Nokia has finally announced the availability of the long awaited Nokia N8 smartphone.

Although no specific date has been provided for those who pre-order it, a press release launched today does say it will be shipping to customers the last week of September.

As well as shipping for those who order online, the Nokia N8 will be made available in store from October 1 at Carphone Warehouse, O2, Orange, Phones4u, T-Mobile, Tesco Phone Shops, Three Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone.

As for prices, you will be able to get a SIM free version for £429 or get it for free on a £35/month contract.

Features include…
It will come bursting with new and exclusive Ovi apps
12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash
Record HD quality videos; edit using a unique, built-in editing suite and play-back with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound
Connect to your social networks and view live feeds from Facebook and
Twitter in a single app directly via up to three personalised home screens
Flick scrolling and pinch-to-zoom, plus a faster and more responsive user interface.

Nokia N8 Press Release

GET YOUR NOKIA N8 THIS MONTH!

London, September 8th – The much-anticipated Nokia N8 will be on-sale at the Nokia Online Shop for £429 SIM free or on contract from £35 per month.

Pre-order now at www.nokia.co.uk/N8 to make sure you’re one of the first to get a Nokia N8 when it goes on sale exclusively at the Nokia Online Shop during the last week of September.

The Nokia N8 will also be available from Carphone Warehouse, O2, Orange, Phones4u, T-Mobile, Tesco Phone Shops, Three Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone from Friday 1st October.

The Nokia N8 offers amazing functionality and usability:
It will come bursting with new and exclusive Ovi apps
12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash
Record HD quality videos; edit using a unique, built-in editing suite and play-back with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound
Connect to your social networks and view live feeds from Facebook and
Twitter in a single app directly via up to three personalised home screens
Flick scrolling and pinch-to-zoom, plus a faster and more responsive user interface.

Mark Loughran, General Manager, Nokia UK, says, “The Nokia N8 is a great multitasker, packed with market leading innovations, which include the best picture and video capability available on a smartphone.

“The Nokia N8 is perfect for creating and sharing great content in high-definition, using HDMI out to connect to your TV as well as hot-USB swap. We’re making it fun and easy to capture and share memorable moments on the go.”

Via: Engadget

Last night, Google GOOG added a new Google Doodle logo to it’s search home page. The new doodle indicates that Google Live-Updating results could be landing soon.

Recently, Google GOOG has been testing live-updating results that change as you type in a search phrase. A tweet by Google says…

Our doodle is dressing up in its brightest colors for something exciting coming very soon…

We don’t know for sure if it will be live-updating results that arrive although the logo certainly indicates it with how it works.

An event is happening in the morning at 9:30am PT where Google is expected to make an announcement.

Via: TechCrunch

By Chris Scott Barr

When it comes to living room seating, most people go for the usual pieces of furniture. These generally being a couch, loveseat, recliner and/or some other type of chair. Sure, couches are great because they seat multiple people, and allow for sleeping when needed. Recliners are nice if you want to lay back and watch TV without having to lie on your side the whole time. However, there is one piece of unconventional furniture that can do all of these things. That’s right, I’m talking about a bean bag.

There’s a chance that you had a bean bag when you were younger. They were great for sitting in front of the TV while watching movies or playing video games. Unfortunately, most such pieces of furniture never really lasted all that long. Over time the little beans lose their shape and the whole thing begins to fall, until your favorite seat is the most uncomfortable one in the house. Well in case you hadn’t heard, there’s a new bean bag out there, one not actually filled with tiny beans at all.

Sumo has actually been making their bean bag chairs for several years now, so I wouldn’t exactly call them new. However, they’re still interesting enough to warrant a review. They shipped us over one of their ‘SumoSac Couple’ chairs, which I have been lounging on for a couple of weeks now. Luckily I needn’t get out of it to write this piece.

As I said, the one I’m reviewing is the SumoSac Couple. This giant 48” x 48” x 36” chair is designed to hold two people. I’ve sat through several movies seated quite comfortably next to someone. Of course you’ll want to be comfortable with the person you’re sitting with, as you’ll be quite close to each other. With that said, I enjoy myself most when I have the entire thing to myself. There’s something to be said about diving into it from across the room and nestling into the very center.

Speaking of diving, this is something I actually do quite often. Rarely do I simply walk up to the chair and seat myself. See, it’s not actually filled with beans at all. Rather, Sumo fills them with a soft memory-foam that cushions your body nicely, and bounces right back into shape when you get up. With this larger size bag, I can hop onto my couch, then jump all the way into the bag, landing on my back without harming it one bit. It feels nearly indestructible. If you have kids, (or are an adult who still thinks they are one) then you’ll really appreciate this.

Speaking of kids, they are messy little creatures. They spill food and drink on everything, not to mention tracking in mud throughout the house instead of taking off their shoes. So naturally, they’re going to get this thing dirty. While Sumo doesn’t cover their chairs with a magic substance that makes them impervious to spills, they do make it easy to clean them up. The microsuede cover (available in 10 colors, or you can choose from one of four corduroy colors) is both removable and machine washable. Pizza sauce all over one side of it? Just remove the cover and toss it into the washer!

The only downside I can see about this chair is that it might be too large for some people’s homes. That’s not a bad thing though, as Sumo offers them in four sizes to fit your needs. Starting with the $199 Sumo Gamer, and ending with the  $399 Sumo Gigantor. The Couple is the second-largest of the four, coming in at $229.

