Kinoma Play is one application that is desperately needed by Windows Mobile users, and it just might remind them that there’s a better way to navigate media and media-related Web services without needing to buy a new mobile device.
It’s exciting to think about iPhone competitors giving better software a real try. But HTC’s Touch Diamond doesn’t hide the outdated Windows Mobile well enough or often enough for a user to want to buy a whole new device.
Today, people interested in seeing the first Google-branded consumer-hardware product will get to satisfy their curiosity as the company, joining with T-Mobile, unveils its $179 G1 handheld computer. This touch-screen device will compete with Apple’s iPhone, and it includes a key feature missing in the iPhone: a physical keyboard.
Change is a familiar concept in the mobile-phone industry. Most recently, Apple and Google introduced mobile devices with two vital innovations: They run on fast 3G networks and use touch screens. Yesterday Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, brought out a device that goes halfway: the BlackBerry Bold, which runs on AT&T’s 3G network, but doesn’t have a touch screen.
In two weeks, the latest version of the BlackBerry, the Curve 8900, arrives. This device doesn’t have a sleek touch screen or completely overhauled operating system, nor is it meant to compete with the likes of Apple’s iPhone. But it has a physical keyboard and still manages to look stylish — and that’s no small feat.
Katie tests Asus’s Eee Top, the company’s first entry into the all-in-one PC computer category. At $600, or half the cost of the least expensive iMac or HP TouchSmart, the Eee Top brings the fun and accessibility of a touch-screen computer to people who might not otherwise afford it.
BumpTop, a program that displays items in a way that makes programs and files easy to see and open, turns your digital desktop into a three-dimensional environment.
Edited by Walt and written by Katie Boehret, this is a guide to gadgets, web services and other consumer technologies.
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