A luxurious powder blue package with a Nokia logo arrived at our office this morning. Even better than the box itself are its contents, a shiny new Nokia Booklet 3G, one of the most anticipated netbooks of the year!

The tech world has long-awaited the release of Nokia’s first entry into the netbook space, because it is Nokia’s first forray into the notebook space and because the system has a MacBook-like design and a claimed 12 hours of battery life.

We’re putting the Booklet through its paces right now and will have a review up early next week. In the mean time, we snapped some pics of the notebook and its packaging in all their glory. Check them out below.

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In case you hadn’t noticed, Google’s Android OS has a lot of momentum right now. With eight Android smart phones available in the U.S. this holiday season—most of them new–there’s a lot of excitement around this open and highly customizable platform. But there’s a difference between the stock Android interface on devices like the new Motorola Droid, and others like the HTC Hero and Droid Eris (Sprint and Verizon) and Motorola CLIQ (T-Mobile).

That difference is a custom user interface that delivers more screens for you to customize and smarter ways of managing contacts and tapping into your social networking feeds. HTC calls its experience Sense, while Motorola dubs its service Motoblur. But what kinds of features do these skins on steroids offer, and how do they compare to the stock Android 2.0 OS? Read on to find out:

The holiday shopping season is upon us once again and that means it’s time for our Gadget Gift Guide, the only resource you’ll need to find the perfect presents for your tech-loving friends and family. Or, just shop for yourself (everyone does).

We broke down our top cell phone picks by carrier and by budget to help you find the perfect match:

AT&T Phones — Though the iPhone is still AT&T’s star player, the Nokia Surge offers a full QWERTY keyboard, access to the Web and e-mail, plus quick access to Facebook and Twitter for under $30.

Click here for our Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon picks.

This week Apple passed a milestone that probably makes some competitors feel like throwing up their hands. The company announced that it had surpassed 100,000 apps available in the App Store. And users have downloaded well over 2 billion apps since the store launched. When the BlackBerry Bold 9700 goes on sale tomorrow, RIM will have 3,000 apps available in its App World system. Yikes. Does the sheer number of apps really matter when a vast majority of them are being ignored? Yes. But there are other factors that will play a larger role in determining which platform wins.

App Quality Over Quantity

If you use such applications as Facebook across Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, and Windows Mobile, you can quickly see that apps of the same name are not necessarily created equal. The Windows Mobile version, for example, is difficult to navigate with smaller buttons and more clicks. The BlackBerry version integrates well with your contacts, but the interface looks crude compared to the iPhone app, which puts the News Feed front and center and gives one-touch access to your inbox and chat. The Android and BlackBerry versions lack chat. The iPhone app also presents photos in an elegant fashion, complete with multitouch zooming. It’s this kind of user experience and polish that attracts more developers—and users—to the iPhone OS. Palm’s webOS doesn’t even have a proper Facebook app yet.

Information at Your Fingertips

With more than 10,000 apps now available, the Android Market still has a long way to go to catch up to the iPhone—especially when it comes to games—but one could argue that what Google and its partners are doing with widgets is equally important. Read the rest of this entry »

Because I’ve been covering notebooks for about a decade now, I actually had to think long and hard about the above headline. But based on the hundreds of notebooks I’ve seen over the years from Apple, HP, Sony, Toshiba, and everyone else I feel pretty confident in saying that the 3.2-pound Adamo XPS (starting at $1,799) is the most striking system I’ve ever laid eyes on. And it’s not just because it’s the thinnest laptop ever, although that’s a big part of this aluminum beauty’s appeal. With it’s 0.4-inch profile, this notebook makes my BlackBerry Curve ($234.99) look bloated (see gallery).

What I like most about the Adamo XPS is how it breaks the mold for laptop design. When laid flat on a table, you may not even recognize this piece of metal as a notebook. Then your eye catches the diamond-cut engraved Dell logo, and a smattering of ports (2 USB, DisplayPort, audio, power). You get the sense that you’re holding a gadget from the future, a sensation that continues as you swipe your finger across a capacitive strip to unlock the system. An LED light and slight clicking sound lets you know you’ve been granted entry. It gets better, but just like you, we had serious questions about the usability of the Adamo XPS–and just how long this status symbol lasts on a charge. Read the rest of this entry »

Verizon Wireless this morning announced the BlackBerry Curve 8530, a 3G-enabled cousin of T-Mobile uber budget Curve 8520.

The device offers what you’d expect from a BlackBerry Curve: Killer e-mail and messaging support and an excellent keyboard, but lacks a bit in comparison to the more expensive BlackBerry Tour.

While it has goodies like 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, multi-media controls on the top of the phone,  it has a lesser 2MP camera that lacks flash and auto-focus (instead of a 3.2MP one, with flash and autofocus). Update: The 8530 also supports GPS.

