Ericsson Chatboard CHA-10

I was cleaning out my drawer the other day and found this amazing blast from the past - my beloved Ericsson Chatboard. I bought it approximately 10 years ago, to complement my Sony Ericsson T300 phone, which incidentally was my first color-screen cell phone, which also featured a detachable VGA camera module! Combined with the Ericsson Chatboard, it was quite a formidable texting, browsing, camera-phone powerhouse, a forerunner to the featureset of today's typical smartphones. The Chatboard connects directly to the bottom of the T300 using the proprietary Ericsson connector, and the setup was actually sturdy enough to support the weight of the phone as you typed on the keyboard. The keyboard itself packs a full QWERTY layout, even a decently sized spacebar, and shortcut keys to commands such a Yes, No, Phonebook, WWW, SMS, etc. Quite a handy piece of kit, it even included a sturdy plastic carrying case to stow it away for on-the go convenience.

Sony VAIO TZ unboxing

Here is the unboxing of my new Sony VAIO TZ ultraportable laptop! I recently purchased this machine on clearance, and am enjoying it immensely for it's sleek, stylish design and cool features, such as the built-in SSD drive and carbon fiber case. I've upgraded it to Vista Ultimate and removed multiple pre-installed trial-ware applications, which really bogged down the system out-of-the-box. I hope to get a lot of use out of this new gadget in the coming months. :)

The Philips BTM 630

One of the most versatile clock radios in existence, with Bluetooth connectivity for music AND phone calls.
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The Engadget Show live taping - January 16th, 2010

Hello, and welcome back to Gadgets 411! I wish you all a (belated) happy New Year 2010. It was a busy 2009 for me, and I unfortunately let this blog remain a bit dormant throughout the second half of 2009. I went through quite a few gadgets during the year that were not posted here on the site, including the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, the Sony Walkman A728, the Zune HD, the Sony Reader 300, and my current netbook, the Fujitsu Lifebook M2010 (eponymously and appropriately named for this year!) Yesterday, I attended the live taping of the Engadget Show in midtown Manhattan, and unfortunately did not come away with winning one of the two Google Nexus One phones during the giveaway at the end of the show. Congrats to the two lucky winners though - I find myself intrigued by the Android platform (vs. Nokia's S60, Palm OS, etc from my personal experience) and will likely take the Android plunge sometime in the year..or maybe even Maemo with the still relatively new Nokia N900. The guest speaker at the show, Erick Tseng of Google, was witty and enthusiastic about the Android platform (appropriately so) and my takeaway was that the Nexus One is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of new branded handset hardware and software in the coming months from Google. And again, as always, I welcome your comments and suggestions, and thank you for reading!