Crave

Samsung Omnia II

(Credit: Samsung)

On Monday, Verizon Wireless announced that it will offer the Samsung Omnia II starting December 2 for $199.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

First introduced in early June, the Omnia II will take over for its predecessor, the Samsung Omnia, and brings a number of enhancements and new features, such as a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED touch screen and Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Edition.

The Omnia II will sport Samsung's TouchWiz interface, allowing you to customize the home screen with various widgets and shortcuts and includes a similar 3D cube interface like the Samsung Behold II. In addition, Samsung has included a virtual QWERTY keyboard with Swype technology, which allows you to input text with a continuous swiping motion onscreen. (Check out a video demo here.)

Other goodies of the Samsung Omnia II include a 5-megapixel camera, support for DivX and Xvid movie files, 8GB of internal memory (expandable up to 16GB), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Opera 9.5.

Dell and China Mobile on Monday offered up more details about the Dell Mini 3i smartphone, which will be going on sale in China later this month.

Dell's Mini 3i smartphone

(Credit: Dell)

The Android-based device, Dell's first smartphone, will support e-mail, instant messaging, and both MMS and SMS messaging. It will include Bluetooth and GPS capabilities and a Mini USB connector, and will accommodate Micro SD cards up to 32GB.

The quadband GSM/EDGE phone weighs 105 grams and includes a 3-megapixel camera with zoom, auto-focus, flash, video capture, and photo-editing capabilities. The touchscreen has a 640x360 resolution. Dell had already confirmed earlier this month that the Mini 3i would have a 3.5-inch high-definition screen.

Under the hood, the device is running China Mobile's OPhone software, a customized version of Google's Android operating system.

Like other Android phones, the Mini 3i will provide access to an online store, in this case, China Mobile's Mobile Market, where people can download apps, games, wallpaper, and ringtones. Users will be able to run different widgets on the home screen to keep on top of the news, weather, stock prices, and sports scores.

Dell said it has been collaborating with China Mobile for about a year on the development of the phone. The two companies teamed up earlier in the year to integrate a 3G data card for Dell's Inspiron Mini 10 netbook for the Chinese market. With more than 500 million customers, China Mobile is the world's largest mobile service provider, according to Dell.

Dell was initially mum on details when it first mentioned the Mini 3i about 10 days ago. But the company did reveal that China Mobile and Brazil's Claro would be the first global providers to carry its new smartphone.

Like China Mobile, Brazil's Claro boasts a huge subscriber base, with 42 million customers in Brazil alone. By selling the Mini 3i through both providers, Dell can potentially capture a much larger mobile audience than it could through any U.S. carriers.

Arriving in China Mobile stores by the end of November, the Mini 3i will shortly thereafter be sold directly from Dell. For those interested in color schemes, the Mini 3i will be available in Red Passion and Oiled Bronze--the image below shows the Red Passion treatment:

Dell Mini 3i smartphone

(Credit: Dell/China Mobile)

There's certainly no shortage of coverage about Black Friday tech sales, and savvy shoppers have no doubt already scoped out their favorite deals from the leaked ad scans and early deals posted on sites such as BFads.net.

We've scanned some of the ads and picked several potentially promising Black Friday deals, including limited-time special offers, in order to give you some context on what constitutes a good doorbuster deal, and what's just a bust.

Note that many of the prices cited below are only available during the early hours of Friday morning.

Sony NW235, $399, Best Buy
Intel Pentium Dual Core; 4GB RAM; 320GB hard drive; 15-inch screen
Unlike some of the cheapest Celeron laptops out there, we find models such as this, with an Intel dual-core CPU, to fit the basic definition of usability. Best Buy is offering this as a Friday doorbuster, with a minimum of 10 per store (ticket required). We've typically seen similar systems for around $500.

HP G60-507DX, $197, Best Buy
Intel Celeron; 2GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, 15-inch screen
A full-size laptop for under $200 may seem tempting, but we suggest you avoid any Celeron-powered systems. The nearly Netbook-level performance will definitely disappoint in 15-inch laptop. This is also a limited-quantity doorbuster, and would normally sell for around $350-$400.

eMachines eME627, $198, Walmart
AMD Athlon 64; 2GB RAM; 160GB hard drive; 15-inch screen
As Acer/Gateway's nearly forgotten entry level brand, you don't hear a lot about eMachines these days. This deal is available 5am to 11am on Black Friday, but we're still adamant that your expectations must be kept pretty low.

HP G71-329wm, $398, Walmart
Intel Core 2 Duo T6600; 4GB RAM; 320GB hard drive; 17-inch screen
If it indeed has the standard Intel Core 2 Duo CPU we've seen reported (the Walmart site doesn't say), than this is a good deal for a basic desktop replacement laptop. While not technically a doorbuster, quantities are limited.

HP Pavilion (model unknown); $379, OfficeMax
AMD Sempron; 3GB RAM; 160GB hard drive; 15-inch screen
Remember how we said you should avoid a Celeron-powered mid-size laptop? Same goes for AMD's Sempron processor. We've seen similar systems for around $399, so it's not even much of a bargain.

