Specifications:
General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100
Announced 2012, February
Status Available. Released 2012, April
Body Dimensions 103.7 x 57.5 x 12 mm
Weight 97 g - Touch-sensitive controls
Display Type TFT capacitive touchscreen
Size 240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches (~143 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch Yes - TouchWiz UX UI
Sound Alert types Vibration, MP3 ringtones
Loudspeaker Yes
3.5mm jack Yes
Memory Card slot microSD, up to 32 GB
Internal 3 GB
Data GPRS Yes
EDGE Yes
Speed HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps; HSUPA
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth Yes, v3.0 with A2DP
USB Yes, microUSB v2.0
Camera Primary 2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels
Features Geo-tagging
Video Yes, QVGA@15fps
Secondary No
Features OS Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread)
CPU 832 MHz ARM 11
Sensors Accelerometer, compass
Messaging SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS
Browser HTML
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support
Java Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
Colors Black
- SNS integration - MP4/H.264/H.263 player - MP3/WAV/eAAC+ player - Organizer - Image/video editor - Document viewer - Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration
- Voice memo/dial - Predictive text input
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 1200 mAh
Stand-by Up to 800 h (2G) / Up to 500 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 17 h (2G) / Up to 5 h 40 min (3G)
Misc SAR US 0.86 W/kg (head) 0.38 W/kg (body)
SAR EU 0.79 W/kg (head)
Price group [About 100 EUR]
Tests Display Contrast ratio: 753:1 (nominal) / 1.180:1 (sunlight)
Loudspeaker Voice 65dB / Noise 65dB / Ring 67dB
Audio quality Noise -87.6dB / Crosstalk -85.6dB
Battery life Endurance rating 34h
A great gadget invented by Byoung-soo Choi and Jun-kyeong Kim. OneBike is really a great novelty of design. Whenever you pedal this bicycle it will store kinetic energy and the user will be able to check his own workout performance criteria. The energy of your motion is converted into electricity and recharges the battery so no energy is wasted. If necessary you can just transform an exercise bike into an electric bike.
Get a jump start on Black Friday 2010 with our buyer’s guide to the best deals and sales on electronics, computers and other gadgets.
Heading out to a shopping center on Black Friday in search of deals reminds us a lot of the guys on Deadliest Catch heading out into the Bering Sea in search of crab. You’re going to get cold. You’re going to get wet. And someone is probably going to yell at you. But if you play your cards right, it’s all worthwhile when you steer your ship into port with a hold full of King Crab. Or a new HDTV, laptop, and camera, as the case may be.
But you wouldn’t go crab fishing without a salty old sea captain to tell you where to drop your traps, and you shouldn’t head out to the mall without a little help, either.
That's where we come in. Before you throw on a pot of coffee and settle down with an inch-thick stack of paper ads to sift out the good stuff, check out and check out our buyer's guide to the top 10 best Black Friday bargains for this year's best catches. From TVs and Blu-ray players to laptops and Xbox gaming consoles,these are the items worth testing your patience in turbulent mall parking lots, waiting on cold concrete sidewalks and shuffling through packed retailers in order to score.
$198 at Wal-Mart
Let’s be honest: The specs on this bare-bones machine won’t impress anyone unless you pop into a time machine and travel back to 2005, but compared to the netbooks you could typically buy for this price, you’ll see why it’s worth lining up for. You’ll get a relatively spacious 15.6-inch screen, a 250GB hard drive, Windows Home 7, and luxury so often missing from netbooks: a DVD burner. And hey, the full-sized keyboard won’t even cause your wrists to cramp up after e-mails!
$99 at Target and Kmart
Remember the year DVD players became so cheap even your grandparents bought one? It looks like 2010 is shaping up that way for Blu-ray. Though this won’t be the first time a Blu-ray player has dropped below triple-digit pricing, you have to hand it to Target and Kmart for nabbing a reputable (and slick-looking) Sony player player with Internet features like Netflix and Pandora, USB input for playing music and video off thumb drives, and even an app that allows you to use any Android or iOS device as a remote control. Just beware: The optional Wi-Fi adapter runs $80 on its own, so if you need one, you may be better off scanning for a player with built-in Wi-Fi, like Walmart’s $69 Magnavox.
$99.99 at Officemax
Just about every store has a deal on a monitor in the same unreasonably low price range this year, but we’re thinking AOC’s 22-inch F22 tops the list for value, despite its lack of a brand name. First, you’re looking at 22 inches instead of 20 on the equal-priced HP monitor that Staples is carrying or the LG monitor at Office Depot. Second, and more importantly, it has full 1080p HD resolution. Third, the dropped-chin bezel looks unique, and if nothing else, you can probably count on the wider footprint attached directly to the monitor to wobble less than the cheapie stands on most other monitors in this price range.
$898 at Participating Stores
Trying to snag a quality TV rather than just gunning for the most inches for the fewest dollars? Here’s what we consider one of the best offers going (and at $602 off the MSRP of $1,500, the biggest savings, too). Although it doesn’t boast full-array backlighting with localized dimming like Samsung’s flagship LED televisions, the C5000 series packs in plenty of upmarket features like Samsung’s signature Touch of Color bezel, a sleek 1.2-inch-deep cabinet, and even AllShare, which allows you to play content from a PC or mobile phone on your TV.
$199 at Target and Toys ‘R Us
You’re going to pay $199 for an Xbox 360 no matter where you camp out this year — the real question is where you walk away with the most goodies with it. A number of stores are bundling free video games, but unless you know exactly what the the gamer you’re buying for wants, and it just happens to be in the narrow selection out there, a $50 gift card is a best bet for continued smiles after the gift wrap comes off.
$579.98 at Kmart and Sears
You’ll seldom see too many deep discounts on high-end photo equipment, which makes the $170 you’ll save on this bundle a decent deal for the amateur just beginning to dabble in DSLRs (though not totally out of the range of online bargain sites). The bundle includes Canon’s well-regarded Rebel XS plus two lenses, the standard 18-55mm kit lenses for all-around shooting and an EF 75-300mm telephoto lens. Kmart and Walmart also offer the camera and kit lens alone for $479.99, in case you want to hold off on the extra glass.
$298 at Target
If you’re looking for as much screen for your buck as possible, it’s hard to one-up Target’s 40-inch Westinghouse, which outstrips what even the craftiest online buyer can usually find. Be aware you’re not exactly getting a premium television here, but on the the up side, you’re getting full 1080p resolution, while a name brand would easily dip you down to 720p in anything close to this price range. For the bedroom, basement or the most opulent garage ever, you likely won’t find a better fit. If anyone criticizes the image quality, just tell ‘em what you paid.
$99.00 at Staples
Walmart offers the similar Nuvi 255W for $88 this season, but the extra T on the end of the model number of this one offers a very compelling reason to drop another $11.99 on your credit card: free lifetime traffic. Considering many other traffic-equipped units will charge you annually for the privilege, you’re really saving twice here. We bestowed the closely related Nuvi 265WT with an Editor’s Choice award back in 2009 when it still ran for $300, so at a third that price, you quite literally can’t go wrong. PepBoys also carries the 265WT for $109.98 if you need Bluetooth speakerphone capabilities (we were actually surprised by how good the quality is).
$499.99 at Staples
OK, the $200 eMachines notebook will work for e-mail and surfing, but what if you actually want a notebook to get stuff done? The HP G72 on sale at Staples not only has a super-sized 17.3-inch screen for easier multitasking, you also step up to 4GB of memory, a 500GB hard drive, and most importantly, a modern Intel Core i3 processor. Short of gaming, this notebook should handle just about everything without batting an eye, and you’re getting a respectable $200 off the already discounted retail price.
96 cents with two-year contract at Sam’s Club
Everyone knows you can score a flip phone or cheap feature phone for free just by inking a two-year contract, but typically, top-tier smartphones like Samsung’s Fascinate will still cost you a couple Benjamins. If you drop into a Verizon store, you’ll still lay down $199.99 for a Fascinate, but on Friday, Sam’s Club will have the offer it for just 96 cents with the same contract. Not too bad for one of our favorite new superphones.
Nokia has a new feature phone out, Nokia X3, and its claim to fame is something Nokia calls Touch and Type: a rarely seen combination between a touchscreen and a fairly standard 16-button keypad. Nokia calls the phone X3, but to differ from the earlier Nokia phones by the same name, it also goes by the name Nokia X3-02.
Feature-wise, it’s a fairly standard mid-range phone, with a 5-megapixel camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, music player and FM radio. It sports a 9.6mm thick, brushed aluminum casing, available in five colors.
The operating system that powers the phone is S40, so don’t expect magic when it comes to the touchscreen UI, but it’s hard to compain when you’re getting both options – keypad and touchscreen – in one phone.
Suggested retail price for Nokia X3 is approximately $161 (125 euro), and it’s expected to hit the market sometime this quarter.
This series is brought to you by Best Buy. For more information on their recycling program and to make your recycle pledge, please visit recycleiton.com.
When it comes to the “reduce, reuse, recycle” equation, we often hear more about the former and the latter options and less about the middle choice. Perhaps it’s more glamorous to recycle your way to better environmental friendliness, but for us gadget geeks there can be a plethora of options waiting for us in the repurposing category.
Maybe there’s too much sentimental value attached to an old laptop to give it away, but there may be life left in it yet beyond gathering dust in a corner. Re-configuring an older piece of equipment for a newfound task is often only a short day or weekend project, can squeeze some extra utility out of an aging gadget, and has the potential to be a fun do-it-yourself activity to boot.
Read on for some ideas about getting some extra mileage out of that closet full of old gear.
1. Turn an Old Computer Into a Home Theater
Your old machine may not be able to keep up with your daily needs any longer, but may serve just fine as a dedicated video hub. Even a relatively ancient PC may still have a DVD player and can potentially run a web browser for streaming media from sources like Netflix, Hulu (Hulu), and YouTube (YouTube).
We would advise testing out your old PC or Mac in its role to make sure it can handle the type of video playback you need before investing in any other equipment. If it can, you’re likely to need few additional accessories beyond the cables required to hook up the machine to your television (check out this good audio and video connections guide). If not, it may still be worth investing in a few component upgrades to press your old machine into new service — a faster video card and some extra RAM might do the trick, and can be relatively inexpensive.
2. Turn an Old Computer Into a Jukebox
If you already have a home theater setup, or your old machine isn’t powerful enough to handle video playback reliably, it may still serve just fine as a dedicated audio server. This conversion can scale as little or as much as you wish, from a bare bones Pandora (Pandora) listening station to a networked jukebox that can bring together your local music collection as well.
Depending on your aspirations and what you have available, adding a couple of large USB external drives to expand the storage of an old machine can enable local storage and streaming of your collection. Or, you can use the PC or Mac as a satellite station to bring your music across your local network into another room in the house.
3. Turn an Old Web Cam Into a Security System
This section should start with the caveat that a DIY webcam surveillance setup is no substitute for a full security system. All the same, an old collection of webcams can be repurposed to give you some extra peace of mind when away from home. Essentially, any old webcam will do the trick when paired with the proper software, which will depend on your platform and range in cost from free to not-so-free.
Depending on your needs, shelling out a few bucks for software can net some cool features like e-mailing you images when the camera’s motion detection has been triggered, or even a full-fledged web server for checking in on your abode remotely. Here’s a guide to help get started on either the PC or Mac, but with a number of different software options out there, it’s also worth doing your own research to find the sweet spot between functionality and cost.
4. Turn an Old Cell Phone Into a Robotics Project
This one wades into geekier waters, but for the DIY hobbyists, hackers, and robotics enthusiasts in the house, it could be one creative way indeed to find a use for that old cell phone. If said phone is a smartphone, it obviously makes for bigger brains in your new friend: Truckbot is a great example of what’s possible (see the video above).
Still, even a regular old phone can be pressed into service as a robot enabler. Check out TeMo, the tele-operated mobile Internet robot for some ideas on how a relatively basic phone can be of use in a new context.
5. Turn an Old Media Player Into a Portable Drive
Perhaps you’ve replaced that old iPod with a newer generation model or an iPhone (iPhone), but your old portable jukebox could still come in handy as an extra backup spot or portable drive. For Apple-branded devices, simply connecting the iPod to iTunes and checking the “enable disk use” box will allow you to drag and drop files at will. Use it for another layer of backup redundancy or as an extra portable hard drive.
Many media players from other companies like Archos, Creative, Samsung and more will simply show up as a removable drive when connected to a computer. Most also support the USB Mass Storage protocol, which allows you to simply drag and drop files back and forth to the player as if it were just another external drive. Others can be massaged into file storage service with some extra tweaking — do some searching for your particular player model to find out if someone has discovered a workaround for portable hard drive use.
Thanks to a project from Eyebeam’s Hans-Christoph Steiner, you can turn an old PDA, Pocket PC, Palm Pilot and the like into a musical device. The Reware Project leverages the power of Linux (Linux) to give new musical life to a wide array of old handhelds, making a creative and fun project for audiophile gadget geeks.
7. Turn an Old Mac Into an Aquarium
There is a long and venerable tradition surrounding the Macquarium, wherein an old Macintosh computer is repurposed into a high-tech fishbowl. Almost any old machine stretching back to the original Mac 128K has been given the aquatic treatment at this point, with a number of examples and instructions collated at The Apple Collection, and via the previous link.
Keep in mind that dismantling something like a CRT monitor carries some extra safety concerns, so be sure to follow instructions closely and take any precautions necessary.
What if your pets are less fishy and more furry? Perhaps a cat bed will be more your style.
8. Turn Almost Anything Into Art
Looking for an excuse to combine environmentalism with light-hearted play and craftiness? Pretty much any old piece of electronics could become a centerpiece or accessory for a fun art project.
Depending on your level of talent and time, you could make some funky knick-knack gifts or try to top resourceful artists like Miguel Rivera, who sculpts old hard drives into marvelous creations like the robot pictured above. With a bit of skill and some ambition, you could even turn your crafting into a lucrative hobby like many of these enterprising re-purposers have done.
Series supported by Best Buy’s Recycle it On
This post is part of the Recycling Series, which is supported by Best Buy. No matter where you may have purchased your electronics, Best Buy makes it easy to recycle. For more information on their recycling program and to make your recycle pledge, please visit recycleiton.com.
