Hasta La Gadget!

Tripping the light fantastic.

(Credit: Banpresto)

I’m definitely way past the age for childhood toys, though some people still haven’t outgrown that. I believe the politically correct phrase for them is “young at heart.” However, Japanese retailer Banpresto has taken the zoetrope (remember the spinning drum with slits …

Boost Mobile has the cheapest truly national plan for unlimited talk and texting; their $50/month plan gives you phone calls, messaging, Nextel walkie-talkie and really slow Internet access. If you’re willing to give up daytime talking, Web browsing and walkie-talkie, your rate goes down to $30. But up until now they haven’t had a good affordable texting phone with a keyboard.

That will change when the Motorola Clutch i465 goes on sale next month. I got to spend some time with the i465, and I’m impressed with its design. It’s a medium-sized candy-bar phone with a full keyboard of extremely pointy, almost diamond-shaped keys. The keys’ sharp ridges are designed to help your fingers tell the letters apart. They work well, but it takes a few minutes to get used to the unfamiliar pointy shapes. After that, you’re flying.

The i465 runs the traditional Nextel operating system, which is looking pretty hoary by now. Motorola tries to jazz things up with three quick-action buttons to the right of the screen, which start a new text message, jump to the (slow) WAP browser and start up the (low-res, VGA) camera. I’m pretty sure that as a Boost phone, the i465 also has a very loud, relatively clear speaker – though we’ll have to test that, of course.

Yeah, sure, the i465 looks a little odd. All Nextel/Boost phones look a little odd. But I think it’ll hit the spot for texters interested in that $50 unlimited plan. The i465 is going on sale in June for $129.99. There’s another shot of the i465’s unusual keyboard after the jump.

CNET smartphone editor Bonnie Cha calls into The 404 today to talk about the highly anticipated and potential iPhone killer, the Palm Pre. What does she really think about the phone? Will there really be a shortage? Does anyone know why it’s called the Pre? Bonnie lays it all out so that even we can understand.

We’ve got some exciting stuff coming up in the next week, including our appearance on tomorrow’s Gadgets and Games with Clayton Morris.

Also, we’ve announced our biggest contest yet. We need a new logo and we’re going to be giving tons of prizes away to the winner! There’s really no rules for the contest; we just need something that represents the show, what it’s all about, and our tag line, “high tech, low brow.” Please send us your hi-res submissions to the404 [at] cnet [dot] com.

EPISODE 347

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Originally posted at the 404

Sometimes you need a little extra power, and that’s certainly true if you’re an iPhone user. Make some calls, play some games, watch some video, and your favorite portable is out of juice long before the end of the day.

To help you out, Griffin Technology has introduced two clever charging options. The first, the PowerBlock Reserve, is a wall charger with a snap-off reserve battery. Use it to power up your iPhone or iPod as you normally would, then take the reserve battery with you when you go. When you run out of power, you can simply plug the reserve battery to the iPhone or iPod’s dock connector for extra running time.

The PowerJolt Reserve is similar to the PowerBlock Reserve, but it powers through your car’s cigarette lighter. When you’re finished charging, you can snap off the reserve battery and take it with you.

The PowerBlock Reserve isn’t yet available, but will be soon. The PowerJolt Reserve is sold out on the Griffin site, but is available at Apple’s online and retail stores. Both sell for $39.99. Griffin also sells a combination of both devices, called PowerDuo Reserve, for $59.99. It’s currently available in Apple’s retail stores.