Hasta La Gadget!

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 to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we’ve got a 500GB ioSafe Solo on offer, ideal for protecting even your most intimate interoffice love letters from hell and high water. Read the rules below (no skimming — we’re omniscient and can tell when you’ve skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff!

Big thanks to ioSafe for providing the gear!

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) 500GB ioSafe Solo external hard drive. Approximate retail value is $199.98.
• 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 Monday, July 27th, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
• Full rules can be found here.

Continue reading Engadget’s recession antidote: win a 500GB ioSafe Solo!

Filed under: Storage

Engadget’s recession antidote: win a 500GB ioSafe Solo! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Need to add some zing to your dorm room or bedroom? Wal-Mart is offering some colorful laptops and accessories as part of its back-to-school sale.

Dell Inspiron 1545 Laptop – $498
Featuring a 250GB hard drive, 3GB RAM, a 15.6-inch screen, and an Intel Celeron Dual Core T3000 processor, the 1545 is available in black, pink, red, purple, indigo, and aqua.

Western Digital 250GB My Passport Essential Portable External Hard Drive – $60
Capable of storing up to 71,000 digital photos, 62,000 MP3s, or 110 hours of DVD-quality video, this 250GB drive is available in black, aqua, pink, indigo, and red.

Logitech V220 Cordless Optical Mouse for Notebooks – $25
Ergonomically designed with soft rubber grips and featuring a 1000 dpi optical sensor, the V220 is available in black, blue, pink, and red. 

Logitech LS11 2.0 Speaker System – $19
With 2-inch metallic drivers, an auxiliary input jack, and a headphone jack, choose this speaker system in indigo, aqua, pink, red, or black. 

SanDisk 4GB Flash Drive – $12
Store your important files in style by choosing this drive in aqua, pink, red, indigo, orange, green, or black.

Check out more back-to-school deals with Wal-Mart’s Rollbacks.

I admit it: I’m a proud Wal-Mart shopper. Where else can you buy MP3 players, car tires, steak, and clothes for less; get your eyes checked; pay for a haircut; do banking; and meet your favorite author? So, you can probably imagine that I’m excited to challenge Wal-Mart to my TechSaver Test.

The company’s motto is “Always Low Prices,” which is a pretty bold statement. Its “rollbacks” are what the store refers to as significant savings. I wanted to look at some of these new rollbacks on electronics and determine whether Wal-Mart always has the lowest prices. Today’s test will feature the Acer Aspire One (10-inch), the Kodak EasyShare M1033, the SimpleTech 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive, and the Philips Home Theater Audio System w/ Upconverting DVD Player & iPod Dock.

Find out if it’s smart to shop at Wal-Mart, after the jump.

On Monday, Hitachi announced several new external storage products, capitalizing on the company’s acquisition of Fabrik in February.

By far the most interesting product is the SimpleNet, a USB adapter that transforms a traditional USB drive into a NAS product. At $79, the SimpleNet is designed for consumers who own a USB drive and an existing router, and want to share the drive over the network. Several routers already include USB connections for doing this, but it also requires the purchase of this new, more expensive router.

According to Ken Higgins, Hitachi’s vice president of worldwide branded sales, the SimpleNet also has another advantage: it doesn’t require a consumer to reformat his or her hard drive. The SimpleNet is compatible with FAT32 and NTFS formatted drives, as well as the HFS+ used by Mac OS X. Apple’s Time Machine is also compatible with the SimpleNet device.

Hitachi also unveiled a series of rugged SimpleTough drives, each containing a 2.5-inch drive from 250-Gbytes to 320-Gbytes to 500-Gbytes in capacity. The SimpleTough line ranges in price from $99.99 to $149.99. A less rugged SimpleDrive Mini is roughly identical, minus the tough exterior: prices in that family range from $89.99 to $139.99, Hitachi said. Both drives are bus-powered.

These prices are so low, I feel like I’m stealing, like I’m a smooth criminal. That’s the way you make me feel, low prices. But keep shopping, I say: don’t stop ’till you get enough. I know, I’m bad. Say say say what you will.

1. A terabyte for a C-note? Now, this is a hot deal. Other Word Computing is selling the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 1TB external hard drive for $99. If you’re one of the many who doesn’t back up your data, this is the time to start. It offers eSATA, USB 2.0, and FireWire 400 connectivity, and a 7200rpm hard drive for fast transfers. Note that this comes formatted for Windows computers; it will work with Macs, but you’ll need to do some formatting first.

2. Sims 3 may have just come out, but you can already get it for a great price. GoGamer.com is selling copies for $39.90, which is lower than Amazon. If you’ve been reading the rave reviews and you’re ready to dive in and create your own characters, pick up a copy.

3. I could easily get addicted to the 1saleaday site. It’s like Woot, but with more useful products. Today, it’s selling the GlobeTrotter GT Max unlocked laptop modem card for $19.99. It plugs into a PC Card slot and uses your existing Sim card to provide data access to your notebook. If you’re interested, visit the site before midnight because the deal ends then.