I'm a big wine geek and I'm always looking for a way to either save money on wine or try new ones on the cheap, so I'm really psyched about these two new sites I recently discovered. One launched today (at 12am) — it's called CinderellaWine.com. (Not the best of names, IMO.) The site is part of the Wine Library network. (I purchase from WL every now and then and have been to their store in NJ. I like it.)
Every night at midnight, CinderellaWine.com will list one wine at a super cheap price. So cheap, that they promise to beat the lowest price for that wine on Wine-Searcher (Wine-Searcher is like PriceGrabber for wines.) I checked the site out at midnight this morning and it was down. I'm guessing too many ppl logged on and their servers buckled. By the time 12.05am came, the wine was sold out. The site is up and running now with a new wine, but that wine sold out as I wrote this post. That sucks.
There's a competing site called Wines Til Sold Out, which does the same thing. (Minus the Wine-Searcher promise.) They've been around a lot longer and list the wine reviews right on the homepage.
I've never used either of the sites, but I'm gonna try both of them out and see who offers the best discount, quickest delivery, best wines (anyone can sell a crap wine for cheap), best customer service, and which one I prefer. Who knows, I make like 'em both. I know there's also Wine Woot, but Dan mentioned they're kinda meh. I'll try to order from CinderellaWine and Wines Til Sold Out this week and post a quick update when I do.
A few years ago when I graduated from college my dad gave me this Tourneau watch as a graduation gift. (My dad normally doesn't give gifts, but when he does they tend to be kick arse.) I've worn the watch since then and it's been with me everywhere — from Paris to Barcelona to the little Mexican food joint next to the dealnews office. However, back in August, I made the mistake of keeping it on while going for a dip in the ocean. Immediately after, the lens fogged up and it stopped ticking. (I'm guessing the lens was scratched and water seeped in.)
So I bought it to the Tourneau store on Columbus where I knew they would fix it for free, but unfortunately, they couldn't. They told me they no longer made that model and instead offered me to "trade-up." I asked how much they would give me for the watch, but they wouldn't tell me. Instead the rep told me to pick a new watch I liked and "then we would talk." Mind you, none of the watches at the store had a price tag. Suddenly I felt like I was at a car dealership, so I took took my watch to Macy's, where I knew they also repaired watches. Unfortunately, they told me the same thing. They no longer make the part that I need.
So I began to research Tourneau's "trade-up" policy online. Nada. I know it exists (they mention it on their website), but there's almost no information on it. However, with a little Google magic, I found a few details and it appears it involves some haggling. I hate haggling. I'm horrible at it. I always feel guilty that I'm cheating someone out of a salary and some parent isn't gonna be able to buy dinner for their children 'cause of my haggling. So here's what I found online.
When doing a trade-up at Tourneau, the more expensive your new watch is, the more you'll get for your old watch. The "cheaper" your new watch is, the less you'll get. And they only tell you the value of your old watch after selecting a new one. Now the problem is, most of their watches are $1,500 and up. Way too expensive for my wallet. (I saw a few in the $600 range, but I wasn't crazy about them.) So for the moment, I'm stuck.
I noticed Tourneau has a Facebook page and they list sales/discounts via their page. Back in July they had a 50% off sale storewide. (Wow!) Although I don't want to trade-up, I feel like I have no choice. So I'm hoping for a good Black Friday/Xmas sale and maybe then I'll decide what to do. And if I trade-up, I'll post again on how easy/painful it was.
So I started playing around with the new Duracell myGrid Wireless Power Pad. The way it works is — you plug the myGrid pad into a wall outlet, put one of the Duracell PowerSleeves on your gadget (there are sleeves for the BB Curve, iPhone, etc), and then you place your gadget on the pad to charge wirelessly. If you have an old handheld, the myGrid comes with mini USB adapters that you plug into your device before laying it on the pad. We're comparing the myGrid to the PowerMat (still waiting for that to arrive) and so far I like the myGrid, but noticed a few things.
1)There's no way you can charge 4 gadgets at a time on the myGrid pad. Unless they're extremely small gadgets. Just look at how much space my Motorola Q takes.
2)I haven't done a timed test yet, but it feels like it's taking longer to charge my cellphone on the myGrid than with a regular adapter.
3)It shocked me! Not a huge shock, but I felt a sharp sting when I went to move the pad to the corner of my desk (while charging my Q). The manual says it's supposed to instantly turn off if you touch it. Which it did. But after I got shocked. (To be fair, that could've been static electricity on my part.)
