MobileBurn got themselves a hands-on with the hot new Motorola RAZR 2 V8 — if you don’t think it’s hot, at least admit that it’s what the original RAZR should have been. The most notable change is obvious, and very welcome: no more hump, chin, or lump used to accommodate the chunky internals. The semi-touch screen is also an interesting variation on the usual touchscreen style, with tactile buzzing feedback when one of the three touch buttons on the external screen are pressed. The pre-production model had a poor shutter button, which is a bit of a disappointment since this is usually a well used button, and considering the effort put into the external screen. (Let’s hope that this’ll get fixed for production models.) The reviewers found that the main keypad was great, with a not-too-rubbery feel, and the UI is an improvement in all the areas that count — snappy, clear, and customizable. The refinements make the RAZR2 V8 sound like a winner to us: a pity it had to be such a long time coming.

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Calling all cars, calling all cars… be on the look out for the SMS M500 GSM Watchfone. That’s right, the first shipments of the M300 followup are said to be leaving Hong Kong as of tomorrow, May 30th. Now we can all get a little Dick Tracy with “the world’s smallest mobile phone” — or so says SMS Technology Australia. Unlike Dick’s 2-way Wrist Radio which emerged in 1949, this pup goes quad-band GSM while packing a 1.5-inch touchscreen with itty bitty, built-in stylus; Bluetooth 2.0; and all the 120 x 160 pixel MP4 video (or MP3/AAC audio) you can pack into its 128MB of storage. The watch weights just 60-grams and should hold-up to about 200 minutes of talk or 80 hours standby before needing a USB recharge. Now if someone could just hook us up with a jetpack we can get to living in the future promised to us by Uncle Walt (no, the other one) in those free lovin’ 70s.

Gallery: The SMS M500 GSM Watchfone: the 58 year wait is over

    

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Meizu certainly knows a good design when they see it. Now they’re taking that resizing magic which slimmed down the M6se to their M3 Music Card digital media player. The M3se packs a lighter duty 500mAh battery (down from 700mAh) in order to squeeze into its shorter 76-mm tall (down from 81-mm) chassis which features a new brushed-metal backside. They’ve also done away with that quirky offset control for skipping tracks while widening the control strip down the center. All these changes result in a cleaner look for Meizu’s rapidly evolving product portfolio.

[Via dapreview, thanks Michael]
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It looks like those digging Yoggie’s Gatekeeper mini computer but secretly hoping for an even more mini version will soon have their excessive demands met, as Yoggie’s now announced its Pico USB stick, which appears to pack all the same security features in an even smaller package. Like the Gatekeeper, the Pico is a Linux-based device that’ll give the stream of information coming in off the Internet a thorough cleaning before it ever reaches your PC, filtering out spam, spyware, and viruses, and protecting your computer from intrusions, among other measures. Also like the Gatekeeper, the Pico would seem to offer some potential for “improvements,” packing a 520MHz processor and 128MB of RAM, although it apparently drops the SD slot of its larger counterpart. Look for this one to be available in two different versions, with the Pico Personal setting you back $179 and the Pico Pro (with added VPN functions) running $199. Both will apparently start shipping on June 10th.

[Via Laptoping]
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We’ve seen 256GB and even 512GB SSD drives before, but they’ve so far been confined to the larger 3.5-inch form factor — not exactly the ideal solution to fulfill our dream of an all-SSD laptop with more storage than we’re ever likely to use. Well, it looks like Taiwanese manufacturer PQI is starting to bring that excessively-demanding dream a little closer to reality, recently unveiling a 2.5-inch SSD drive with a full 256GB of storage space. Unfortunately, there’s no word on what it’ll cost, although we’re sure it’ll be enough to dampen our enthusiasm considerably. That’s apparently not all PQI has up its sleeve though, with the company also set to release a 32GB SSD ExpressCard, a 32GB 1.8-inch SSD drive, and a high-speed 16GB CompactFlash card for good measure.

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We just got our grubby little paws on that new Palm Foleo. We’ll give you one guess about what we think. Ok, ok, look, it’s an interesting device and an interesting concept, and we’re long-time Palm fans. We like the scroll wheel, the keyboard and screen were very nice, and the browser works excellently (and with Flash! see the gallery). It’s wonderful that it works so well with your phone and all of that business, but we just can’t get behind this one. We need a better Treo, or we need a Foleo or like device that replaces your Treo — we don’t want both. No ifs, ands, or buts. We already have a laptop, and when you consider the fact that this thing is about the size and weight of a Dell X1 (ok, maybe a little larger), the user just doesn’t have a whole lot of reason to take one of these home. Ah whatever, Palm never listens to us anyway. Enjoy the gallery!

Gallery: Palm Foleo hands-on

    

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Hearing about Lenovo’s ThinkPad X61 shouldn’t come as a total surprise to anyone, but while leaked information always satisfies the pallet, official details on a few new machines in the X-series shouldn’t hurt. The X61 tablet will sport your choice of a 1.4GHz L7300 or 1.6GHz L7500 Core 2 Duo CPU, a 12.1-inch XGA or SXGA+ display, up to 160GB of hard drive space, up to 4GB of RAM, an optional dual-layer DVD writer (UltraBase required), Intel’s GMA X3100 graphics set, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, WWAN, a trio of USB 2.0 ports, up to eight-hours of claimed battery life from the eight-cell Li-ion, optional fingerprint scanner, an SD reader, and a PC Card slot with 34-millimeter ExpressCard adapter. The 12.1-inch X61s touts most of the same hardware as its tablet-based sibling albeit in a laptop form, while the X61 goes up to 2GHz with Intel’s T7300. All of the aforementioned units should be ready to ship next month, and the ThinkPad X61, X61s, and X61 tablet PC will purportedly start at approximately $1,484, $1,474, and $1,779, respectively. More shots of Lenovo’s latest after the break.

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