unboxed

Unboxing: U.S.S. Enterprise Star Trek pizza cutter

I was stoked to answer my door yesterday to see a package from ThinkGeek. Last week, I wrote about the awesome U.S.S. Enterprise Star Trek pizza cutter it's selling and strongly hinted that I wanted one. Someone very nice listened. I'm going to make pizza tonight.

I eagerly opened the box and was struck by the minimalist, almost Apple-esque design of the packaging.

Behold the very simple foam on the top: It's a rectangle, and that is all. But what is beneath?

It's a tease. A peek at the Enterprise's nacelles, the domain of Scotty. To the front, over the saucer, is a saucer itself of more foam. A perfect, simple circle. No extra papers, no coupons, no extras.

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Intuitive video manager

Amazon Unbox Video is a video player and download manager that lets users make the most of Amazon's Video On Demand services. Although it's not required for viewing videos rented or purchased from Amazon, it can help make the service easier to use, especially if you plan to download the files to your computer.

The program's interface is sleek and intuitive, with its major features organized in four tabs. The My Videos tab lets users view their libraries of downloaded videos, while the Player lets users play those files. The Devices tab helps users load portable video … Read more

Hands-on with the Nexus One

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google on Tuesday finally announced and demonstrated the Nexus One, a phone designed and built by HTC, but sold by Google through an online store. As far as Android phones go, it's currently the fastest. It's also one of the slimmest, coming in at just 11.5 millimeters thick. We got our mitts on it after this morning's press conference.

First impressions:

The phone is very sturdy and solid. Despite having a removable battery cover, that cover fits tight around the edges without leaving any noticeable gaps. And it doesn't give when you press into it like some other smartphones do.

As mentioned in our live coverage from earlier, some of the new features that are specific to the Nexus One compared to other Android devices include built-in noise cancellation that uses two different microphones and a glowing, LED-powered trackball that can light up with different colors depending on what kind of notification it's alerting you to.

Like its HTC siblings the Magic and Hero, the Nexus One lacks a physical keyboard, something that's been made up for with a new voice search feature that like the iPhone's Voice Control, can launch certain phone features with simple voice commands. In our quick testing this worked really well, at least for making phone calls or looking up driving directions, the latter of which launches turn-by-turn directions using Google Maps Navigator. It can also be used for writing text messages and e-mails--a feature that finger-weary business users should enjoy.

Another Nexus One-specific feature (at least for now) is Live Wallpapers, which are animated backgrounds that can react to user touch, whatever music is playing, as well as what part of the home screen you're on. The phone ships with ten of these as part of Android 2.1. It's unclear whether these would burn up more battery life, but based on how pretty they are… Read more

Unboxing the Garmin Nuvi 1690

I've been eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Garmin Nuvi 1690. It's sort of a big deal.

As Garmin's second major foray into the world of Internet-connected PNDs and its first model powered by the nuLink data service, the Nuvi 1690 is poised to go head-up with not only our current favorite, the TomTom Go 740 Live, but also with the whole world of smartphone turn-by-turn apps.

But before I can test it, I have to open the darn thing up. Rather than just rip into the box with my teeth like I normally do, it was … Read more

Out of the Box: My New New Pre Unboxing

[My impressions as I unbox the Palm Pre for this test drive.]

So, as I mentioned in a prior post, this Pre unboxing is my second (why I have referred to this Pre as my "new new Pre"). I purchased my first Pre a couple weeks ago from my local Sprint store.

The first thing I notice as I pull this Pre out of the Fex Ex box is the color on the side of the Pre box: black. The color of the box of my first Pre, purchased on June 16th, was orange.

Meaningful or not, there has been some discussion on the Pre Central forum about the color of the box possibly having some correlation to the hardware inside--namely, the speculation is that black box Pres come from an earlier build/release and, perhaps, have more hardware problems: loose slider, separating halves, dead pixels, white/hot spots on screen, and various battery issues.

Because I had read about all of this, the first thing I did was check the hardware for any of these issues. I found none; however, I did notice some residue of either glue or tape on the back side that seemed odd and made me think the phone I was sent could be refurbished--perhaps it's a launch phone that had been returned and fixed? I don't suppose it matters as long as everything works (the phone was free after all).

In any case, I found no hardware problems with this new new Pre from the black box. The phone feels solid in my hand, opens smoothly, closes with a secure-feeling click, and all of the buttons seem to work as they were meant to. A number of early reviewers noted the sharpness of the edges surrounding the keyboard. Though I see what they are talking about, I find this to be a non-issue (not noticeable at all) when using the keypad.… Read more

Unboxing the Palm Pre

The Pre arrived on the afternoon of Friday, June 26, and as Murphy's law dictates, I was not home to sign for it. So after a short drive to the FedEx distribution center, I was in my home office, tearing through the box with my camera at my side.

I'm a little disappointed with the accessories that come with the Pre. The folding prongs on the charger is a nice touch for travel, but I'd like to see an actual case in the box. The chamois bag does a nice job of polishing the phone, and you'… Read more

Unboxing the Palm Pre

Since its debut at the Consumer Electronics show in January, I've been curious to play with the Palm Pre. A few years back I was an avid Palm Treo 650 user, as my first smartphone I was blown away at the ability to be connected at all times, immediately reply to email and browse the web. But as new devices entered the market, the Treo became very stale and troubles at Palm kept innovation at a minimum. For years, whispers of the development of a new Linux-based Palm OS swirled around the web, but many were skeptical, for good … Read more

Unwrapping Christmas, A Few Months Early

Un-boxing the Palm Pre is like tearing open the gift you think is a cd, and finding that plus a gift card to cover the home theater system you've been drooling over!

As a mom who works from home and uses technology daily to connect both socially and professionally, I am really excited about the Palm Pre.

I'm currently the owner of a Samsung Instinct, and while I applaud Samsung for some of the Instinct's advanced features I've been disappointed with it's slow run time, lack of applications for business users and a real keyboard. … Read more

Unboxing: It's New MacBook Day!

Less than 24 hours after Apple revealed its latest MacBook updates, we've got three of them here, ready to undergo rigorous testing in the CNET Labs. The most notable news developments are the unexpected promotion of the unibody 13-inch to the MacBook Pro family, and the addition of a long-awaited SD card slot to several models.

You can catch up with all the changes across the entire MacBook line in our New Apple MacBooks demystified post, and stay tuned for full reviews, videos, and more later this week.

> Need more laptop news? Follow me at twitter.com/danackerman. &… Read more