This device works with 1080p resolution up front, has 16GB of internal storage as well as a microSD card slot so you can expand as needed. You’ll get a 2000mAh battery under the hood alongside the ability to shoot 13 megapixel photos on the back – though you’ll see here that it’s still got 8 megapixels printed, and the phone doesn’t work with the software at the moment at all, incidentally. The front also has a lovely video chat-quality camera. This device also works with a fancy version of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, complete with new icons and everything.

This device is extremely comfortable to hold, employing some near-soft plastic along the back and having a rather responsive touchscreen up front. With this device you’ll be rolling out with Alcatel’s own brand of Android, but other than the looks, you’ll be running with some rather classic Android functionality. The one other item you’ll notice in this machine that’s out of the ordinary is a “3D” interface for viewing media – rather odd indeed.

It’s the larger one, mind you. The one is the Alcatel One Touch Idol.

This device will be coming out inside the year 2013, but pricing and availability – which countries it’ll be in, that is – will be announced at a later date. You’ll be able to pick this device up in Red, Blue, and Yellow for starters – and we’re betting on Black for the near future as well. Have a peek and stick with us all week for more Mobile World Congress 2013 action!

This device works with a lovely bring AMOLED display, runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and comes with the ability to work with 1080p video on its back as well. You’ll find a slightly strange version of Android inside, with much of the same functionality as Jelly Bean’s newest iteration, this time with a new skin. Alcatel’s own collection of icons appear like candy.

This device is one of three new devices we’ve seen this week, another working with Firefox’ new mobile OS, another coming with the first body to run the MediaTek MT6589 quad-core chipset. This One Touch Idol is clearly the star of the show though with both a soft-touch plastic body that’s comfortable to hold and a snappy set of innards, regardless of the number of cores. This device will also be coming out rather soon, though pricing and details on which countries it’ll hit remain a mystery for the time being.

You’ll find more Alcatal excellence in the timeline below and will be able to continue to follow SlashGear through Mobile World Congress 2013 for the next handful of days for more mobile sweetness from all corners of the earth. Stay tuned in our MWC 2013 portal all week long!

This device is exceedingly similar to the Google Nexus 7 in both its size and its overall aesthetic choices – you’ll even see the shorter ends working with larger bezels, just like the ASUS-made slate. The bigger differences come in the non-vanilla flavoring of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and a less-than-fantastic processor under the hood. Unless it turns out this device is running a magic-making dual-core A9, it simply will not be able to keep up with the Nexus 7 in terms of processing power.

That said, this slate is just 10.7 mm thin, rather light at 13.05 ounces, and looks quite nice with some smoothness on its back. The software on this device is not quite final at the moment, so you’ll not want to base judgements on what you see in the hands-on video above alone, but other than that this is what’s coming soon. This device will be appearing at a store near you this April – with a price point of MSRP $169 USD.

And yes, that is a back-facing camera you’re seeing with 3 megapixels of power. There’s also a front-facing camera that’s VGA in quality, made for video chat. Have a peek at the rest of the details in the initial HP Slate 7 announcement post for this device, and stay tuned. We’ve got more Mobile World Congress 2013 action this week coming up than you’ll be able to handle!

This beast takes on a form that may remind one of the Microsoft Surface Tablet but brings on its own bit of flare with a combination of covers in one go, here being shown with a variety of different color combinations (that look surprisingly like the Moshi iGlaze Versacover – take note!) This machine is relatively light, especially for a full Windows 8 machine, and is made to take on the market that’s surprisingly short of full Windows 8 tablets right this very minute.

Have a peek at this machine that’s got NFC, an Intel Atom Z2760 dual-core processor, and the ability to take photos with both a front and a back-facing camera. Quite similar to the display on the ASUS Transformer Prime, this tablet has excellent viewing angles and will be prepped for both simple browsing and your on-the-go computing needs.

This beast will be out sooner than later, taking on the market before the end of the Summer here in 2013. Have a peek at our ASUS tag to see more ASUS action today for the next week to see what else they bring to the mean hallways of CES 2013. Also make sure to keep your eyes on our giant CES hub for the hands-on or otherwise up to the minute action over the next week as well!

This headset will be coming out next month from Jabra to add to their excellent lineup of Bluetooth and USB speakers out in the states already. What you’ve got here is a Bluetooth-connected earpiece, both a speaker for your ear and a microphone, that is, complete with some next-level noise cancellation. The noise cancellation we’re told is able to work for both you and the person you’re speaking with on the other end of the phone – if you’re using this headset to speak with a friend via your Bluetooth-capable phone, that is.

There’s a talk button, an easy to use attachment bit to hold this device to your ear, and an on-off switch that couldn’t be more intuitive. To switch this device off, just fold up the microphone bar to the speaker. This will also make the device more compact and able to fit in the tiny case that comes with it. Also coming with the pack is a USB dongle that’ll fit into your device that’s not normally able to work with Bluetooth, converting the signal to work instantly for you and yours.

This device is set to be released for $149 estimated retail price very, very soon. Grab it!

Energizer’s new universal multi-port charger shown below comes in multiple sizes, but we were taking a look at the 5,000 mAh model that will be priced at $75.99. This will charge that smartphone of yours completely dead to 100% almost 4 times, or more if you’re one of those “I’m halfway empty, time to charge” type of people. It has dual USB ports for charging multiple devices at once, and one offers a higher output for tablet support.

Energizer’s equipped the top with 3 blue LED’s that double as charging and battery status indicator lights. One tap will give you a battery status report, and long press powers on the device for charging. Then from there the LED’s will show charging status as your battery fills up. This is nothing new, we’ve seen similar products many times before but another affordable and portable battery pack is always welcome in my travel bag.

The blue magnetic cable clips shown in the pictures is also a nice touch although makes the device appear more bulky than it really is. They they help keep that cable clutter to a minimum. Again these come in multiple sizes and the 5,000 mAh model shown here will retail starting this month for $75.99 for those interested in a little extra juice for their gadgets.

The all new Digipower Chargecard will power your Android or micro-USB smartphone for hours, or give you an extra charge when you’re in need — without hurting your wallet. When we say the ChargeCard won’t hurt your wallet you can see what we mean from the pictures. Not only is it extremely small and portable being barely bigger than a credit card — small enough to fit in your wallet, but it also won’t break the bank either as they’re only asking $29 for this neat little battery pack.

