CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Best of Smartphone Experts, Jan 23 2011

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Like other tablets before it, the Motorola Xoom is looking to make it’s sale debut over at Best Buy on the 17th of February, according to Engadget.  Details show that the pricing appears to be starting out at a steep $700 buckaroos with 32GB onboard.  This puts it in the price range of the original 32GB 3G  iPad which costs $730. Read More…

Motorola Xoom expected to be released on Feb 17th at Best Buy for $700

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When the iPhone 4 launched on Verizon’s network, those wishing to purchase it at Best Buy will be directed to AT&T’s version of the handset. It sounds like Best Buy will be squarely focused on Big Red’s 4G initiatives, and as such will be the exclusive retailer of the HTC Thunderbolt when it lands on Verizon’s LTE bands come the end of February.

As the exact release details are not set in stone as of right now, this could change by the time the ThunderBolt hits store shelves. Either way, it sounds like those wanting to jump onto the Verizon iPhone will have to search elsewhere, as Best Buy is committed to VZW’s 4G Android lineup.

[via IntoMobile]

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I’ve got a pretty long commute to work and one of the must have functionalities for me is something that would allow me to kill the time.  That’s why Im a huge pod cast buff.  In my opinion, a good pod cast player is difficult to come by these days.  For quite some time, it appeared that Apple has cornered the market with their pod cast integration on iTunes.  And while there are several apps available today on the Android Market for listening to your favorite pod casts, like Google Listen and aCast, I thought it might be worth while to mention another contender that I have been using seamlessly for my pod casting amusement.  DoggCatcher, an excellent pod cast player, is available on the market and is arguably one of the best pod cast players around for the Android platform.   Read More…

DoggCatcher For Android, Best Pod Casting App?

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CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Best of Smartphone Experts, Jan 9 2011

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Wired is celebrating the best of CES but giving their rundown of the 9 best Android smartphones they saw at the show. Their absolute favorite seems to have been the Motorola Atrix, mainly because of its dock. They also give a lot of love to the Droid Bionic, which they describe as speedy and sleek, in spite of the enormous screen — but with an 8 megapixel camera, that big screen really comes in handy. The EVO Shift is the smaller, svelte little brother of the bigger EVO with a slide-out keyboard. The LG Optimus 2X is loved for being the powerful phone in which nVidia’s Tegra-2 makes its premier. The Xperia Arc has a very sleek design and an 8 megapixel camera with an actual lens. The Optimus Black they praise just for its design, but they didn’t get a chance to play with it. The LG Revolution gets props for being Verizon’s first 4G phone, and because it just generally looks awesome. The Cliq 2 looks pretty slick, being pretty much the EVO Shift with a very slightly larger screen and a 1GHz processor. And the Samsung Infuse has the best processor we’ve seen yet, at 1.3GHz.

Best of Show: 9 Best Android Phones at CES

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In the mobile and tech world we’re used to hearing time frames that are followed by delays. When the opposite happens, it’s a thing of beauty, and it appears a few potential Sprint EVO 4G Shift customers enjoyed a thing of beauty because they’re not “potential” owners any more. And they’ve got the receipts to prove it.

First off, Android Forums member “sarspants” snagged it for $149 at Radio Shack:

But that’s not the only place it popped up… Engadget readers reported the same from BestBuy and Sam’s Club.

If you’re eagerly awaiting the EVO 4G Shift, this is a friendly note that you may want to give your local Best Buy or Sam’s Club a call. And either way, you’ll probably want to head on over to our EVO Shift 4G Forums to follow the action with your friends.

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Image by ThinkGeek

Over on his Ironic Sans blog, David Friedman has posed the ultimate idea for a Kickstarter (microfunding) project: putting a replica of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey on the moon. He’s thinking it’ll take $500,000,000, and wants 5 million geeks to donate $100 each. I think the industrious GeekDad community could design that cost downwards significantly. Pose your ideas in the comments!

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CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Best of Smartphone Experts, 2 Jan 2011

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"And the Golden Meeple goes to…"

I don’t know about you, but 2010 was a great year for board games. Although it hasn’t always been easy getting people over for game night (much of my core group of gamers is currently in college), I’ve gotten to try out a whole lot of different games this year and so have several of other GeekDad contributors.

