CTIA

At the AT&T media luncheon today, AT&T claimed that its popular smart phones, including the likes of the BlackBerry Curve and Palm Centro, would be replaced by 3G versions of the same handsets in the “coming months.” We learned this after someone in the crowd asked why other carriers, Verizon for example, have a high-speed Curve and AT&T doesn’t. The defensive response above followed, that all of AT&T’s smart phones would soon be 3G capable—including the long awaited 3G iPhone.

CTIA is filled with so many Bluetooth accessories that if we were to attempt to review them all, we’d have to rent a moving truck just to get them home and hire the population of a small country just to write them up. Worse, most would serve better as a dog’s chew toy. So it’s hard to filter through a lot of the trash for legitimate accessories that cold pose as useful for an everyday consumer.

I met with Venturi today to get a hands-on with the Venturi Mini. It’s a Bluetooth accessory for your car, and it’s an incredibly basic piece of technology. First off, it plugs directly into your power outlet, so it’s cable free. Second, it pairs up with your mobile phone in a matter of seconds, giving you access to not just your contacts for calling through your stereo speakers, but also your media. When the mini is synced up with your FM radio, your music will play through your car’s audio system, and each song’s information is displayed on the car radio and on the unit’s bight OLED. Sure, there’s nothing new here and there are a bunch of products that offer similar features.

What we really liked about the Venturi Mini is its ease of use and compact size. There’s a scroll wheel on the front that lets you navigate through songs or contacts, and it also has two microphones on it to help cut out background noise. LEDs light up the music playback and calling controls. We weren’t able to give it a test in a real car, and only got to pair it up with a phone and use its navigation, so we can’t speak to its clarity or ability to perform just yet. We were able to hunker down in a corner and plug it into an adapter for the wall, though, and pair it up with an FM radio to get a simulation of the device. We’ll keep you updated as we get a review unit in the office, but for now, it looks like it could hold the potential to please, that is, if you can afford its steap $129.99 price tag.