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Filed under: Cellphones

White glove delivery? Puhlease. Try white glove dissection, as in, the four part saga shown to us via the miracles of YouTube by gadget lover Cy˯. Using a cautious approach, a pair of tweezers, what appears to be a guitar pick and a pair of delicate white gloves, he details the disassembly of SE’s highly-anticipated XPERIA X1 in four captivating clips. Granted, two of the four actually show reassembly efforts, but you know you’re not about to leave after just watching half of the show. Hop on past the break once your popcorn is ready.

Continue reading Video: Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X1 gets white-glove dissection

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Nothing says “I’m mad as hell about my iPhone 3G’s battery life and I’m not going to take it anymore” better than blasting it out of a loudspeaker. Bonus points for that loudspeaker being integrated with a battery pack, which in turn connects to your — you guess it — iPhone 3G (or original iPhone, if that’s how you roll). Well, $44 to the folks at Brando will buy you that very opportunity, it turns out. Who knew?

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Wearables

USB blankets are old hat (for better or worse), but the USB Heated Shawl takes an aged concept and makes it relevant again with the addition of a single clip. Clearly designed for elderly folks who aren’t kept warm enough by the bottoms of their laptops and for the billions of cubical dwellers who freeze in silence each and every day, this $28.95 device is a godsend. Just plug it in, wrap it around and enjoy the warmth. Oh, and ignore the haters.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Peripherals

We′ve seen these zoom lens add-ons before. Now Brando’s slapped together this 6x “Telescope″ for the iPhone 3G — a phone not exactly known for its image quality. Just snap the unit to the back of the iPhone 3G and get to work. How good is it? About as bad as the $19 worth of optics within. Seriously, 19 bucks.

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Believe us, we’ve seen a variety of unorthodox thermometers before, but this one just shines in a very special way. Brando′s USB indoor / outdoor thermometer ($22) is pretty self-explanatory, but we’ll humor you a bit by going into detail. The unit itself is powered via your USB port and provides a much more precise reading than those silly weather websites that just take samples from an area nearby. There’s even software bundled in to log readings every second for 12 whole hours. Science project, anyone?

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Gadget blog alumnus Colbert Low features the Brando Solar Mosquito Repeller, detailing how it doesn’t work:

I’ve been using the Brando Solar Mosquito Repeller for a week and it does not work. I normally leave it in my bedroom while opening the window. I thought this will make the Mosquitoes fly out the window but it does not work. The high pitch sound it makes does not irritate the Mosquitoes and they still stay in the room.

Take that as a warning not to spend $14 on a non-functional gadget folks! With all due respect, any mosquito gadget repeller should be able to work over a range of 1-2 meters, more than proposed by Mr. Low.

Tags: Brando, Colbert Low, Solar Mosquito Repeller

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Original post by Rico

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Storage

Brando’s SATA HDD Stage Rack doesn’t stay the same for very long, as it seems a new iteration keeps popping up every month or so. The latest (and greatest, might we add) is the SATA HDD Multimedia Dock, which enables users to slap in any ole 2.5- / 3.5-inch SATA hard drive and access it via USB. That’s not all, though. This one also provides an SD card slot, S-Video / composite / component outputs and a bundled remote — what for, you ask? So you can play back MPEˇ/2/4, XviD and DivX (among others) files, of course. This takes multifaceted to an entirely different platform, huh?

[Via Coolest-Gadgets]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals

Oftentimes, Brando’s assortment of “must-have” doohickeys don’t actually do much for your productivity level. This particular gizmo, however, bucks that trend in glorious fashion. The $23 USB 4-in-1 Web Cam is a fairly standard desk lamp with built-in LEDs that also acts as a webcam, voice input device and fan. Best of all, this one’s USB-powered, though that could spell disaster (or “USB hub”) if your sockets are already occupied with other Brando gear.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Wearables

Unless you’re strolling through Disneyland (or Dollywood, we suppose), we can’t imagine anyone not giving you an awkward stare when you approach them with this on. Brando has triumphed once more by offering up the Solar Mini Clip Fan, which does a remarkable job of explaining itself. For those who can’t understand what’s going on here, it goes like this: clip on the fan, get out in the sun, experience a mild breeze on your brow and enjoy the solitariness. Obliterate your shot at being the life of the party for just a Hamilton.

[Via Coolest-Gadgets]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming

Let’s face it: you don’t have nearly enough game controllers and accessories adding to the spaghetti that is your entertainment center. This USB M.A.D. Game Pad gives you the option to remove a little steering wheel for those moments when you’re not driving about. Compatible with Windows Vista, XP, and 2000, this Brando product is available for $20. So, why? Apparently this thing is meant for the gamer on the move — it’s small and light, measuring only 4 x 2.5-inches and weighing in at a dainty 3-ounces. As for the size of the steering wheel? It’s tiny. Really tiny. For tiny people with tiny fingers. Can you feel the love?