If you hate the trackball, you’ll be pleased to know that the Curve 8530 offers RIM’s new trackpad technology, a feature also found on the original Curve 8520 and Bold 9700.

But if you’re looking to get into the BBM craze with all of your friends on a BlackBerry with a fresher OS than the previous Curve, than the Curve 8530 could be right up your alley. Our honest opinion: you may just want to save up your cash and go with the Tour, or check out the Droid Eris for a taste of Android.

The Motorola Droid officially has some company. Verizon Wireless has added the HTC Droid Eris to its lineup of Android phones, and at just $99 with a two-year contract, it seriously undercuts the price of the Sprint HTC Hero ($179). But is the Eris really the better deal?

The Droid Eris is a lot like the Hero, sporting similar dimensions. It’s a bit thinner, but has a slightly lower capacity battery. You get a 5-MP camera, HTC’s Sense user experience, a 3.5mm head phone jack, Wi-Fi, GPS, and a 3.2-inch capacitive touch screen. The device will also come with an 8GB microSD card.

Unlike the Motorola  Droid, the Droid Eris doesn’t rock Android 2.0 (so you don’t get free GPS navigation). However, the Sense user experience is compelling, because it allows you to customize up to seven different home screens. Sense also allows you to also quickly access your social networks like Facebook and Flickr, and combine them with your contacts.

With the exeception of the iPhone 3G, on paper the Droid Eris is easily the most attractive touchscreen phone under 100 bucks. But is the smart phone a steal over the long haul compared to the Hero? Not by a long shot. Read the rest of this entry »

On November 1st two years ago, the first Eee PC 701 arrived on American shores just a couple of weeks after its debut overseas. The 7-inch, Linux-based mini-notebook garnered a lot of attention and a great deal of praise. At the time, laptops that small usually came with soaring price tags. The Eee PC changed the game, offering true mobile computing for around $400.

This year we’re once again celebrating the birth of the Eee PC and the netbook revolution it began. In just two years the mini-notebook category has grown from a small family of computers running Linux to an entire category of systems running several different Linux distributions plus Windows XP, 7, even Vista. Screen sizes quickly shot up from 7 to 8.9 to 10, 11.6 and even 12 inches. Netbooks have changed the tech world from manufacturers down to journalists and, of course, consumers. The new category has taken 20 percent of the market in two years, and netbooks keep evolving.

Just as with last year, we wanted to mark the occasion with an Eee PC birthday bash at LAPTOP HQ. We filmed the occasion and took the opportunity to ask our writers and editors, who have viewed more 10-inch screens than most people, what netbooks have meant to them and what they expect from netbooks in the future. Click here to watch the video and learn how you can help us celebrate.

This isn’t the first time Wal-Mart has gone gangbusters with laptops, but it’s definitely the lowest price for a full-sized notebook we’ve seen them offer yet. Starting November 7, the retailer will begin selling the HP G60-519WM, a 15.6-incher, for $298 (that’s a circular for it on the right).

This configuration will run Windows 7 ($74.99) Home Premium, which is impressive when you think that most sub-$300 systems (read: netbooks) run Starter Edition, a watered-down, less expensive version of the OS. It has 3GB of RAM, which is good for the price, although the processor is, not suprisingly, a dated 2.2-GHz Intel Celeron 900, so expect just enough power for everyday computing.

This configuration of the G60 has a 250GB The storage device that holds your OS, programs, and data.
Learn Morehard drive, which is enough space to hold most music-and-photo collections, as well as lots of documents. The Graphics chips are responsible for processing all images sent to your computer?s display.
Learn Moregraphics card is an integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD. Its ports include 3 USB ports, VGA output, an Ethernet jack, and headphone and mic ports. For customers who order from HP’s site, HDMI output is optional, so I’d be surprised if it were offered on this $298 version.

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In early 2010, one of the most powerful Windows Phones will be available in the United States: The HTC HD2.

The HD2 runs Windows Mobile 6.5, packs a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU for blazing fast performance, and HTC’s Windows Phones version of its Sense interface, which is a bit different from the version on its Android phones. The device is also the first Windows Phone to offer a capacitive touch screen (a massive 4.3 inches big) with multi-touch for zooming around Web sites and pinching and pulling photos. Specs run the gamut, and the phone includes a 3.5mm headphone jack and a 5MP camera.

We’ve had a few chances to play with the device in the past and were blown away by the performance we saw while switching through menus and accessing the different features HTC embedded on the phone. For instance, you can open your photo gallery and then turn the phone sideways and flip through the pictures, and each one glides away as the next one pops up. Tap one, and it zooms in full screen, where you can then pinch and pull around.

HTC hasn’t announced a carrier or set pricing details yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up on T-Mobile or AT&T.