If you’re looking for a new piece of furniture, and are wanting to think outside the norm, I highly suggest checking out these chairs from Sumo. They’re perfect for sitting in front of the TV, reading a book, doing homework, and just about anything else you’d want to do while sitting. Trust me, you’ll probably not want to sit anywhere else. I’ve not sat on my couch once since getting mine.

Sumo

By David Ponce

Ladies and gents, Wednesday’s deal is quoted directly from LogicBuy’s site:

HP direct store is offering up to $308 off + $25 web-use stackable coupon on the new HP Pavilion dm4t Laptop, customizable with Core i5 or Core i7 processors. Or configure over $1,249 and use $200 stackable coupon on top of $150 off instant savings. HP is also offering 50% off 6-cell and 12-cell batteries, FREE 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive, Free 4-year LoJack upgrade from 1 year ($70 value), 50% off 6 cell and 12 cell batteries, $20 off 15-month Norton Internet Security subscription and FREE shipping.

HP Pavilion dm4 14-inch Core i5 Laptop At $674.99 VIA LogicBuy

The Toshiba AC100 MID smartbook is now ready in the UK.

The Toshiba Smartbook is a Tegra 2 based system that runs the Google Android 2.1 operating system. Rather than using a basic vanilla 2.1 build, Toshiba has created a custom UI.

Price wise, it costs £292.52 including VAT. This gets you the non 3G model although it does still have wireless connectivity at 802.11b/g/n speeds as well as Bluetooth. For storage it has 8GB of flash memory.

The 3G model called the AC100-10U doesn’t have a launch date yet. When it does it will get a 2100MHz UMTS/HSPA modem as well as GSM/EDGE connectivity (quad band).

The smartbook has a 10.1 inch display that has a 1024 x 600 resolution.

Available from Toshiba.

Via: SlashGear

The Samsung Galaxy S has a fast CPU inside that allows it to shift three times the amount of triangles when compared to a Nexus One and iPhone 3GS.

The chip used inside is about to seem old though after a new announcement came today about a chip called the Samsung Orion. The Orion runs at 1GHz, but rather than being a single core device, it’s a dual-core which brings more power to devices it is used in.

The chip is an ARM Cortex A9 that Samsung say can achieve the following… “5 times the 3D graphics performance over the previous processor generation from Samsung,”.

That’s not bad going at all. The chip allows for up to three displays to be powered which could be connected via the HDMI 1.3a output on a smartphone.

The chip is launching towards the end of this year to select companies which probably means Samsung will be launching a Samsung Galaxy S 2 and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 mid next year with the chip and will also let a couple of other companies use it.

Via: Engadget

The Samsung Galaxy Tab UK price hasn’t been officially announced yet although it hasn’t prevented some places from speculating on the price.

Next up is Clove in the UK who has priced the Galaxy Tab up at £617 which takes it to around the $950 price point in USD. This price point gets you a 16GB Samsung Galaxy Tab that is SIM free and not locked on to a contract.

The £617 price tag also includes taxes.

From what we have seen across Europe it appears that off contract and not subsidised the Galaxy Tab will be more expensive than the Apple iPad. The price for the iPad in the UK is £529 which gets you the 16GB WiFi+3G model.

The Galaxy Tab in terms of technical specs has a 7 inch screen and runs the Android 2.2 operating system. With the 3G built in on all models, it also acts as a phone and Samsung haven’t locked down usage for that.

Lets hope Samsung make an official statement soon as the US price has been touted at $200 to $400 recently although at that price we assume users are tied in to a 2 year contract.

Via: SlashGear and Geeky Gadgets

We’ll take this one with a pinch of salt, but there are rumours going around that the Apple iPad could get an external camera to make FaceTime calls with it.

This rumour started because of the iOS 4.2 release date of November being mentioned last week at the Apple Special Event. In that presentation, Steve Jobs said that everything goes to the iPad for iOS 4.2 which included HDR photography amongst other things. The problem is that the iPad can’t do HDR without a camera and certainly can’t make FaceTime calls.

We think this was more of an oversight and that Jobs just happened to mention HDR but didn’t mean it. In terms of FaceTime, we also think that this wont be usable other than receiving video on calls.

If it is true and the iPad does get an external camera then we could see it in a few months time ready for the November iOS 4.2 release.

Another thing that “might” happen is the release of the iPad 2 with cameras integrated although it seems a little early to release a second model.

We’ll just have to wait and see if “everything to iPad” actually means that for first gen iPad owners.

Via: I4U

The Nokia N8 is expected to launch on September 30 after a many month wait. We also hear from NokNok that those who are pre-ordering the N8 will actually get it a week early on September 23.

The information comes from a Google Adwords ad that Nokia ran saying it would ship September 23 1 week before anyone (else).

Feature of the Nokia N8 include a HDMI connector allowing the device to hook up to a TV. A 12 megapixel camera for HD video, 16GB of internal memory as well as Ovi Maps preinstalled.

The only downside to the Nokia N8 is the amount of time it is taking to launch. With the phone being spotted in the first quarter of this year, we’ve kind of grown bored of waiting for it. Lets hope it ends up being as good as it originally looked.

Via: NokNok and GadgetLite

Nokia could be unveiling the Nokia E7 on September 14. The Nokia E7 is a touchscreen QWERTY device that could run the Symbian^3 OS.

As well as unveiling the E7, Nokia could use the event next week in London to make official the September 30 release date for the Nokia N8.

We don’t know much else about the E7 although if announced next week, we’ll get all the details to you as and when they happen.

Via: Coated