The 8.1 Megapixel Cyber-Shot camera is the best feature of the Sony Ericsson C905, that is already on the market in Europe. Today, AT&T is launching the C905 in the U.S, making it the highest resolution camera phone ever from this carrier. We have played with it. The device looks like a Cyber-shot camera on one side and like a phone on the other side, and it is thicker than my Blackberry Curve. 8 Megapixel camera phones are not common in the US market, the N86 will soon be available globally, there's no word on the LG Renoir hitting our shores any time soon (I love this one) and hopefully the new Samsung Pixon 12 (12 MP) will be available here after its launch in the UK next month.

Key features

• 8.1 megapixel camera with face detection, autofocus, xenon flash, active lens cover and GPS tagging
• BestPic captures seven successive photos in one click, Smart Contrast compensates for areas that are too bright or dark, red-eye reduction, image stabilizer, dedicated camera keys and shortcut
• 160 MB internal memory, Memory Stick Micro (M2) - 2GB M2 in box - up to 16 GB
• USB cable for:
• - file transfer and synchronization with PC using Windows Media Player
• - printing with PicBridge compatible printers
• 2.4-inch scratch-resistant mineral glass display, QVGA (240x320)
• Built-in GPS with A-GPS function, AT&T Navigator software
• Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA (3.5G)
• Applications: AT&T Video Share, video recording, AT&T Music, FM radio, Mobile Email, AT&T Navigator and instant messaging. With AT&T Video Share, consumers can share their experiences in real-time streaming video (only possible with Video Share enabled devices).

The Nokia N97 is the tip of the spear in Nokia's smartphone lineup. It is the most powerful, smartest and fully featured phone of the company. It is also the first Nokia phone to make use of a large touch-display and that alone has raised the expectations from die hard Nokia fans that have refused to switch over to the iPhone. And Nokia has put quite a lot of work and thought in the N97. I had a first look when Nokia was still developing the N97 and I was looking forward to get my hands on the final product. In this review, I will tell you how I used it, and how well it did. Does the Nokia N97 live up to the hype?

If the hacking group called iPhone Dev-Team won't release their Jailbreak, it seems like someone else will. Developer George Hotz has released the Purplera1n jailbreak software for iPhone 3GS and by all accounts, it seems to work.

This one runs on Windows XP and Vista (Windows 7 and Mac OS aren't supported, apparently - it's weird for Windows 7). The jailbreak assumes that your iPhone runs with OS 3.0 (for a 3GS, that should be the case) and that you have the latest version of iTunes (may be do an update check?). The author warns that the Jailbreak is a beta, so do a full backup before running it just to be safe. Obviously, do this at your own peril, as this is clearly not supported by Apple. Good luck.

Links: Purplera1n, 3GS Jailbreak instructions, iPhone OS 3.0 Jailbreak

JBL partnered with Roxy to launch these headphones a month ago and I have tested them for a few days. I like the bright and fun design that for sure is appealing to the young generation and might be targeted to the female audience, given the color palette (pink and orange) and the picture on the product page, however there is also a green and blue version, for the boys who do not dare to wear pink. The product comes with a cool looking pouch ornamented with bright colored drawings (see gallery), I like the subtle organic design that "grows" on the headband as well.

Now that we've spent some quality time with the mBook, including a live blogging field trip, let's go over the pro and cons of using one of the smallest PCs out there. First, I would like to share the context: during a discussion with Intel, we were asked how we would use this MID and what kind of problem we could put it to work for. We thought that it would be useful to have a tiny computer during an expo so that we can go from booth to booth and post immediately. Intel loaned the mBook to us and we set out to try posting live from their Search Day and see how the mBook performs. The computer was subsequently returned to Intel.

As you can imagine, using such a tiny computer isn't without challenges, that's why the Mobile Internet Device (MID) category is still in "soul search" mode. The bottom-line is: it worked well for us, but we had to adapt our workflow to it.

If you have been worried by the reports saying that the Macbook Pro 2009 hard disk performance was capped to 1.5Gbps, we have some good news for you: a fix has been issued!

Just as we thought, this was a software issue and a fix in the EFI Firmware 1.7 is said to patch the problem and restore the SATA speed to its full 3.0Gbps theoretical speed. You can download the update at this Macbook Pro support page, but Apple warns that this is not a supported update.

Previous rumors suggesting that Apple had cut down on performance to cut prices were indeed totally bogus. The hardware does support full SATA II speeds. Update 6/25: I see the firmware 1.7 in the Mac OS updates now, problem solved.

Anandtech has been digging hard and went over the trouble of measuring the time it took to load popular websites. The conclusion is: the iPhone 3GS is much faster than the iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G1. The Palm Pre does well and stays close, but ultimately loses the battle.

