As many of you have noticed, I really enjoy looking at Chinese / Taiwanese mobility sites because they often have wonderful pictures of devices which we may or may not ever see in the States.

Along with the great pictures, I am sure that there are witty and informative captions posted, but a lot of the time the free World Lingo translator just doesn’t come through with an understandable translation.

Hmmm…maybe their $19.99/year browser translator service is better?

Anyway!

I recently said again: “If only I could read Chinese…”

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Okay, so never mind that the company gathering the information might be gathering it because they want to better target the software that they are producing (and it is very good software, by the way): For the third year, Spb Software House is gathering a ton of information about the Pocket PC Devices we are using - what we like about them, what we dislike, how we use them, and what types of software we have loaded on them.

It’s a multi-page survey which will have you answering more questions than you ever thought might be asked about your PDA usage, but after completing it there is a payoff – two of them in fact. 

The immediate payoff is the set of five free ringers given to each participant; the future payoff will be the published results of the 2006 survey. Judging by the results gathered in previous surveys, I think that the 2006 results will be very enlightening.

If you have some free time, click the link and take the survey. If for no other reason than to fix the skewed demographics! I know there must be more women using Pocket PCs than were indicated…6% in 2004 and 4% in 2005? Are you kidding me?! Ladies, we’re not representin’! Come on!! 

I just took the survey…I hope you’ll take it, too!

More info from the press release is after the jump.

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Larry just found Paul Matt’s write-up from Mobius and sent me the link. Yep, there’s the DualCor cPC & me!

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I have a confession: I don’t particularly like Podcasts.

You could blame it on the fact that I was raised on TV, not the radio. Or you could blame it on the fact that the few I have listened to were so poorly done, so amateurish, and just so lame that they soured me on the genre.

Disclaimer: I’m sure that there must be some really good ones out there, I just quit looking.

It’s not that I don’t want to listen to someone talk about something I am interested in, it’s that I don’t have the patience to search through the poorly produced, unentertaining drivel while I search for the sonic gems. There…I said it!

Well, I finally found one that I like: The Cell Phone Junkie!

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Q. Hi Judie,

I have a question. Have you seen a CF or SD card anywhere that has both WiFi and Bluetooth?

John

A. Hi John,

Unfortunately I haven’t yet seen any CF or SD cards that combine the two wireless technologies, which seems pretty surprising. The closest thing I could find was a USB WiFi & BT dongle.

Q. Dear Judie,

I would like to start by telling you that I love you work. My latest device will be the 838Pro thanks to your review, and I wanted to know when the new Ipaq rx5915 will be reviewed since I really want to buy it but before I do I want to hear what you think about it.

Thank you,

Evan 

A. Hi Evan,

I think that the HP iPAQ rx 5915 is a very interesting device, but I haven’t yet decided if I will be buying one.

I like that it has a 3.5″ screen, built in navigation, BT & WiFi, 2GB ROM, and…feh, never mind. I just ordered one. It should be here in 5 – 7 days. Ha!

I’ll let you know what I think once it arrives.

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Jenneth has been keeping me entertained with her new camera escapades. She recently ordered a Canon EOS 400D, and even though it arrived four full days ago – she only unboxed it tonight.

I can’t even imagine having that type of restraint…when I get a new gadget it is opened and charging ASAP!

For those of us that haven’t yet broken down and bought what basically amounts to a “consumer” D-SLR, we can once again live vicariously through the purchasing power of Jenneth. Hooray!

Witness the entire unboxing here.

I don’t know what is going on, but lately Sony Ericsson phones are just looking better and better.

If you want to see some drool-worthy pictures of new Sony phones, you must check out Ln’s post in the Mobile01 Forums.

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**While at Mobius, Jenneth and I were both presented with a set of Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 Pro Earphones. It seemed redundant to write separate reviews about the same product, so we decided to combine forces and write a dually to post on both our sites – we’re trying something new! For reference: My remarks will be in the regular page colors, and Jenneth’s will be in blue and italicized.**

Just because you have the finest digital music player that money can buy doesn’t mean that it will sound all that better if you are still using the basic earbuds it shipped with. That’s assuming you can even get the OEM earbuds to stay in your ear!

The fact of the matter is that vendors just don’t bundle good-quality headphones with music players. Many users will be content to use the bundled ones and be none the wiser – just hop on any train or bus and you’ll see dozens of people with those tell-tale white earphones. But the difference in audio quality between bundled earbuds and an expensive pair is like chalk and cheese, and in this case, you’ll actually be able to ‘hear’ every extra dollar you spend.

According to their site, Ultimate Ears has “more than 20 years experience in live performance sound engineering and [they] have been designing custom professional in-ear monitors for your favorite artists for more than 10 years. Chances are, your favorite music was made by artists using our custom in-ear monitors. All super.fi earphones are designed with you, the customer, in mind. We have taken all that we have learned from hand crafting custom in-ear monitors for the pros and applied it to what we believe are the best universal fit earphone products available on the market today! We are the leaders in in-the-ear acoustic technology and design products with superior acoustical signatures that deliver exceptional sound to your ears. Our super.fi 5 Pro and 5 EB earphones bring unparalleled Dual Driver Technology to your ears at an affordable price.”

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Yada in the Palm Is Life Forums has posted some extremely tasty close-ups of the Sony Ericsson P990i with the numeric keyboard removed.

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Nandini Maheshwari is the managing Editor and Publisher of a truly entertaining blog, BornRich. Launched on October 5th, 2005, it has quickly become a place where visitors can come and be amazed at what more than a few dollars will buy.