The tiny and portable ChargeCard is actually a 680 mAh rechargeable battery and takes about 45 minutes to fully charge, from their you can power your smartphone for hours, or about 1/3rd a full charge. It’s not the biggest battery pack in terms of charging capacity, but the small size and price makes up for the difference. They claim it will give you a full hour of talk time, but for someone just using their phone through the day it should give you at least a few more solid hours of usage.

Check for these to hit stores such as RadioShack sometime this month or early June.

What you’re looking at is a near-complete set of software and hardware from Toshiba on this tablet which is still set for a Summer release here in the USA. We’ll likely see a smaller spread as far as how many units will actually be available on the market, but the device itself will more than likely see some really avid hacker and developer attention on an underground tip. This device currentl;y runs Android 4.0.3 and has a very light Toshiba set of features on top in the form of applications only.

Toshiba has included their own Media Player here which allows you to connect with several other kinds of devices and has the ability to make this device exactly what it looks like – a movie-watching masterpiece. How you feel with a full-sized display sitting in your lap is totally up to you, of course, but we’ll be experimenting with the possibilities of bursting forth Angry Birds as big as our fingertips. Or perhaps with just a bit bigger environments – much improved gaming!

Obviously we all should know plenty about this impressive new phone from Samsung already. That being the 4.8-inch 720×1280 resolution Super AMOLED HD display, and the powerful quad-core processor that keeps Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface as fast as ever. In today’s hands-on you’ll see a few software side improvements that make “the next galaxy” just that much better.

Snapping a photo is a breeze with the 8 megapixel camera, then from there with Samsung’s personalized TouchWiz gallery you can tag a photo using their facial recognition, then every photo you’ve snapped of your girlfriend, wife, or friends will instantly be recognized and tagged. From there you can instantly call people from a photo, send them a message, or even tweet the image and more. All these little changes are a small part of what will make the Galaxy S III unique, yet powerful in more ways than just a spec sheet.

Then we also got a brief video showing the unlock features Samsung has also added. Just like Android 4.0 ICS and the camera unlock shortcut, or HTC’s Sense UI where you can quickly launch apps from the lockscreen Samsung has integrated the same options. Instantly opening the dialer for a call, camera to snap quick photos of those special moments, or anything else the user would like. I’ll personally have Yahoo! Sports and Twitter on my quick list.

This is just a few of many new features coming with the new next-level Samsung hero phone. Check out our Galaxy S III Portal for more details, hands-on, and even their S-Voice Siri rival voice actions.

Keynotes

While this is my first full Consumer Electronics Show visit, it’s not my first time to an event similar to this: namely Mobile World Congress, aka MWC, the european event centered around the mobile world, this event taking place in February again this year. At Mobile World Congress, CTIA (another similar event in the Spring), and others, the keynote speech is one of three primary places you’ll get news in-person at the greater event. When we sat in the audience this year, it was either myself, Cory Gunther, and Vincent Nguyen, or just myself and Cory who sat side-by-side and knocked out story after story on the speakings of the people standing on stage presenting as fast as humanly possible whilst retaining the amount of high-quality writing and photography we require.

As you’ll see through the portals listed above, it ended up being in quite a few cases me being the writer – typing most of the time as the people spoke sentences, then deciding when each section was starting and ending so as to create articles that flowed well and presented a main subject with relevant details surrounding it. That’s only part of the story, of course, with Cory then handling the post after I’d saved it, editing and fixing up the articles with photos and video either he or Vince captured on the spot, posting these stories then inside a few minutes after they’d really “broken.” After a keynote was complete, we each time literally got up and ran out of the arena we were in to get to the next one, again and again through the first couple of days of CES.

Meetings

Because we’ve got a record of turning hands-on experiences into lovely posts for all of you out there in consumerland. We speak with these manufacturers, carriers, and developers as far in advance as we can, then we’ve got scheduled meeting places where we get our own quiet look at the devices that require just a bit more attention than the ones we see out on the floor. That’s not to say that the items we just see out on the floor aren’t as high quality as the ones we see behind closed doors – of course not – but different groups want to get closer to certain users, like yourselves, so they invite us in to get up in there. Below you’ll see footage from an ASUS meeting we had, and above is your humble narrator guiding the future in a Mercedes concept demonstration we’ll have posted later this week.

The Floor

The dreaded death-race of a massive event that is The Floor. This is where we get all the real oddities, not just smaller groups, but everyone we can that did not have an event or a meeting scheduled that has an excellent device or service. You’ll find that many of our posts from the floor hit the airwaves later in the week and even continue to pop up early this week, as once we’re on the floor, it’s all about collecting before we run out of time in Las Vegas. Gotta go home sometime!

Side Events

There are fabulously excellent side events that, similar to meetings, allow us to get a closer look at devices without the hordes of CES attendees smashing down upon us. These events are why there often times aren’t devices for hands-on looks after keynote speeches during the week, as the amount of people that attend the keynotes would require masses of units to satisfy them all. This way, these events can spread out the love. One of these events is Pepcom, they each time naming their show in accordance with the event it surrounds, this time calling it “Digital Experience.” Late last year we attended another Pepcom by the name of Holiday Spectacular 2011, a good time had by all! There’s also an event with a similar format by the name of Showstoppers where this year we had an interview table where we sat down and spoke to some of the more interesting attendees of the events and had a chat with each of them about their products.

There are also less formal events, several of which we weren’t able to get to simply because of the massive bulk of material we had to cover, Verizon‘s “Off the Record” event, for example. Individual manufacturers will also have side events that are a mix of product presentation and party – Toshiba had a lovely one at the TAO early in the week. It’s important for a person in my position to get snacks at each of these events, as well as water or juice, simply because quite often there won’t be time to stop for a meal.

How one handles all of this

There’s no hardship in being here, and I wouldn’t dare complain about writing for a full week about technology, gadgets, and services that bring our planet further and further into a fun, digital age. That said, my body doesn’t have the easiest time getting up around 6AM, typing and running until 2AM, sleeping for 4 hours and doing it again the next day. We did get to eat a couple of meals though, and the ultimate savior was three things: granola bars in the morning, Gatorade throughout the day, and one tiny packet of Airborne. That stuff is miraculous.

