Top Ultraportable Laptop - Dell XPS M1210

Looking for a light weight laptop, but has reasonable performance? The Dell XPS M1210 notebook will be perfect for work and play on the go. I have tried to configure one on Dell New Zealand website and want to share with you:

• CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7400 2.16GHz, 4MB Cache, 667 MHz FSB (will be good to go for the T7600 2.33GHz if you can afford the extra NZ$560.25)
  
• Operating System - Windows Vista Business
• Warranty - 1-year XPS Premier Service
• Display - 12.1" Wide Screen XGA display with TrueLife (1280x800) & 1.3MP Web Cam
• Memory - 2GB 667MHz DDR2 (will be good to have 4GB, but the extra NZ$994.50 will be too high)
• Audio Solution - Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED HD Audio Software
• Video Card - 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 TurboCache
• Hard Drive - 100GB SATA 7200RPM Performance Hard Drive
• Internal Optical Drive - Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Combination Drive with dual layer write capabilities
• Primary Battery - 9-cell 85Whr Lithium lon Primary Battery (NZ$189 for an extra 9-cell battery)
• Bluetooth Module - Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Module
• Wireless Network Solution - Dell 1505 Wireless-N Mini-Card
• Dell also offers a free 20" LCD monitor at the moment

By having the above, the total price is NZ$3,197.25. Not a bad price to have such a good and portable system.

Top Smartphone - RIM BlackBerry Curve 8300

The BlackBerry Curve 8300 is an impressive device for people seeking a smartphone with strong e-mail and multimedia features. It is also the smallest and lightest BlackBerry smartphone ever to come with a full QWERTY keyboard. Let's have a quick summary of its pros and cons:

Pros

• Most compact QWERTY BlackBerry yet
• Improved media player

Cons

• Productivity applications still thin
• No high speed or Wi-Fi support

Overall, I'll say it is a superior smartphone!

Top Budget Digital Camera - Canon PowerShot A460

Looking for a budget digital camera? I'd recommend the Canon PowerShot A460 which was announced January this year. Let's have a quite look of its features:

• Max. megapixels: 5 megapixels
  
• Optical Zoom: 4X (38mm-152mm)
• Media slot: SD Card
• Price: US$130 (NZ$175)

It offers controls such as exposure compensation, and has a super macro mode, though it's limited to ISO 400. Basically, you can get everything you want for that price. Unfortunately, we don't have it yet in New Zealand. We currently only have the A450 here which uses 3.2x optical zoom instead of 5x. The price for A450 is NZ$245 (yes, we don't have a good price here).

Top 100 Best Products of 2007 - #4 Verizon FiOS

Internet service, price:

• US$40 (NZ$53) per month - up to 5 Mbps
• US$50 (NZ$67) per month - up to 15 Mbps
• US$180 (NZ$239) per month - up to 30 Mbps
  

Verizon's FiOS internet service is supplying enough bandwidth to offer IPTV plus Internet access at up to 30 megabits per second, fiber is the way of the future. 30 Mbps/s!! How good that will be! (But not cheap for 30 Mbps option)

Top 100 Best Products of 2007 - #3 Nintendo Wii

Game console. NZ$499

Don't need to say much about it, do I? It's the best-selling game console currently. With motion-sensitive controls and a slate of fun games for all ages, Nintendo really has something with the Wii.

However, I won't buy one personally. I still think it's for kids, with the less powerful graphics compare with PS3 and Xbox 360. But the NZ$499 price tag sounds very attractive for family shoppers.

ViewSonic PJ258d Video iPod Projector

What's the greatest thing about iPod? It's not only in millions of people's pockets, but also creates an industry around it, including all the iPod accessories, speakers, services and even an iPod monitor made by ViewSonic. Is that enough? No, ViewSonic comes back with the iPod projector PJ258d - the world's first iPod projector.

It's capable of projecting images and videos directly from an iPod. Simply dock your iPod into the projector to view your content, no computer necessary. It will even charge the iPod while it is being used. Of course it's a projector, so you'll be able to connect to PCs, DVD players and game consoles.

The NZ$1,899 price is not too bad for a projector. The question is how many people will buy a projector just for an iPod. However, if you're looking for a projector anyway, it's a good choice if you own a video iPod.

Sony NWA800 Series MP3 Walkman

Sony has released the new iPod nano competitor - the NWA800 series MP3 Walkman. It has a very slim body and a big 2-inch LCD screen compared with nano's 1.5-inch. Sound quality is excellent and also can play video (iPod nano cannot). You can enjoy up to 30 hours music playback and 8 hours video playback time. It's also better than iPod nano's 24 hour music playback and 5 hours slideshow playback time. The price is also not bad:

• NWA805 (2GB) - White or Violet - NZ$260 (iPod nano 2GB NZ$228, Silver)
• NWA806 (4GB) - White or Pink - NZ$330 (iPod nano 4GB NZ$318, Silver, Green, Blue, Pink)
• NWA808 (8GB) - Black - NZ$399 9 (iPod nano 8GB NZ$399, Black)

In my opinion, the Sony NWA800 is sexier than the iPod nano and has better performance and functionality. The price is also acceptable, especially the 8GB model. It's definitely a great option for people who want to buy an iPod. But I'm still happy with my current 4GB 1st generation iPod nano, not time yet to change:-)

Free YouTube Uploader

What does the program do? You can say from the name - it will upload videos to YouTube for you. Run the program and enter your user name and password, and it logs you into YouTube. Then select your video, and write a title and description, and add tags, and walk through the simple steps of uploading your video, including selecting a category.

It does more than just automate the process of uploading your videos, though. YouTube has a limit of 10 minutes or 100 MB per video, so the program includes a simple, easy-to-use video trimmer that lets you trim the video to size before uploading it.

It only works with Windows XP. Download free from here.

New Apple Leopard Features - 13

Time Machine

We've known about Time Machine, the automatic backup feature built into Leopard, for a while now. Connect an external drive, and Time Machine will offer to begin automatically backing up your files.

If something goes wrong and you'd like to retrieve a previous version of a file, simply fire up Time Machine and use its timeline interface to zip back to the last time you edited the file.

Apple has said that Leopard has over 900 new features, but I don't want to list them all here. The 13 new features I highlighted should give us a good indication of what's coming.

New Apple Leopard Features - 12

Stationery

Support for stationery lets you jazz up your e-mail with HTML-based templates.