The Dell XPS 14z has a 14 inch screen yet Dell managed to squeeze it into a 13 inch laptop form factor. It is just 23mm thick and weighs 1.98kg. Still a bit heavy if you compare it with an ultrabook but it’s considered quite thin and light for a full 14 inch laptop. Choice of Intel Core i5 and Core i7 Dual Core processor. 4GB dual channel DDR3 memory. The 8 cell battery is non user removable and able to last up to 6 hours.

At the back of the XPS 14z is one mini display port, one HDMI port, one USB 2.0 port, one USB 3.0 port and one ethernet port. On the side is a SD card reader, headphone jack and microphone jack. The XPS 14z also comes with a built-in slot load DVD drive.

The chiclet keyboard looks beautiful. It’s backlit and spill-resistant. And most importantly, pretty comfortable to type with.

My only complaint is that all the USB ports are at the back of the laptop. It’s going to be a little inconvenient when you need to plug/unplug a thumbdrive or device.

The Dell XPS 14z is now available in Singapore with starting prices of S$1,449 for the Core i5 version and S$1,749 for the Core i7 version.

The Nokia Lumia 800 has a 3.7 inch WVGA (800×480) AMOLED ClearBlack display. The screen is 0.2 inch smaller than the Nokia N9. This is most likely because some of the space are taken up by the Windows button. The phone weighs just 142g. It has a 1.4Ghz Single Core processor which is slightly faster than the N9. 16GB internal memory, 512mb program memory. Wifi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack and microUSB port. And like the Nokia N9, the Lumia 800 uses a micro SIM card instead of the usual SIM card. And the battery is non-user removable.

The Nokia Lumia 800 has a 8 megapixel autofocus Carl Zeiss camera capable of 720p HD video recording. Strangely, the Lumia 800 doesn’t have a front facing camera unlike the N9. Skype fans and camwhore lovers might want to take note of this.

Like the Nokia N9, the Lumia 800 feels very sturdy. The body is precision-machined from a single piece of polycarbonate and flows seamlessly into beautiful curved glass. Screen is made from scratch–resistant gorilla glass.

The Nokia Lumia 800 also doesn’t come with NFC. This is a bit strange as Nokia is one of the strongest supporter for NFC.

Nokia differente itself from the rest of the Windows Phone 7 makers by including some value added applications. For example Nokia Music where you can buy songs (14 million tracks in catalog). Nokia Drive offers turn by turn voice navigation on a beautiful 3D map.

The Nokia Lumia 800 is available in Black, Cyan and Magenta. We don’t have the pricing yet. But Nokia said that it will be launched in Singapore by end of 2011. OK Nokia, you got less than 1 1/2 months.

Names aside, the Motorola RAZR looks really beautiful. It’s just 7.1mm thin. And because it is so thin, the battery is non-removable. But who cares about removable battery nowadays? The Motorola RAZR has a 4.3 inch qHD (690 x 540) Super AMOLED Advance screen. Has a 1.2GHz Dual Core processor, 16GB memory and 1GB DDR2 SDRAM. 8 megapixel rear camera capable of 1080p HD video recording and a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera. 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB port for data and charging, WIFI, Bluetooth and HDMI port.

The back of the phone is made with KEVLAR fibre coating. Yes, that’s the material they use for bulletproof vest. And no, it’s not bulletproof so don’t use it to block bullets. But the KEVLAR fibre coating makes the back of the Motorola RAZR looks beautiful and at the same time feels good in the hands. In fact, I love the KEVLAR fibre coating.

The Motorola RAZR comes preloaded with Motorola MotoCast app. MotoCast allows you to stream or download music, photos or documents from your computer straight to your Motorola RAZR wherever you are. All you need is internet connection.

The Motorola RAZR is currently running on Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread. But don’t worry, it will be upgradable to Ice Cream Sandwich. But no date given yet.

The Motorola RAZR is now available in Singapore at $888 without contract.

Pretty impressive huh? Who would expect that thumb drive can become so small nowadays. Now the only problem you need to worry is losing these tiny little thumb drives. Or children swallowing them (erk!)

The SanDisk Cruzer Fit comes in 4GB (S$12) to 16GB (S$36) capacities. Pretty affordable. Maybe I’ll buy a few and hang it on my keychain or something. Quite handy.

Unlike most tablets, the Sony Tablet S isn’t flat. It has a unique slight gradient which makes the tablet nice to hold yet not take up too much space in your bag.
The thinest point is 1.01cm thick while the thickest point is 2.06cm. The slope also prop the Sony Tablet S so that you can place it on the table and typing. But personally I feel that the slope is not high enough for comfortable typing. You might still need to find something to prop the tablet further. I guess the gradient is more for comfortable holding.

