Droid 2, Nook, Samsung Galaxy S Angle for Holiday Tech Dollars

by Nicholas Kolakowski

The BlackBerry Torch 9800 is now offered in red and white, for those BlackBerry fans who just can’t stand black any longer. RIM hopes consumers and businesses both will gravitate to the slider devices.

The Motorola Droid 2 features a 3.7-inch display, a 5-megapixel camera and a redesigned slide-out keyboard. Its Android 2.2 (“Froyo”) operating system supports Flash Player 10.1.

Fans of Star Wars can also buy a limited-edition Droid 2 “skinned” with R2-D2, those movies’ comic-relief droid.

Motorola’s Flipout with Motoblur is a compact device with a rotating, five-row QWERTY keypad. It runs Android 2.1, features a 3-megapixel camera and is touch-screen enabled.

Motorola Bravo with Motoblur includes a 3.7-inch touch screen, Android 2.1, a 3-megapixel camera and a slim form factor.

The Samsung Epic 4G offers a 1GHz processor, 16GB of memory, a sliding QWERTY keyboard and an ultra-crisp 4-inch Super AMOLED screen.

The Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot by Sierra Wireless, provided through Sprint.

Barnes & Noble hopes its new Nook Color (left) will help it carve market share away from Amazon.com’s Kindle. On the right, B&N’s grayscale Nook.

Acer’s Aspire 5745DG-3855 3D notebook draws power from an Intel Core i5 processor and boasts a 15.6-inch monitor.

Acer’s Aspire 8943G includes an 18.4-inch monitor and Dolby-optimized surround-sound system.

Tougher than conventional glass, Gorilla Glass is finding its way into many of this season’s mobile devices.

The MyFord Touch system replaces a vehicle’s traditional buttons with LCD screens and, on the steering wheel, the same type of five-way buttons found on MP3 players and television remote controls.

Samsung’s 740 Series SSD (solid-state drive) offers 64GB, 128GB or 256GB in an ultra-compact package.

The 3M Shoot ‘n Share can project a 63-inch image, record HD 720p (1,280 by 720) videos and 5-megapixel images, and offers up to 32GB of removable storage.

Iomega’s eGo portable-drive series.

Iomega is also offering an external SSD storage unit, with a choice of 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities.

Single-core Intel Atom processors are powering a number of upcoming Windows 7-equipped tablets from smaller manufacturers.

Intel is reportedly developing lower-power Oak Trail Atom processors for a 2011 release, which Microsoft plans to use for a more intensive push into the tablet PC space.

Although netbooks have been overshadowed by the burgeoning tablet market, manufacturers still plan on selling them this holiday season. Many will use a dual-core Atom processor.

Although Lenovo hasn’t officially announced a refresh for its ThinkPad line, reports suggest one will arrive in early 2011-roughly the same schedule as the 2010 refresh.

Fujitsu’s scanners, such as the S1300 and the S1500, let users scan documents right into their organizer software. Its upcoming S1100 (not shown) is a slim and ultraportable variant on the theme.