It’s hard to narrow down the list to just a few, but we’ve picked some of our favorite games that we reviewed last year. Note: not all of these games were released in 2010; that’s just when we wrote about them. However, the majority were new games.

Jonathan’s Picks:

• Best Picture: Iconica – Gorgeously designed and fun to play
• Best Stunts: The Adventurers – Press your luck, Indiana Jones style
• Best Supporting Actors: Forbidden Island – Cooperate or die
• Best Comedy: Sounds Like a Plan – Laugh-inducing advice
• Best Original Game Mechanic: Wok Star – Real-time food prep
• Most Deduction: Mystery Express – Like Clue on Expert mode
• Most Monsters: Thunderstone – Deck-building monster-slaying
• Winning Words: Scrabble Flash – Addicting electronic word-building
• Best Makeup: Last Night on Earth/Invasion from Outer Space (tie) – Fantastic theme and setting
• Best Adaptation: Small World – Incredibly satisfying territorial dominance game

Jenny’s Picks:

• Best Original Story: Rory’s Story Cubes – Storytelling with dice
• Best Use of Acrylic: Pajaggle – More than a puzzle (also reviewed on GeekMom)
• Best Family Game: Word on the Street – Word-making for all ages
• Best, Uh, Um …: Anomia – What was I saying again?

Michael’s Picks:

• Best Halloween Game: Betrayal at House on the Hill – Explore a spooky haunted house
• Best Game for Four-Year-Olds: Rush Hour Jr. – Get the ice cream truck out of the traffic jam

Of course, there are some notable games that we’ve played in 2010 that we just haven’t gotten to review quite yet, but we’re looking forward to telling you all about those in 2011. Until then, happy gaming!

How about you—what were your favorite discoveries this past year?

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Here are the 5 Best Android Apps that we have reviewed for December 2010 in no particular order.

Angry Birds Seasons Android App
The Angry Birds Seasons Android App by Rovio Mobile is a seasons and holiday version of the Angry Birds game. This game features theme and holiday New Angry Birds levels.

Dungeon Defenders: First Wave Android App
The Dungeon Defenders: First Wave Android App by Trendy Entertainment is an online cooperative Action-RPG meets Tower Defense game for the Android platform.

Game Dev Story Android App
The Game Dev Story Android App by Kairosoft Co.,Ltd is a simulation game where the object is to manage your own game company and try to create a million-selling game.

Sketchbook Mobile Android App
The Sketchbook Mobile Android App by Autodesk Inc. is a professional grade paint and drawing app for the Android platform. The app offers a full set of sketching tools and a streamlined and intuitive user interface.

Toyshop Adventures Android App
The Toyshop Adventures Android App by Glu Mobile is a game for the Android platform where the object is to help the shopkeeper find his special marbles that he has lost. To collect the marbles you will make your way through the toy shop over coming obstacles along the way.

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And you know what that means! Full retail for the Nexus S, if you can’t wait. It’s unclear if this is an issue across the board, or if only certain locations are going through T-Mobile activation withdrawals.

Has anyone been able to activate a new line of service, regardless of device, through any Best Buy medium over the past week? Let’s see if we can pin down what is going on and who is affected, if Best Buy doesn’t want to play nice.

[via BGR]

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The folks over at BGR are reporting that Best Buy’s ability to activate T-Mobile lines for the Nexus S is down, and has been for nearly a week. Now because of this little snafu, some customers have been complaining that Best Buy’s only answer is to make the customers purchase the phone for the full retail price unlocked.

This story has not been fully confirmed yet, and until a formal statement or some additional evidence becomes available, we’re placing this one in the rumor column. If any of you have run into this problem, please leave us a comment below and share your story. Stay tuned.

Best Buy reportedly unable to activate Nexus S T-Mobile lines, forcing customers to pay full retail price?

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

A few days ago we started noticing that Best Buy was stocking items with the chosen name Sprint Evo Shift 4G on the accessory packaging, and it looks like Best Buy may be stocking up on accessories again bearing the same name. This may be a gear up for a January 9th 2011 launch date as leaked by RadioShack a couple days ago, but regardless, they are getting ready for it soon. Just need to wait it out a few days, and I’m sure we’ll hear an official date from Sprint and HTC.