Whether it be the Multi-Media Bed with RUF Cinema, the Chrome Robot TV Stand, the Solarjo Solar Power Purse, or the Sharp Refrigerator with Thawing Mechanism, Nandini scours the web to find interesting and generally quite pricey items that we all might enjoy using if they were more easily obtainable; and always, Nandini will spike her posts with a bit of humor and wit.

Born Rich was Nandini’s idea and her first blog; since then she has co-founded the Instablogs Network with her husband Ankit who lends a hand with the needed programming. Nandini runs the 100+ blogs that make up the Instablogs Network, which has just celebrated its first birthday. She also personally works on another gadget blog called CoolBuzz, which covers the “coolest gadgets and other consumer items.”

A confessed “shopaholic”, Nandini says she is inspired by the “exotic thinking” of producers and designers of things that only the rich and super-rich can afford. She claims to get a “perverse enjoyment” in covering luxury lifestyle.

I thought it would be fun to talk to Nandini about Instablogs Network, Born Rich, CoolBuzz, and some of the other goings-on in the Instablogs Network…

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I have a lot of interests–most of them technology–and this holiday season in particular has got me STANDING on my soap box.  Why?  Because of the inevitable confusion that the consumer will go through when buying a PC (personal computer).  Why will he/she be confused?  Because of the fragmentation of the PC market this holiday buying season, of course.

We’ve always had hardware choices: HP, Sony, eMachines …and of course, Mac.  We’ve had operating system choices, too: Mac vs. PC.  But this year we’ll be faced with more choices then ever.  For example, do you buy a Pentium 4M, a Core Duo, a Core 2 Duo, a Core 2 Duo with Windows XP Home, a Core 2 Duo with Windows XP Pro, a Core 2 Duo with Windows XP Media Center Edition, a Core Duo with Windows XP Home?  A Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro?  A Mac (in general) that you can then put Windows XP on?  How about Vista.  Do you buy a PC that’s Vista Capable (what does that mean?), Vista Ready?  We also still have Intel vs. AMD, and with Dell selling AMD boxes, the confusion will be worse then ever!  Then we’ll hear the “well, should I wait since Vista isn’t out yet?”  Microsoft has made that more fun by offering a coupon if you buy a computer now, that will give you a discount on Vista when it ships.  And we still have the “but aren’t faster processors coming out anyway so shouldn’t I hold off for now?” question.

I can’t wait for friends and family to start asking that “any recommendations?” question this year.

Just when I thought that I had reached the end of Judie’s never-ending “punch list”, she threw another one my way. This time instead of involving changes to the server, it involved customization to the blog itself! First on the list was finding a new theme, which didn’t take long. Then we had to roll out the theme. This took a bit longer since my previous experiences changing over a site’s look and feel have made me much more cautious about doing such things. Thankfully, the theme change is one of the easiest things to do in WordPress and within minutes I had a new theme up and running. Of course, it’s not a “one size fits all” thing, so we had to customize, which was a bit more involved. In case you couldn’t tell, the theme we chose is Beast Blog and Judie chose it because it’s green. Seriously though, it’s a solid theme and more importantly the creator of it is super-responsive and very skilled–more on that later.

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I’m always looking for alternative sources of power for my electronic devices, which is why the Datexx Sentina Outback Rechargeable PowerBank caught my eye. Billed as a super bright LED flashlight, a motion detector / emergency light, a USB charger for electronic gadgets, a power generator, and an SOS siren, the Outback almost sounds like it tries to take on too many properties, a “jack of all trades” if you will.

Let’s take a look and see if this device lives up to its billing, or if as the famous other half of the “jack of all trades” saying goes, it is a “master of none.”

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I just received news of a “Spooktacular” Sale from Astraware; the long and the short of it is that you can get some spooky savings on six of their games by purchasing between October 27th and October31st. Club Astraware members get an even better deal.

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I recently received a catalog from Mobile Planet the other day, from whom I purchased my first Tapwave Zodiac.  I love Mobile Planet catalogs, and this issue is devoted to “The Latest in Windows Mobile Powered Devices,” supposedly containing “An amazing variety of Windows Mobile devices.” 

So I opened it eagerly to see what it had, because I love convergent devices.  Here’s the list:

i-mate JAQ:  200MHz, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, 2.8″ 240×320 screen, QWERTY keypad
Fujitsu Siemns LOOX T830:  416MHz, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, 2.4″ 240×240 screen, QWERTY keypad
BenQ-Siemens P51:  416MHz, 128MB RAM, 128MB ROM, 2.83″ 240×320 screen, QWERTY keypad
MIO A710:  520MHz, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, 2.7″ 320×240 screen (no keypad!  shocker!)
E-Ten G500+:  400MHz, 64MB RAM, 256MB ROM, 2.8″ 240×320 screen (no keypad)
i-mate SPL:  200MHz, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, 2.2″ 240×320 screen, phone keypad
i-mate Smartflip:  200MHz, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, 2.2″ 240×320 screen, phone keypad (but it’s a flip phone!  call AP!)
Samsung SGH-i320:  416MHz, 120MB “User memory”, 2.2″ 240×320 screen, QWERTY keypad
i-mate JAM:  416 MHz, 64MB RAM, 64MB ROM, 2.2″ 240×320 screen (no keypad)
i-mate JAM 128:   416 MHz, 64MB RAM, 128MB ROM, 2.2″ 240×320 screen (no keypad)

Yesiree bob!  An *amazing* variety of Windows Mobile devices!  They are all sooooooooo different!  You can get 240×240!  Or 240×320!  Or be a rebel, and get 320×240, and with no keypad!  Yowza! 

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