Vincent Nguyen was one of those invited to London for the recent HTC event. While there, he got to enjoy some one-on-one time with Horace Luke (HTC’s Chief Innovation Officer), and the HTC Diamond. I’ve met Horace at various Mobius events, back when he worked for Microsoft, and I have got to tell you that this is one scarily-brilliant man. He is the type of guy that imagines it, then makes it. I have been expecting to see interesting products come from his move to HTC, and the Diamond will be the first of many, I am sure.

Anyway! This video is amazing for two reasons: The first is that it is a candid discussion between Horace and Vincent about the thought process that went into various features of the HTC Diamond. The second reason is because they caught my friend eric Lin in a three piece suit. I think that’s a first.

As anyone who has had their ear to the interwebs can tell you, something big is going down in London tomorrow. While we didn’t score an invite to HTC’s invitation-only event, we do have the next best thing: our friend Vincent was invited, and he will be there live-blogging the entire show!

Chase Higgins of PhoneMag fills us in on how to participate…

The registration for the event is at 11AM sharp. From there, it is rush to the seating, so that come 11:30AM, our team will have the best seats in the house. Keep it locked right here, as soon as I am sent information from the team in London, it will be posted. Though the actual press event is the main attraction, it is not the only exciting thing going down.

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Wayne has posted about how some stores are offering you bonuses when you buy gift cards from them, using your entire United States Economic Stimulus Payment Check once it arrives. While that’s all well and good, what if you would rather extend the life of something you already own, so that you can save the rest of that check - maybe start the IRA account you’re always talking about, or put the balance into a CD?

I’ve been writing about Pocket PC Techs products and services for ages, and I have always been impressed with them. Their latest special makes this a great time to give your slightly used Windows Mobile device an overhaul instead of buying a brand new one.

Did you break a connector? Have you cracked or scratched your screen? Is your device doing things that are making you crazy, but you don’t know why since you’ve only dropped it once? Better send it to PPCTechs and let them have a look…

April 15th is the date most of us in the US dreads.  Time to pay Uncle Sam the taxes owed, whether we agree or not!  So our marketing department suggested that PPC Techs give an extra discount the month of May, just to help those of us that didn’t get a refund, to recover from the tax sticker shock.

They say there are two things, that you can’t avoid.  Death & Taxes.  Sometimes, we’re not sure which is worse!

Since we all may need to get more out of the devices we have now we are very pleased to announce several new repairs for the latest devices released by Verizion, Sprint and AT&T!  So if you’re one of those individuals that just got a new device and had an accident with it, we’re here to help save you money over buying a new unit.

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Judie: Here’s how it all started. I got a press release from Kevin Doel regarding FlipSide, a new Windows Mobile MP3 Player which features “”Swooshing” Album Art as Part of Acclaimed Visual Interface.”

FlipSide, the MP3 player from Electric Pocket that has had BlackBerry users buzzing, is now available to users of Windows Mobile devices such as the Treo 700xw, Mogul, Ace, and Blackjack. The feature that has made FlipSide such an instant hit among BlackBerry users is its iPhone-like interface that allows users to visually “swoosh” through their music quickly and easily.

Navigating through music and selecting tunes is a simple process with FlipSide: scroll through the Album Covers, or flick through them using your finger on the screen, then click on the navigation button to open up a vertical list of the tracks. The spacebar is used to start, pause and skip songs, while the navigation button is used to scroll either left or right to either fast forward or rewind within a song.

While FlipSide comes with the features expected of any MP3 player, the feature that gets the most buzz is the attractive user interface that makes FlipSide both visually enjoyable and very easy to use. Its ability to “swoosh” through the full-color cover art of an entire music collection within seconds using the navigation control button makes FlipSide stand-out as both a simple and fun MP3 player. FlipSide downloads and displays the cover art of each album and even links to FlipSide Extras to provide biographies of the artists, recommendations for similar artists and more.

FlipSide for Windows Mobile plays music stored on memory cards in MP3 & WMA formats. FlipSide retails for $19.95 and a free trial download is available now from the FlipSide website at http://flipside.fm.

As I’ll usually do when I get a product announcement, I forwarded this release to the team to see if anyone might be interested in covering the item or reviewing the product…and then their emails started rolling in. It wasn’t long before we had another full blown GearChat Roundtable on our hands.

Sit tight; this one was a doozy…

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One of the things that I like the best about this job is the chance to look at and use some of the latest, greatest gadgets on the market today. I like writing for Gear Diary the best because of the diverse amount of products we get to look at. Recently, as many of you know, I’ve had the opportunity to take a look at a couple of new devices from E-TEN.  The E-TEN X800 is the top of the line model of the X series devices. Let’s take a quick look and see how the X800 stacks up.

Please note, that due to the recent site loss that Gear Diary had, I’m reprinting some of the previous posts related to this device as part of this review.

I’ve owned a number of different E-TEN devices, the M500, the G500, the M700, and now the X800 (and soon to be X650).  I was really concerned about this particular device, as the build quality of the previous three devices left a little to be desired. In fact, my daughter has been using the M700 for the past three months or so, and the device had some serious problems now. It is constantly getting stuck in boot loader mode, and getting it to turn on normally is a hit or miss exercise.

However, that’s another story for another time. Let’s take a look at E-TEN’s new slim, VGA powerhouse, the X800!!

The Unboxing

The box is WAY smaller than it looks here.  It’s really VERY tiny.

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When Jerry and I had our meeting with i-mate during CES, one of the Ultimates that most caught my eye was the 9502. While I have pretty much given up hope that I will be getting my hands on one anytime soon, Kaz - of  Kaz 911 Rescue Service - is lucky enough to live in Dubai, where the 9502 is readily available at the Sharaff DG in Times Square Mall. He purchased one, and although he has already decided that he won’t be keeping it (possibly because it is so expensive), he has generously shared the unboxing experience…

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I’ve just received news that HTC is about to launch their first ever brand campaign in the US. As you all are likely aware, carriers have traditionally done all of the advertising for their particularly branded HTC devices, and the ads have been, well…very businesslike.

This ad however, is whimsical, watchable, and interesting.

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I just got a quick note from E-TEN regarding the recent post on the announcement of the M810 and M750, and I wanted to pass it on to everyone. The M810 and M750 share identical body styles (which I really happen to like, BTW). There are just a couple subtle differences between the two devices:

The M810 has:

• HSDPA
• A Front Facing VGA Camera for Video Calls
• A Rear Facing 2MP Camera for Pictures

The M750 has

• EDGE
• A Rear Facing 2MP Camera for Pictures

The E-TEN M750 (no front camera)

It’s always fun to get news of new devices in my inbox, today we have a little somthin’ somethin’ from E-Ten, as they are now announcing their Glofiish M810 and M750.

According to E-Ten, their newest Pocket PC Phones “harness the latest mobile hardware technologies together with innovations in software to create a pair of sleekly portable, multi-connected devices, designed to help the new breed of bloggers, podcasters, video makers, and chatters, stay online and updated wherever they are.”

Read on for the full specs and a couple of (huge) high resolution pictures; as usual I have highlighted the specifications which I thought were interesting.

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I had meant to post about this sooner, but there is still time!

I received an email from Shane, admin for the Pocket PC Singapore Community about an eBay promotion being held by HTC for the Children’s Cancer Foundation in Singapore. This sounds like a really good opportunity to pick up a one of a kind HTC Touch, as well as support a very worthy cause. If you are in Singapore anywhere in the world, take a look!

Hi, this is a shameless promotion of our support of HTC’s Charity Drive for the Children’s Cancer Foundation in Singapore over at our site at www.ppcsg.com.

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