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To some, the Tablet PC operating system ranks right up there with Microsoft Bob, Clippy the Office Wizard, and Steve Ballmer as one of Microsoft’s most obnoxious, useless creations. The IBM ThinkPad X41 Tablet is unlikely to change the minds of the haters. But for more open-minded folks, the X41 sho

Sony’s slimmest Cyber-shot, the DSC-T7, is more than just a camera. It’s skinny enough that you could use it to shim up a wobbly kitchen table or to wedge a door shut. Or you could weld on a little extra hardware and wear it as a belt buckle. The DSC-T7’s body is barely 0.4 inches […]

Disconnecting for the weekend? Forget about it — your neurotic urge to stay online won’t let you. And besides, your inbox is a cruel mistress. But the Treo 650 costs too much, and, frankly, you spend more time reading e-mail and web pages than writing. Meet your new phone: The BlackBerry 7100g, whic

Judging by its name, you’d think the JVC GR-D295u was a futuristic cambot with a remorseless drive to destroy all living beings. In fact, the GR-D295u is more like the guy who hangs out on the last bar stool next to the door, nursing a Schlitz: friendly, easy to like, and a bit clumsy. That’s […]

Rocky Balboa. The Jamaican bobsled team. Ross Perot. We can’t help but love our scrappy, endearing underdogs. OK, maybe not Ross Perot. But definitely the Gizmondo. With a gaming market utterly dominated by the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS, the odds of an independent console making it are slim at be

Even gadget-heads like us occasionally get tired of fiddling with dials, knobs, and buttons to get our devices working right. Sometimes, in the sleepy, alcohol-infused predawn hours, we just want to snap a picture of our new Reno friends without having to worry about whether we’ve picked the right w

Ready to end it all? Believe us, nothing will suck the life out of you like spending an hour on hold listening to endless repetitions of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy,” reading serial numbers off the bottom of your new notebook for five minutes, going back on hold for another 10 minutes, spending 20 minute

Whether it’s because of fear, prudence, or a restraining order, sometimes you just can’t get close enough for a decent photo. And a 3x zoom lens, standard on most digital cameras, doesn’t help much if you’re trying to get a shot of your surfing buddy thrashing around in the waves or of your neighbor

You know them: annoying Mac users who are always going on about Apple’s supposed “usability,” its “elegant design,” and all its “great applications.” Well now you can scratch one item off your Mac-using friends’ brag list. Google’s Picasa 2 is more elegant and usable than Apple iPhoto, it has more p

Most of Casio’s Exilim cameras have been trim, low-profile units that fit easily into a pocket. Not so with the Casio Exilim Pro EX-P505, which is about as slim and elegant as a sock full of golf balls. In fact, it’s hard to know what name to give this oddly shaped camera, which looks like […]

Some things a man just can’t explain: What drives him to drink. Why he can’t stop a-cussin’ and a-brawlin’. And why he lugs around a big, beefy digital SLR when there are pocketable cameras aplenty. But when you start taking pictures with an SLR, you’ll understand. People straighten up a little more

If you’re a bit more serious about your digital photography, you probably want something that puts all of your camera’s manual controls right at your fingertips, like the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D. This impressively large, traditional-looking digital SLR lays it all out, with a profusion of dials, kn