Again, please feel free to ask any other questions you’ve got about what we / I did during the week, how and why we did it.

This device has another name, that being the LePhone S2, this harkening back to all of our memories of the LePhone as the smartphone world developed over the past few years, Lenovo along with it. The S2 has a 3.8-inch display at WVGA resolution, runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and has an 8-megapixel camera on the back. That’s no joke for a device that also has one of the best single-core processors out there: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.5GHz MSM8255.

This device will be released in two iterations, one with 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, the other with 1GHz RAM and 16GB internal storage. With a release in China exclusively, at least at the start, we can’t help but wonder when Lenovo will make their move with smartphones here in the USA. Will it be with the Medfield-toting K800, or will it be with this little gem?

Several odd bits hold this device back from any kind of potential winning it was going to do in this market: first of all, it was launched much, much before Windows 8 came around. With Windows 8 touch-friendly interface right around the corner, tablet makers are taking care to make sure their devices work with this brand new system. This Acer device does have a hearty construction, but the second big folly is that it’s got three features in direct opposition to the features most people love about the Transformer Prime: the Tab does not fold down into a laptop, it does not have a trackpad (relying instead on a Lenovo-esque nubbin,) and it’s running an operating system that was never meant to be working with a touchscreen.

This device is already out on the market in several sectors for the absolutely ludicrous price of $848 with the keyboard dock included, though you can certainly find it cheaper if you look hard enough. Check out our hands-on video courtesy of Acer, and make sure you note their much more updated line of devices that will, indeed, be sticking with the times as far as working with a more mobile-friendly set of hardware and software. Check out the Acer Iconia Tab 2012 refresh on the Android side of things to see the ideal setup before Windows 8 comes to the consumer market in bulk.

This system has just been launched this past week with real-time local information as well as integration with your contacts, music, and all of it from the one “My Dashboard” page. You’ll be able to connect with iPhone as well, it having an initial offer of Scout.me integration, the site offering you the ability to plan with friends via Facebook and Twitter and organize and save your favorite spots for later viewing. All of this is then synced to your device where your in-car display will be able to access it whenever you’re plugged in to the system.

Telenav announced that their initial partnership will be with Ford for its SYNC system, and as you’ll be able to see in the hands-on video, the whole system is already working quite slick. Voice guidance is also offered through your stereo, and text prompts are there too if you’re not a fan of being told where to go. All of this is available on the mobile end this week, but as for how soon we’ll see it in cars, there’s no solid date as of yet – soon though!

Grab the phone-based application from the iTunes App Store for your iPhone, check out http://www.scout.me/ as it enters its Beta stages, and grab the Android app in the near future!

This solution, as used by LG in the Revolution here in the video, is using Horizon Type 2 hypervisor, this a solution that requires vertualization to layer your second environment on top of your already existing Android base. What you see working here allows you to have two completely separate environments on your device: one for “home” and one for “work,” for example. This solution gives you the ability to have things such as security of your work data and files while you work with your personal set of apps, files, folders, and even items so simple as wallpapers.

It also allows carriers to very possibly do away with the massive wait that we all go through when a new version of the software comes out and we must work to create a compatible version of it for each individual device. That, and it gives the manufacturers in this Android world the ability separate their software from their hardware (in more ways than one) so that they can concentrate on one or the other, however they wish.

Have a peek at this award-winning project courtesy of LG’s Tony Janssen right here on a device that came out earlier last year, the LG Revolution, also reviewed by us in full.

So you take this little guy, you flip out the back and plug your microSD card in, taking the whole device then and plugging it in to your USB 2.0 port so you can see the contents of your card on your computer. MicroSD cards are the ones you pop into your smartphone, this device giving you a fun way to get media on or off your smartphone, essentially. And it’s Star Wars, so you can’t go wrong.

These little monsters will be out in March, 2012, and will cost you $12.95 each. There’s also DC comic book characters such as Superman, Batman, and the like, and they’ll cost the same as well. And you can pop em on your keychain just like the rest of the Mimobot line. Fun!

You’ll be working with an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor, wi-fi, and a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution display on the front. That’s sharp as heck. Have a peek at the video we’ve got flipping this tablet around back and forth and whatnot as much as you could possibly want without actually stepping up to Best Buy to check this device out yourself. You’ve got the ability to access all your favorite Tegra Zone games as well as the most high-powered applications on the market, no problem.

We’ve got a bit more information on Toshiba items from this show (we’re at CES 2012, by the way, if you did not know,) and we’ve got more content than you can shake a cloud at. Have a peek at our [Toshiba portal], our portal for [CES Live], and our more general portal for [CES 2012] for all announcements.

ALSO this tablet starts at $379 for the 16GB version – get it or explore your options – good luck!

This camera is able to be set up in 60 seconds, it connecting to your wi-fi network to stream video anywhere you want it – through mobile or your browser window from any internet connected device. You can watch all night long with night vision, this feature turning on automatically, and you can zoom at any time on whatever you like inside the devices field of vision. There’s a mic inside as well as a speaker which then allows you to have two-way conversations with whoever’s in the room.

Have a peek at the video here of our hands-on look and check the images above and below to get your own closer look. Note that this device is available today for a mere $149 and can be found at Dropcam.com – this is in addition to whatever plan you choose for connectivity. You can do the Basic plan for free – this will give you real-time viewing at any time with motion alerts via email or text. That’s a pretty good deal, but if you’d like more features you certainly can pay for them. Plus and Pro cost $9.99 and $29.99 a month respectively. Plus will being you all the basic features and will give you cloud storage amounting to seven days of DVR recording – Pro has all of that but with 30 days of full-motion HD video as well.

Also note that the group is no longer affiliated with its partners of old, now working more independently than ever on this newest bit of hardware. Exciting times are ahead! This isn’t the last we’ll hear about this device, you can bet.

But perhaps what’s really amazing is a 12x zoom cramped into a lens that only extends out about half an inch. That should cut down significantly on viewfinding and motor noises. It’s all visible on a 3-inch viewscreen that’s sadly not touch-enabled. An ISO range of 3200 should make for some good night performance.

