SquareTrade

Updated Apple iMacs: now with more Boom.

It's a day earlier than expected, but considering everybody in the entire world knew Apple planned to release an updated iMac this week, was there really any reason to make us all wait an extra 24 hours?  No, there was not.

The new secret formula is, as expected, faster Core 2 Duo Penryn processors, but they didn't change the starting prices on these machines.  Nice touch, Cupertino.  The base 20" iMac opens at $1200, and that nets you a 2.4GHz processor, 1GB of 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (expandable to 4GB) and 250GB available on the hard drive for whatever shenanigans you care to plot.

But if you really want a little something-something, the top-of-the-line 24" iMac fronts a really, really fast 3.06GHz chip with an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics card and 512MB video RAM, so you'll never want for buttery smooth video again.  It comes with 2GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive, plus a 8x double-layer SuperDrive.  That'll run you a cool $2200 out of the gate (a 2.8GHz/320GB version drops it to $1800), but you can boost those specs to 4GB of RAM for a extra $200, and a full terabyte on the HD for $250 more.  And why the hell wouldn't you?

We'd also suggest a SquareTrade warranty for your new toy, so you can make sure it's still around long enough to justify all the cheddar you shelled out for it.  Use the quote widget in the sidebar to see how much money we'll save you, too... AppleCare protection is a flat $169 across the board.  Our prices pretty much beat everything except warranties on the highest-priced iMacs, and the difference there won't be more than a few bucks.  But we've got great reviews and a 5-Day Service Guarantee that ensures you're back up and running in no time.  They don't.  That's probably worth a couple of bucks to you.

Nice as all this is, let's be honest... it's just a tease before the Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference in June, where we'll see a 32GB iPhone with high-speed 3G connections and haptic feedback and true GPS and all of our other dreams come true.

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Super-Cheap AT&T smartphones at Amazon!

Hope you haven't gone out and bought a BlackBerry Curve lately, because Amazon just posted a sale where every single AT&T smartphone (sans iPhone, naturally) now costs just one cent.

Some of these are priced at one cent, and some are done through full-price rebates, but the deals include things like the Pantech Duo, the AT&T Tilt, the BlackBerry Curve, Curve Titanium, Pearl, and 8820, the Palm Treo, Samsung Blackjacks, LG Shine, and a whole mess of RAZRs if you're so inclined.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  You can even get a $75 rebate on that one-cent Curve Titanium with a plan activation, so they'll pay you $75 to get the phone. 

And naturally, you can put a 3-Year SquareTrade warranty on any or all of these for about half what AT&T would charge you for cell phone insurance... assuming they offer it on these phones.  We know they don't on the BlackBerrys.  Check out our reviews if you like... we sure would.

This is Amazon, after all, so there's no telling how long this is going to last.  They'll change it the second they feel like changing it.

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The LG Secret... shhhh!

We have finally broken the LG, and it has spilled its guts about the LG Secret, third in their Black Label series.  We now know everything.  Everything!

The carbon fiber clamshell casing, the same material used for the making of aircraft, this is nothing shocking to us.  It carries 100MB internal memory, expandable to 4GB with the Micro SD, this is good.  We also now know that the Secret auto-synchronises with the PCs via Bluetooth, that its 2.4" touchscreen is resolved at 240 x 320, that it auto-adjusts the screen lighting to ensure readability, and that it auto-rotates the display should we tip the phone on its side.  We tipped the phone many, many times to ensure this information is the truth.

BUT!  The LG has also made the claim of a 5-megapixel camera AND that it will take the video at 120 frames per the second AND DivX-certified recording AND that this is the thinnest camera in its class in the world.  Do we believe this information?  Let us say we believe it for now.  But as the LG Secret is but 11.8mm thick, we suspect its sensor may not be up to snuff.  Our glorious state's photographers assured us under interrogation that the sensor is more important than the megapixels.

Rollout will be in Europe first, blitzkrieging through Asia, South America, and the world in the months following.  The LG refuses to tell us how much will be the retail price, but we expect to know this shortly.  A SquareTrade warranty will be mandatory for all citizens!  Though they may choose whether Accidental Damage coverage is to be added, in case their Secret is... poorly kept.

All citizens reading this document without the proper authorization will be shot!  Possibly we should have mentioned this sooner.

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Samsung's S2 Pebble and S3 brick want your iPod money.

They've been on the way for awhile, but Samsung's pulled the lid off their new iPods MP3 players, the Samsung S2 Pebble and S3 (no cute name).  But make no mistake, these are definitely shaping up more as cool budget options than direct Apple competitors. 