Best Buy Stocking more HTC Evo Shift 4G accessories

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No surprise here, the eReader turned full-on-tablet has landed itself the number one spot on Barnes & Noble’s holiday best seller list this year.

If you were holding off on this device because you just can’t part with Kindle books, you no longer have that excuse.

Full Press Release:

NOOK™ Line of eReading Devices Becomes
Barnes & Noble’s Biggest Bestseller in Its History
NOOKcolor™ is Company’s Top Holiday Gift

Millions of NOOK™ Devices and Expansive Digital Catalog Combine to Result in Nearly One Million NOOKbooks Sold on Christmas Day

New York, New York – December 30, 2010 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced that with millions of NOOK eReading devices sold, the line has become the company’s biggest bestseller ever in its nearly 40-year history. The new NOOKcolor Reader’s Tablet, introduced just eight weeks before Christmas, is the company’s number one selling gift of the holiday season. Barnes & Noble also announced that it now sells more digital books than its large and growing physical book business on BN.com, the world’s second largest online bookstore. With its growth across device and NOOKbook™ sales over the critical holiday selling season, Barnes & Noble has successfully established itself as a leader in digital reading.

Demand for the critically acclaimed NOOKcolor remained high following the product’s introduction in late October through the holidays. Sales have continued to exceed the company’s high expectations. In addition to a great customer response, NOOKcolor has received high praise and critical acclaim from leading technology and consumer media outlets including being named "Editors’ Choice" and the "Best Android Tablet of The Year." The company also experienced robust sales for its award-winning line of NOOK 3G and Wi-Fi devices, which feature an E-Ink display and a color touchscreen for navigation.

The company also reported record holiday sales from its comprehensive two-million-title catalog, including nearly one million NOOKbooks purchased and downloaded on Christmas Day alone. Through Barnes & Noble’s eReading offerings, customers can buy and read their NOOKbooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOKcolor, NOOK 3G, Wi-Fi®, and using NOOK apps on popular devices including iPad™, iPhone®, Android™ smartphones and more. Among the best-selling titles of the holiday season were James Patterson’s Cross Fire, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Confession by John Grisham, and Decision Points by former U.S. President George W. Bush.

"NOOKcolor became the gift of choice over the holidays for people who love to read everything – books, magazines, newspapers, children’s books and more – in rich, beautiful color," said William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble. "The success of NOOKcolor, along with our unique ability to market NOOK devices to readers in our stores and through our strong channel partnerships with Best Buy, Walmart and Books-a-Million, resulted in the continued explosive growth of our Digital Content business and our NOOK line, our most successful products ever. We have a large online book business at BN.com, that’s been recently growing. And the fact that eBook unit sales now exceed physical book sales through BN.com, illustrates how quickly we’ve grown this exciting new business at Barnes & Noble."

NOOKcolor is the first full-color touch Reader’s Tablet that integrates books, magazines, newspapers and children’s books – all in amazing, rich color in a device that weighs less than a pound. It features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen and is the most social reading device ever built. NOOKcolor is available at your local Barnes & Noble store and at www.NOOKcolor.com, as well as Best Buy, Walmart and Books-A-Million stores.

[via Crunch Gear]

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Back in November we brought you a look at ADWLauncher freaky beta. I know when I first saw it, I was all over the place trying to get a copy of the beta release. Now AnderWeb has finally launched the highly anticipated application to the market, called ADWLauncher EX.

First impressions of this application. FAST! It is really fast, very clean and talk about full customization. There really isn’t anything you can’t do with this home replacement. Rather then just vomit up some stuff about this app I’ll let the developer tell you what this is all about.

¿What makes ADW different?
It’s highly customizable, almost in every aspect you can think of
-Hundreds of themes to enjoy!
-Screens editor to add,remove and swap your desktop screens.
-Icons editor to create your own customized shortcuts or edit existing ones
-Customizable main dock with support for fixed shortcuts from 0 to 5.
-Customizable hidden dockbar easy to trigger with support for unlimited icons with scroll. Just swipe up your finger over the main dock to reveal the hidden one, swipe down to return to the main one!
-Lots of settings to play with: colours, animations, sizes… you should dig in!

