Holiday Gift Guide 2008: VUDU $99 for a limited time ($200 off!)

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, HDTV, Home Entertainment, Movies, Men, Techies, Under $100

If you, or someone you love, is a big movie buff with an HDTV, we have to recommend the VUDU Christmas Special that is going on right now. The VUDU set-top box normally sells for $299, but for a limited time it can be had for just $99. Now, you also have to buy $50 in movie credits, so the total cost would be $149, but that $50 is would go towards rentals and purchases of VUDU content, including their fantastic HDX 1080p movies. Rentals cost from $1-4 dollars, and purchases are obviously higher.

We recently reported on a lot of the Internet content that has also just made its way to the VUDU service, so all in all, we think this would make a nice gift - either for someone else, or for yourself. Our only complaint with VUDU remains that their speeds are limited, which provides a very, very poor experience if you want to rent HDX content. No matter how fast your Internet connection is, VUDU caps downloads at 4.0 Mbps. That means that my super fast 50.0 Mbps FiOS connection means absolutely nothing, and I still have to wait hours before I can watch an HDX flick. If they got rid of that, it would unleash HDX, their flagship offering. A personal niggle for sure, though. If you don’t care, pick one up!

If you miss the sale, you can typically find some nice VUDU deals on Amazon.

Read More | VUDU Store

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2008 Holiday Gift Guide: Palm Centro

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Cell Phones, Features, Handhelds, Hot Deals, Women, Men, Teens, Under $50

Don’t wanna splurge on something like an iPhone or BlackBerry? After checking out the Palm Centro, we think this might be the device to pick up for that loved one. You can get one for as low as $49.99 on AT&T, and it’s a great introductory smartphone - a huge step-up from your typical flip camera or music phone. It supports instant messaging, web browsing, has a full QWERTY keyboard, 320x320 touchscreen, media player, 1.3-megapixel camera, 64MB internal storage, and Bluetooth. Seriously, that isn’t bad for a $50 smartphone. Oh, even better? Pick it up on Amazon, and it’s free with contract.

Read More | Palm Centro on Amazon

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Holiday Gift Guide 2008: The Dark Knight

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, HDTV, Home Entertainment, Movies, Men, Teens, Under $25

We have yet to come across anyone who didn’t appreciate this movie (and we’re sure they’ll come out of the woodwork in the comments now that we said that,) and it is with good reason. The Dark Knight has so much going for it in terms of entertainment value and action. Batman’s voice aside, everything about this movie screamed “awesome.” This is why we have to recommend it in our Holiday Gift Guide. Now, primarily we are recommending The Dark Knight Blu-ray, because that is going to give you the amazing visuals and sound you come to expect from a movie like this. That said, we understand that not everyone is equipped with the latest in high definition gadgetry, so we will also recommend The Dark Knight Special Edition DVD as well. The Blu-ray version retails for $35.99, but we found it on Amazon for 33% off at $23.99. The special edition DVD version sells for $34.98, and we found it for 40% off on Amazon at $20.99.

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Holiday Gift Guide 2008: Slacker G2

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Hot Deals, Music, Portable Audio / Video, Techies, Teens, Under $250

We’ve been big fans of Slacker since we saw it earlier this year at CES. Now, we were big fans of the Slacker Internet radio service, but that meant you had to keep Slacker in your browser. With the Slacker G2, all that Internet radio goodness is now portable. So, why the Slacker G2 over a regular MP3 player? Well, first off, the owner doesn’t have to pay for the music. You don’t even have to use a computer to transfer music to the device, as that can all be done with the devices itself. It connects to the free Slacker service over Wi-Fi, and will update itself with music whenever it has a connection. The 4 GB Slacker G2 supports 25 stations, and retails for $199.99. You can pick one up at Amazon.

Read More | Slacker G2

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