CES 2007

Everyone's heard about the Samsung Ultra Music, but Samsung also chose CES for the U.S. unveiling of its new Ultra Video as well. The Ultra Video looks like the Ultra Music, but it features a unique and sexy swivel design that allows you to balance the phone on a table for easy viewing. Also called the F500, the GSM Ultra Video made its first debut last month at an electronics show in Hong Kong. But don't get too excited. It's not even out in Asia yet, so a U.S. arrival should take a few eons. … Read more

Continuing the tragic saga of cool smart phones that we can't get here in the United States, we have the Nokia N95. As you may or may not recall, the N95 is the flagship model of the company's N series of multimedia computers. It has a 5-megapixel camera, integrated GPS, Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), HSPDA, 150MB of internal memory, and a Micro SD slot. The design allows you to switch between different modes; you can slide the dial pad down to make calls or slide the dedicated media keys out in the opposite direction, automatically converting the 2.… Read more

At CES, Samsung is showing an updated model to its earlier SGH-T319 models. The new Samsung SGH-T329 offers much of the same feature set including a VGA camera, a 65,000-color display, a speakerphone, USB cable support and Bluetooth, but fortunately it improves on its predecessor's dull design. The flip phone sports soothing, rounded edges, a gray and silver color scheme, and a vertically oriented external display. The carrier is T-Mobile, but we've no word on pricing or availability yet.

Nokia wasn't content to just release a sexy new phone or a cool new Internet tablet, so it also debuted three new Bluetooth headsets here at CES 2007.

The low-end beginner model is the Nokia BH-100, which is really small and cute and comes with three different color bumpers. It weighs about 11 grams and has a rated talk time of 6.5 hours.

The Nokia BH-120 is a step up and comes with a lanyard so you can wear it around your neck. It is pretty compact, comes with three different earbud sizes, and has a rated talk … Read more

Sony Ericsson is taking a cue from Kyocera this CES by keeping things simple. Besides its low-end W200i Walkman phone, the company is showing its Z310, which it introduced last month. Bearing a very basic flip phone design with a small external display that disappears when the backlighting is off, the Z310 almost appears to be a Samsung phone from afar. It's available in black, bronze, and pink, and because no carrier has been announced, it will run you a steep $219.

Features are mostly midrange, with a 65,536-color internal display, a VGA camera, text and multimedia messaging, … Read more

HTC makes some great smart phones, such as the T-Mobile Dash (a.k.a. HTC Excalibur) and the Cingular 8525, but one smart phone we've anxiously been awaiting is the HTC Artemis. Why? Well, it has this really cool navigation wheel, which they call RollR, that combines a trackwheel and a trackball (á la T-Mobile Sidekick 3) and makes navigating the device so easy. It almost mimics the experience of a mouse, as it it brings up a cursor on the screen, and you simply have to press the trackball to click an app or menu. In addition, the … Read more

Bluetooth headsets seem to be getting smaller and smaller, and the Mini Blu II Bluetooth headset from FoneGear is no different. Debuting at CES is the upgrade to the previous Mini Blu line, and it weighs in at only 0.31 ounce. It's a Bluetooth 2.0 headset with a rated talk time of 4 hours and a rated standby time of 3 days and 3 hours. The Mini Blu II will be available in the first quarter of 2007, though we don't know its price yet.

Back in October, we reviewed the rather horrible I-mate Jaq, which was plagued by a bulky design and poor call quality. Needless to say, we were not impressed. However, the company is giving it another go with the I-mate Jaq3, a revamped version of the Jaq that features a slightly trimmed down design and integrated Wi-Fi. Despite a fresh coat of paint in a slimming black, the numbers don't lie and the Jaq3 is still a pocketful at 4.8x2.7x0.8 inches and 5.4 ounces. The Wi-Fi integration (802.11b/g) is a nice addition, but it'… Read more

Without much fanfare or hoopla, Motorola quietly (so quiet that even some of the Moto staff didn't know the release went out) announced yesterday the official availability of the Motorola Q Pro. This corporate-centric version of the Q essentially keeps the same hardware (although now cloaked in black) as the original Q but adds some key software solutions for business users, including the DataViz Documents to Go suite for viewing and editing Microsoft Office documents, Motorola's Mobile Security Platform with VPN support, a firewall, intrusion detection, and data encryption. In addition, the Motorola Q Pro will come packaged … Read more