vulcan

Hasbro reveals details about Nerf Wii blaster, even more Nerf overkill

Hasbro showed off its entire upcoming Nerf line at Toy Fair, including more about the fabled Nerf Wii blaster revealed last week. No longer just a photo and some passing speculation, the Nerf-branded Wii peripheral now has a name and even more details.

The Nerf Wii blaster is officially called the Switch Shot EX-3, and is part of the Nerf N-Strike line of blasters. The Switch Shot EX-3 functions both as a Wii remote Zapper-like gun peripheral and a Nerf dart blaster, thanks to a removable dart module that clicks into the remote slot. The lower half of the … Read more

Gadgettes 74: The What the Hell? Episode

Vulcan slashes price of FlipStart

At its starting price of $1,999, the Vulcan FlipStart was egregiously overpriced when we reviewed it last spring. A $500 price cut last fall failed to impress, so yesterday Paul Allen and company lopped more than half off the price, lowering it to $699.

Tell me, are you more likely to consider a UMPC (FlipStart or otherwise) for $699 or do you feel that still too much to pay?

Coincidentally, I'll be posting a full review of the Wibrain B1 later today (covered previously on Crave here and here), which is the cheapest UMPC I've seen--priced at, … Read more

Band of the Hand: UMPCs reviewed

It's been a big month for the handheld ultramobile PC, or UMPC. We reviewed not only the clamshell-like Vulcan FlipStart, we also got our hands on the sleek and sexy OQO model 02. Both these pocket-sized systems run full versions of Windows (either Vista or XP), and fall somewhere on the gadget spectrum between an ultraportable laptop and a PDA-like smartphone. The same could be said of two other second-generation UMPCs we've looked at recently, the Sony VAIO UX390 and the Asus R2H.

Of course, the story is rarely as simple as that, and the much-hyped UMPC platform … Read more

FlipStart flips into view

The Vulcan FlipStart, an ultramobile PC first announced in 2003, is apparently a little closer to store shelves, despite a longstanding reputation as vaporware.

The gang over at PCMag.com actually have a full review of the not-yet-released FlipStart E-1001S--a system that looks more like a shrunk-down ultraportable laptop than a Sidekick-style UMPC such as the Sony VAIO UX.

The E-1001S flips open to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard and a 5.6-inch screen with a 1024x600 resolution. With a Pentium M CPU, a 30GB hard drive, and only 512MB of RAM, it's probably not going to be … Read more