Archos announced yesterday the upcoming arrival of their latest MID device, the Archos 9.  Sporting an 8.9 inch screen, the new arrival significantly expands upon the Archos line of media players.  In fact, it would be inaccurate to call this device, which runs the Windows 7 Operating System, a portable media player at all.  Archos really seems to have taken its devices to a whole new level with this one.  

Now, I am not sure how this will all work with no keyboard.  Archos seems to believe that this is another evolutionary step in its system, stating the virtual keyboard is the next best innovation in Netbooks.  Now,  I am not a fan of soft input panels or virtual keyboards on my mobile devices, so this is something I am eager to put to the test when I hopefully get the opportunity to check this on out in the fall.  Keep reading for some information I stole from the press release.

Technical Specifications:

Included Software:

The Archos 9 is expected to drop in September.  Final pricing has not been set, but expect it to be in the $500 price range.  Check out the Archos website for more information.  And keep watching this space for our review.

Since I received my Kindle 2 device last February, I have had the opportunity to review a number of cases, and we have still more to go.  But today I want to focus on what could be the most comprehensive case I have reviewed.  This is really not so much a travel case for the Kindle as it is a travel case for all of your gadgets.  Let’s take a closer look at the case with a pocket for everything.

The outside of the case is constructed from the same water resistant nylon material as the other Waterfield cases I reviewed for the Kindle 2.  This is great, because it is attractive and professional looking, but casual enough to be comfortable.

The closed sides are covered in a rubberized, textured material to ensure the case will not slip out of your hands while you are carrying it.

The top of the case opens wide with a zipper stretching from end to end.  One thing which was very unique was the zipper pull, which does not flop loosely off of the zipper, but instead is held snugly in position. 

This means you can lay it flat against the zipper, and it will stay in place, with no fear of it snagging on anything.  I will say, however, that I found the tab to be a bit small.  I would have liked a larger leather tab, or even a tab made of the same material as the rest of the case.

In the front of the Travel Case is a large pocket, which opens like a gash across the front.  It opens to reveal a surprising amount of storage space.  There is a large pocket, with two mesh dividers in the back.  This offers plenty of space for a retractable cable, batteries, extra memory…just about anything.

Inside the main compartment of the case is a lot of padding.  And I mean padding unlike anything I have seen before.  Waterfield clearly aims to protect your devices with this one.  And since your primary purpose in using this case is probably to…carry and protect your gear, well you can see where this is going.   With all of that padding, you would expect this to be a bulky case, so I was pretty impressed by how flat it actually lay when empty. 

All of that padding combines to form one large main pocket, and three smaller pockets.  The large pocket is, obviously, perfect for the Kindle or Kindle 2 (though it may be a bit small for the Kindle DX).  The nice thing here is that if you use a cover-style case, there is no need to remove the Kindle from it before sliding it into the Travel Case.  the pocket is wide enough to hold the Kindle in your everyday case.

The first of the three pockets is nice and large, perfect for holding your power cables and adaptors.  The other two pockets are smaller, and tighter.  These are great for holding some of your smaller gadgets, such as a phone, mp3 player or gaming device.

What really impressed me was how much this case could hold without significantly increasing its size or weight.  Here is a picture of it fully packed.  Above is a look at what Waterfield crammed in the Travel case.

Now, let’s take a look at what I managed to squeeze in there:

• Camera
• 4 GB Memory Card (micrSD)
• iPod Touch
• Sprint Mogul
• Kindle 2 (obviously)
• Cowon S9
• Boxwave AC Adaptor
• Assorted sync/charge cables

Not too shabby at all.  And, it even comes in your choice of colors.

I was really impressed by this case.  It is designed to be a workhorse, and it really lived up to that impression.  I was able to cram a ton into this one, in addition to the Kindle it is designed to carry, and the padding and rubberized sides ensured that it was all well protected.  All that, without significantly affecting the profile of the case.  If you are looking fro something slim and sleek, but powerful enough to hold all of your gadgets and accessories, make sure to give this one a try.

Where to Buy: Waterfield

Price: $49 (the shoulder strap costs $5 extra)

I am a big fan of eBooks.  In fact, when I bought the Sony Reader, I almost instantly vowed to avoid paper and ink books forever.  I have since upgraded to a combination of the Kindle 2 and various apps on my iPod Touch, but I remain hardbound book-free.

