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By Ben Bowers - As I groggily took my place in line at unspeakably early Saturday morning hours, I questioned if all the hype was justified. My previous smart phone was 3G compatible and served me well over the last year. So what if it didn’t have a glossy back, touch screen, or a brand that let people know you stood for everything hip (overly?) in the world.

My doubts melted though the moment the sales attendant placed the gleaming white bar in my palm… right then and there I started drinking the iPhone koolaid…
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Twice as fast. Half the price.

Now that’s a deal. Apple’s unveiled the much anticipated 3G iPhone today and at a price far more palatable. The iPhone will operate on AT&T’s highspeed 3G network alongside built-in GPS mapping, Microsoft Exchange support, desktop-class web browser, apps and Apple’s New MobileMe service (Push mail and mobile synchronization for the layman). You’ll find Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, a 3.5″ 480×320 pixel display, 2.0 megapixel geotagging camera, accessible SIM card and a svelte new case. Oh, and of course an iPod, with improved sound quality to boot. The 3G iPhone weighs 4.7 ounces and comes in 8GB or 16GB sizes in black or white (16GB only).

Watch the ad.

Cost: $199 (8GB) & $299 (16GB) @ Apple | July 2008

Happy Mother’s Day Happy Blackberry Day.

Millions of Blackberry users will undoubtedly be clammoring over the news of the new 3G Blackberry Bold (aka: the Blackberry 9000), featuring quad-band EDGE and tri-band HSDPA, Wi-Fi capability and GPS.

Rolling out on AT&T’s 3G Network this summer, followed by T-Mobile, the Blackberry Bold will be powered by a 624MHZ Intel processor, have 1GB memory with expandable microSD memory card slot, 2 megapixel camera, bluetooth 2.0, and 480×320 resolution LCD. For the fashionista Blackberry users, an interchangeable backplate will undoubtedly assuage your customization and iPhone envies. Multimedia features include MP3, WMA, AAC, DivX4, WMV3 and a set of speakers that bely their size (we’ll see). Gents, feast your eyes on the new corporate addiction. [via Press Release and BGR]

Cost: $300-$400 @ Blackberry | July 2008

I’ve never been much of a case man and every phone I have owned has been rocked with no protection and have the battle scars to prove it. Last year I bought an iPhone and until last weekend, never sported a case for it, until I walked into an Apple store and sighted the Incase Slider. The case was sleek and looked like it belonged on the phone from day one. It even passed my little OCD test of slipping into my pocket and pulling it out with flying colors.

The main reason I’m writing about this phone case, is to tell you that it’s the real deal in protection for your precious iPhone. This weekend I was out riding my bike and to make a long story short, my iPhone flew out of my tank mounted bag while I was doing about 70mph. The second that happened I thought my phone was done. Combing the highway my phone was not to be found Later that night I went back with a flash light and low a behold, there was my iPhone… sitting there, still operational and the case still intact with some substantial battle scars.

For the finest in sleek, durable protection, the ultra slim Slider Case for iPhone is made of hardshell plastic and features a minimal wall thickness of 1mm. Interior rubber guardrails provide shock absorption in addition to impact and scratch protection and the removable bottom cover makes for easy dock connection. The case comes in Glossy black, white and a rubberized black matte finishes.

Cost: $35 @ Incase

We enjoy the outdoors like everyone else. It’s our little bit of freedom away from the office, whether it’s a weekend camping trip to the mountains, an excursion to the North Pole, or a safari through Tanzania, we can’t be without the essentials – our cellphones, pda’s, and ipods. Unfortunately, making sure they’re powered even in the remote parts of the world can be hard. That’s why there’s the Solio Magnesium Edition. This portable hybrid charger can store power on its internal lithium ion battery by charging it via sunlight (or through an AC adapter). Once it’s charged up, you can use it to power virtually any handheld device.

Full specs after the jump.

What This Means To You: Wherever your adventures take you, this device will keep you powered.

Cost: $200

Also See: More Outdoor Gear

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Not long ago Nokia announced the N810 Tablet, a personal tablet device with a 4″ screen, wi-fi, camera, GPS and 2GB of built-in storage with expansion up to 10GB through an SD-card. The Linux powered device was an interesting proposition because it basically allowed for infinite development through it’s open source operating system. Something the iPhone hasn’t been and probably won’t be able to do.

The n810 WiMax edition is Nokia’s newest iteration using WiMAX technology over Sprint’s Xohm service giving you 4g technology in an otherwise 2-3G US Market. Good times. Availability is slated for the end of June. [via]

Hands On images with the Nokia n810 at Gizmodo.

Altec Lansing has come a long way from the days when all they were known for were the shoddy speakers attached to your parent’s Packard Bell. Those were the days. 4 hours on Kings Quest and Leisure Suit Larry… anyway, I digress.

The Altec Lansing T612 speaker system is a speaker dock that finally works with your iPhone. If you haven’t noticed iPhones don’t work in standard iPod docks without putting them into flight mode (cell antenna off). They suffer from GSM-buzz interference, that sound you hear right before a phone rings when it’s near a powered speaker. Altec Lansing used GSM shielding to prevent interference with the T612’s two 3″ full-range drivers and 1″ silk dome tweeters powered by 60 watts of power. They’re surprisingly crisp and we were pleased by the separate bass and treble controls. The XdB bass enhancement did a quality job of reproducing an extended bottom note without the aid of a subwoofer.

