Every now and then we are invited to review something that just looks… well… ridiculous but we end up agreeing to take a look anyway. When the “ridiculous review item” first arrives and we open the box our first impressions are, for the most part, confirmed. Yes, more often than not the product is silly, looks like a bad joke and poses a bit of a challenge with regard to actually writing the review. Every now and then however, once we actually start using the item we discover that our first AND second impressions were actually wrong! Sure, the item still looks silly but it actually works well.

That was my experience with the ePillow. I’m not fully sure why I agreed to review it since the pictures didn’t impress me but I’m actually glad I did. I’ve used it to watch some movies on my iPad this weekend and I actually found it quite useful. Seriously!

During my week away I noticed that eReaders seem to have hit critical mass. Yes, this year, more than any other, saw Kindle’s, nook’s and iPads in use on the beach and at the pool. (Interestingly, I did not see a single Kindle fire!) I have seen an uptick in the use of devices over the past few years but this year seemed to show a huge jump in their presence. In fact, a cursory look this past Saturday saw MORE electronic devices than dead-tree reading material at the pool.

But that was only a small part of the tech I witnessed while traveling. Here are a few more tidbits.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Okay, yes:  the Kobo Touch eReader is not exactly up there in sales figures with the various Amazon Kindles, the B &N Nook, or the iPad.  But it’s out there, kids, it’s not a bad reader by any stretch, and as we’ve reminded you often here on Gear Diary, We Believe in Competition®!  No, really; we do!  It puts downward pressure on the prices of the competitors, helps push innovation, provides you the happy consumer with more choices, and in general is a good thing.

So I’m happy to inform you (especially from the “downward pressure on the prices” department) that Buy.com is offering the Kobo Touch for the almost-absurdly low price of $69.99–a $30 savings… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Last week I asked if the NOOKcolor had more hacks than apps…and the comments seem to indicate the hackability were a big part of what attracted many buyers to it. At the time, the NOOKTablet was not yet rooted, but it looks like there’s finally been some success on the rooting front. Unfortunately, it’s not nearly as easy as the NOOKcolor’s.

First of all, the hack is still very rough around the edges. It involves using the Android SDK, which isn’t hard to install, but it is a pain to use if you aren’t terribly computer savvy. If you read through Liliputing’s step by step, you’ll see this isn’t something you do when… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

(image courtesy Put Me In Coach)

The new NOOK Tablet is out, and slowly but surely more details about how it is different from its NOOKcolor predecessor are being released. For most users, the Tablet is a great upgrade; better screen, more memory, more multimedia options…it’s a win all around. But what about the people who loved their NOOKcolors for their supreme hackability?

According to The Digital Reader, it appears that B&N has locked the bootloader on the NOOKTablet. In english, this means they’ve added an additional level of security, making rooting (and installing the Android marketplace, etc) a far more difficult proposition. It’s hardly the easy sailing it was for the… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

From the Editorial Staff of Gear Diary: Is there someone in your life who loves to read? If so, here are five gifts with which you can’t go wrong.

Kindle/NOOK: Either one, but this is a must for anyone who loves reading. And the entry-level prices make them an affordable tablet companion even if you already have an iPad.

Kindle prices start at $79.

nook touch is $119.99 in our Amazon Affiliate Store.

eReaders are a bit delicate so you need a sleeve for protections. Carly’s favorite is the Timbuktu sleeve. It is lined in soft fabric… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

I wrote about the Android app TouchDown by NitroDesk as an ‘App I Can’t Live Without’, so naturally when I got my Kindle Fire, one of the first things I did was load up TouchDown from the Amazon Appstore for Android to configure my work email account.

The problem came when I went to switch from a ‘trial’ to licensed mode. On any other Android device I would simply download the TouchDown License from my ‘purchased apps’ on the Android Market. But, since there is no access to the Android Market, I couldn’t do that on the Fire. Further, when I asked the developers, they said that different terms and… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

It looks like Amazon’s “Special offers” strategy is contagious! Kobo, the #3 ebook retailer is being acquired by the Rakuten, the “Japanese Amazon”, and they are already looking to copy some of Amazon’s success. The most obvious example of this is that they will be offering an ad-supported Kobo Touch for $99. This new “product” will allow Kobo to have a reader at the $99 price point “sweetspot” without breaking the bank since sponsors will foot some of the bill. Fortunately, Kobo is taking the same discreet approach as Amazon by placing the ads on the screen saver and home screen but not in the books themselves.