What’s most interesting is the new facial detection, which can differentiate between children and adults. It can also be set – in a photo with up to 12 people, the ELPH can choose to focus on either infants, children or adults. When focusing on a baby, the photo will automatically take three shots when it detects a smile, and disable the autofocus beep and shutter sound when it detects that the baby is sleeping. Now that’s kid-friendly.

The PowerShot Digital ELPH 520HS will be available in March for $299.99. It comes in black, red, silver or blue.

Inside the large screen, you get a Core i7 processor, up to 8 GB of RAM and connections built into the all-aluminum base. The screen looks like it’s 1920×1200, which is a little lower than we’d like to see at this size. There’s no word on price just yet, but it’s headed to various markets in April. Various Lenovo software additions take advantage of the size and touch capabilities, including an eye-catching piano program. I played Dixie. When you tire of finger-tapping rhythms, you can switch to a conventional keyboard and mouse.

Using it from a standing position eliminates the “gorilla arm” syndrome, and replicates working with an artist’s angled desk. Unfortunately the touch controls weren’t quick or responsive enough to keep up with my musical abilities - such as they are. High-end hardware including a Blu-ray drive option should make it an ideal media machine, assuming you’ve got the content to fill it.

Lenovo says the IdeaCentre A720 will go on sale in the first half of this year, priced from $1,299.

The experience of trying out the headset is a trip, to say the least. A basic 3D environment was on display, and moving the perspective around was easy enough when tilting my head. But moving around required a standard PlayStation style-controller. Camera in the holes on the headset help to sense the change in motion from the surrounding environment. It’s all very basic at the moment, probably running on some very low-power hardware running within the unit itself. The 3D was surprisingly good for a demo unit, but the basic game on display didn’t really do it justice.

The hardware itself feels very plasticy, and the one-size-doesn’t-really-fit-anybody means that women or smaller men will have it move around on their head a lot. The combination of motion tracking, head-mounted display and 3D is interesting, but in this particular package, feels like an arcade experience: fun for a while but you wouldn’t want to game with it for hours on end. The Sensics 3D SmartGoggles has no set release date, but they’re trying for sometime in 2012.

The unit comes with a tiny terabyte drive encased in plastic, and swappable sleeves can apply a standard knife/scissors/file combo, or a non-bladed metal sleeve for airline travel. The drive’s connector works on both USB 3.0 and e-SATA, and the drive’s 256-bit security should make the most hardcore of security advocates happy. Failing that, an auto-destruct mode (software only, of course) will enable if it detects a brute force attack.

The drive won’t be available until August, and a Victorinox associate said that they’re still considering the $3K price. (For that much, I’d like a fold-out cappuccino machine and a death laser.) For the more economically practical, the company is still offering its flash drive/knife combos.

On the back of this device is an 8-megapixel camera, on the front is a camera fully capable of working with you for video chat, and you’ll be able to work with it with all of the Lapdocks in the latest line: the 100, the 500 Pro, and the rest of the HD dock suite. This device is a half-inch thick, works with mobile hotspot out of the box, and is going on sale “in coming weeks.” It’ll be sold on a two-year agreement for more than likely right around $250 USD and in general feels pretty nice to hold.

Have a peek at our hands-on pics and video and let us know: is this everything you’ve been waiting for? When a device has been leaked as much as this one have, we’ve got to expect that it either affects you in a way that has you chomping at the bit to get it or tired to death of hearing about it – this certainly is a wicked qwerty – is it your next?

This device is working with a 720p display, has a set of functions called Fast Capture which allows you to go from asleep to taking a photo in under 1.5 seconds. For video output there’s a microHDMI port, this right next to the microUSB port – the two of them looking rather similar to the setup Motorola has on their latest suite of dual-core devices. There’s also a Smart Dock which you’ll be able to pick up that also has the same functionality Motorola’s recent docks do, this time with no additional power port – just USB, USB, microHDMI, and microUSB.

This device is made to be Sony Ericsson’s next big step back into the USA, and from what I’m seeing here, they’re doing a fabulous job of making it happen. We’ve got hands-on pics here and a video incoming – stay tuned!

The entire keyboard is powered by a battery you charge up via USB, and it all connects to the tablet via Bluetooth. When you fold it out, the keyboard wakes up and is ready to work. When you fold it back down and under your iPad, it turns off completely so as to conserve battery as much as possible. The battery inside does not need replacing, charging via USB the same way your iPad itself does.

Like all awesome cases and otherwise attachable iPad 2 accessories, you can use your Apple-made Smart Cover for use with the Fold-Up Keyboard. The keyboard works with your iPad to provide you with multi-key touches, key combinations (like shift and a letter for capitalization, for example), and a lovely easy typing experience. The entire device will cost you $129.99 and you can buy it straight from Logitech today.

Again this is just one of many hands-on videos we collected at the 2011 Pepcom Holiday Spectacular in New York City. To see all the rest in a lovely and conveniently arranged list, just hit the [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal] and discover the future!

What we get to see here is the slickness in the design of these two new titans, both of them designed to look good and act as an aesthetically pleasing companion for the worker, student, or player on the go. Open up one of these bad boys in your local sandwich shop and look at all the eyes upon you – they want to know where you got your new, wait, what is that? It’s a Samsung Series 7 CHRONOS Notebook, announced at IFA 2011 and already finding its way to NYC in time for this Pepcom event. You can just FEEL the excitement surround you.

What the big deal we’re looking at here is sits inside a chassis built for a tinier news bit – that’s right, for each of these notebooks, the hardware is built to house a bigger display. The bezel size in particular is greatly reduced on both models, with a 15-inch display fitting now inside a 14-inch profile and a 15.6-inch display embedding real snug inside the 15-inch model. You’ll find that we’re only seeing one of the two models powered up, but the display tech is quite apparent. Each Series 7 CHRONOS Notebook have SuperBright 300nit brightness, anti-reflective glass, and 16 million colors blasting forth from the inner workings of the Samsung CPU mind.

At the very bottom of this post you can also see an interview conducted with Won Park, Vice President of Samsung Electronics IT Solutions Business Marketing Group who, also just a bit ago still inside September, explained the Samsung Notebook Series 7 CHRONOS in a bit more detail. This all look like a winning set of combinations to you?

You can see more Samsung technology alongside all sorts of other gadgets and gizmos we’ve gotten hands-on time with over the past week or so by hitting the [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal], your doorway to a neat variety of futuristic bits in conveniently formatted video and photo form. Try em all on for size!

