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The Samsung Reclaim is green in more ways than one

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Samsung rarely misses a trend, and you usually can count on the company to jump on a movement early. Just consider the concept of the green gadget. Though the Motorola Renew W233 remains the only eco-friendly phone with a major U.S. carrier, Samsung wants in on the green game, too.

Like the Renew, the new Samsung Reclaim SPH-M560 for Sprint also is made from recycled plastic and comes in a box that's made from recycled paper. Yet, the Reclaim goes a step further by offering more features than the Renew and a full QWERTY keyboard. On the whole, it's a decent phone even if we had a few performance quibbles. You can get it starting Thursday for $49.99 with a two-year contract. For the full story, check out our full Reclaim review and be sure to peruse our Reclaim photo gallery for a full gallery of shots.

Sony BDP-S560

(Credit: Sony)

Standalone Blu-ray players have finally started catching up to the Sony PlayStation 3 for Blu-ray playback, but Sony's game console is still the only Blu-ray player with built-in Wi-Fi.

Luckily, that appears to be changing in 2009, with both Samsung and LG announcing wireless Blu-ray players at CES 2009. And Monday Sony announced its own wireless Blu-ray player, the BDP-S560. The BDP-S560 includes 802.11N Wi-Fi, which means you'll be able to access BD-Live features without dragging an Ethernet cord into your living room.

The wireless connection can also be used for firmware updates and accessing photos on other DLNA-enabled devices. The press release doesn't state whether music or movies can be streamed, but we assume it's limited to just photo streaming, like the company's DLNA televisions from last year. Photos can also be accessed via a front-panel USB port.

The BDP-S560 will include onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, but the press release doesn't mention whether it will have 7.1 analog outputs like its predecessor, the BDP-S550. The BDP-S560 will be available this summer for about $350.

Sony also announced the step-down BDP-S360, which lacks Wi-Fi and the front-panel USB port. Not many details were released on the BDP-S360, except that it will include onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and feature a $300 price tag when it comes out this summer.

Sony BDP-S360

(Credit: Sony)

(Credit: Nikon)

For $249.95 the Nikon Coolpix S560 offers 10 effective megapixels, a 5x Zoom-Nikkor lens, the company's Optical Vibration Reduction (VR) Image Stabilization technology, and a bunch of features to make taking pictures easier and end results better. (Yeah, sorry, it's kinda humdrum all the way around. On the other hand, that means it should be simple to use.)

The S560 has 15 scene modes to choose from, as well as the ability to let the camera automatically select the appropriate mode. These modes include a Smile Mode, which snaps a picture when the subject smiles; a Food Mode made for capturing close-ups of (you guessed it) food; and Portrait Mode, which couples a Smile Mode with a Blink Warning.

The back of the S560 houses a 2.7-inch LCD monitor with anti-reflection coating to help you see the redesigned shooting displays and icons in bright light. And, available across the Coolpix line--S560 included--you'll get a helping of Nikon's technology enhancements, like Face-Priority AF, In-Camera Red-Eye Fix, and D-Lighting, which compensates for excessive backlight or insufficient flash in images.

Look for the Coolpix S560 in September 2008, available in a choice of three colors: graphite black, cool blue, and cherry blossom.

Motorola H560

(Credit: Motorola)

Motorola H620

(Credit: Motorola)

Motorola introduced a couple of new Bluetooth headsets today; the Motorola H560 and the Motorola H620 respectively. Both headsets have noise reduction and echo cancellation technology, but the H620 has additional automatic volume adjustment to adapt to road noise while driving. The H620 also comes with an in-car charger. Both headsets have a rated talk time of 7 hours and a rated standby time of up to eight days. They'll be available in Q3 of this year.

It swallowed a pit from a plum.

And over the course of three test drives through our house, the Roomba 560, the new top-of-the-line Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner cleaner from Burlington, Mass.-based iRobot, also gobbled up three rubber bands, two stray edamame, seven coins, a couple of beads and a grapefruit-size wad of pet hair.

And that was just what I found in the dust bin. An additional chamber that captures fine particles and sits next to the air filter captured a disc of dust that would cover a butter dish. The house was dirtied on purpose for this article, but, to be honest, a lot of this stuff wasn't planned.

"It picks up more dirt than previous models and the dust bin is 20 percent larger," said Nancy Dussault, director of marketing communications at iRobot. "We've changed everything."

The Roomba 560--one of a series of models making their debut this week--isn't perfect. It's noisy when cleaning hard floors, takes far longer to clean floors than a regular vacuum, and often likes to wrestle with backpacks and area rugs. You might come home and wonder who put the plastic footstool in the middle of the kitchen.

