The TomTom XL V2 also allows you to choose what roads you would like to drive on or the ones you’d like to avoid. It’s voice instructions are loud and clear, so you can easily understand what you have to do next

I can say that it’s one of the best GPS units I’ve seen and I didn’t notice any bugs or problems with it. If I were to give it a score, I think it deserves at least a 9.

via EmpireDirect

I don’t know what you will think about this device, but I think that this communication device is the most annoying product ever, and you’ll see in a moment why. It’s called Spectrum it represents the next-generation communication device. It’s an innovative device as it’s based on state-of-the-art technology, it’s cordless, and it has a cool design.

Why annoying? Because it allows all inhabitants of a home to communicate with each other no matter their location in the house. You just need one device in every room, and the sound of your voice will be heard everywhere in the house. The problem is that when you will read something at your PC, your wife/fiancee/girlfriend/lover will have the possibility to interrupt you and ask you to take the garbage out.

I don’t deny the fact that it could be useful, but it’s very unlikely that your wife/fiancee/girlfriend/lover will bring you as many beers and hamburgers you want. However, this device will give you the possibility to active other voice-enable electronic devices in the house.

Well, this cordless communication device was created with simplicity and usability in mind, and Dutch-based designer Werner Helmich really achieved these goals. In order to repay his work, he was awarded the second price at the CAT-iq design competition.

The best moments of your life should be captured in pictures so that you can always remember them when you are downhearted and you just don’t feel too well. The best way to keep all pictures in high-quality and high-resolution is to keep them on a digital photo frame.

This way you don’t need to copy them on your PC or to print them, you will just put them on a SD card and view them in slideshow on your 7-inch Digital Photo Frame. After the 2GB SD card is full with pictures, just put it in your digital photo frame and then you see a slideshow at a resolution of 480 x 234.

The 7-inch Digital Photo Frame can stand sideways, upright or it can be attached on walls. It’s available now for a price of about $40 and it comes in white, black or silver with a 2GB SD card that I aforementioned. Enjoy your pics!

Digital Photo Frames

After a series of rumors about a fourth generation 4GB iPod Nano, Apple has finally confirmed it and it’s shipping in Germany for $170. Until now we don’t know in which countries will it be available, but it’s sure thing that it’s a limited edition, as an Apple spokeswoman stated.

It seems to be a low-cost versions for those with a tight budget or that doesn’t own very much music. It might be successful, because there are many that aren’t going to pay a lot for a portable player, especially because they don’t need so much storage capacity.

via RegHardware

Here is an interesting gadget concept destined for K-12 education which will help them study better thanks to its functionality. It could be called a mini-laptop as its design was inspired by a laptop and it kind of resembles the characteristics an ultra-portable.

This gadget is called Spark and it will give the pupils the opportunity to read, learn and work on this study tool and the designers say that it will increase the effectiveness of the kids because it’s supposed to help them learn faster.

Spark was designed by IDEO in collaboration with Project Inkwell and it will feature wireless networking, multimedia educational software and the possibility for the kids to share their work. The housing of the study tool can be replaced if it gets broken, as well as the keyboard and the Bluetooth-mouse.

The problem is that the Spark is only a concept and it might never see the light and another thing is that I’m not sure if we should make our kids defendant on computers, but who am I to judge other people?

As you probably know, a new generation (the fourth) of iPod nano will be available later this year and already there are speculations about how it will look. According to iLounge, the new iPod will feature a bigger screen that is identical with the ones of the iPhone and iPod Touch as it has the 1.5:1 widescreen aspect ratio.

A few weeks ago, some reports said that the new iPod nano will be available in multiple colors, but this is far from being true or if you want to “most likely inaccurate” therefore the device will support a “single-colored anodized aluminum frame”. Also, some sources said that the fourth generation of iPod nano will resemble “a Zune Flash… or whatever it’s called”. So it remains to see if indeed the nano will look like a Microsoft Zune.. or however it will look.

iLounge

Asus Eee PC 900 is an upgrade to the best-seller Eee PC, featuring a 9-inch display and a higher capacity SSD drive. It comes either with Linux or windows XP preinstalled, but it’s memory is quite low for the XP, so Linux is a better option.