Go to Anadtech to read the real review, or to give them some pageview love. [via umpcportal]

Windows Mobile 6.1 is still around and kicking with the Samsung Jack (aka Samsung SGH-i637), a phone that could also be called the Samsung Blackjack 3. Codenamed Samsung SGH-637, the AT&T Jack is a QWERTY phone that has a solid Windows Mobile 6.1 implementation. Even though touch phones are all the rage these days, the qualities of an affordable QWERTY Smartphone with a great battery life should not be underestimated. It has however a lot of competition from phones like the Nokia E71 or the BlackBerry Curve 8900 (not 3G). However, the Samsung Jack has a trick: its great battery life.

There's some buzz this morning about the 2009 Macbook Pro exhibiting SATA 1.5Gbps speeds (the previous models have a 3Gbps SATA hard drive controller) and from the first benchmarks, it looks like disk performance is logically lower, if you have a fast disk, like an SSD - even 7200rpm laptop hard drive often don't reach 120MBps (Mac rumors reports [SSD] performance going from 225MB/s down to 115MB/s in disk benchmarks. Ouch.).

The situation gets even more confusing as some users are reporting seeing a 3Gbps SATA, while others see a 1.5 Gbps one. First of all, I believe that NVIDIA has never produced a single GeForce 9400M motherboard chipset (aka ION) that doesn't handle SATA-2 (3Gbps). And even if they did, it would not really save a buck on the chip, as long as the chip size is identical. Most importantly, a 1.5 Gbps SATA-I Geforce 9400M chipset does not exist, as far as I know.

Then what happened? We're not sure, but consider these scenarios: what if some computer shipped with a SATA-I disk? What if 1.5Gbps consumes less power? What if it was a shortcut to ship on time? Because the hardware supports SATA-II, there is a slight good chance that this can be updated in the future. We'll be waiting for an official statement from Apple.

Half-Life 2 on PC. The 3GS GPU has all the features required to do this

The new iPhone CPU is getting a lot of buzz, and for sure, it will make the iPhone 3GS more responsive than its predecessors, but I think that most users will be "shocked" to see how powerful the iPhone 3GS is for 3D graphics. Obviously, you have seen the specifications: we're going from a fixed-pipeline graphics architecture to an Open GL 2.0 ES one. But put in simple terms, it's like going from Half Life to Half Life 2.

Since it was announced at E3, the Sony PSP Go and its pricing in particular has created a lot of buzz on the web. If you missed it, PSP Go is not so different from the PSP, except that it basically fixes the portability problem and relies on digital files downloads for game acquisition.

As for the pricing, it's never low enough obviously, but at least we can take a look at Sony's possible motives for a $250 price. Many would throw a comment like "it's dumb not to price it like the DS". Maybe it is, or maybe doing so would be financial suicide, which is indeed, dumb too.

The "S" stands for Speed. It is touted to be the “most powerful, fastest iPhone ever made" - duh!, boasting a similar design to the iPhone 3G with a glossy back. Here are some benchmark figures - kicking off messaging will be more than twice as fast, while loading SimCity is 2.4x faster, and Excel spreadsheets, er, excel at 3.6x faster, and voracious readers can load NY Times 2.9x faster. The iPhone 3GS will also support OpenGL|ES alongside 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connectivity. The camera has also been upgraded to (just) 3-Megapixels, sans flash. You do get autofocus and autoexposure, two critical quality features. Focusing is as simple as tapping (nice!), letting you tweak the focus and change white balance settings on-the-fly. In addition, the camera can capture 30fps VGA with audio, and video editing is a snap with the touch of a finger. Macro mode of images are said to be "stunning", but we'll have to wait for real world tests to see whether this holds water or not.

Finally, Voice Control has been included into the iPhone 3GS, where you can speak a name and have it call that contact, while controlling playlists (if you can remember the numerous artists on your iPhone, of course). Looks like Apple is playing catch up this time round with the iPhone 3GS instead of breaking new ground.

By Sean Captain

Publisher's note: unlike the older Palm Pre mini Review, this post was written with the final retail version of the Palm Pre.

Remember the old "Don't call it a phone" ads for wireless company Helio? I was reminded of the "don't call it" imperative when I first laid my fingers on the new Palm Pre from Sprint this evening. Everyone wants to know how it compares to Apple's iconic handheld. Is it an iPhone killer?

No, it's not. And that's not a bad thing. It's simply different. Despite having a capacitive touchscreen, snappy animations and even many of the same designers (defects from Apple's iPhone team), the Pre is a very different device.

[E3 2009] I don't think that anyone had envisioned a post-E3 motion controller war, but that's what's happening in the forums and elsewhere right now. After the cool on-stage demos from Microsoft and Sony, gamers are split on what's "better", Sony's Motion Controller magic wand or Microsoft's full body project Natal. Our first take was that Project Natal was "better, but let's try to go beyond the hype to review how each technology works, how it could be used and which might ultimately win.