-5 different app drawer styles/behaviors
—3D Nexus One like application drawer
—2 different plain vertical drawer styles, the “old one” and a new fast and smooth one
—2 different Iphone-like horizontal application drawers, a traditional paginated one and a new one with continuous fling
-Different desktop transitions: new animations while navigating through your desktop screens. Try them all, they’re crazy!!!
-New Icons configurations/look and feel: Tweak your desktop icons, change its sizes, add coloured backgrounds, change font size, color, etc!
-New fast presets mode: Quickly change the whole desktop configuration by 1 click!
-Editable desktop icons for applications, shortcuts and folders!
-Lots of code improvements
-More, more more to come!!

I don’t think I really need to say anything more then what you have just read. I highly recommend this application if you are on LauncherPRO or even the previous AWD.Launcher, you need to go buy this one ASAP. It is currently the best home replacement application on the market, in my opinion.

Click or Scan the QRCode below to find out more information about the ADWLauncher EX application. 

Summary and Downloads:

Application: ADW.Launcher EX
Developer: AnderWeb
Cost: $3.43

View full post on AndroidSPIN

Android Police got a hold of the above image which clearly shows the Sprint bound HTC EVO Shift 4G could be yours for $149.99, $549.99 sans two year agreement.

This QWERTY laden device is on track to make good on its rumored launch date, January 9th, and could be a great alternative to those of you that decided the Epic 4G just wasn’t the device you wanted, but really want to see what all the WiMax hubbub is all about.

[via Android Police | Seen on Into Mobile]

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CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Best of Smartphone Experts, 26 Dec 2010

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Didn’t get that shiny new Android phone you wanted this holiday season? Well, Best Buy has you covered, with a grand total of five new Android devices for the low low price of $0 with a new 2-year contract. The five phones are the Droid Incredible, LG Optimus S, LG Optimus T, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, and the LG Vortex.

So, if one of these phones tickles your fancy, hit up the Best Buy page here for all the juicy details.

Best Buy offering five Android phones for free with new 2-year contract

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Best By is starting to stock accessories for the new 4G smartphones from Sprint expected to be announced at CES 2011 in a few days. The name on the package shows that Sprint has decided to stick with the name Evo Shift 4G for the device, as seen above. Since Best Buy is stocking, the device should be available nation-wide within a couple weeks. The device should be priced at approximately $150 with a 2 year contract, and $549 without a contract.

We’ll see more at CES.

Sprint Picks Name as Evo Shift 4G Accessories Show at Best Buy

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So you thought your 4.3 inch Android phone was big, or maybe you got yourself an even bigger tablet recently…  well guess what?  It Doesn’t Matter How Big Your Toy Is, because there’s a Best Buy in San Carlos California that takes the crown for having the largest Android phone – a Google Nexus S, and amazingly, it’s fully functional.

Yep, this bad boy has a working 42 inch touchscreen, a working camera, working apps, and even an internet connection.  How did they do it?  Easy, it’s actually powered by a real Nexus S with special video out and other special connections.   You won’t have any problems reading websites on this bad-boy.  Then again, it won’t fit in your pocket either.

Google has stated that this giant Nexus S is just a test run demo for now, and if people don’t break it, they will place more of these displays in other Best Buys.  Can’t get enough ginormous Nexus S?  Then hit the jump to see a video of it in action at the store.

Read More…

Giant 42-inch Google Nexus S lands at Best Buy

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When reproducing HTML on paper, not all browsers are equal.

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Prices keep on dropping for the Samsung Galaxy Tab running Android 2.2, and Best Buy is showing the Verizon Galaxy Tab dropping $100 off the no contract price from $599 to $499!

“What’s the catch?” you say…well, you do have to sign up for your first month, then after that, you’re free to leave and go on without a contract from one of the monthly price points listed below;

• $20/month for 1GB
• $35/month for 3GB
• $50/month for 5GB
• $80/month for 8GB

Seems like a pretty good deal for the Galaxy Tab considering it hasn’t been out just over a month. Will this new price convince you to grab one?

Verizon Galaxy Tab Drops to $499 at Best Buy

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CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Best of Smartphone Experts, 19 Dec 2010

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