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Original post by Joshua Fruhlinger

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals

For many, dropping $199 / $299 on an iPhone 3G (provided you actually locate one not hidden behind a 4+ hour line) is enough. For those who fell head over heels with the original iPhone dock, it’s not. Here’s your chance to send 29 more US bucks Cupertino’s way, as the official iPhone 3G Dock is now on sale at Apple’s website. Oh, and if you’re really a sucker, you’ll lay down 9 whole US dollars for a 3-pack of iPhone 3G Universal Dock Adapters to slip your new mobile into a Universal Dock.

Update: So apparently these have been in Apple stores since day 1. Considering just how long it’ll take to get in one, though, this whole “online route” is still probably your best bet.

[Via Wired]

Read - Apple iPhone 3G Dock
Read - iPhone 3G Universal Dock Adapter 3-Pack

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone unlocking is a little more cash-intensive now that Apple and AT&T are all contract-happy with the 3G, but it looks like would-be unlockers will have a little more time to save up those pennies — the erstwhile hackers on the iPhone Dev Team say that while a forthcoming version of the sadly-named Pwnage tool will activate and jailbreak the iPhone 3G, unlocking is taking a little longer than expected, and they don’t want to release the code until its exactly right. The tool still unlocks first-gen iPhones running 2.0 and allows jailbreak apps to co-exist with the App Store, so if you′re desperate to unlock right away, we’d say a first-gen unit is your best bet.

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Tech firms seem to have this uncanny ability to significantly boost functionality while significantly reducing cost with each new generation of a product — and you′ll never believe this, but it looks like Apple is no exception. The teardown and bean-counting experts over at iSuppli are at it again with the iPhone 3G, finding that the whole kit and kaboodle tallies up to just $174.33 (give or take) for the 8GB model in material and manufacturing costs. That works out to about $53 less than iSuppli’s estimate for the original 8GB model back in June of last year, an amount saved in part by moving to a single 10-layer circuit board (versus a pair of 6-layer boards). The firm figures Apple’s shelling out about $50 in royalties for each iPhone 3G that rolls off the assembly line, leading to a grand total of $224.33 in costs. Offset that with a healthy AT&T subsidy, and all told, we’re looking at something like a 55 percent margin to help Steve finance his next round of black turtlenecks.

[Via AppleInsider]

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Craziest thing, Apple apparently launched some sort of device being loosely coined as a “cellular telephone” last Friday. The darned thing makes calls, keeps track of contacts, and even receives messages — all right from your pocket! Wild, sci-fi caliber stuff, that. We’re catching up on the latest iPhone 3G buzz, and here’s what we’ve got going on at the moment:

• Jonny Gladwell, better known as the first iPhone 3G owner in the world thanks to his perfect storm of location (New Zealand) and line position (first), has been outed as a plant for New Zealand’s Yellow Pages. Turns out the guy was hired by the directory service to see if he could “survive″ the brutal multi-day sitting experience using nothing but — you guessed it — the Yellow Pages to get by. Ironic that you don′t need a friggin′ Yellow Pages when you have an iPhone, isn′t it? Hmm, Jonny?
• Portelligent has sacrificed an iPhone 3G to conduct perhaps the most thorough teardown thus far, finding some incremental improvements, largely to accomodate 3G and bring the design in line with the iPod touch, while carrying over a good deal of componentry that had no reason to be upgraded. Infineon and Toshiba had big wins here in the radio and flash memory departments, respectively.
• AIM acts as a conduit for sending text messages by allowing users to add phone numbers as “buddies.” The iPhone has an AIM client. See where we’re going with this? Yep, it’s a cheesy way to avoid shelling out for a text messaging plan, if you want to go to the trouble of using AIM in place of the native SMS app.
• The plot thickens in the yellow screen issue. As we’d mentioned yesterday, Apple claims the warmer color temperature seen in the iPhone 3G was a purposeful attempt to make things prettier and sharper — but now, Ars Technica reports that forcing an update in iTunes from the 3G’s shipping firmware of 5ａ to the ever-so-slightly newer 5ｃ pushes things a little bit back toward the blue end of the spectrum. So what’s it gonna be, Apple?

[Thanks to everyone who sent these in!]

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Original post by Chris Ziegler

Filed under: Cellphones

This’ll come as no surprise to those of you that′ve been following our worldwide line / stock watch, but with lines hitting six hours long, Apple’s started capping them so that stores can close and prepare for tomorrow. Reports of line capping are coming mostly from larger stores in the East Coast and Midwest, but the Glendale Apple store in California is reportedly capped as well. Interestingly, while carrier stores worldwide have all sold out, we’ve heard that most Apple stores have had more than enough inventory — one tipster reported that delivery trucks were being used to store overflow, since the main stock rooms were full at his local store — so we’re guessing the lines have more to do with the slowness of the activation process catching Apple off-guard. It certainly wasn’t smooth sailing today, but eventually things started working, and it seems like anger’s turned to love for a lot of folks. And isn’t that the basis of every good relationship? Oh, right. So who’s going to get up and do this all again with us tomorrow?

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Original post by Nilay Patel