But here's the much larger upside for the $250 to $400 devices: I didn't have to vacuum. The machine did it. Also, it can be programmed fairly easily to run when you aren't at home so the noise won't bug you.

But the most tremendous thing is that it picks up more of the macro bits--loose change, small rocks, etc.--than standard upright vacuums. The coins and the plum pit would have been regurgitated by my Hoover.

These large solids also go down without a lot of fuss. The motor speeds up a bit and then there's a muffled clunk. You don't get that "ack-ack-ack" sound of mechanical gnashing when a regular vacuum tries to take on change.

Revamping the Roomba comes at a crucial time for the company. It has sold more than 2 million Roombas, but increasingly faces competition from companies like Samsung and LG, which have come out with their own robotic vacuums.

iRobot's revenues have been increasing rapidly. The company reported $86.5 million in revenue for the first half of this year, a 19 percent hike from the $72.8 million in sales for the first half of 2006. During that same time, however, iRobot also saw net losses increase to $10.3 million, up from $4.7 million in the first half of 2006. Besides selling consumer robots, the company works with Taser and different branches of the military to create robots for security.

Traction: iRobot has improved the suspension system so that it can traverse from hardwood and tile to different types of carpets much easier than older models. "We can clean pile, medium pile, shag," said Dussault. Better traction also improves battery life because the robot can surmount obstacles quicker.

I can't disagree there. It switches from carpet to hard floors fairly easily. Sometimes, if it can't get onto the carpet, it will back up and try to climb onto it by approaching at an angle, which almost always works.

Sometimes, the traction is a bit too good. I've found it wedged under the lip of a cabinet, on top of a weight bar and grounded on a small stack of Martha Stewart Living magazines, among other places. But it did manage to get around most obstacles, which is a big benefit. You don't have to pick all the stuff off your floor to clean first.

Suction: A lot of the design ideas and technology from the Dirt Dog, a robotic industrial vacuum released last year by iRobot, were incorporated into the 500 series. Wimpy, inadequate suction was one of the primary complaints about the first version. "It will pick up bolts, nuts, screws," said Dussault. It lives up to billing here.

Durability: A Roomba 500 series vac will last more than 1,500 hours, or about five years, according to the company. The previous versions would often stop working well after one or two years, Dussault admitted.

Anti-wall-bashing technology: Front-mounted sensors detect walls and cabinets and slow the vacuum down as it approaches. The machine then lightly rebounds off the wall. The old versions hit walls at their regular speed.

This also comes in handy with feet. It just sort of taps off your leg, like a cat. We used it while cooking in the kitchen. The vacuum bumped into a lot of people but didn't really become annoying. My wife, who is very protective of the walls, found this to be one of the best features.

Tassel savers: When it detects tassels or loose wires in the brushes, it reverses and takes another approach. At one point, it bobbled the cord of a floor lamp, but backed away.

Navigation: The Roomba is supposed to be able to wander from its home base and, by following the beacons from two "lighthouses," clean two other rooms. In our tests, it never made it back to home base. Most of the time it got stuck on something or simply never returned. It went into rooms guided by the lighthouses, but also other rooms.

Samsung is taking the offensive in the battle for Cingular 3G supremacy with its new SGH-A707. Announced today in Korea and destined for America's wireless carrier, the A707 offers support for Cingular's HSDPA network, a 2-megapixel camera, a digital music player, and stereo Bluetooth. From what we can tell, it looks like Samsung is hoping to make a more respectable showing on the 3G front than it did with its recent Samsung SGH-ZX20.

Though the ZX20 was perfectly functional, its dull design didn't complement its high-end features. What's more, while the ZX20 was announced at this year's CES, it didn't hit the market until the summer and had the misfortune to follow in the wake of LG's flashy CU500. The A707's design still seems a bit understated, but at least it offers external music controls. We're not sure when the A707 will arrive at Cingular, so pricing isn't available at this moment.

Samsung is also readying its SGH-D347 for Cingular service. Similar to the SGH-D357, the new handset offers quad-band world phone support, Bluetooth, and push-to-talk compatibility. The SGH-D347 showed up on Samsung's Web site a couple of days ago, but it has yet to appear on Cingular's site. Lastly, Samsung also showed its SCH-B560 recently. Another 3G model with a pivoting display, the B560 is primed for multimedia functionality. Inside are a digital music player and a 2-megapixel camera.

(Photos: Samsung)