This keyboard comes in three light color combinations with a blue, pink, or green top, or a slightly darker silver covering most of the face with a black accent at the top, or a fully black option. As you’ll see in the video, each color combo is live in effect except for the all-black version. In addition to the keyboard itself, you’ll be working with a USB stick (or tiny USB dongle) to connect to your Mac – a MacBook Air here, for example. Each keyboard, they say, for up to three months in total darkness – in the video we see our helpful rep note “three hours”, but we’re going to guess that this is a mis-spoken factoid since all of the press on this device says three months otherwise.

The entire keyboard is only 1/3-inch thick, the keys are set up in a familiar Mac fashion, and all of the keys have a Logitech-specific concave key-cap design. There’s also a Logitech Solar App that you can download along with the keyboard that lets you know what your current battery power is and how much power you’re getting from your sunlight source or desktop lamp at any given time – yes, that’s correct, you don’t need direct sunlight to make this device work. The keyboard can grab power from indoor lighting as well!

You get a 3-year warrantee with purchase, the entire 432 x 157 x 7.5 milimeter keyboard weighs in at only 750 grams, and you can grab one right this second from http://logitech.com/ for $59.99.

Sound good?

You can also check out the rest of the awesome Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 action by hitting the [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal] – hands-on videos and photos of awesome gadgets, gizmos, and tech-tacular items galore!

What Zumba Fitness does is take the Zumba program, an program in which dancers do similar moves repetitively in order to exercise effectively, and makes it into a simple game. What you do in the game is just that, shake your rump, and as it’s available for Wii with Wii Balance Board, PlayStation 3 with PlayStation Move and Xbox 360 with Kinect, you can bet it’s got more than a decent opportunity to get into your living room. We got to see this game in action this past week at Pepcom’s 2011 Holiday Spectacular in NYC.

Have a look at this application via Lisa Roth of Majesco Entertainment showing it off, both in detail and in practice, in the video here in the post. This game contains more than 30 routines you can do right out of the box, each of them based on Zumba fitness as it exists in the non-game world. You can set your game up for 20, 30, or 60 minutes intervals or you can just go forever and ever. You can work with several instructors, one of them being the originator of Zumba Alberto “Beto” Perez.

This game is coming out on the Wii on November 8th, 2011 and will include at least one of the unique Wiimote belts you see in the video so that you wont have to strap the Wiimote to your hip with duc-tape. A rather simple, playful, totally realistically applicable concept turned into a real-life gaming experience for your health – and not the of the Steve Brule sort!

To see more hands-on videos with gadgets, games, and technology consumables galore, check out our [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal] and taste the product rainbow!

We got the chance to go hands-on with this television this past week at Pepcom’s 2011 Holiday Spectacular in New York City and have come back with a video that runs you through the switches. What you’ve got here is a 3D TV that’s also “smart”, smart with the ability to run Yahoo widgets and a slew of other TV-minded applications that’ll have you Netflixing in no time.

You’ll also be working with full 1080p resolution playback on all the video you’ve got set up to do so, 240hz, local dimming, and of course, Toshiba’s Natural 3D technology. This lovely way of viewing the 3D universe is done through 3D glasses, four sets of which come with the set right out of the box. You can also purchase a “Party Pack” of glasses for right around $60 USD (depending on where you shop). Look like a pretty neat television set to you?

This isn’t the first TV set we looked at in the event, the rest available by you clicking on the big [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal] to catch em all. You’ll also be able to see a whole couple of handfuls of gadgets and technologically superior products from all corners of the universe there, hands-on videos of them all. Check em out!

As you’ll see in the hands-on video we’ve filmed below, you’ll first of all see that you’re able to run *Windows 7 inside your Mac inside a separate window. Now those of you familiar with newer Mac systems’ ability to run Windows through Bootcamp will immediately start comparing this method to that, of course. You can then run Windows apps inside this windows – but who wants to do that, that’s much too complicated, right? Instead you can use what they call Coherence Mode in which you can run Windows apps on your Mac desktop with Windows running completely in the background. You’ll know which apps are native to Windows by the tiny red double column, the Parallels, that is, sitting on the lower right-hand side of the icons for each Windows app.

What’s neat about this working with Lion is that not only do your Windows apps sit inside your Launchpad aside the rest of your Mac apps, they’re able to fly back and forth with your normal set of gestures once you’ve got them open as well. Simple and totally correct.

Then there’s something wild – similar to how you’re able to virtualize running Windows inside a window (as stated above), you’re also able to virtualize an instance of OS X Lion. That means you’re running Lion inside a window inside of Lion, in this case, a situation which of course leads everyone in the internet world to think of the film Inception – how deep can we get? Developers can of course make use of this by working inside this window without the fear of busting up their OS with buggy apps.

Then there’s something extra sweet – the iOS app. Alongside the launch of Parallels Desktop 7 comes the iOS app which works on both iPads, iPhone, and iPod Touch which allows you to run instances of Windows so you can run Windows app or even your whole desktop from your Mac – this being a mirrored copy of your desktop now running seamlessly on your iOS device. Slick! This works wherever you have an internet connection – this meaning it works over Wi-fi, of course. The first thing one thinks of when they see this situation is, of course, can I run Flash videos? Yes, yes you can run Flash videos. It appears that Parallels has sort of beat Adobe to the punch. Winning?

The final thing you’ll see in the video is a couple of rows of software boxes (they still sell software in boxes?!), one of them a row of “for Mac” editions and the other “Switch to Mac Edition”, the latter being different simply in its addition of some tutorials for Mac for people who’ve never before used the platform. It all sounds pretty fabulous, yes?

Also note that we filmed this hands-on look at the software at Pepcom’s 2011 Holiday Spectacular – you can see all hands-on videos we’ve filmed for the event by heading to our big [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal] if you like to look at brand new awesome gadgets and software.

