The Bugatti Veyron’s million dollar price tag is somewhat justified given what the car is capable of, but I’m afraid I can’t say the same for this ‘Bugatty’ car-shaped cellphone. I mean it’s got all the basic features one would expect to find in a candybar touch-screen cellphone these days, but $200 for a run-of-the-mill, quad-band, gray market handset that doesn’t include a warranty whatsoever is asking a little much. In fact if the price tag doesn’t scare you off, the warning posted by UCables right on the product page should:

Warning:
1. China Mobile Phones does not come with CE certification marking. Any purchase is at your own risk.
2. You solely accept the full risk of any package (or part thereof) being detained by customs for whatever reason and acknowledge and agree that you will not hold IPmart liable for such packages or loss, for whatever reason being unable to be delivered to you.
3. You will also not hold IPmart responsible if the mobile phone does not work within the network coverage of your mobile phone service provider.

So in other words, proceed with caution.

[ 'Bugatty' Car-Shaped Cellphone ] VIA [ GadgetReview ]

By Chris Scott Barr

AT&T has received a lot of grief over their 3G speed and reliability, mostly from iPhone users. Being an iPhone user myself, I tend to agree with such statements. It’s usually not too bad, unless you’re in a crowded area where other people may be sucking up the bandwidth. While I can’t make any direct comparisons, my Sprint 3G card consistently loads pages on my laptop faster than my phone’s 3G connection through AT&T. What’s interesting is that a recent PC World test of the four major carriers, AT&T came out on top for speed and reliability for 3G.

In almost every city tested, AT&T had faster upload and download speeds than the other three carriers. In fact, on average they were 67 percent faster. It sounds like Apple might not be so crazy for sticking it out with AT&T. Granted, their coverage map is still a bit spotty, which means most areas aren’t able to see this awesome speeds.

VIA [ PC World ]

By Gaurav Kheterpal

There is some good news - Google Voice is finally available on the iPhone. However, the bad news is that it runs on your iPhone’s browser and not as a native application. Google has been trying hard to convince Apple to allow Google Voice on iPhone but, no dice.

Google then simply decided to take the matter into its own hands and developed a web version which can be accessed by any HTML browser running on the iPhone. It is recommended to add shortcuts to your home screen for the most important features such as Dialer, Compose SMS, Inbox and Contacts. Something is better than nothing and Google Voice running on the browser is certainly better than no Google Voice on your iPhone.

[ Google Voice ] VIA [ CSMonitor ]

While they had little to no information about the phone itself, the good people at Texas Instruments were showing off this unnamed Samsung phone (I believe the model # 9600 was thrown around?) since it features a built-in DLP-based projector. While it’s not as thin as the Nexus One or the iPhone, it’s still remarkably compact given there’s a projector crammed inside! And a decent one at that!

Now a crumpled piece of copier paper isn’t the most ideal thing to use as a projection screen, but to be honest it’s pretty close to real world conditions. I mean if I was at my desk and wanted to show someone something via the projector, it’s probably the first thing I would reach for. And the projected image was suitably bright with decent contrast, so we’re definitely getting there!

Jealous of all those new-fangled cellphones that come with built-in projectors these days? Well the HypnosEye will level the playing field. It seems to work like an overhead projector, using a mirror and lens to magnify and project the display from your cellphone onto a wall, ceiling or other surface. There’s no light source of its own, so you’ll need to set the brightness on your phone’s display as high as it can go for best results, which also means it will probably work better with devices with large LCDs like the iPhone, iPod Touch, Zune etc. Unfortunately though the $117 price tag from the Japan Trend Shop pushes this well out of the novelty purchase price range, particularly when the results as seen in the video I’ve included after the jump aren’t great.

[ HypnosEye Projector and Screen Set ]

By Chris Scot Barr

I know a few people that text all the time. I seriously can’t have a five-minute conversation with them without getting interrupted by their stupid phone. Even watching them go about their daily lives, they have to stop whatever it is they’re doing, and shoot off another text. It’s made me wonder how textaholics manage when they first have children. Do they text less? Will they actually grow an extra appendage? The real answer is that they’ll find new and inventive ways to text while still paying the bare minimum amount of attention to their child. Behold the Texthook.

