SlashGear Week in Review - Week 52 2008

It's the final Week in Review of 2008, and unsurprisingly it's been a relatively quiet week what with the holiday festivities taking priority.  Hopefully you've not spent your entire shopping budget on gifts, however, as there are still quite a few interesting gadgets on the horizon.  Notebooks small and large again seized the headlines, with various Sony websites dripping out news regarding the company's upcoming VAIO netbook.  First a January 9th announcement was promised, then the netbook form-factor confirmed, and finally we've got spec details.  At the other end of the scale, more details of Lenovo's ThinkPad W700ds appeared, while the mobile workstation itself showed up in photos and on video.

It wouldn't be a week without Apple mystery, and the long-standing Walmart rumors came to fruition with confirmation that the retailer will be offering the iPhone 3G with a mere $2 price cut.  Far cheaper is a refurbished iPhone 3G, from just $99; alternatively, stick around and the iPhone nano might just get announced at MacWorld next month.  We'll be there, live-blogging the keynote, to tell you whether a mini-smartphone is on the cards or perhaps a new Quanta-made iMac

In other mobile news, Garmin was tipped to be planning a new range of handsets in the second-half of 2009, based on Google's open-source Android platform.  Similarly, Motorola is said to be planning to abandon Symbian for a full 2009 Android-based holiday line-up.

Here at SlashGear, we reviewed two new cellphones, the starkly-sensible (but surprisingly appealing) HTC S740 and Nokia's first S60 touchscreen attempt, the 5800 XpressMusic 'Tube'.  We also announced the winners of our Plantronics and Sleek Audio Giveaways, and kicked off another chance to win.  This time you can take away a limited-availability Tokyoflash Radio Active Active Reactor watch, with two runners-up prizes of any timepiece from the quirky company's current range.  Don't hang about, though: entries will only be accepted up until 5pm central time on Monday December 29th! 

Finally, a quick reminder that SlashGear will be jetting off to CES 2009 very soon, to bring you all the latest news from the biggest consumer electronics show on the calendar.  We'll then be heading to MacWorld to live-blog all the news from what we now know will be Apple's final keynote at the conference.  Keep reading SlashGear!