This device also works with a DNIe + 3D HyperReal Engine and has a panel frame rate of 120Hz, a brightness of 300cd/m2, and one heck of a lot of viewing angles. It sits on a unique right-side hinge as you can see, providing you with an industrial design unlike basically anything you’ve owned before. This is a unique monitor, suffice to say, and Samsung lets us know that it’s a flagship product of theirs, so you can bet you’ll be getting all the support you need out of it should the need arise. You can use it in 2D or 3D modes, you’ve got jacks galore in the back including connections to your computer monitor, TV box, and anything that’s got an HDMI cable, and you’ll get a few sets of 3D glasses with it, right out of the box, with option to purchase a whole lot more for cheap!

Note also that this device can support internet connectedness through wi-fi and works with the Samsung suite of TV apps so that you’ll be rolling with the winning team through the future. YouTube 3D? I think so! Also listen in for tips on other streaming video groups you’ll be able to work with in your very near future. It may not quite be the behemoth that Samsung’s 55-inch UN55D8000 is (this is the gigantic television you’ll see in basically every Samsung exhibit from here through 2012, but check out our review of that ultra monster to get a fully immersive idea of what your TA950 is capable as far as Samsung Smart TV goes.

This look like the monitor / TV for you? Let us know how your purchase experience goes – it’s available right now wherever fine televisions and monitors are sold! Grab it! Also note that we’ve got a whole heck of a lot more hands-on videos up from the event we’re at here, just hit the [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal] and you’ll be well on your way!

This device works with Bluetooth A2DP, which means it’ll work with essentially any sort of bluetooth-capable device you throw at it, including iPad 2, iPad, iPhone 3G and later, iPod Touch 2nd generation and later, basically every single Android device, BlackBerry device, Symbian device, whatever you’ve got, just so long as it’s Bluetooth capable. If you are using Bluetooth, you’ll be able to have the boombox and your music-holding device as far as 33 feet (10 meters) away from one another, their busy chatting staying in-tact inside that circle.

If your music-holding device doesn’t have Bluetooth, it’s likely got a 3.5 mm headphone jack in it, so you’ll be able to plug in anyway. Once you’re hooked up and the boombox is charged, you’ll have 6 hours of wireless audio blasting on your hands, no problem. You can also plug in with the included 6 foot long power supply cable if you want to blast beats forever, and of course you get a few user manuals in the box if you’re confused about any of these ultra-simple controls.

The speakers in this boombox include two 3-inch laser-tuned neodymium drivers for mid-range sounds, a couple of half-inch tweeters for high notes, and a total of four 2-inch radiators for deep bass thumping. This boombox will set you back $149.99 USD and is available starting this week from Logitech. You can also check out the rest of our awesome hands-on coverage from the events this past week in our [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal] Get to it!

Also check out our sister site Android Community’s review of the Logitech Wireless Gamepad F710 as it works with NVIDIA-powered tablets galore!

You can currently use this product with most Apple products, that being the iPod Touch generation 3 or 4, the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4G, and the iPad or the iPad 2. This means that, for example, if I were to have one sitting here in the living room, it would erase the need for me to transfer videos to the iPad where I’d normally be playing them from via HDMI to the HD television. Now all I’d have to do is zap the videos from my computer right over to the Wi-Drive, my iPad then instantly having the ability to see them then too. Simple! Have a look at the device here courtesy of Kingston:

This little beast is right around the size of your average smartphone at 121.5mm x 61.8mm x 9.8mm, and the folks at Kingston have let us know that compatibility with Android is right around the corner. You’ll be able to work currently with the iOS devices listed above as well as Windows 7, Vista, and XP, as well as Max OS X 10.5 and up, and Linux 2.6 and up. You get a one year warranty right out of the box, there’s an official iOS app in Apple’s App Store, and its rechargeable battery lasts up to four hours of continuous use.

Look like the drive for you? Find out about more ultra fabulous Kingston products by hitting our big [Kingston Portal], and you can see the rest of our hands-on videos from the event by heading to the portal for the [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011]!

Back at CES 2011, we got a very brief look at this Central Station device as it existed pre-final shipped edition. Now we see that the display, available in both 23 and 27-inch versions, is ready and out on the market, working with essentially any device that’s able to have a full-sized USB dongle plugged into it. What the Samsung Central Station offers you is more than just a mirroring-capable monitor right out of the box, it allows you to do so with as little hassle on your part as physically possible. Just plug the USB bit in your device, activate it once, and have the display instantly pick up your host device’s presence whenever its near.

It’s magic! Have a look at the video here:

Now this monitor is out on the market right this second wherever fine electronics are sold, but the futuristic Windows 8 is not yet implemented on the tablet as you might expect following the massive amount of coverage that OS / device combo has received over the past week specifically. What we’ve learned, on the other hand, is that because of the versatility of both the monitor and Windows 8′s ability to run every bit of software that Windows 7 was able to, you’ll have no problem in the future with your various Windows 8- laden bits of hardware. Go for it instantly.

ALSO note that you can check out the rest of our hands-on videos from the event in our Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal!

You can check out our ViewSonic ViewPad 7x Android Tablet Hands-on [Video] and our ViewSonic ViewPad 7e Android Tablet Hands-On [Video] as well. This trio, as presented in NYC at Pepcom’s Holiday Spectacular 2011, very much signifies ViewSonic’s intent on getting into the tablet business with a bang, each of these tablets competitively priced and sized to take a potential grab at several nearly untapped market categories. The 10pro, again, we’ve been following for the longest, our most recent meeting being a full details post from just weeks ago.

It was all the way back in October of 2010 when the original ViewSonic ViewPad 10 was launched, just that November being the release announcement for the US market, its good buddy the original ViewPad 7 right alongside. It was also back then that the VP of ViewSonic said he thought that Steve Jobs was afraid of 7-inch tablets. Was it true? We’re thinking no. Are these 7-inch tablets shaping up to be relatively interesting? That much is certainly true.

Back in February of 2011 at Mobile World Congress 2011, we first saw the ViewPad 10pro, what was then mistaken by many as a dual-booting tablet running both Android and Windows. What we know now, due to the May 30th official announcement as well as the May 30th Bluestacks announcement that the 10pro is running Android on top of Windows 7. BlueStacks is explained by SlashGear earlier this year back when it was formally introduced – you’ll be seeing more of it in the future, I guarantee.

What you’re going to see in the video above is a bit more information on the 10pro as well as the most updated information on the other two tablets coming out in the USA soon. You’ll also hear yours truly speaking about SPB Shell 3D, an awesome homescreen replacement app made by the same people that have worked with ViewSonic to create the unique interface you seen on the 7e and the 7x!