Pushing a stroller and texting probably isn’t easy (nor is it the most brilliant of ideas), so why not take some of the effort out by mounting your phone to said stroller? That is exactly what the Texthook is all about. It’s a simple device that will allow you to mount a variety of phones to the handle of your stroller. For just $26 you too can be oblivious to the world around you while pushing your child into potentially dangerous situations.

[ Texthook ] VIA [ FoolishGadgets ]

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of LG Chocolate Touch. All opinions are 100% mine.

Update: Well now you can win your very own LG Chocolate Touch! To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post about your very first phone. Or Tweet out a message containing the URL of this blog post as well as the hashtag #VX8575. Sadly this is US only. Full set of rules: here.

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By David Ponce

Verizon has recently made available the most recent incarnation of the LG Chocolate line of phones in the LG Chocolate Touch VX8575 . Like the previous generations, the Chocolate Touch has an emphasis on music, though it’s an altogether pretty rounded out phone.

Out of the box, the device seems slim and light, though not of any dimensions we haven’t seen before. The screen is a bright 3 inches with WQVGA resolution and support for 262k colors. It comes 1GB of internal music memory, though it’s expandable up to 16GB through MicroSD cards. Rounding out the main specs, you have a 3.2MP digicam, 3.5mm audio jack and a “Patented Dolby Mobile music system”.

The music features definitely stand out.

Not only is the music quality superb but the player is well designed; tracks are arranged in a logical manner and easily accessible commands allow you to control your music intuitively. Additionally you’ve got a couple of features I hadn’t come across before: “Rhythmical Beat” and “Join the band”. The former vibrates the handset to the beat of your music and works quite well. The latter opens up a screen with access to a set of drums and a sliding keyboard so you can add your own track to the music. Not all that useful, sure, but a fun music-centered way to spend a few minutes fooling around with your tracks.

The device is $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and two-year customer agreement.

[ LG Chocolate Touch ]

By David Ponce

If you’ve never heard of Swype, it’s a company that’s looking to change the way we enter text into mobile devices. So far, you’ve had two options: T9 and iPhone-like qwerty keyboards. Three options, really, if you count Multitap, but who uses that anyway? All these methods involve tapping distinct buttons. Swype however has you moving your finger from one letter to the next, without ever lifting it. This makes for one-handed text input that’s supposed to feel natural and intuitive. The system essentially makes out what you’re trying to say from what looks like a bunch on unintelligible squibbles. Early reviews were positive and now the company has announced that the first Swype-enabled phone to hit the market will be the Omnia II, on Verizon, on December 2nd.

The above video shows a side by side comparison of Swype versus someone typing on the iPhone. Never mind that the iPhone user is obviously challenged and types slower than my grandmother would. What’s interesting is to see Swype in action, and keep in mind that it’s one-handed.

[ Swype ] VIA [ Techcrunch ]

At what point did video arcades go from fun zombie killing and racing games, to simulators recreating mundane tasks like cooking and now text messaging?! That’s right, the Textminator (that’s what it’s really called) features a set of stainless steel phone-like keypads that allow 1 or 2 players to compete in a series of texting challenges including an arcade mode and racing the clock. It’s even got a built-in camera allowing egomaniacs to snap a photo of themselves for the high-score board. Now I know there are cellphone users out there who pride themselves on their texting speed, but why would anyone want to pay the $1 or $2 this elaborate setup will no doubt charge to prove their texting prowess when they can just do it on the cellphones they’re already paying for?!

[ Textminator ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

It might be specifically designed for kids and the elderly, but the clean design and oversized keypad of the iNO CP09 mobile phone makes me want one for those times when I need to stay in touch, but don’t want a lot of bells and whistles. In addition to the easy to read buttons, the CP09 features a basic, though detailed, monochrome LCD display with an orange backlight, as well as an FM radio with a standard headphone jack on the bottom of the phone. And in the event of an emergency, there’s a dedicated ‘SOS’ button on the back which sounds an alarm and contacts a pre-programmed phone number when pressed.

[ iNO CP09 ] VIA [ Newlaunches ]