The multi-hued S2 Pebble is the more visually interesting of the two, and looks to be aiming squarely for the iPod Shuffle with 1GB of storage, plus an FM tuner.  The light at the bottom changes color to let you know what mode it's in.  Nifty as it looks, the Pebble seems to be lacking the one thing so essential to a Shuffle: the clip.  Hope you have pockets when you go jogging. 

The S3 is pretty much your standard iPody design, with some backlit touch controls instead of buttons or clickwheels.  It's lined up on the Nano, coming in at 4GB and 8GB models that look bigger than any Nano.  Seriously, they couldn't bump it to six and ten just for bragging rights?  Well, they do have commercial-heavy FM radio to make up for it, and offer flash games on that 240 x 320 display.

No prices spilled as yet, but one expects some aggressive undercutting of Apple products when these suckers arrive in June.  Either way, they'll be eligible for a SquareTrade warranty, just in case that Pebble-player isn't pebble-tough.

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with these two, the quality is going to be there and the Pebble looks way cooler than a Shuffle, but it's the little things - and the lack of genuine one-upmanship - that guarantee the king will keep its crown.  Nice try, though, Samsung.  Nice try.

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Asus' concept bamboo laptops go into production.

Oh sure, Asus was just gagging around with it when they took their concept bamboo laptop around the trade shows.  But here in the cold light of Earth Day +1, they've announced they're actually going to mass-market these babies, in two flavors.

Essentially, these are going to be the standard 11.1" Asus S6 and the 12" Asus U6 (which they've previously covered in leather) cased in eco-friendly bamboo instead of mean ol' plastics, so prepare for a bunch of In your face, greenie! smack talk at your local Starbucks.  No announcements yet on chipsets, but the current S6 uses a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo T7700 Processor while the U6 runs a snappy 2.4GHz chip.  Both pack a gig of RAM, a gig of super-quick DDR2 memory, and 100GB or more on the hard drive.  The U6 rocked 3G internet connection capabilities, too, making this thing possibly the fastest environmentally conscious toy on the planet.

The new bambooed versions are expected to retail in the $1700 range, so they're not totally out of reach, either.  We honestly can't tell if Asus weatherproofed those decks, but if saving the world means that much to you, you really might want to put a SquareTrade laptop warranty on yours, with or without Accidental Damage coverage, just to make sure your investment's saved as well.  Sorry, that won't include termite infestations.  We think.

Is this a brave new step for Ecolectronics (a word we just made up) or the My Pet Rock of laptops?  We'll find out when the lumber starts shipping in June.

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Nokia puts "Say and Play" on the XpressMusic 5320.

Nokia announced some new toys today at a virtual press event, and while neither has a carrier pick-up yet, we've got high hopes for the bigger of the two: the Nokia XpressMusic 5320.

The smaller one, naturally, is the Nokia XpressMusic 5220, and it looks like it'll be a decent phone at a decent price ($250).  The XpressMusic 5320, however, is bringing the 3G (reportedly set to AT&T bands), a 2-megapixel camera, and a new little feature they're calling "Say and Play" to the Nokia roster.  And yep, it's exactly what it sounds like... name an artist or song on your playlist and the 5320 cues it right up.  Pretty standard for an American car, but a first for Nokia.  It's microSD slot will fit your 8GB microSD card nicely.

The 5320 is pricing around $400, and both phones are scheduled for Q3.  And you know by now that a SquareTrade cell phone warranty is about half the price of cell phone insurance, right?  Right.

If you want the 3G but the 5320 is too rich for your blood, worry not.  Boy Genius reports an El Cheapo Nokia 3555 is headed for our shores to run on both AT&T and T-Mobile's 3G networks. 

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Five new Toshiba Satellite Pros: because they can.

Ah, we remember our first 8-pound grey slab of Toshiba Satellite, all tricked out to 8MB of RAM.  Good times.  So news of five newly redesigned Toshiba Satellite Pros warms our hearts just a little... and we're cutting them a break, because they already lost a format war this year.

It's a pretty decent spread, starting with the 13.3" Satellite Pro U400, a 2.1GHz ultra compact with a 1.3-megapixel web camera and microphone, fingerprint reader and 3D accelerometer protection system for the 250GB hard drive.  And it ends with the not-so-compact Satellite Pro L350, at 17" laptop that includes a 10-key pad to go with the full-size keyboard and 160GB hard drive.  Stuck in the middle are the 14.1" M300 and 15.4" twins L300 and L300D.

Somebody needs to proofread Toshiba's press release, though, because they're listing the low-end L300 at an "affordable $6991, the U400 at $1,0991 and the L350 at $1,0991.  We figure every "1" is a typo unless it's right behind the "$." 

And as long as we're cutting them a break, you should get one, too.  If you're interested in getting a 3-year protection plan on your new laptop, maybe with Accidental Damage protection, feel free to check out our reviews and use the widget in the sidebar to get a quote on a SquareTrade laptop warranty so you can compare our prices to anyone else's. 

