I'm sitting here, typing on my *MADE IN JAPAN* Sony VAIO (PCG-TR5EB if anyone's interested) and this computer has never had any heat issues (well... only once when I accidentally put it out of standby while in a bag). As long as Sony keeps making laptops in Japan, I'll stick to Sony (I had to give my lovely 15" Aluminum Powerbook that kept denting at the slightest bump to my little sister and she gave me this one) because while I had heat issues with that one (can't use it for longer than a half-hour on anything but a glass or metal surface or my hands will get burned- crap ventilation is the issue). Sad that even Apple products are Made in China (and it STILL costs over $500 to get a replacement casing here).

Sure you can, but do you have a Japanese keyboard on your laptops, Ryan? I have gotten so used to using Japanese laptops that I have resorted to buying external keyboards in Japan to use on computers when I get back to the US. I LIKE the fact that the @ symbol has its own key, that semicolon and colon are separate keys, that the apostrophe is Shift-7 and that the quotation marks are Shift-2. Now moving the underscore to Shift- was a bit disorienting, but I really like hte Japanese keyboards better than the American ones. If an American computer maker would offer it as an option, I wouldn't have to wait until I go to Japan to get new laptops or resort to an external keyboard.

I LOVE my phone- Sharp V902SH- for music. I never used an iPod while I had it- why spend more when I already have the functionality well-implemented on my phone? SD expansion for storage, playlist control, what more would I want(I don't WANT an equalizer)? Battery life is no problem- I charge it every night and that will do just fine. I only started using an iPod shuffle for 2 reasons- I lost my phone, and it was a gift from my sister.

This is the kind of phone that would pull more customers toward Helio- if they can get a DMB network going in the US.

My DS Lite was an import with the same crack on the hinge. Of course I bought it while I was traveling in Japan and with the help of a couple of friends who live there, I got mine fixed for about $30 (along with fixing a mainboard problem that kept the DS Lite from turning on)

Fine... Will Cingular support your non-Cingular phone? T-Mobile has always given me great tech support for my Nokia 6280 and Sharp V902SH, even though they don't carry it. Will Sprint activate a non-Sprint phone? I have friends who like Verizon only because they could still use the same phones they used in Korea before they moved to the US, but Verizon's new policy means that any Korean newcomers will probably move to Helio instead. I stay with T-Mobile because of cheap internet, cheap minutes, and because all my non-Korean friends are on it. Oh, and their GREAT tech support too.

I just have to put in my point- I am an iPod user/Sony user. I started my adventure into music players with an MD player, but I then tried an iPod because I didn't like the first version of SonicStage. iTunes is OK for managing music (my first Mac came with iTunes, and I liked the interface) but it's hardly any good for transferring music- couldn't get album info for the vast majority of my CDs, and I then went back to SonicStage when I got a new MD player. It is now vastly imporved, and the Mora (mora.jp) service is great for downloading music. Also, it actually recognized my CDs and got album info for them. (If you couldn't tell already, I'm using a Japanese version of SonicStage on a Japanese VAIO and an imported MD player the second time). Of course, if you can't get to Japan, you'll never see the difference- wouldn't have left iTunes if I had to stick to the US version of SonicStage and their awful Connect service.

Hitachi (I think, check the search function here) has had their Wooo series of TVs and DVD players going for quite some time.

/(�_`)It saddens me to see that people still don't take advantage of 3G services. Really, it seems that Japan is the only country where people take full advantage of 3G- video, downloadable music, and all. I really think it's because people with viewpoints like #43's keep European phone makers from adapting their phones to take advantage of 3G. For example, a Japanese phone will have a nice, large screen for watching video and decent sound quality for MP3s. Then again, if Euro providers priced their goods reasonably like Chinese providers- service plans starting at $5 a month for 400 minutes and ringtones at 25� each, then maybe people would buy ringtones and watch streaming video. The providers in the West are too greedy- if the US adopts Asian culture, then maybe we'll see prices drop.

It would work better in places like China, where people wear their phones around their necks- you can see what that person's seeing. Even better, if it would work while that person was talking, then it would have uses too- linking a person to a certain location at a certain time, for instance.