The Sony Tablet S weighs 598g and is 24.12 x 17.43 x 1.01/2.06 cm.

The Sony Tablet S runs on Android 3.2 Honeycomb and is powered by a 1GHz NVIDA Tegra 2 processor. 9.4 inch WXGA LED-backlit IPS screen (1280 x 800 pixel). SD card slot, MicroUSB port, 3.5mm headphone jack (also serve as a mono mic jack), WIFI, Bluetooth 2.1 and Infrared port. YES, there’s actually an Infrared port for remote control functionality like controlling your TV or HIFI. No joke.

There’s a 0.3 megapixel front facing camera and a 5 megapixel back facing camera. THe back facing camera is a HD camera powered by Exmor for mobile. I didn’t try the camera but I can expect it to be a very impressive camera based on my previous experience with the Sony Exmor sensor. But then, I’m never a fan of taking photo with a tablet. I think it looks stupid when you hold a 9 inch tablet up and take photo. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Sony did some customization to the tablet so that it can stand out among the thousands of Android tablets that are coming to the market. The Sony Tablet S is a DLNA certified device. Which means you can stream a video, music or picture to a DLNA compatible TV easily. Sony created an interface which makes it easy to “throw” your media files to a DLNA compatible device.

The browser is also customized with Quick View. Quick View is an exclusive Sony browser enhancement that reorder the way data is loaded to ensure website load faster. Basically it loads the text first follow by the data intensive image and flash stuff. A speed test with the standard Android browser show that the Quick View load website faster.

The Sony Tablet S is the first PlayStation Certified tablet. Original PlayStation games like Crash Bandicoot and Pinball Heroes are pre-installed on the Tablet. And since this is running on Android, you can get more games from the Android Marketplace.

The Sony Tablet S will be available in Singapore from end October. WIFI 16GB version cost S$668 and 32GB version cost S$798. Sadly, there isn’t any 3G version yet. Let’s hope Sony will release a 3G version soon.

Although I disagree with the marketing speech that this is the world’s first true gaming laptop, I must say that the specs and design looks really good.

Let’s start with the specs. 17.3 inch LED Backlit Display (1920×1080), 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-2640M CPU, GeForce GT555M GPU with 2GB of dedicated video memory, 8GB RAM and a 320GB 7200RPM harddisk. OK, besides the harddisk, everything looks impressive. And Razer managed to squeeze everything into a 42.69 x 27.69 x 2.23 cm form factor and weighs 3.16kg. 3.16kg may seems heavy for most people, but remember, this is a 17.3 inch laptop. It’s quite impressive that they manage keep it at 2.23cm thick.

What attract my attention about the Razer Blade is the Trackpad. Instead of being positioned below the keyboard like most laptops, the Trackpad on the Razer Blade is located on the right side of the keyboard. I’ve never tried serious gaming on a Trackpad before. I still think you need a mouse for PC gaming. But if you really want to try playing games like First Shooter using a Trackpad, I guess positioning it on the right side of the keyboard helps a bit.

But I think the main reason why they position the Trackpad on the right side of the keyboard is so that your hands won’t obstruct the display on the Trackpad. YES, The Trackpad is actually a 480 x 800 LCD screen which acts as secondary display when you plug in a mouse. The secondary display can be used to display mini maps, player stats etc etc. Razer will eventually release the API so that game makers can utilize the secondary display.

At the top of the Trackpad is 10 customizable dynamic keys. These keys’ image changes according to the games you are playing. Cool.

The Razer Blade will be released in North America in Q4 2011 at US$2799.99. No news on the Singapore release date and pricing yet.

We will most likely only see BlackBerry Curve 9360 in Singapore since all 3 telcos are using GSM network.

PS: I’ll just talk about the BlackBerry Curve 9360. But most of the things mentioned here should also apply to the 9350 and 9370 except for the network.

The Curve edition has always been the budget BlackBerry Phone. Although cheaper than the rest of the BlackBerry series, it is not short in features. The Curve 9360 has a 2.44 inch HVGA+ display capable of 480 x 360 pixel resolution at 246 ppi. 512MB on-board memory, expandable up to 32gB via microSD card. 5 Megapixel camera with VGA video recording. Standard stuff like WIFI, Bluetooth and GPS.

What surprised me was that RIM included NFC (Near Field Communications) on the BlackBerry Curve 9360. Most phone makers only put NFC on their high end model. It’s good to have NFC on the Curve. Although there isn’t much applications that uses NFC currently, we are expecting more NFC devices and applications in the next few years.

No news on when it will be available in Singapore or the pricing yet. But since this is the Curve, expect the price to be very attractive.

