Walt Mossberg picks hot holiday gadgets

Dan Farber: I'm Dan Farber and I'm here with Walt Mossberg who is the technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, as well as the host of AllthingsD, my favorite conference and we are here to talk about gadgets for this new holiday season and might not be a great season for the retailers, but you got some cool things here.

Walt Mossberg: Well, hey Dan, obviously it's gonna be less money to be spend on this tech products this year, but you know innovation never stops and I think tech lust never stops. So, even though sales may be a little lower, people are still gonna be interested in the tech products that are out this season.

Dan Farber: So, looks like we have a new BlackBerry here?

Walt Mossberg: Right. This is the new BlackBerry Storm. It's RIM's effort to go after the iPhone. Verizon worked with them closely. Verizon hasn't had a phone that goes up really against the iPhone. And the interesting thing about this is, it's a touchscreen, but it's on a mechanical substrate here and so when you touch keys or you touch icons you get a physical feeling and it' not a haptic.

Dan Farber: You don't get a shock?

Walt Mossberg: No it's not a jolt.

Dan Farber: You get some...

Walt Mossberg: But here if you touch it you can see.

Dan Farber: Some little sensitivity area.

Walt Mossberg: You hit any of those icons or you're...

Dan Farber: Oh yeah.

Walt Mossberg: Typing on the keyboarding and that you literally get a mechanical and they're hoping that what that mean -- they're hoping that what that means is that people who have found it difficult to type on an iPhone were real BlackBerry addicts who love the regular keyboard will adjust more easily to not having the keyboard.

Dan Farber: Now will it under-price the iPhone?

Walt Mossberg: No. It's gonna be 249. There will be $50 rebate, so it will come in at the amount of the iPhone, but you got to mail-in for your rebate, so you got to layout to 249.

Dan Farber: And remember which things you need to save and send in.

Walt Mossberg: Right. You know how much fun it is.

Dan Farber: So, I see the Flip video and that's been popular for a few years.

Walt Mossberg: Right. This is new.

Dan Farber: But this is a new model.

Walt Mossberg: This is new. This is an HD -- this is actually an HD video camera and look how tiny it is. We've been shooting videos and looking at them and they really are 720p HD. They look great.

Dan Farber: Does it store much at that high def?

Walt Mossberg: It can get about -- you get about an hour on it and you should be able to get 2 hours of standard.

Dan Farber: Now, that is a must-have.

Walt Mossberg: And it's a little over 200 bucks. I can't remember the exact price. This is...

Dan Farber: That looks like a brick.

Walt Mossberg: It looks like a brick. It is a brick -- kind of, but it could save you in a pinch. We've been hearing for years about fuel cells that are gonna replace batteries. Basically chemical concoctions that giving you power for your device and that's what this is. This is a fuel cell and this big green thing, you take it off and then you squeeze the thing and you get -- I don't know an hour what ever it is of power. There's a USB cord that plugs in.

Dan Farber: So you can recharge it as well.

Walt Mossberg: It's not heavy, but as you can see it's kind of bulky, so you really have to be in kind of an emergency situation.

Dan Farber: It does not fit easily into your pocket.

Walt Mossberg: No. Now this one is interesting. This is another attempt in an iPhone killer. This is from Sony Ericson. It's called the XPERIA 1. It's $800.

Dan Farber: Show me that keyboard again. I don't know how anyone could type on that.

Walt Mossberg: Yeah, it's kind of a small keyboard and the top row is kind of close to the screen, but $800...

Dan Farber: It's shiny.

Walt Mossberg: During the econolypse.

Dan Farber: What is it made out of -- platinum?

Walt Mossberg: Some kind of metal -- no. It's you know it's...

Dan Farber: But 800 bucks.

Walt Mossberg: Yeah, but the key here is they've tried to -- so Windows Mobile phone, but like a number of the newer Windows Mobile phones, they're trying to hide Windows Mobile and they have their own sort of user interface, which they called Panels. So you can get a whole interface built around something you like, like Google. The entire interface built around Google on here. In some countries it will be less because they'll have a carrier with a subsidy. In the US they don't, so it's about 800 bucks. This is a kind of cool. This thing is called Click Free. It's an external hard drive and you might say, well there's a million of those.

Dan Farber: Yeah.

Walt Mossberg: What's the big deal about this? This, you plug-in to your computer and the minute you plugged it in it starts backing up your stuff. There's no software to click, there's not even a button on here to click. You just plug it in and starts backing your stuffs and intelligently notices your music, your documents, your photos and so forth and puts them in the appropriate folders.

Dan Farber: And is this Windows only?

Walt Mossberg: It's Windows only.

Dan Farber: But having that automated is a great benefit. Just plug it in and back up.

Walt Mossberg: Yes, because people don't back up. And then this, you know this is of course an iPhone and it's not a big deal.

Dan Farber: But it has an appendage.

Walt Mossberg: But it has an appendage that looks like a little iPhone. This is a battery. It's an extra battery. There's a whole booming market in these clip-on batteries for the iPhone because of course the iPhone has limited battery life and they sealed the battery that you can't replace. And I just thought this one was especially cute because they made it so it looks like the iPhone itself.

Dan Farber: Great. Well, thanks for sharing what's gonna be hot for this season and I'll look forward to seeing if any of these things really take off.

Walt Mossberg: Okay Dan. Take care.