UPDATED- Sold Out! Apple’s new MacBook Air is awesome but it is far from the only thin and light notebook on the market these days. Lenovo’s new U260 covers that bill and offers both a Core i3 and a Core i5 processor. The machine is priced right and, with this Gear Deal, you can get an exclusive 15% off coupon code from our Gear Sponsor, LogicBUY. The 12.5″ Lenovo IdeaPad U260 has ” the world’s first 12.5″ anti-glare display”. It features a “single piece design made of magnesium-aluminum alloy materials”, a glass touchpad and a leather-texture palm rest… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve been subscribing to Hulu Plus during its closed preview period for the last few months. I first received an invitation and signed up only to let the subscription expire a few weeks later. I re-upped shortly there-after because I really loved the way the service let me access many of my favorite shows on the iPad. At the time the service ran $9.99 per month. It seemed reasonable for the amount of content I was getting although I did dislike having to watch commercials AND pay for the subscription. Well Hulu Plus has just opened its gates to anyone who wants to sign up. Yes, the preview period is over! Better still, the service will cost… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I think those of us Gear Diary writers who own the iPhone 4 have been pretty impressed with its battery life. Unlike the iPhone 3G or 3Gs, on most days we’re able to make it through an entire day without a recharge. However, on days when we’re out and about for extended periods of time or just really relying on our phones recharging sometime during the day becomes a necessity. And for us specifically CES is fast approaching and that’s one week where an extra battery, or two, or three, for your phone becomes a must have. Case-Mate recently released the updated iPhone 4 version of their popular “Fuel” line of extended battery… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you follow reviews here on Gear Diary, then you have noticed an exciting new trend for guitarists.  A ton of apps have been developed to use while playing the guitar.  Tuners, metronomes, tablature, chord diagrams, effects.  You name it, it can be found on various mobile devices.  As an iPhone user, I have reviewed and been an active user of many of the IOS guitar applications.  Here is the one problem I have found with this new genre of apps:  Where do I hold my iPhone?!?!  I have tried balancing on my knee and setting it on a table or music stand.  I have even had my six year old hold my phone… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Talk ebook readers, and everyone thinks Kindle or NOOK. But there’s a whole subset of hardware out there for people who aren’t interested in connected readers, and just want a simple device that handles multiple formats. That’s where an ebook reader like the Aluratek Libre comes in handy. The Libre is physically very similar to the Jetbook Lite we looked at last spring. It has the same slider along the left side for page turns, along with page turn buttons on the bottom. There’s a d-pad and navigation buttons along the right side, plus a T-9 keyboard along the right edge. Unlike the Jetbook Lite… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Another day, another avalanche of savings! Amazon.com First we have Amazon’s ’4 Star Games for Under $20′ sale. Included are games such as: – Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (DS) – Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP) – Assassin’s Creed II (X360) – Valkyria Chronicles (PS3) And many more! Atlus on PSN Atlus has announced a huge 50% off sale on their games sold through the Playstation Network, as announced on the Playstation Blog. For me this is huge – every other game place has loads of sales, but I was pretty critical of the crappy 10% off PSN sales back in the spring and summer… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It’s only a matter of time before malicious code starts hitting our mobile devices and phones. Malware and Virus’s are what keeps people like me employed at times, but can make for a bad day, week, month for almost an unsuspecting user. Why people with such talent feel the need to ruin your life and empty your checkbook is beyond me, but rest assured AVG and DroidSecurity have you covered. Mobile AV software is certainly not new, but the recent acquisition of DroidSecurity by AVG makes for a killer combo in keeping your Android devices virus free with a Real Time Scanning mobile app. I was never really big on mobile AV, but since I do… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Since Apple started letting Google Voice applications back in the iTunes App Store a short time ago one or two contenders have found their way onto my home screen and the home screens of many other iPhone users.  