One of the problems I have had with eBooks has always been the price.  Some eBook publishers for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform charge as much for a digital book as they would for a hardbound book.  This just makes no sense given the fact that the cost of producing an eBook, with no paper, ink, presses, or other overhead is significantly less than printing a book.  Amazon really became the first of the large distributors to acknowledge this difference in overhead with most books ringing up in the $9.99 price range, and plenty of others under $5.00.  In fact, it was the rare exception to find any books over $10 for the Kindle.  To be honest, that was one of my favorite features.  Kind of like the $2.99 and under average price of apps in the iTunes App Store.

Earlier this week, Fictionwise indicated that their eReader application would follow suit (finally).  Their new pricing scheme offers nothing over $12.99. Here are all of the details of the new pricing scheme:

• No e-book priced over $12.95
• All new e-books $9.95 or less
• All New York Times bestsellers $9.95
• Plus 15% rewards on all purchases

I thought this was a fantastic development, and was thrilled to see more distributors widening the pricing gap between traditional books and eBooks. 

Then, along came the other shoe…dropping as you might imagine, from Amazon.  Earlier this week, I had some extra money to spend and decided to buy an eBook for my Kindle.  I had jotted down a few new releases I wanted to read and began looking them up.  What I found when I got there, however, were prices in the $13-$15 range.  On almost every non-fiction new release I looked up, in several different genres.  This is just disappointing.  Particularly, when you read it in light of the Gear Diary KindleGate, in which Dan discovered that you do not necessarily have unlimited access to your purchased titles.  So, where does this leave us with Amazon?  You can now pay up to $15 for a digital copy of a book, which you do not own, and can potentially only download a limited number of times; or generally spend $2 more for a hard copy of the book, which is yours to read anytime you wish, and as many times as you like.   I found this unannounced increase in pricing to be troubling and disappointing.

I love my Kindle, and I love reading electronic books.  Honestly, I believe that the Kindle will ultimately do to eBooks what the iPod did to digital music.  it will bring it into the mainstream, make it easy and accessible.  But in order for that to happen, Amazon (and other eBook distributors) must do a better job of attracting new readers to the format by making the books accessible and reasonably priced. 

[Some parts of this report via JKontherun]

Yay! Time for another PPCTechs contest! I was going to do a little package giveaway, but the Magic Cats persuaded me to do something different.
Any item or items from our line of accessories up to a $40 value is yours for the taking! This also includes $40 off any of our repair services and the offer is valid up to 6 months, but only for the winners! We just have a few rules:

1) First of all,  you have to tell us what you would do if you could make your device exclusively your own! What do you currently have, and what hardware  or software would you have on there to make it better if it came straight from the manufacturer or cellphone provider?

2) You have to be a registered member of JAMM. (Just got to the Login section and register)

The Magic Cats have said they’ll end this contest on Sunday at 8pm PST July 5th, and pick the winners on Monday, July 6th (it IS the 4th of July celebrations, and the Cats don’t like fireworks so need some time to recover!)

Good luck, people! I hope to get some great answers!

By entering this contest, you authorize Just Another Mobile Monday, and its representatives, to provide your personal information (such as, but not limited to your name and email address) to the sponsors of this contest should you be selected as a winner. Your personal information will not be sold by Just Another Mobile Monday, or otherwise retained for any purpose except that described herein.

Sitting on the couch, trying to unwind from the day, staring at the box with pictures, commercials start to appear.  Unless you have been living under a rock, it’s likely that you’ve seen commercials for the iPhone 3GS.  It’s also possible that you’ve seen commercials for the Palm Pre.  Each of them touts the device’s selling points.  Of  the two I’ve seen tonight (it’s almost like the two products are competing against each other), it’s interesting to watch just what selling points are being advertised.

For the Palm Pre: multi-tasking and web pages and internet / cloud connected apps that automatically update in the background, all at once.  No doubt, these are very handy feature.

For the iPhone 3GS: copy and paste technology.  Hmm,…

To go on record, I think both devices are great, it’s just that I think that telling a user how great a phone is because it offers copy and paste technology underestimates the intelligence of the consumer.

So, let’s start the discussion.  What features are worth being advertised in a prime time, national television spot?  What features are worth being advertised, period?