It’s advantages are the low sizes, 2.2lb weight and low price, being mostly used in education and by those who need portability without high specs. The Intel Celeron processor won’t allow you to do any advanced task and don’t even think of playing, but is great for web surfing and other basic tasks.

The Eee PC 900 doesn’t have the speakers on the sides of the lid anymore, because of it’s bigger display and it’s resolution has been improved from 800×480 ( the old Eee PC ) to 1,024×600.

Asus has also made other improvements, increasing the RAM from 512 to 1GB, the SSD drive from 4GB to 12GB for the Windows version and 20GB for the Linux version. For the tasks it was designed for, those features are enough, but the 900Mhz Celeron processor is really dated and Asus should have made a slice improvement to a better Celeron or a Core Solo.

On the design part it got almost no improvement from the old Eee PC, having the same forms, sizes ( 8.9×6.5×0.9 inches ) and colors.

It’s touchpad is now bigger and has more features, working almost like the one on the MacBook Air. The keyboard remained the same, with small keys and is still hard to use. It’s hard to use for a long time, because your hands will get tired.

Eee PC 900’s low storage space can be increased using the SD memory card slot. This slot is welcome, especially for the Windows version, that features a 12GB storage capacity. Due to the increased capacity, over the older Eee PC, it seems to be slower, so expect to even lower performances.

It might not be either the fastest, longest life or best laptop of them all, but in comparison with the ones in it’s class, the battery lifetime is longer, performances are pleasant and it’s price low. Lenovo IdeaPad U100 costs $1,900 and it’s battery only lasts 90 minutes.

You can buy Asus Eee PC 900 for $550 both Windows and Linux versions and it comes with a one-year warranty, online help and a toll-free support phone number. If you only need to perform basic tasks, it might be a good option for you.

You don’t have to be a geek to have heard at least once about Intel and their products, especially microprocessors and motherboard chipsets. Well, for those of you who know a little more about Intel, here is the Classmate PC, a ultraportable which is destined to compete against Asus Eee PC and HP 2133 Mini-Note PC.

Intel released the Classmate PC in the summer of 2007 and the idea was simple - to create a cheap PC for students is developing countries. Although Intel had develop another mininotebook a while ago called One Laptop Per Child XO, this PC is more useful because it looks like a conventional laptop rather than a toy. I think that this is the main reason that made Intel to rethink their low-cost mininotebook.

Now, the Classmate PC features a 9-inch screen, a 30GB hard-drive and the touch pad and the keyboard are exactly what everybody wants because nobody likes radical changes and another advantage is that Intel kept the same compact footprint for it. Actually, its footprint is the thing that makes the PC perfect as travel computer in an airplane or in coffee shops depending your conveyance.

As I aforementioned, Intel kept the same footprint for the mininotebook and the difference is that now, the designers made better use of the space - the best example is that the right-shift key is available unlike the previous version. A more traditional keyboard layout and the rectangular touch pad were something that annoyed a lot of users of the original Classmate. Also, another good addition is a Webcam that Intel comfortably put above the 9-inch screen.

Another key feature that the new Classmate PC kept, is the preloaded education software, but I have to say that it’s not exactly the same, it comes with some improvements. The preloaded education software is started by the teacher’s host software, then the students runs it and the teacher will monitor his work or send them text messages. Also, the work of one student can appear on the screens of the other students, but this is the teacher’s call, which can decide to turn off the screens of the Classmate PCs in order to get more students’ attention because they are likely to get bored.

We were very disappointed by the fact that the 9-inch display couldn’t support a higher resolution - the 800×480 is not satisfying enough because you need more than just read the text (although I struggled a little to find the correct position for reading) and when you surf on the Internet, the Web pages are crossing over the edge of the screen which means that you have to spend some time to scroll (I find this really annoying).

