 1) images are lost (not a problem in the works I’ve been reading, but could be an issue in some instances), and 2) page formatting is lost, which means that heavy dialog can be a bit more challenging to follow in some works.

When displaying a reflow-ed document, GoodReader can automatically scroll the text for you, making a completely hands-off reading experience. It’s basically like watching a teleprompter. It’s a great idea, but I’m too slow of a reader to really make use of this feature.

The integrated document library lets you easily import files from online services like Google Docs, Dropbox, etc. And it includes a WebDAV server so that you can easily transfer files from your PC or Mac directly into the GoodReader library.

For a buck, you get a lot of functionality. Extra functionality is available through paid add-ons, which seems like a nice balance: if you don’t need ‘em, don’t buy ‘em.

• Tethering enabled
• Striking 4.3-inch screen
• 1GHz processor
• 5-megapixel camera with flash
• $199 with 2-year contract

Pros:

• Amazing screen
• Great media features
• Thin and light

Cons:

• Windows 6.5 with no current upgrade path
• A bit big
• Includes two Transformers movies

The Device
The best thing about the HD2 is that it looks nothing like a Windows Mobile device. For years Windows Mobile has popped up in interface and usability elements like herpes at Studio 54 – it’s always been there, you just have to press the right buttons and you’ll see it. For example, viewing emails used to dump you into Windows Mobiles’ sub par email browser and when you hit the “Start” menu you’d see an ugly list of apps. Somewhere in there was a task manager and a few other vestiges of 1990s technology that Microsoft stuffed into the device.

Windows Mobile 6.5 repaired some of these problems by making most menus icon-based and HTC took things to their obvious conclusion by overlaying their excellent Sense UI over the entire thing. Now you get photorealistic weather icons, easy access to media and messaging functions, and a great experience overall.

The device itself is mostly screen. It has a beautiful 4.3-inch 480 X 800 WVGA touchscreen with a set of buttons for calls as well as Windows, Home, and Back keys along the bottom. There is a full sized headphone jack on the bottom and the phone comes with 16GB of storage. It als includes Blockbuster on Demand access as well as free access to mobiTV for a month. As I mentioned above, T-Mobile included Transformers and Transformers 2: Let’s Try to Make More Money. Obviously these movies are easy selling points for those with light brain damage.

The Good
The central metaphor is a taskbar that appears along the bottom of the screen that contains a number of activities including Home – showing a set of icons including camera, Facebook, YouTube, etc. – as well as Messages, Mail, Browser, Photos, Stocks, Twitter, and Search. The Weather screen is actually quite striking and shows the current time and weather appear in a very cool animation across the screen. Cloud days get delightful clouds while sunny days get, obviously, sun. HTC does this sort of thing well. Their design is beautiful and they do an excellent job of mixing photorealism with readable text to make a great UI.

Going past these initial screens you delve deeper into Windows Mobile 6.5 and, ultimately, despair. Everything works as it should and, in theory, this is more an app phone than a smart phone. It has a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, Bluetooth stereo support, as well as tethering. Generally it has all the right pieces in all the right places. But then we come to the elephant in the room: Windows Phone 7.

The Bad

The HD2 is a great phone. If you’re in the market for a nice media phone and have to have Windows Mobile for work, get this one. It’s one of the best. If you don’t, then you may want to wait. As far as we know, as of this writing, this phone will not support the new version of Windows Mobile (Windows Phone 7).

Again, if you upgrade every year or eight months, do what you feel. This is a good Windows Mobile Phone and on par with the iPhone in terms of media features. However, the idea that this phone will soon be extinct is disconcerting.

Bottom Line
If you want to future proof your phone investment, you need to rethink the HD2. It’s such a great device – slim, sexy, and plenty of power – but it is like buying the last Palm OS phone just before the Pre is launched. In a few months this phone will be vaguely outdated and in a year it will be obsolete. I do not envy T-Mobile and HTC in their damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t position, but I want to make it clear that buying this phone, while not a gamble per se, puts the owner in an odd position: they will love the phone but will be very jealous of Windows Phone 7 when it drops.

Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe WP7 will slip onto here like a pat of butter on a good steak. Only time will tell.

BugMe is simple enough: it’s basically a note taking application. The iPhone version is all touch — no virtual keyboard. Draw, scribble, doodle, and handwrite notes on your iPhone. They get saved onto a virtual corkboard. You can drag individual notes around to manually arrange them, or you can shake your iPhone to have the re-arranged for you.

You can create notes on various colored papers, or you can use (or take) a photo to use as a background for your note. Obviously, you could just use a photo with no note on top of it as a visual reminder, if you want.

Notes can be assigned a due date, which will allow you to receive a reminder of the note when it is due. Notes only work on the iPhone, not iPod Touch or iPad, and since they rely on push notifications they only work when you have network access. From their iPhone product page:

We must stress that you’ll need to have internet access on your phone to make alarms work and that you should use these alarms as casual reminders – not for really-important-disaster-if-forgotten tasks! Unfortunately, alarms are not supported on the iPod Touch or iPad at this time.