UPDATE: It was static electricity on my part. Tried touching the pad again while it was charging a phone and nothing happened. (Aside from the pad shutting itself down when it came in contact with my hand.)
So apparently Microsoft's Zune HD has been selling out everywhere. Amazon, Fry's, Best Buy — you name it. Chances are it's backordered. It's received good reviews and design-wise, MS finally nailed it, so I'm not too surprised it's selling out.
Personally, I'd spend my money on a 32GB iPod touch, but to be fair, I haven't played around with the Zune HD yet and I already have all my media on iTunes. Plus, I'm primarily on a Mac (Zune software doesn't do Macs) and until MS sorts out their app store, I like being able to choose from Apple's 70,000+ catalog. So for me, there's no point in getting a Zune HD. But if you're in the market for a new MP3 player and on the fence, here's a spec-by-spec comparison to see where the two media players stand. (Click on the pic for a larger view.) And here's a link to the deals we've listed on the Zune HD and iPod touch.
Looking for a quick way to get all of your media off your computer and onto your flat-panel? This is the newly upgraded Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ HD. It's a small dock with HDMI, Ethernet connectivity, and Dolby Digital and DTS 2.0 support. Dock your Seagate FreeAgent Go hard drive in there and you can watch all of its media on your flat-panel. The dock also supports non-Seagate drives via its USB ports. As far as file formats go, it'll play everything you throw its way (yes, including DivX). Seagate is charging $149 for the dock or $289 for the dock with a 500GB Go drive. A wireless adapter (coming in Oct) will let you access media from any networked computer (Mac or PC). Hopefully, I'll be able to update this post when the deals start rolling in. Looks pretty cool if you're a digital pack rat.
So we went to another gadget tradeshow last night. This one — Pepcom's Holiday Spectacular — was pretty busy and packed. Here's the most interesting stuff:
PowerMat Wireless Charging Mat: Last year at CES we got a demo of the PowerMat Wireless Charger. It's essentially a pad (a little larger than a mouse pad) that uses magnetic induction to wirelessly charge your gadgets. Put a small adapter (or case) on your iPhone/BlackBerry/iPod touch, place it on the mat (which is plugged into an outlet), and you're charging. The concept was cool, and we were promised a review unit, but nada. The product's launch kept being delayed. Last night PowerMat was at the show and they said they were ready for an Oct launch. The mat will cost $99 and support up to 3 devices at once. There will be device-specific cases/adapters for the iPhone 3G ($39), iPod touch 2G ($39), BlackBerry Curve ($29), Nintendo DSi ($29), and a few others. Charging older gadgets, like say a Motorola Q or RAZR, is awkward as you'll have to plug them into a small device/square and then place that and your gadget on the mat. We hope to get our review unit soon so we can compare it to...
Duracell myGrid: Very similar concept. Slightly better delivery. The myGrid is also debuting next month ($79) and will also charge up to 3 gadgets at once. It'll come with PowerClip tips/adapters so you'll be able to charge older gadgets (like the RAZR and Q) as well as device-specific cases ($34 each) for newer gadgets like the iPod touch, BlackBerry Curve, etc. Price-wise, Duracell has the lead and from the demoes we saw, Duracell's product just looks better. (You can even pre-order it on drugstore.com). Watch out for a review on these soon!
Asus SBC-04D1S-U: Not the sexiest of names, but this device is pretty cool. It's a USB-powered external Blu-ray drive that's capable of reading 4.8X BD-ROM/R/RE and writing 8X DVD+R/24X CD-R formats. No price or availability is listed yet, altho the Asus rep told us it'd come in under $100. If so, sign me up! (Sadly, the EeeKeyboard didn't make an appearance.)
Sprint HTC Hero: Before I comment on the Hero I should start by saying I'm not an HTC fan. Hated the G1's design, hated the Touch Diamond, and hated the Touch Pro. In all three cases, the hardware just seemed frail and cheap. Not to mention those damn "chins" added extra bulk to my pocket or got in the way of typing. That said, we got to check out the Hero last night and it was awesome. It's as if HTC stepped into bizzaro land while designing this phone. First off, it's very light, yet sturdy enough that it doesn't feel fragile. HTC usually does an overlay on top of their phone's OS (in this case it's called HTC Sense) and the Hero's is nice. It makes accessing your favorite apps on the phone easy because they're all front and center. Sliding through "screens" and menus on the phone is very smooth. Not as smooth as the iPhone, but damn close. Every Android phone I've used has been a bit choppy or rigid. The Hero is not. That alone sold me. Sorry Palm, but if you're looking for a smartphone for Sprint — hold off till Oct 11th when the Hero will debut for $179. We took a quick video below.