ALSO feel free to see the rest of our hands-on videos from the event in our Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal!

This lovely device was out for us to take a look at inside Pepcom’s end of summer 2011 Holiday Spectacular, a digital forest of many wonders. What you’ve got here is an external hard drive available in 2TB and 3TB configurations, both of them working with an ultra-fast 7200 RPM 3.5-inch hard drive formatted HFS+ made ready for Mac computers with no additional fixing up right out of the box. The device is also a 2.1 Amp hookup in addition to holding all your media and whatnot, this making it easy for you to plug in all your peripherals and extra mobile devices without a hassle.

As for what you can actually plug in to this mother, you’ll get two FireWire 800 ports, one USB 2.0 port, a two port integrated 2.0 hub that’ll connect you back up to your Mac device or connect to other external storage devices in a daisy-chain sort of situation. This drive also comes with one FireWire800 wire, one conversion FireWire 400-800, and one single USB 2.0 cable.

Check out what this simple and lovely looking drive is all about:

Notice the lovely LED lights up the center front of the device, four in a row. These lights let you know how much storage you’ve got left in general:

4 LEDs lit white: less than 20% capacity in use
3 LEDs white: 20-40% capacity in use
2 LEDs white: 40-60% capacity in use
1 LED white: 60-80% capacity in use
1 LED red: more than 80% capacity in use

Interesting, yes? Next you should note that this device comes with Iomega Protection Suite, Mac Edition, Iomega QuikProtect, MoxyHome Online Backup, and a free 12 month subscription to Trend Smart Surfing for Mac. The smaller of the two drives, the 2TB model, will run you $239.99, while the 3TB model will cost you $369.99. These prices are suggested US retail – you can find them immediately if not soon in your local Apple store or in various online sources.

ALSO have a crack at the rest of our hands-on videos from the event in our Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal!

As you may remember from all the way back at CES 2011, Orbotix presented what was then a whole new concept in remote controlled objects. Was it an RC car? Nope. Was it some sort of flying device? I suppose if you’re going fast enough over a cliff, yes. Was it a robot? I suppose that depends on what you think a robot really is! This is Sphero, the world’s first smartphone-controlled robotic ball. What you’re about to witness is its first final prototype design debut (what a mouthful!) and we’re getting to see it in NYC at the Pepcom Holiday Spectacular this week in Brooklyn, NYC.

This orb device showed its cool face again at Google I/O 2011 with talks of a developer program for the device. You can now access that program which is still in full swing at http://developer.orbotix.com/. There you can download the full API and Mobile SDK codes as well as documentation, sample code, and customizable UIKit. Everything you need to create your own unique app to work with the official Sphero remote-control game ball. I say game ball almost for lack of an adequate name since, as with all seemingly completely original products, one must ask: what is this, really?

Have a look at what Berberian has to show us if there’s one person on the planet whose best qualified to show you the awesome in this device, it’s him.

He’ll be demonstrating on an iDevice you may well recognize and will show you basic controls as well as an app called “Draw and Drive” in which you can draw lines in any combination of shapes and your Sphero will follow the path. And these aren’t the only controller apps you’ll get right at the onset, there’s also games in which you’ll be able to, as Orbotix notes, “Race your friends with Sphero Drive, take a swing down your hallway with Sphero Golf, outrun your cat with KittyCam, or crush virtual zombies in your living room with ZombieBall.”

Berberian also gives us all a closer look at the near-final packaging for the device and some information on the final release – where and when!

Sphero will be available to consumers throughout the USA inside 2011 for an initial price point of $129.99. Each package contains a Sphero orb, an induction charger (you can see these flickering on the tablet behind Berberian,) and multiple free downloadable games (with more on the way, of course!) You can pre-order Sphero from http://www.gosphero.com/ – they’ll start taking credit card orders in November 2011 and will start shipping in December 2011 and they’ll be for sale on a first-come, first-serve basis. You’ll be able to purchase this device in retail (both in the USA and abroad) starting in 2012 – note though that, at least at first, it’ll only be available direct or through Amazon until additional retailers are announced, again, in 2012.

Sound like a good price point to you? You gonna get one? Be sure furthermore to take a peek at our full collection of hands-on videos from the event in our Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal!

The device has a 7-inch LCD backlit color display – what B&N found to be the optimal construction for reading and portability. Active desktop (dock below main desktop) has most recent 50 items read, all of these items able to be dragged and dropped onto the main desktop (of which there are three screens, similar to how you’d have multiple screens to place icons for apps in an Android smartphone.) On the desktop, each of these items can then be sized and placed anywhere, on top of, behind, next to, all around eachother like a real desk.

Once inside, say, a novel, you have a customizable reading experience: the font size can be changed, night mode can be turned on (turning the background to black and the text to white). Social Interaction includes the ability to highlight a passage from any bit of text, then sharing to places like Facebook, then tagging friends as one does so. Also inside the text one can bookmark, highlight, and during reading take notes as well.

When reading magazines there’s a navigational function which includes a sort of dock that you can scroll through, showing you thumbnails of all the pages, allowing you to get to any page at any time. Magazines can be viewed both in portrait mode or landscape, navigating the same way for both. One can also pinch to zoom into pages as well.

Article View (pictured above) is something that works inside magazines for when there’s an article that would normally go 2 pages, then have several other pages of ads or other content and finish up later – this way you can read all of the text at once instead of flipping back and forth getting lost like you might in a real world magazine. Bookmarking here works too.

All children’s books (example below) are displayed in landscape mode (as they should be, as most children’s books are designed to be viewed both pages at once). Many of the children’s books have narration (sometimes by famous people!) so the reader (a kid) can read along or have the book read to them. *I should note here that in a talk I had this morning with representatives from B&N (I’ll be reviewing the NOOKcolor soon) I found out that the interactive aspect (that is, seeing items on pages move, being able to pick illustrations up and move them, etc, fun stuff, will not be available at launch, but will instead start rolling out in Quarter 1 of next year.

There’s a Library feature (pictured below) where you can customize your shelves of your entire collection of books, magazines, newspapers, all customizable by you in whichever order you’d like them in (this is in addition to your desktop which is outside of the library, but these are the same books).