The HTC EVO 3D has a 4.3 inch screen with 540 x 960 qHD resolution 3D display. Runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread with HTC Sense 3.0 UI. Like the HTC Sensation, the HTC EVO 3D has a Qualcomm 1.2GHz dual core processor. But the EVO 3D has more RAM & ROM than HTC Sensation (1GB ROM and 1GB RAM). You have the usual stuff like WIFI, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS and microSD slot. The EVO 3D has a 3.5mm audio jack and a microUSB port for charging and data transfer.

The HTC EVO 3D is 12.6 x 6.5 x 1.205 cm and weighs 170g. Slightly heavier than the HTC Sensation.

Here’s the most interesting feature on the HTC EVO 3D. The 3D camera. To achieve 3D Photo and Video, the HTC EVO 3D has two 5 megapixel camera. What it does is basically take 2 photos at the same time and join them together to create the 3D effect. You can also take 720p 3D videos. But due to the arrangement of the 2 camera, you can only take 3D photos/videos in landscape mode.

Although the EVO 3D has a 5 Megapixel camera, it is only able to take 3D photos in 2 Megapixel resolution. 2D photos are still in 5 megapixel. The HTC EVO 3D has a switch beside the shutter button to let user toggle between 2D and 3D photo/video taking mode easily.

So what can you do after taking a 3D photo on the HTC EVO 3D? Well, you can view it directly on the HTC EVO 3D without wearing any 3D glasses. Or you can transfer it to any TV that supports 3D. For those who prefer to have a physical photo, you can send it to Fuji Film for lenticular printing. One 3D photo will cost you around S$8.

PS: This is what you get when you use a 2D camera to take a 3D photo. You won’t see any of the 3D-ness. In fact, you also won’t get the 3D-ness if you use a 3D camera to take a photo of the 3D photo. It doesn’t work this way.

The HTC EVO 3D comes bundled with some 3D games like Spiderman 3D and The Sims 3. I tried playing Spiderman 3D and quite like it. But I find that I get slight motion sickness after a while, just like what I had when I tried 3D games on the Nintendo 3DS. Maybe I’m just not cut out for 3D gaming after all.

3D is still at its early stage. There’s limited places where you can show off your 3D creation. 3D is still not widely adopted yet. But someone have to start the ball rolling, If you are interested in 3D photography and want to be an early adopter, the HTC EVO 3D is a good option.

BlackBerry 7 OS
The new BlackBerry 7 OS comes with a new BlackBerry browser with a significantly faster, more fluid web browsing experience. The advance WebKit browser engine together withhardware enhancement is able to deliver browsing results that are up to 40% faster than BlackBerry 6. The new browser also have optimised zooming and panning for smoother web navigation and optimised HTML5 performance.

The new BlackBerry 7 based smartphone also feature Liquid Graphics technology and dedicated graphics processor.

BlackBerry Bold 9900

I’ve played with the BlackBerry Bold 9900 few weeks ago. Quite like it. Check out my First Look posting.

BlackBerry Torch 9810

The BlackBerry Torch 9810 is the improved version of the current BlackBerry Torch 9800. Still have 3.2 inch screen and slide out keyboard. But comes with faster processor and BlackBerry 7 OS.

BlackBerry Torch 9860

The BlackBerry Torch 9860 is a 3.7 inch touchscreen phone without any physical keyboard. I was kinda expecting RIM to release a BlackBerry phone in this form factor. This is the largest screen smartphone ever from RIM.

No release date or pricing available yet for Singapore. Stay tuned.

The Sony Ericsson LiveDock is a dock with a MicroUSB cable for connecting and charging your phone. Sony Ericsson recommends that you pair the LiveDock with an Xperia phone. But I’m pretty sure the LiveDock’s charging feature works with any other phone with a MicroUSB port. But of course you might not be getting the extras if you are not using a Sony Ericsson Xperia phone.

The Sony Ericsson LiveDock is more than your average charging dock. The LiveDock has a USB port for you to connect a USB device such as keyboard, mouse or gamepad if the phone has support for USB OTG.

The LiveDock is the first accessory that supports ConnectLaunch. Developers will have the ability to configure their apps to work with the LiveDock thru ConnectLaunch.

The best part of about the LiveDock is that you can instantly launch your favourite apps when you dock your Android phone. All you need is to download Sony Ericsson’s LiveWare manager application which is available in the Android Market.

Each LiveDock have a “Unique ID” so that your Xperia phone will know where is it being docked. You can then configure your Xperia phone to launch certain apps when docked on different LiveDock. Ideally, you can place a LiveDock in the bedroom and configure it to launch the alarm clock when docked in the bedroom. Then configure it to launch the video player when docked on the LiveDock in the Living room, recipe app when docked in the kitchen and email client when docked on the LiveDock in your office. You get the idea. Come to think of it, this is very cool.

But let’s face it, how many people are going to own more than one LiveDock? Not many I guess.