Palm Pixi: I understand this is supposed to be the Palm Pre's little brother, but man is this phone bland. Sure, it's small and light, but it just feels like the kind of phone you'll regret buying after a month. (Or the kind that'll break if you accidentally sit on it.) The keyboard is super tiny, but not as horrible as it looks. If you type with your fingernail (instead of the tips of your fingers), you should be ok. Personally, I'd pass because I have big paws and tend to text a lot. Palm's reps said it'd be out by the holidays, but gave no hints on price. We've listed the Pre for as low as $100, so I'm not quite sure the Pixi will be any lower. Bottom line, if you want WebOS, stick with the Pre. Better yet, get the Hero.
There's a few other cool gadgets we saw (Seagate's StarDock comes to mind), which I'll post about later. But for now, these were my main highlights.
So last night Jeff and I went to ShowStoppers, a tech show here in NYC introducing the latest gadgets for the holidays. Here are my personal highlights from the show (both good and bad):
* HP DreamScreen 130: A digital photo frame on steroids. It has built-in Wi-Fi (802.11g), 2GB of RAM, integrated speakers, two card slots (it reads 6 types of cards total), and a 13.3" 800x480 res screen. It streams music, video, and photos from your computer and it can also access Pandora, HP Smart Radio (Internet radio), and Facebook. If you store your pics on HP's Snapfish, you're in luck 'cause it has a Snapfish widget that'll give you access to your online pics (although there's no Flickr support, boooo!) I particularly liked the alarm clock aspect of it where you can wake up and see the weather right on the display. There's also a 10" version (they both run Linux) called the HP DreamScreen 100 which will go for $249 (the 13" goes for $299). The prices are very high IMO, so hopefully we'll see deals on them soon, 'cause I really liked the 10".
* Navigon MobileNavigator App for iPhone: The Navigon folks were at the event showing off their iPhone app which now does Live Traffic updates. I don't own an iPhone, but I totally understand why people want a GPS app w/ spoken turn-by-turn directions. What I don't get is why Navigon is charging $89 for it (plus an additional $19 for the traffic updates). Especially when you can get a real GPS for a lot less. That said — the app itself looks cool. (It comes in at just over 1GB btw.) You can listen to music and have the app running at the same time (a small little iPod icon lets you toggle between the two if you want to switch to a diff song) and should you receive a call or txt message — a small prompt lets you decide if you want to take it or not. However, taking the call/txt means closing the app (blame that on Apple's lack of multitasking support). Again, the app looks cool, but it's priced way too high. (And btw, that $19 price for the traffic updates is just a promo for the first 4 weeks of Oct and it applies only if you just purchased the app. After the promo, live traffic is a one-time payment of $24.)
Redfly Mobile Companion: Remember the Palm Foleo? Well, Redfly is pretty much the same thing. They now support Blackberries. That's all. Just get a netbook.
Fast Pencil: This website/service makes it easy for you to self-publish. Whether you want to write an ebook for the Kindle or a hard-copy book as a gift for someone.
ZVOX Audio: These folks were showing off their new sound bars, which aren't so much "bars" but more like TV stands that double as speakers. The 525 ($400) is made for smaller TVs while the 575 ($800) can hold up to a 60" flat-panel. Inside the 575 you'll find five 3.25" speakers, two 6.5" subwoofers, and a 133-watt amp. I'm not really sold on the idea though. You already have your TV on a stand, why would you want to place it on yet another one (even if it doubles as a speaker). Plus, design-wise, I just wasn't feeling it. They're boxy and looked, well, dull.
And that was it. It was a small show. Tonight is the Pepcom show, which should be bigger and have more gadgets. I'll have an update on that tomorrow.
I'm a big wine geek and I'm always looking for a way to either save money on wine or try new ones on the cheap, so I'm really psyched about these two new sites I recently discovered. One launched today (at 12am) — it's called CinderellaWine.com. (Not the best of names, IMO.) The site is part of the Wine Library network. (I purchase from WL every now and then and have been to their store in NJ. I like it.) 