One of the much-toted features of the BugMe iPhone app is the ability to send a note to your iPhone home screen. Indeed, at first blush this seems like a really nice idea: if the note is front and center on your phone, you’re much more likely to remember it! Unfortunately, the process for actually adding an item to your home screen is convoluted:

I don’t blame BugMe for this. They’re going the best they can within the confines of what Apple permits. It just doesn’t seem like such a great idea, to me, to be jump through this hoop in order to put an icon on my home screen to remind me to do something.

You can also push your notes out to Twitter, if you want the entirety of the Internet to remind you to do something.

At ninety nine cents, BugMe for iPhone isn’t going to break the bank, so if this is the only way you’re going to remember to buy flowers for your mom, you can get on with your life.

As for me, I simply add items to the regular iPhone calendar. It’s decidedly low-tech, doesn’t rely on additional applications, and works for me. The fewer apps I need to actually get on with my productivity, the better off I am, I think.

MailTones is the first and only app to let iPhone users change the sound of their email alerts – both for “all” mail, and with different custom tones for different sender domains, subjects and individual friends… which adds enormous fun and practical value to the email on the iPhone – in ways which were simply not possible before!

This is a simple little app, but there’s a big catch: in order to enjoy push notifications, you need to forward your mail to a special address assigned to you at mailtones.net. Once that’s done, MailTones will work its magic and send you push notifications of new email messages. On the whole, this setup works well, but there can be some synchronization issues depending on how compulsively you check your new email: you might get a notification of a message you’ve already read.

You have the choice of forwarding all your mail to MailTones, and then using the MailTones iPhone app to set up a variety of rules for notifications. You can match on a specific sender address, any sender from a specific domain, or subject line contents. You can have multiple overlapping rules defined, and the MailTones app will follow a specific flow to determine which sound to play. For example, if I define a domain match for @crunchgear.com, and also specify a contact match for john@crunchgear.com, the tone I specify for John will be played rather than the tone for @crunchgear.com. The matching goes by sender address, then subject contents, then domain, and finally if none of those match the default tone will be played.

You also have the choice of selectively forwarding mail from your account(s) to MailTones. This is what I did in my GMail account. Rather than forward everything, I defined a couple of filters to selectively forward only mail for which I might like to be notified.

This allows me to rely on the default MailTones notification for those messages I forward, and I can then fine-tune the notifications based on sender address or subject line matching.

By default, MailTones is on all the time. If you forget to toggle the speaker switch on your iPhone, you’ll get email notifications all night long. Thankfully, there is a “Do Not Disturb” option in the MailTones preferences which allows you to specify a time range during which notifications should be suppressed.

You can get MailTones in the App Store for $2.99, with no on-going subscription costs. This is a pretty good price for an application that really adds a new level of functionality to your iPhone.

Every so often you find a game so addicting that you can’t stop playing it. I’m that way with two games on the iPhone: Fieldrunners and Civ Revolution. Close runners up are iShoot (there are only so many times you can launch nukes) and now Crush the Castle.

Designed by Armor Games, CtC was originally a Flash game ported to the iPhone.

To play you load up a trebuchet with weapons (rocks, firebombs, whatever else) by tapping once. You tap again launch and then tap to release at some point in the arc. The items swing out into space and land at some point on a castle that is essentially made of beams. The beams react in a naturalistic way meaning they move as if they were real beams and you then crush little people underneath them. Rinse. Repeat.


It’s quite addictive and you add new weapons and “lands” throughout the game. If you get medals – meaning you beat the level in less than a certain number of sticks – you can unlock new continents.

The best part, I think, are the realistic crashes. The little characters don’t really squash – they kind of just fall over – but the interaction of the parts allows different parts to fall down when hit. Later levels introduce challenges like fire.

You can play the game right here or you can download a free demo version here or a $1.99 full version here.

The folks at Armor Games want five of you the chance to try it out. I’ll pick five commenters at random to receive a promo code. Otherwise, get a copy of the free version and give it a go. It’s pretty fun.

Short Version: The Sprint Overdrive is a small, compact portable 3G/4G cellular data network to WiFi dongle designed for use by up to five people simultaneously. The best part is the ease of use and the worst part is the dearth of 4G networking outside of a few major cities.

Features:

• Internal, replaceable battery
• Front OLED screen
• Sprint 4G support

Pros:

• Very small
• Screen displays security information
• Good speed

Cons:

• Only five users per device
• 4G coverage is sparse

Review:

We are of two minds about the Sprint Overdrive. In terms of design and usability, the Overdrive is excellent. It is a small, compact device with OLED screen and removable battery that holds a charge for about four hours of heavy use. Up to five users can access it at once and the security information appears right on the screen, allowing folks to glance over instead of asking you to give them the device to read the code off the back or, worse, having to look it up.

On the other hand, 4G is pretty sparse and on a good day we got sub 4G speeds in many of our tests in Vegas, although by any standard 4G there was sparse. At best we hit 2Mbps in real terms.

3G speeds were on par with what we’d expect in various Sprint coverage areas. A quick speed test gave us 355KBps down and 93KBps up. Various locations gave us the same numbers.

The device is $99 after $50 rebate and starts at $39 per month.

On the whole, this is a well-designed and clever product. Ideally you need to be in a 4G area to grab the full value but as those roll out over the next few months you might as well future proof now.

Bottom Line
Impressive design and good performance make this a dongle to watch.

Product Page: Overdrive