Because it's Toshiba, you can get all those laptops at both higher and lower prices, depending on how you decide to trick your Satellite out. Unfortunately, it looks like Blu-Ray DVD drives aren't one of the available options.  How odd.

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Pioneer's AVIC-F premium GPS line will take you to the cleaners.

Sure, we were extolling the virtues of a low-cost GPS just a few days ago, but forget that crap.  We're looking at a new trio of car-mounted Pioneer AVIC-F units that start at $850, but man, do they pull out a few tricks you don't normally see in a GPS.

Like what, you ask?  Well, the Pioneer AVIC-F700BT, AVIC-F900BT and Premier-branded AVIC-F90BT all rock a 5.8" WVGA touchscreen that shows 3D mapping with text-to-voice directions, which frankly isn't all that special nowadays.  They're all fully compatible with iPods, XM and Sirius Satellite Radio, MSN Direct, HD radio, and hands-free connectivity to your Bluetooth-enabled phone... nice, but not spectacular.  But they also play CDs and DVDs and take vocal commands using Pioneer's advanced VoiceBox protocols.  That means it'll understand you better than most other electronics you talk to (for whatever reason) and filter out all your "ers" and "ums" and "ahs" when you command it to play you some Barry White.  And the AVIC-F series is smart enough to stack vocal commands, Star Trek-style.  If you tell it to call a friend and it finds multiple numbers for that friend on your phone, the AVIC-F will ask you which number to use... without you having to repeat the original "call friend" command.  We like. 

Popping in a Transformers DVD to watch on your dash while driving?  Not so much.  Save that for your passenger.

Naturally, such coolness comes at a premium.  The Pioneer AVIC-F700BT, AVIC-F900BT and Premier-branded AVIC-F90BT are expected to retail at $850, $1100 and $1200 respectively.  So maybe you'll want to guarantee they'll be around a while with a 3-Year SquareTrade warranty.  That way, if your new GPS leads you into trouble, you won't be out all that money.

These three expected to show up in the States in June, with maps covering the U.S., Canada, Alaska and Hawaii.  It's pricy kit, but sometimes you have to love yourself a little, right?

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Motorola Roadmap leaked.

Whoopsie!  Somebody at Motorola's beleaguered mobile division let go of an internal roadmap for nine handsets they plan to launch this year, and only one of them looks vaguely RAZRish. 

A few of these - the U9, the W270, the E8 - are already out in one country or another, but the big dog of the pack looks to be the ZN5, a Montavista Linux-run phone (2.6.1) with a 2.4" screen, 5-megapixel camera, TV-Out and a "morphing keypad" that sounds a lot like adaptive touch buttons that change depending on what phone function you're using at the time.  Fancy.

We're also curious to learn more about the VE75, a slider with a 2.6" screen, 2-megapixel camera and, most interestingly, dual sim card support.  And as far as we can tell, the L800T candybar phone is set to become Motorola's first TD-SCDMA device (that's a Chinese 3G standard, y'all); it sports a 1.9" screen, 2-megapixel camera, GSM/GPRS/TD-SCDMA support, bluetooth, etc.

No dates or prices yet on this stuff, of course... we weren't even suppose to see this stuff, after all.  But when they do show up, rest assured that your SquareTrade warranty will probably run you about half what any carrier's insurance plan would.  And we won't stick you with a refurb for your money, either. 

It's a fairly ambitious roll-out.  We'll have to wait and see if it makes a dent in Motorola's recent financial woes.

More details at Uberphones.

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Snap-On LCDs make your Wii and PS3 portable, but Why?

File this one under "...the hell?"  Strange electronics maker China Vaison has come up with a solution for people who wish their video game consoles were more portable: 7" snap-on LCD screens for the Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3.

Fair where fair's due, they don't look half-bad... though why they're showing the Wii with two nunchucks and no Wiimote is a mystery.  We're seeing stereo sound speakers and display controls for the 480p screens, and we have to give points for aesthetics.  The Wii version in particular is designed to integrate right into the console as if it naturally belongs there, particularly when the screen's down, and all the connections pair up exactly.  It even comes with an adapter for your car's cigarette lighter, so there's your power source.  But c'mon, it's not like Sony and Nintendo don't already have portable systems - good ones - of their own, right?

They're available now for about $100, or $97 if you decide to buy in bulk.  And if you're planning on hauling your $400 console around, might we suggest a SquareTrade warranty to cover the standard wear and tear?  Might be a good idea even if you aren't toting it all around town.

We guess this is one solution for getting your screaming kids into the car for the drive to grandma's, but wouldn't you rather just get them a Nintendo DS?

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