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Verizon Wireless SMT5800 debuts

Today, Verizon Wireless added a new smartphone to its lineup, and it looks to be a goody. Manufactured by HTC, the Verizon Wireless SMT5800 takes after the HTC Vox in design and boasts a compact cell-phone-like form factor yet manages to pack in a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard. There's also an alphanumerical dialpad on the exterior of the device.

The features are pretty much standard fare. It runs Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition and has a 2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.0 (with support for the A2DP profile), and EV-DO. Onboard memory is 128MB Flash/64MB RAM and comes equipped … Read more

ATI releases new laptop graphics

While AMD has been quiet on the CPU front at this year's show (unless you count the introduction of a logo as news), its graphics division has something of substance with the new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series. This new laptop graphics lineup comprises two models, the HD 3400 and the HD 3600, and is optimized for AMD's next-generation mobile platform (codename Puma) due out next quarter. The new GPUs support DirectX 10.1 and PCI Express 2.0, and can display Blu-ray and HD DVD movies at full 1080p resolution. They also come equipped with ATI'… Read more

Philips Swarovski crystal earbuds

Philips has announced plans to release a line of Swarovski crystal earbuds, available just in time for Valentine's Day. Priced at $99, the Philips Active Crystals earbuds feature a stainless steel body, fabric cable, silicon in-ear caps, and single neodymium drivers with a 16 ohm impedance.

The Active Crystal earbuds are part of Philips' larger launch of women-focused products, including crystal-studded USB drives and home electronics that feature a softer, more elegant design aesthetic.

Motorola rocks out with the Motorola S9-HD stereo headset

Motorola has unveiled the Motorola S9-HD stereo Bluetooth headset, a successor to the Motorola Rokr S9 Bluetooth Active headset from last year. Like the S9, the S9-HD hangs behind the head with the player controls on the side, thus maximizing your freedom of movement while on the treadmill or the track. The S9-HD has a nice bonus though--it now comes with high-definition sound with SRS WOW HD and improved earbuds to block out more noise. It has a rated battery life of six hours of play time and weighs about an ounce overall. Not too sure about the pricing or … Read more

New PC platforms from Intel will face hurdles

Intel had three different high-end PCs to show us at the show this morning. Two were based on its forthcoming dual-quad-core enthusiast motherboard, code-named Skulltrail. The other was based on Intel's X48 chipset, which is the 1,600MHz front side bus version of X38, which itself came out last November to coincide with Intel's new Core 2 Quad 9000-series chips. We were suitably impressed at the benchmarks Intel ran for us, as well as the overclocking and cooling of each.

The problem is that each platform is going to be a hard sell, as they're dependent … Read more

Nokia Music Store

Update: a spokesperson from Nokia contacted me and let me know that, despite what the booth staffers told me, Nokia has "not announced plans or a timeline for the U.S. market" regarding a music store. So we'll have to wait and see.

I stopped by the packed Nokia booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to get an update on the Nokia Music Store announced over the summer. It's already online in the U.K. (PC only), with a library of nearly 3 million songs.

The Web-based store looks fairly standard. But according … Read more

Gates on OLPC, Windows Home Server

In addition to answering questions about how Microsoft plans to take on its rivals and capture the hearts and devices of consumers, Chairman Bill Gates spoke to CNET News.com on other topics, not all of which fit into Monday's Newsmaker piece. Here are a couple more questions and answers from Gates.

Q: One area that I know is important to you is emerging markets. Do you take away any lessons from Intel's fallout with OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)? I know you said recently that you are going to try and make Windows work on OLPC if … Read more

Philips Bluetooth MP3 player

Philips has announced plans to release an MP3 player with built-in Bluetooth functionality. Available in April in both 4GB ($129) or 8GB ($169) capacities, the Philips GoGear SA5200BT series will feature a 2.8-inch screen, Rhapsody subscription music integration, FullSound audio enhancement technology, and DRM audio and video support. Beyond the obvious benefit of being able to pair the Philips GoGear SA5200BT with a set of wireless Bluetooth headphones, the player can also take advantage of wireless file-sharing with any Bluetooth-capable PC.

Philips also plans to sell versions of the GoGear SA5200 series without Bluetooth for $109 (4GB) and $149 (… Read more