Intel provided the Classmate PC with enough ports and connections rather than crowding the Classmate with useless slots. Intel’s PC features many USB ports, one SD card slot, Ethernet and the ever present jacks for headphones and microphone. All of these are more than the MacBook Air supports and I think that Apple should be concerned that a mininotebook is better regarding connectivity.

For this version of Classmate PC, Intel gave up to some battery life in order to make room for the 30GB 1.8-inch hard-drive which is better because 4 to 5 hours are more than enough. The Classmate PC is not as rugged as we all want, but it’s more rugged than the Eee PC therefore we can live with it.

The Classmate PC is not very slow, the 900MHz Intel Celeron M353 processor performs well although multitasking will really slowdown it. As for the OS, Intel uses the Windows XP Pro because Vista would be too much for the 512MB RAM. Intel designed the 9-inch Classmate PC to be ultraportable measuring 9.4×10.1×1.5 inches and weighing 3.3 pounds (3.9 pounds with the AC adapter.

In conclusion I have to say that Intel did a good job because they knew what to compromise in order to develop a rugged and well-balanced mininotebook, although I am sure that they can do better which means that they probably saved a few trumps for the next generation of Classmate PCs. I am very happy that they managed to vie Asus and HP because it’s good for the competition and we will get better and better products.

The Iriver E100 is a complete Portable player with almost all the features it could get, including photo and video playback, both Windows and Mac compatibility, many audio file formats support, speakers and a microSD memory card slot.

Design & Construction

Unfortunately, the materials Iriver E100 is build of look cheap and of low quality, with a not-so-responsive clickpad and hard navigation. Considering E100’s low price, it has enough features and a satisfying quality, but is low on navigation and it lacks podcast support.

Iriver has a high reputation in the industry, with Iriver Clix being a really good player and has lived with such a powerful competitor - Apple. It’s advantage over the competitor is the low price of $109.99 for the 4GB version and $159.99 for the 8Gb one and it’s plenitude of features.

E100’s design isn’t the best of them all, but it does look good. But the problem is with the control pad, that’s built of cheap materials and doesn’t work as it is supposed to, with a difficult to press center button. Also, the other button are sometimes unresponsive and have some delays.

Functionality

The keys aren’t as usual and can be confusing, the upper button goes back and the down button forward, while we got used to use the left and right buttons for this. I would say this is it’s biggest issue and can prove really annoying.

Except it’s keys, the Iriver E100 seems designed well and it comes in a wide variety of colors - white, black, brown, sky blue and pink. It features a 2.5-inch 320×240 QVGA display, with a good resolution. On the sides are located the volume rocker, power button, hold switch, mic and the reset hole. On it’s bottom side it’s located the mini USB port used to transfer files and charge the device, along with two 3.5mm standard jacks, one microphone line-in and one headphones line-out. The microSD memory card slot is located on top of the device and the speakers on the back of it. The speakers do sound pretty well, but don’t expect at HiFi quality.

It’s software is pretty engaging, but you don’t have the option to customize the interface at all, unfortunately. Also they could have taken profit of the quality display and make some better colored menus, instead of the current gray and black ones, with a slice of red.

It does support a plenitude of file formats, including MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, ASF, JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF, AVI, and WMV, features a text viewer, an FM radio with the ability to record the stream and autoscan.

Sound Quality

Sound quality doesn’t place it on top, but is at least decent and it does have some features to please any music genre fan, like a five band customizable equalizer, with nine presets, SRS WOW, A/B looping, shuffle and repeat modes, lyrics display, bookmarking and a fade-in feature that automatically increase the volume on a track start and decreases it on it’s end, to make the transition more pleasant.

Conclusion

The Iriver E100 is a mid-end player worth it’s price, i would say. With a battery lifetime of 25 hours for audio and 5 hours for video, a lot of features and decent sound quality, it is a good portable player.