Delstar DS700, $119, K-Mart
CPU unknown; 128MB RAM; 2GB SSD; 7-inch screen
It's like the first prototype Netbook ever made crawled out of the primordial swamps and stuck a "for sale" sticker on itself. Hopefully we don't have to tell you to avoid this Windows CE system, with components more typical for a mobile phone, even if it is being offered for $120 (down from the usual $150) as a Black Friday doorbuster.

The winner will get one of these 8GB Nanos.

For the holidays we've got something special in store for Crave giveaways: we're going daily instead of weekly. That's right, from now until Christmas, excluding weekends and holidays, we're giving away something every day and it's all really good stuff, including TVs, Netbooks, and cell phones.

To kick things off, we thought we'd go with something from Apple, and thanks to Target.com, we have an 8GB iPod Nano, which Target's online store has on sale for a few bucks less than Apple's list price--and it ships for free.

Normally, the 8GB iPod Nano fifth generation would cost you about $145, but you have the chance to get it gratis.

So, how do you try to win this 8GB iPod Nano? Let me enumerate the basic rules. Please read them carefully; there will be a test.

• Register as a CNET user. Go to the top of this page and hit the "Join CNET" link to start the registration process. If you're already registered, there's no need to register again.
• Leave a comment below. You can leave whatever comment you want. If it's funny or insightful it won't help you win, but we're trying to have fun here, so anything entertaining is appreciated.
• Leave only one comment. You may enter this specific giveaway only once. If you enter more than one comment, you will be automatically disqualified.
• The winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive (1) Apple iPod Nano 8GB. Approximate retail value is $145.
• If you are chosen, you will be notified via e-mail. 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 Tuesday, November 24, at 9 AM EST.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. MUST BE LEGAL RESIDENT OF ONE OF THE 50 UNITED STATES OR D.C., 18 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER AT DATE OF ENTRY INTO SWEEPSTAKES. VOID IN PUERTO RICO, ALL U.S. TERRITORIES AND POSSESSIONS AND WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. Sweepstakes ends at 9 AM ET on November 24, 2009. See official rules for details.

Good luck.

Come back tomorrow for our next holiday giveaway. Tomorrow's prize will be a Sony Bravia 32-inch LCD TV.

The new Roku Channel Store now has 13 free content channels.

(Credit: Roku)

Aiming to expand beyond movies and baseball, set-top box maker Roku is adding 10 new content channels ranging from social networking to music and podcasts.

Roku, which makes a small, wireless device that can stream content from the Web direct to any TV screen, is expanding from 3 channels to 13, as expected. Channels for Blip.tv, Facebook Photos, Flickr, FrameChannel, Mediafly, MobileTribe, Motionbox, Pandora, Revision3, and TWiT will join the current lineup of Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and, more recently, MLB.TV. All of them will be available in the newly christened Roku Channel Store.... Read more

The "smartbook" aspires to put the smartphone into the laptop. Will it be able to elevate an Apple iPhone or Motorola Droid-like experience to a larger device, or is it just more marketing mumbo-jumbo?

Two companies are hoping that the smartbook will turn out to be more than just another quickly-forgotten device sales pitch. Qualcomm and Freescale, which are both supplying key silicon technology for the devices, are pushing to make smartbooks different enough from laptops--and Netbooks--that consumers will take notice.

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs holds the Lenovo smartbook, which will appear at CES in January.

(Credit: Qualcomm)

The first tangible evidence of smartbooks to come will be seen at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, where Lenovo, among others, is expected to show, if not roll out, smartbook designs.

One pesky question won't go away, however. Why go out of the way to call it a smartbook? Doesn't Netbook suffice? (And it can potentially be very confusing for consumers since both terms have "book" in them.) On one level, the nomenclature choice is simply to counter the Microsoft-Intel Netbook juggernaut: Another Netbook among dozens already on the market won't draw much attention.

But at a deeper level, the two companies are trying to make the smartbook substantively different from a Netbook. Qualcomm sees it, in essence, as a large smartphone, which leaves the outdated Windows desktop experience in the dust. "A Netbook in our view is just a cheap laptop that runs Windows. We see the smartbook cannibalizing the Netbook. ... Read more

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Last Sunday, Palm and Sprint released their second WebOS device together, the Palm Pixi, for $99.99 with a two-year contract.

In the grand scheme of things, $100 for a smartphone is a pretty darn good deal, but when you consider the fact that there are other products out there with more power and more features (e.g., Wi-Fi) for the same price or lower, it makes the Pixi look foolish. Fortunately, thanks to third-party retailers, you can now get the entry-level smartphone for much less.

Both Amazon and Wal-Mart have lowered the price of the Palm Pixi by 75 percent, so now the smartphone is only $24.99. You will still need to sign up for a two-year service agreement, but it's certainly a much more enticing offer. In addition, the Palm Pre is now available from Amazon for $79.99--$70 less than Sprint's price.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)