Tag: HYPECHECK

BlackBerry Bold What it is: A full-scale, sleek BlackBerry with a to-die for QWERTY keyboard and a one-of-a-kind vintage camera look -- textured faux-leather back, chunky silver accents -- that's drawn celebrity (think John Mayer) and power users alike. Why it's different: The Bold is a chunkier affair than its newer sibling, the Tour (a CDMA phone for the Sprint and Verizon networks), ...

What it is: The Pacemaker is a palm-sized DJ mixing station for digital music that provides an easy way to combine two stereo tracks, add effects, and generally get partygoers to work up a sweat. Why it's different: Like the love child of an iPod and a traditional DJ setup, the Pacemaker is a first of its kind, to be sure. You load it with tracks from your computer in pretty much any format, ...

Most point-and-shoot camera makers are marching in lock step -- all introducing features such as fancier face detection, higher light sensitivity, and larger LCD screens. Casio is playing along, but it's also adding more-powerful image processing -- allowing its cameras to capture photos in high-speed bursts, shoot slow-motion video, or track fast-moving subjects. What it is: Casio's EX-S12 (and ...

Welcome to another edition of Hype Check, where we give much-anticipated new gadgets or services a test drive and tell you whether or not they live up to the hype. Today, we set our critical eyes on the Viliv S5. What it is: The Viliv S5 is a handheld UMPC -- ultra mobile PC -- that runs Windows XP and has specs comparable to that of most current netbooks, but also includes a touch screen and ...

HYPE CHECK: Verizon Hub What it is: The Hub is a VoIP (Voice over IP) home smartphone: Picture your normal home phone and add a 7-inch touch screen, Internet connectivity, and an interface similar to your computer's desktop complete with icons and widgets. Why it's different: While the Hub reminds us of the iriver Wave Home announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the ...

What it is: Samsung's new Memoir cell phone (available only on T-Mobile) is all about photos; take a look at the back of the phone, and it's all but indistinguishable from a pocket-sized digital camera (and about the same size, too). More importantly, this flash-equipped cameraphone wields an massive 8-megapixel sensor. Samsung opted for a large touch screen for operating the majority of the ...

We were able to get our hands on an Amazon Kindle 2 a few days before today's ship date. The next-generation e-book reader is lighter and thinner, has a longer battery life, and now includes text-to-speech capability, but for $359, is it worth upgrading from the original? More importantly, is it ready to replace your books? (Possibly, if you plan on reading or buying 72 books in the next ...

What It Does: Slacker Radio is an Internet radio application that can create custom playlists based on your taste in music. Until now, to take advantage of Slacker, you either had to be sitting in front of your computer or cough up $199 - $299 for a dedicated Slacker Player. Now, Slacker is expanding to the iPhone and offering a free application -- similar to the much-loved Pandora -- that ...

'Little Big Planet' What it is: 'LittleBigPlanet' is rather unlike anything else you've experienced on a video game console. It's Sony's hope to bring alternative gamers to the PlayStation 3 (PS3) this holiday season, and is a wonderfully charming game to boot. From a purely gameplay perspective, it's an evolution of the fairly standard side-view run-and-jump style games (like the old 'Super ...

HYPE CHECK: T-Mobile G1 What it is: The T-Mobile G1, a.k.a. the Android "Google" phone. Why it's different: The G1 is the first phone to debut the Android operating system for mobile phones, which is Google's entree into the cell phone space (and an attempt to go head-to-head with the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile phones). This means it's essentially a newfangled smart ...

HYPE CHECK: BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 What it is: It's the first clamshell-style 'flip' handset that runs the much-beloved BlackBerry operating system (OS) for mobile phones. Why it's different: Thanks to the aforementioned flip design, this BlackBerry looks more like a phone than a smart phone, which will please those who like to do their work (or e-mailing/texting) discreetly. The Pearl ...

HYPE CHECK: Peek What it is: The Peek is designed for those looking for the simplest way to check their e-mail on the go. Unlike BlackBerrys and iPhones, the Peek is an e-mail-only device: No Web-surfing, Google-mapping, or anything else. Essentially, it's the layman's e-mail device -- bring it with you when you're gonna need to check your mail, and when you don't, just bring your cell phone ...

What it is: The latest installment in the free-roaming, crime-spree-filled video game series, 'Grand Theft Auto IV' is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated title of all time -- of this year, anyway. And, with the bevy of perfect scores being applied before and since its release, it stands to possibly be the most highly rated game of all time as well -- again at least until some other new ...

Dyson D24 Vacuum Cleaner digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2008/04/12/hype-check-dyson-dc24-vacuum-cleaner/'; What it is: Even those of you who wouldn't consider yourselves vacuum cleaner fetishists have heard of Dyson's line -- you know, the one you see advertised on TV, that promises to change your (vacuuming) life. Well, the ambitious designers at Dyson have released their latest, ...

Hype Check: Palm Centro What it is: Palm's Centro smartphone is the PDA pioneer's longest leap yet into the world of consumer phones, sporting the functionality of the larger Treo 755p in a smaller candy bar form factor. It has a full QWERTY keyboard, and supports all the features (and third-party applications) Palm users have come to enjoy. A version of the Centro has been out on Sprint, but ...