There’s a Lendable feature (pictured below, but you’ll be able to see a green ribbon on each book that’s lendable once you see the device up close) which allows you to give (or get) a book to (or from) a friend for 14 days – a time during which the book is effectively transferred, appearing in the person who borrowed the book’s library and inaccessible in the person’s who lent it.

Inside the Shop there’s several ways you can access books including lots of different ways to be recommended a book, categories to browse through, and of course a simple search function.

Take a look at the video here, then the gallery below (in which you can see the microSD memory card slot under the loop,) then view the unboxing and hands-on post by yours truly, then just wait for the weekend where I’ll be posting a full review your your pleasure!

Now that our “A Week With” cycle is complete for NOOKcolor, take a look at all of the posts in turn:
A Week with NOOKcolor: Hardware
A Week with NOOKcolor: Reading (aka Core Apps)
NOOKcolor Unboxing and Hands-on
NOOKcolor Demo
A Bit of Extra Clarity for Would-be Developers of NOOKcolor Apps
and of course A Week with NOOKcolor: 3rd Party Apps and Final Wrap-Up

The company’s latest Intel Atom dual-core 10.1-inch netbook comes with plenty of options for those who want to show off their favorite color. You can choose from white (pictured above), black, red, or blue. Inside, you’ll find a 250GB hard drive, a battery life that Asus suggests should last you upwards of 13 hours, and Microsoft’s Windows 7 Starter Edition for your Operating System. You’ll also find 1GB of DDR3 RAM.

The 10.1-inch display is LED-backlit, and has a resolution of 1024 x 600. The trackpad is of the multitouch variety, and the 1015PEM features a chiclet keyboard. You’ll find integrated 802.11 n WiFi, a 1.3MP webcam, and Bluetooth 3.0 support. You can order the netbook right now from Amazon (through the source link below), and pricing is listed at $399. You may want to hurry, though — stock is counting down.

[via Amazon]

First up is the ASUS NX90Jq. The manufacturing company is saying that this notebook is the result of cutting-edge technology and craftmanship. The notebook features a polished aluminum body, and there are two speakers that feature Bang & Olufsen ICEpower technology, making sure that your music and movies get the sound they deserve. The display? Coming in at a whopping 18.4-inches, and there are two trackpads, along with the full keyboard. And, there’s Asus’ Rotation Desktop software, which lets you work with the User Interface like an intuitive DJ-like experience.

And then on the smaller scale, we have the ASUS U33Jc 13.3-inch notebook. These are the notebooks that feature the bamboo top case. Inside, you’ll find Intel’s Core i3 processor (which you can choose to use Intel’s Core i5 processor, if you want), and you’ll also get to take advantage of Intel’s Wireless Display (WiDi) technology for wirelessly streaming media.

The N53Jf packs the next-generation NVIDIA GeForce GT425M graphics, as well as Intel’s Core i5 processor inside. The company has also put in their new audio technology, SonicMaster. It’s designed to bring professional surround sound to your notebook. You also get NVIDIA’s Optimus auto-switching technology, and USB 3.0 ports. And just in case you have moments where you need a bit more computing power, you can take advantage of Intel’s Turbo Boost technoogy.

The 10.1-inch 1015PEM is a PC that’s perfect for anyone who needs some mobility in their life. Inside, you’ll find Intel’s Atom dual-core processor, which means you should get improved performance over your standard netbooks. You’ll hopefully get a longer battery life. There’s integrated 802.11 n WiFi, and you’ll have access to USB 3.0 ports. You get a chiclet keyboard, and the touchpad is large enough to get some work done, but still compact enough to fit comfortably.

The WiCast EW2000 1080p video streamer does just what the title suggests: offers you full media streaming at a 1080p resolution. The design is compact and stylish. You’ll get to take full advantage of wireless home digital interface (WHDI), meaning you’ll get a simple plug-and-play setup, as long as you’ve got yourself a supported computer. It will also work with supported set-top boxes and video game consoles — and thanks to the HDMI cable, you can plug it into your HDTV, too. Interestingly enough, you can charge the WiCast EW2000 by the AC power, if you want, or you can use the dual USB ports to charge the device, too.

ASUS’ newest external USB Blu-ray optical drive is the SBC-06C1S-U. It has a read speed of 6X, and it can write to BD-R discs at up to 6X speeds. You will also have the ability to have full read and write capabilities of not only Blu-ray discs, but also CDs and DVDs. And, if you’re hoping for 3D support, it has that, too. You can place the device both horizontally or vertically — whichever you think looks better in your home set up.

ASUS also has a new display. The ML228H LCD is a 21.5-inch LCD display, which is both strikingly thin (at 16.5mm thin) and comes in a Ergo-Fit II stand. Thanks to SmartView technology, you’ll have the choice of many different viewing angles. The display’s resolution is 1920×1080, and has a fast 2m response time. There are LED back-lit touch sensitive buttons on the front panel. That display is also Mercury free, which means you should get about 55% better power consumption. The contrast ratio is a good 10,000,000:1, with a brightness of 250cd/m2.

And finally, the gaming laptop. The Republic of Gamers G73Jw bears an aesthetic cue from the Lockheed Martin F117A Nighthawk stealth fighter, with a matte black exterior. And there are the dual angular “heat exhausts” on the back of the notebook, too. You’ll find Intel’s Core i7 processor under the hood, and you can upgrade all the way up to 8GB of DDR3 Memory. You’ll hear your game’s audio through 8-channel HD-equipped speakers. And you can have up to 1TB of storage, if you choose. The graphics are powered by NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX460M, with GDDR5 video memory.

Video demo of the S12 after the cut

In fact, the Lenovo S12 was using its HDMI port to output 1080p content onto a big-screen HDTV while also re-encoding a 1080p clip into an iPhone-friendly format.  Both moved on at a fair clip, and the playback was completely smooth and unaffected by the encoding process.

When you consider that the S12 is otherwise pretty much identical to a mainstream netbook today, it’s all the more impressive.  As well as Ion there’s a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM and up to 320GB hard-drive, together with WiFi, Bluetooth and an ExpressCard slot.  Full specifications are here.  The Lenovo S12 with NVIDIA Ion is expected to go on sale this month, priced at $499.99; cheaper models, lacking Ion, will start at $449.99.