I find it interesting that ad support has become the path to… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Is it even possible to have everything? Of course not. But it is possible to have a happy home, well-balanced kids, a loving spouse, and the proper tools to keep things running smoothly or to at least enable an occasional escape when everything gets crazy. The Holiday season has officially begun, and we have a few gift suggestions that can help take the stress out of finding something special for the women we love.

Happy Shopping! =)

Keurig Mini Plus Personal Brewer

Whether she likes tea, coffee or hot cocoa, she’ll be able to brew up a fresh cup with a minimum of effort. And with brewers available in red, black, platinum, green and… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

The Kindle Fire is ready to take the world by storm when it is released next month. It is already SO popular that Amazon has reportedly upped the production numbers significantly. The interface looks great. The combination of 8GB of storage (with about 6GB available to the user) is enough for 80 apps, plus 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books. That isn’t anything to sneeze at, but it is not a tremendous amount of storage, and the Fire doesn’t have an expansion slot. [I'm comparing it to the iPad, whose capacity STARTS at 16GB and goes up to a whopping 64GB!] Thankfully, Amazon is leveraging their Cloud Storage to compensate for the diminutive amount… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Amazon made a splash a few days ago by rolling out three new eInk readers and their first tablet. The Kindle 3 is still available and is cheaper than ever. The NOOKcolor is going strong but we suspect there has been a lot of aspirin popped at B&N headquarters over the last few days.

We reviewed some great Speck cases for the Kindle 3 and the NOOKcolor and we are giving them away. Here’s what we have…

There’s the WanderFolio:

This design is excellent as it lets you keep a number of items with you without the need for

When a new device comes out it is almost inevitable that one of the first companies we will hear from is WaterField Designs. They make some of the most protective sleeves and cases around. Better still, their products — while not the most inexpensive — are always made from quality materials, have fantastic build-quality, and they last… and last… and last! In fact, I still have the very first laptop sleeve I bought from them years ago, and it looks pretty much brand new.

When Amazon announced the new Kindle Fire, it was a sure bet that Waterfield… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Big news if you’re a Sony fan! A Dutch site has leaked pictures and specifications of the new Sony Readers. (The same ones Sony has been denying were coming) They look…well, let’s check out the specs and then I’ll give my opinion.

Translated from Google:

Description

The Sony PRS-T1 watching his brother looks on Mobile, the Xperia, with its curves and high quality chrome finish. Thin and light, so easy to take. The Sony PRS-T1 weighs only 168 grams. The screen is of the highest quality and provides optimal reading conditions. And while the battery will not suffer it. The Sony PRS-T1 read it one month at a charge. Modern functions you may well expect from Sony, and fortunately, the Sony

Sometimes the simplest accessories are the best accessories. That’s right, something it doesn’t need to be complicated for it to be remarkably useful. That’s the case with this new tablet/eReader stand The Stump. The Stump is what it claims to be – it is a stump of rubber. It looks like a tree trunk that’s been cut down at an angle. It’s simple. It’s not exciting. Best of all, it does the job. Here’s a quick look and a chance to win one.

Truth be told, there isn’t a whole lot to say… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Carly highlighted the new Amazon Cloud Reader a couple of days ago, which provided a web-based solution for reading – and purchasing – Kindle books from Amazon.com on pretty much any device regardless of native app support (except for the BlackBerry Playbook, which is just in a woeful state at this point).

While many companies, Amazon included, have discussed moving more apps to platform-independent HTML5, the timing of this release seems to good to be true, as Carly indicated with her ‘Don’t Tread on Kindle’ tagline. We have just seen a rash of changes, starting with Kobo, then Amazon, and then Barnes & Noble all removing the ability… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...