I’ve been enjoying using the HP 2140 Mini Note. It’s small, light, and quite easy to use thanks to its near full size keyboard. My unit came with a three cell battery which allows the unit to maintain its low profile.
On February 18th and 19th, I was part of a group of mostly female bloggers who were brought to New York to meet Vivienne Tam and learn more about the HP / Vivienne Tam Mini Note collaboration.
Our first day consisted of a whirlwind New York City tour…
What’s over 12″ tall, plays customer authentic B-9 Robot Dialogue and dispenses candy when you tilt it’s head back. If you guessed a Lost In Space Giant Pez, you’d be right. For only $24.99 this complete waste of money can rob you of precious life hours as you flip the head back and forth and eat candy. Three 1.5 volt AA batteries provide the juice for all the “Danger Will Robinson” that you can stomach and it’s decidedly less expensive than a $24.500 full sized replica.
I have a fun game I play each night around bed time with my kids. It’s called “did you brush your teeth”? Older kids learn to rig this game pretty well with mouthwash which means you can’t trust that they’ve done a complete job just by “smelling their breath”. Along comes the 2.4 GHZ wireless toothbrush camera. There’s no wires to get tangled and the wireless means you can “inspect the teeth” anywhere. I’m not sure if you’ll ever need to use this – but just hook it to your computer once and give the kids a demonstration and I bet they fall into compliance pretty quickly.
My buddy Dimitri recently had the chance to review Audioengine’s A5 speakers over on WhatsOniPhone. He loved the big sound and excellent build. I’ve recently had a chance to take a look at the far smaller A2s; at about 1/3 the size of the A5s, the A2s are like the smaller sibling and while they don’t pack the SAME punch, they hold their own rather well.
A lot of times when you get a new phone, if it isn’t a phone that has a standard jack or a iPod dock connector like the iPhone, then you don’t have a lot of choices for using your phone to pump some tunes or listen to podcasts when in the car. Fortunately, USB Fever has come through with this nifty FM transmitter that uses the HTC ExtUSB connector.
Amazon has this Lenmar 5V 3.8 Wh AnyWhere charger for only $6 (with free shipping if you’re an Amazon Prime member – as you should be). This charger is strictly for emergency use. Re-charge it via your USB port (expect this to be an overnight process) and it will give you an added re-charge when you most need it. The tips included claim to power iPhone/Touch and BlackBerry. I haven’t tested this particular brand so YMMV on how it works in the field. The Amazon comments are a little mixed with most saying it takes a long time to re-charge the battery and a short time to discharge when connected to your phone.
I can however recommend a better solution that will cost a few bucks more from Amstron which I’m currently testing and love (larger variety of charger tips included, a wall charger, plus I can verify the Amstron charges the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch as well as BlackBerry). For $6 – this Lenmar may be a worthwhile deal. Buy it and charge it overnight before a trip away from a power source. Looks like Lenmar also offers a $35 version with a few more accessories and larger capacity.
Your Mileage My Vary (YMMV) on whether this deal goes through. Dell has the UNLOCKED Quad Band (850/900/1800/1900 – UMTS) /Nokia N85 for a paltry $59.99. By comparison, Amazon’s price is $429.99 for this same model. Unfortunately Dell shows this out of stock with a 6 week weight. Pricing error? Probably. Worth a shot. Since the specifications show this as unlocked (with no contract requirement) you can use this phone on any compatible GSM carrier. In the US that means T-Mobile or AT&T.