Today another app has hit the App Store for Google Voice and this one comes straight from Google themselves. From the Google Voice Blog…… With this native app, you’ll continue to have access to all the major Google Voice features on your iPhone, like: Cheap rates for international calls Free text messaging to U.S. numbers Voicemail transcription Display your Google Voice number as caller ID when making calls Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Chevrolet today announced that its new hybrid electric Cruze – sorry, I mean the Chevrolet Volt – has won top honors in the Motor Trend Car of the Year awards. Debate still wages as the vehicle is prepared to go on sale in select cities around the country next month. We spent a short time behind the wheel of the Volt while it visited Austin, Texas recently and right after Thanksgiving we will be given the opportunity to give this uber-hyped vehicle a full shakedown. I applaud Chevy engineers for giving Volt a range-extending gasoline power generator. Lord knows the electric-only Nissan Leaf is going to need some sort of emergency energy supply once ordinary consumers… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It now seems oddly prescient that just last week I walked through the Beatles catalog, as today we find the meaning of the teaser announcement “Tomorrow is just another day. That you’ll never forget.” The question is … do we care? In terms of what is there, you can get all of the 12 original recordings, the 1973 collections ’1962-1966′ and ’1967-1970′, as well as the more recent ‘Past Masters Vol 1 & 2′. All are basically the same 2009 remasters I reviewed, in ‘high quality’ iTunes AAC format. There is also a ‘complete collection’, which has everything except the 62-66/67-70 sets. Comparing the Complete iTunes ‘Box Set’ ($149.99) Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Lexus has a new hybrid vehicle being readied for market and let me begin by saying I wish them more luck with this CT200h hybrid sportwagon than they saw with the HS250h hybrid sedan that debuted last year. Lexus’ last sporty wagon was on the inaugural IS300 platform and was dubbed SportCross. I was assured the CT200h is not intended to be the next SportCross but the two do share bloodlines and driving dynamics. We spent some time with Lexus and the new CT200h in New Orleans recently and I was left with the impression that the CT should see more success than the HS has. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The other day we reviewed the MOBiLE CLOTH High Tech Split Microfiber Cleaning Cloth. The product is simple but effective. As the company explains, Mobile Cloth is a unique high-tech material made from split microfibers 100 times thinner than a human hair! It is woven into a special pattern, [called] “knubs”. Each nub acts like hundreds of tiny suction cups to pull fingerprints smudges and germs away from the surface of your device with a few swipes. The material used in mobile cloth removes up to 98% of bacteria and 93% of viruses on nonporous surfaces (i.e. glass touchscreens) with water alone! To quickly remove fingerprints no water or spray is needed. I tried it… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you read my earlier post on Christmas gifts, you might think I’m not going to help you with our annual holiday madness other than by pointing out gift choices.  Not so!  In the category of “there’s an app for that,” Macspots has release a new iPad app called Gifts HD, which will let you track your holiday gifts, lists, and budget.  And it helps you to comparison shop directly from the app, so you don’t have to be bouncing back and forth from browser to app to browser to app to . . . well, you get the idea. Gifts HD is available from the iTunes app store for a miserly $3.99, so… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal brings us Lenovo’s 21.5″ IdeaCentre B305. This all-in-one desktop is featured in two configurations and both have some hefty discounts if you purchase soon. The first is the IdeaCentre B305 – 40311RU. It features an AMD Athlon II X2 235e 2.7GHz Dual-core processor, 2GB DDR3, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 graphics, a 21.5″ 1080p LED Multi-touch LCD display, a 320GB 7200RPM hard drive and Windows 7 64-bit. It has an MSRP of $799 but our Gear Sponsor found a deal that will get you $100 off PLUS a 15% stackable coupon. That brings the final price down to $594.10 and it will even ship for free. If you need Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Like any good admitted fanboy, I often find myself looking for Apple products on TV. Lately I’ve been spotting more and more iDevices popping up on many of the shows I watch. So I’ve decided to start a new weekly segment entitled “Apple On TV.” The premise is simple. Whenever I spot an Apple product in one of the shows I watch (and I watch a lot of TV), I’ll take a screen shot of it and post it here, in a weekly recap, with a short description. But I need your help too! Although I watch a lot of TV I don’t watch everything. So if you come across an Apple product in one of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …