Gadgets

We’ve barely had our mitts on the iPhone 3G for a week and what’s old is new again. The bad news? Aside from the addition of blazing fast data speeds, back is the brittle screen, the tinny speaker and the 30-pin connector. The good news? Most of our tried and true accessories are still compatible. Here’s our cast of favorites (with a couple new additions.) —Terrence Russell

[Editor's Note: Once again we've assigned these accessories an A-F rating. Remember, don't take what we say here too seriously.]

1. Belkin Sport Armband for iPhone 3G

Just because you stood in line for six hours to ‘go 3G’ doesn’t mean you’re not active. Don’t fret — you can rock this low-profile armband to silence those Vista-loving naysayers.

Intel’s next Centrino chipset was barely announced last night and already, there is a flurry of news about which notebooks are receiving the chip-brain transplant, Frankenstein-style.

Fujitsu, Toshiba, Lenovo, and Sony all announced their Centrino laptop builds this morning and it turns out that a few of them might be actually interesting.

Since Intel’s second-generation Core 2 Duo processor is coming along for the Centrino ride (as well as the new GMA X4500 graphics chipset), we’ll be seeing a few embedded high-end features such as Blu-ray optical drives, rugged material casings, and GPS built in. On the purely aesthetic side, the companies clearly want to catch the thin-and-light gravy train of the mini-note market with spit-shine blacks and cool-looking cases.

Let’s take a look at the deluge:

Fujitsu

Fujitsu released six new LifeBook notebooks, including the A6210
notebook that includes a 15.4-inch LCD, optional Blu-ray drive, HDMI
port, and their version of the gesture-enabled touchpad.

Belkin aims to do away with your infestation of set-top-boxes with yet another set top-box. The FlyWire is a $1000 video transmitter which will send hi-definition video (up to 1080p) around your home. You hook up your Blu-ray player, games console or media center to the main FlyWire transmitter and it will send the uncompressed signals to a receiver plugged into the HDMI port of a TV or monitor.

After flying from California to New Zealand to pick up an early iPhone, the guys at iFixit tore apart their brand new iPhone 3G and laid it open. Their site has the full gallery of the ultimate unboxing, but we want to point out a couple of seemingly small but actually quite significant changes.

Where the first iPhone had the battery soldered onto the circuit board, the new one clips into place. This doesn’t make the battery particularly easy to replace — you still need to get the case open — but now at least you won’t need to go at it like a surgeon.

Drobo, the data storage “robot” has been bumped to version 2.0, and according to the whispers across the internet, it’s fast. Really fast. The update sees a new processor inside, along with a couple of FireWire 800 ports joining the existing USB 2 interface. Of course, the FireWire is a lot quicker than USB, but according to Data Robotics’ own figures, even the USB speeds have been tripled (and anecdotal third party tests say those figures are on the conservative side).

This is a possible new case design for the MacBook Pro, a rumor propagated by Chinese blog Apple Pro, and the only reason it’s being posted is because I don’t want it to be true: My new MacBook Pro is just three days old.

As we know, the MacBook Pro’s case design has changed little since the G4 PowerBook in 2001, possibly because it does most things right. Even the new case in the picture seems very similar: rounded edges, aluminum body. According to Mac Rumors, the Chinese text says that the Apple logo will not be backlit, which to me makes the story a little suspect.

Apple and AT&T have together lifted the curtains just a little bit more on the iPhone 3G, posting preview videos and pricing details on the widely anticipated smartphone.

First, the pricing: Although Apple set the price of the iPhone 3G at $199 (8GB) and $299 (16GB), you won’t get that price if you’re a current AT&T customer and you’re not eligible for an upgrade.

BoingBoing Gadgets’ John Brownlee points us to the Digimech Clock, another example of the kind of digital/analog fusion we love so much. The clock, designed and made by Duncan Shotton, features vertical, printed strips which line up with the familiar seven-bar templates seen in digital displays., thus creating numbers.

Computers in fashionable boxes. A sure subject for Gadget Lab ridicule, you’d think. And you’d be right. From Asus’ leather clad U2E to the preposterous Ego Signature (a notebook inside a bit of a cow), these “Fashionable PCs” are nothing more than run-of-the-mill hardware inside fancy cases.