Now you can enjoy the music loaded on your iPhone without worry of missing a call. The Altec Lansing T612 can also function as an iPod dock or other MP3 player via it’s auxiliary input, is wall mountable, and includes a wireless remote.

What this means to you: It won’t win any awards for design, but the Altec Lansing T612 does what it says and it does it well. Perhaps that’s why there’s one on my bedside table now.

Cost: $200 @ Apple

Factory car navigation systems are one of the last bastions of sheer profit motive in the car industry. Well, outside of repairs. $2,500-$3,000 for a crippled navigation system that’s outdated within a year. Seriously?

Take our advice, forego the factory nav and get a portable GPS. You’ll get twice the features, newer technology and be able to take it with you between rides or places. Spend the extra cash on other options, upgraded wheels, a used Hyundai or even a year’s worth of gas.

We’re getting ourselves the new Harmon Kardon Guide+Play GPS-810. It’s a full-featured system with a 4.3″ screen and wireless control knob so you can place the controls anywhere you feel comfortable. No more reaching for the screen when it’s mounted far up on the dash. Sure, the nav has 12 million points of interest, built-in maps of the U.S. and Canada but ups the ante with these drool worthy features after the jump.

What this means to you: In-car video? Check. In-car music player? Check. In-car handsfree phone calls? Check. Live traffic updating? Check. Oh yeah, and it’s a navigation system too.

Cost: $400 @ Best Buy

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First of all, we should talk about what the Amazon Kindle does. The premise is simple. It’s a wireless device that uses a technology called electronic-paper’ that allows you to have thousands of books at your disposal ready to read on the high-resolution screen that looks and ‘reads’ like real paper. We’ll get to the ‘reads’ part in a moment.

The Kindle uses the Sprint high speed EVDO wireless network giving you unlimited and free access to the Kindle store practically anywhere. There were even times when we were receiving signals where other Sprint phones weren’t. Electronic versions of books will deliver to your Kindle at moments notice and the top newspapers have joined, including: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post as well as periodicals like TIME magazine and Forbes. Time will only tell who else joins the Kindle foray. Better yet, and this is where we particularly find interest - top blogs (over 300) like BoingBoing, TechCrunch and The Onion will deliver their updated content to the Kindle throughout the day as well as unfettered access to Wikipedia. For this writer, that would be enough to qualify purchasing the Kindle… IF it were say, $200 less. A practical and business savvy move for Sprint would be to subsidize costs of the Kindle for current Sprint subscribers, but we’ll leave Sprint’s less-than-wise business practices for another day.

The Kindle device itself isn’t too bad of a product for being first generation. We can only imagine what tweaks and upgrades the engineers are conjuring up now. Hopefully, comfort-in-hand-, improve intuitiveness of controls and e-mail are some of them. The battery life, under our usage averaged about two days with the wireless turned on all the time. With it off, we got almost 5 days in. Good, but not fantastic. Now about that electronic paper screen. Well, it looks bloody fantastic. Sharper so than even the Sony E-reader. The display is crisp and we found little fatigue reading it over time. Arguably though it’s hard to see why anything would be an improvement after looking at a monitor for a good part of the day.

Our time with the Kindle has provided us the ability to read a few of our favorite blogs*, newspapers and several guilty pleasure novels (Michael Crichton’s Prey is under appreciated, no matter how trite you may have thought it was). It does exactly what it touts and honestly it does it well. Only time will tell how this device will fare in the long run. There’s an incredible tangibility with books that I think this generation may have a hard time letting go, but as they (we) age, the prospect of carrying backbreaking books on a commute, vacation or even around the home may outweigh the proposition. Oh, and did we mention free wireless access to Wikipedia?

*notably missing are: Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Acquire, The Truth About Cars and… Gear Patrol

Don’t take our word for it? Fine. We won’t argue. Go read Michael Specter’s article on Men’s Vogue. It’s insightful and far more eloquent than ours.

Cost: $399 @ Amazon

Tags: Technology, Amazon, Kindle, Review

Those of you who’ve been pining for a Palm Centro untethered from Sprint will be glad to know that your GSM precious is here and it’s available in a smooth looking Glacier White.

The Palm Centro from AT&T operates off a next generation version of the Palm OS (5.4.9). It’s a quad band phone with Microsoft Direct Push and Xpress Mail which works with GMail, AOL, Yahoo! and MSN access e-mail in real time. With a Good Mobile messaging application you’re also able to connect to your office’s Blackberry services. Of course, SMS, IM and MMS messaging is available and for those of you with ‘Nextel’ features (read: annoyances), the Palm Centro is Push To Talk enabled.

Full features after the jump.

What this means to you: We’re a little disappointed there’s no integrated GPS, but still glad to see the Centro available on the AT&T network. Now about that GP Orange version…

Cost: $100 w/contract @ AT&T

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