Dear Santa...

I know it is quite early to put in requests for Christmas presents but this morning I came across three very cool products and I would appreciate if you could get me at least one of them on Christmas day.

(1) Sony ODO wind-up camera

How can't I fall in love with this device? It's definitely one of the coolest things I've seen in quite some time. Plus I'd just love to pull that thing out when out in bars or partying somewhere else. You think an iPhone 3G gets you attention, wait until you pull out the ODO, recharge it on the bar-counter (avoiding all the beer and shot glasses that will undoubtably be there) and snap a photo of that gorgeous waitress!

(2) BlackBerry Bold

Even though I was lucky to recover my stolen mobile phone (thank you WMATA!) which I had reported missing back in June I can't help but drool over the BlackBerry Bold. In my opinion this is the most desirable mobile phone at the moment (take that Apple!) even though I'm admittedly also intrigued by the upcoming BlackBerry Storm (the phone formerly known as Thunder). In case you can't get a Bold I'd also be willing accept a Nokia E71.

(3) Eee PC 901 GO with built-in 3G

I've been following the whole UMPC / MID / NetBook story since day 1 (see umpcportal.com, jkkmobile.com and eeepcnews.de for all the news you're ever going to need) and we're finally getting to a point where I can seriously consider products from those device categories. While I love my OLPC XO sometimes I wouldn't mind something a little beefier in terms of the processing speed. Currently there are four products that I'm seriously considering:

Asus eee PC 901: Love the size and battery life, not sure about the keyboard though. Having 3G included would be a big plus!
Asus eee PC 1000H: Battery life and keyboard sound great but might be a tad too big so I'll have to look at one in person before I could commit to it.
Dell Inspiron 910: Need to wait for the first reviews but that one could be a good choice too.
MSI Wind: Available today, good keyboard but the relatively short battery life could be a deal-breaker.

Getting a subsidized device in combination with a 3G contract would be quite appealing to me so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for T-Mobile to also bring this offer to Austria. On the other hand I'm still not 100% sure I want to get such a netbook and will definitely wait to see which products the u:book program (high quality notebooks selected by university and sold to students at very attractive prices) has on offer this time 'round.

Update: Please forget what I said above, if you really want to make me happy then bring me one of those just announced Samsung X360s!

Full disclaimer: I actually believe in the Christkind.

iPhone sales

1/3 of all iPhones were sold in New York.
1/3 in San Francisco.
1/3 elsewhere.

And Research in Motion owns the phone market in Washington, DC because literally everyone here (or at least everyone riding the Metro) has a BlackBerry.

These are the results of my extensive research into the topic over the past few weeks. Don't believe anything else, it's all lies lies lies.

Move over iPhone...

I'm still happy with my Nokia 6120c for now but there's a couple of *very* interesting phones showing up these days. In terms of "oh-my-god-me-wants-to-have" my favourite is the HTC Touch Diamond which was introduced earlier this week. Coming up strong in the "I'm a tool, a very effective tool" category is the BlackBerry 9000 which really looks like a kick-ass product.

Don't get me wrong, I'm lusting for an iPhone just like the next guy - especially once it shows up with 3G in early June - however I do believe that these two alternatives and especially the BlackBerry 9000 could end up being better mobile productivity tools as compared to a fancy multimedia focused fashion-gadget.