Hasta La Gadget!

If your iPhone case looks suspiciously like bubble wrap, you might be a cheap geek.

1. Home theater systems don’t have to be huge–or expensive. Witness the Philips MCD908 micro system. Amazon’s got it for $249.99, which is a nice discount. The price gets you a compact component system, wood speakers, hi-fi tubes for more lifelike sound, gold-plated speaker connectors, and a remote with a leather back and a metal front. It’s a great system for smaller apartments.

2. Amazon’s got the Fujifilm Finepix F100fd for a fantastic price, only $232.17, and it qualifies for free shipping. This compact silver digital camera shoots 12 megapixel photos, includes a 5x wide-angle optical zoom, and dual image stabilization modes. It also offers face detection and automatic red-eye removal.

3. As the head cheap geek, I don’t usually get excited about flash drives, but this OCZ Diesel drive is a true bargain. It’s offers 16GB of storage for $15.99 (after mail-in rebate). Get it from NewEgg.

This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn’t want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back — so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We’ll be handing out a new gadget every day (except for weekends) to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we’ve got a WowWee Tribot on offer. Read the rules below (no skimming — we’re omniscient and can tell when you’ve skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff! Two more shots of the products after the break.

The rules:

• Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for “fixing” the world economy, that’d be sweet too.
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
  
• Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
• Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) WowWee Tribot. Approximate retail value is $80.
• If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
• Entries can be submitted until Thursday, April 30th, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
• Full rules can be found here.

Filed under: Announcements

Engadget’s recession antidote: win a WowWee Tribot! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This morning, Pure Digital announced the latest addition to its Flip line of pocket camcorders. The UltraHD is an update to the original Flip Ultra, the camera that helped launched the YouTube camcorder revolution. The UltraHD shoots in 720p (1280 by 720) resolution–and interestingly, it’s actually one of the few HD camcorders that doesn’t also have a standard definition mode.

With the introduction of the UltraHD, the old Flip Ultra has been renamed the UltraSD. Both new cameras have been given a larger and much sharper screen (2 inches, compared with past versions’ 1.5 inches). The SD has 4GB of storage (the same as the Flip MinoHD) and the HD has 8GB of storage, which should give you roughly 2 hours of shooting time.

I was a bit skeptical when Pure Digital first told us that it was keeping the Ultra line alive after last year’s introduction of more portable Flip Mino and Flip MinoHD, but these cameras are being positioned as cheaper alternatives to their smaller counterparts at $149 and $199 for the UltraSD and UltraHD, respectively. And let’s face it, price was always a big part of the appeal of the Flip line.

I’ve got a full hands-on review of the new Flip UltraHD over at PCMag.com. After the jump, check out some closeup shots of the camcorder in action.

Dell’s “stick some art on it” approach to laptop design got off to a bit of a rocky start, and the stylized lids can still be a tad incongruous with the rest of the laptop’s staid design (Design Studio laptops are still limited to the Studio 15 and Studio 17), but there’s no faulting Dell for volume. They just added 120 new designs, a slick new way to browse through the looks, and most importantly: some pretty good choices (along with enough stinkers to keep it interesting). New artists include Deanne Cheuk, Maya Hayuk, Jason Holley, TWEEQIM, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Filth, Robert Hargrave, Peter Stevens, Keith Warner and OBVLN. It’s $85 a pop, and (PRODUCT) RED designs include a $20 contribution to Bono.

Filed under: Laptops

Dell Design Studio blows it out with more than 120 new options originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Make no mistake about it, the low / mid-range DSLR battle of early 2009 is on. Just over a month ago, Canon shook up the entry-level DSLR game with a shooter that packed a 1080p video mode, a 15.1 megapixel sensor and a price tag well below the magical $1,000 mark. Right around a fortnight later, Nikon not-at-all-coincidentally issued a new shooter in its own range, one that was no doubt built to rival the previously mentioned EOS Rebel T1i. Just this week, both of these bad boys showed up on our doorstep, and we’ve spent every waking minute since mashing buttons and capturing memories in order to give you our take on the pair. Care to hear more? Jump on past the break… and be sure to leave your fanboy suit at the door.

Continue reading Canon EOS Rebel T1i impressions, head-to-head with Nikon D5000

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Canon EOS Rebel T1i impressions, head-to-head with Nikon D5000 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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