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When Samsung debuted the Galaxy Note last year at CES, the phone met with, well, a mountain of mockery.

It was inexplicably huge, it came with a stylus, hallmark of the hopelessly unhip, and worse, pundits took to calling it a "phablet" -- half phone, half tablet. It appeared to be a product in search of a market it could never, ever hope to find.

We were wrong. The Note found a following, and Samsung reportedly sold 20 million of the funny little things. That's pretty good for a tweener device with no known purpose.

And here … Read more

Last month Amazon.com's CEO Jeff Besos, unveiled the new Kindle line, complete with new updates to the current Kindles and an 8.9" Fire. Naturally, Molly bought all of the new kindles, including the "revolutionary" Paperwhite!

We unboxed the 7" Kindle Fire a few episodes back, and now it was time to enter it into our torture chamber. That Kindle Fire really took a beating from us, and we were all shocked to see it survive. I personally would be using it right now, but agree with Molly. It's just too WIDE to … Read more

Everyone else is excited about this being the episode where we torture test the iPhone 5 -- and believe me, I get that, it's pretty exciting. And it was a pretty dramatic test, to be sure, I think you'll be surprised at the combination of tough and not tough displayed by that phone.

But for me, this episode is all about the America's Cup piece! That's just selfish, though; it's because I had such a great time riding on that catamaran -- and I do think the broadcasting tech is fascinating. America's Cup racing … Read more

... it only comes on when it's plugged in. Hey, but I'm pretty sure it's just a battery issue, so I bet it's a pretty easy fix, and you'll have yourself a really tough-looking MacBook Air! Me, I'd enter to win it, for sure. And it's not like it's our Nexus 7 or anything. That's coming later.

So, if you'd like to be the proud owner of the Always On Collector's Edition MacBook Air, just enter to win in the comments below! In our last giveaway, we proffered the iPad … Read more

I really wasn't going to order an iPhone 5 -- I stayed up until midnight on pre-order night to order two unlocked versions, one to unbox, and one to torture, and then realized the unlocked versions weren't available.

So, I now own one, but I do think that makes this week's Unboxing more exciting, because of my personal stake in the whole thing.

Speaking of exciting, for those of you who requested that we torture test the Nokia Lumia 900, here it is! Jeff Cannata takes over this one, and I think he's really getting the … Read more

This week, you finally get to see the results of my high-flying Road Test of the HTC One X! I actually jumped out of a helicopter because we were so sure that this HTC One X commercial, touting its camera features to such an extent that it could be used in a midair fashion shoot, was a ridiculous put-on. You'll see in the segment whether I managed to get the shot, and whether the phone's camera and features performed as advertised.

Special thanks to the folks at GoPro, who helped us set up this shoot and loaned us … Read more

The aesthetics of the modern keyboard reminds me of the U.S. car industry several years ago: uninspired.

Enter the Orée wooden keyboard, nearly made in full out of Mother Nature's greatest asset. French entrepreneur Julien Salanave came up with Orée and works in collaboration with a small design team in southern France to produce the wooden Bluetooth 3.0 wireless keyboard. … Read more

We know, we've seen your e-mails. There's something that doesn't feel quite right about buying a beautiful, brand-new piece of technology and then deliberately attempting to destroy it. Granted, it's all in the name of science and helping you make better buying decisions -- and feel more confident that your device can survive the occasional drop, ding, or dunk. But still. We're not sleeping at night.

Enter the Torture Test Giveaway. We're going to give away these "lightly used" devices in whatever condition they happen to have ended up in -- so … Read more

CNET's Always On / Torture Test Giveaway

Official Rules

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. YOU HAVE NOT YET WON. MUST BE LEGAL RESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD OR AGE OF MAJORITY, WHICHEVER IS OLDER IN YOUR STATE OF RESIDENCE AT DATE OF ENTRY INTO SWEEPSTAKES. VOID IN PUERTO RICO, ALL U.S. TERRITORIES AND POSSESSIONS AND WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

Sponsor, Administrator and Prize Provider: CNET, a Division of CBS Interactive, Inc. 235 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94105.

Prize Provider: CNET, Always On … Read more