The Imo can play music aloud whenever it is placed on a solid surface.  Pick it up and the sound goes away, but it back on your desk and the music begins again.  Pretty novel actually.  At a little over $45 it’s kind of pricey for only 2GB, but that doesn’t diminish the fun factor.

Here’s the #2 Laptop on Amazon.com

Acer Aspire AS5251-1805. This $379.00 priced Acer will handle basic functions as well as some games. It’s got a 15.6” LCD, AMD (2.2 Single Core) processor, 3GB of (DD3) RAM, and 250GB hard drive. The ATI (Radeon HD 4250) graphics card has just enough power to handle multitasking, everyday computing, and only the basic games. Don’t buy this laptop if you’re into any modern games as it won’t handle it. One of the most notable features is the Multi-Gesture Touchpad that allows you to pinch, flick and swirl while browsing. DVD drive, Wireless N, 3 USB ports. Weighs 5.74 pounds and gets about 3.5 hours battery life from the 6 cell battery.

User Opinions
The Acer Aspire AS5251 has 24 reviews with a 4 star overall rating. It’s been in the top 100 laptop list for the past 59 days.

Postives > Like the eMachines eME527-2537, the Acer AS5251 is as another basic laptop. The only difference is that this Acer has a little more power than the eMachines. It does multitasking at a fair level without any problems (including downloading while still on the internet, playing music, etc). It runs programs like MS office 2010 and Skype very well. Over and over again, reviewers indicate that the 15.6” LCD wide screen is very high quality. Many end up saying that the LCD is really very crisp, clear and bright. The keyboard also works very well and has a full numerical pad layout like more expensive laptops. You’ll find that the touchpad is oriented slightly to the left. Buyers explain that overall speaker sound is definitely better than in older laptops. The wireless connection works well and easily picks up wireless networks.

Negatives > One thing’s for sure – this system wasn’t designed for the serious gamer. The Acer Aspire AS5251 is more of a “budget gamer.” It will play games like Sims 3 but nothing more complicated than that. The system while multitasking can get a little slow when downloading things, such as new software or a large document. The 3.5 hour battery life is somewhat of a negative (spending $500 will give you a laptop with 6-8 hours battery life). The battery does recharge quickly.

Conclusion > One reviewer summed the Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 well when he said: For your average non-gaming computer user, this thing is fast and efficient. At $379 it has the price tag of a netbook but is a fully-fledged notebook. That’s a steal. See the full reviews on Amazon’s site.

Over the coming months we’re going to take a closer look at Amazon’s top selling electronics. We’re going to start with an examination of their top selling laptops, and later examine popular desktops, netbooks, and components. We’ll start by examining their top Laptops.

Let’s take a look at the #1 Laptop on Amazon.com

eMachines eME527-2537. Priced $279.00, this eMachines is a budget laptop best used for everyday email, internet, and office functions. It features a 15.6″ LCD, an Intel Celeron CPU (2.2GHz), 2GB of (DDR3) Memory, and a 160GB hard drive. Your graphics card is the basic playing Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M. Comes with DVD drive, 5-in-1 media card reader, wireless N, and 2 USB ports. The thing weighs in at a heavy 6 pounds. Overall battery life isn’t stellar at 3-4 hours. Keep in mind that this is a budget laptop. Spend $500 or $800 and you’ll get a machine that’s lighter as has longer battery life.

User Opinions
The eMachines eME527-2537 has 36 reviews with a 4.5 star overall rating. It’s been in the top 100 laptop list for the past 19 days.

Positives > Most people are buying the eME527-2537 for basic everyday use: Internet Browsing, Mail, Social networking, remote networking into work, MS Office and Videos/Music. It’s Intel Celeron processor is peppy enough to play videos at 720p and handle most multitasking. Reviews explain that the Keyboard and trackpad works ok.

Negatives >Don’t plan on using the horrible speakers, use external speakers or headphones. Some complain that it doesn’t have a webcam and that the video card doesn’t have enough power to really play today’s games…Hey! It’s $279.00!

Conclusion > The bottom line is that the eMachines eME527-2537 is a great laptop for someone who wants on a tight budget. Spending $250 to $300 usually gets you a nice netbook. In this case, spending $279 gets you a full sized laptop with a sized 15″ screen and enough power to most everyday project. Don’t even go there if you’re a gamer…you’re not going to be using this laptop for gaming anyway…primarily email, internet, and word. Does the eMachines eME527-2537 sound interesting? You can see more details here here.

“Dad. Email is dead.” Bill’s son told him two weeks ago.

Bill’s son is 25 and works as an internet marketing guru. From our conversation, it sounds like this son uses everything but email to communicate: Text Messages, Twitter, Skype, IM, etc. Since he rarely uses email to communicate, he considers it a dead communication medium. To this son, email is old school, old fashioned, obsolete. He probably thinks that we all should get a life and start using everything else but email. To him, email is the equivalent of today’s snail mail.

This son can think whatever he wants. Let me tell you the truth. Email is not dead.

Email is alive and kicking. I’ve been sitting behind my desk all morning shooting emails to clients and candidates. In my world (and in most businesses), email is still the preferred communication medium. People prefer to answer emails long before they (gasp) attempt to call people. Email is the bread and butter of our business lives. Without it, we’d all be forced to (gasp!) leave voicemails.

Email is dead? Not really. Long live email (until we all start using Skype).

Springteq has introduced the WeGo HUD GPs for your car.  It’s a GPS direction center just like all those GPS attachments that came before, but this time the directions are projected on your windshield.  No more squinting at a baby screen that’s blocking part of your view of the road anyway, now they’re right there in front of oyu.  I think it’s a good design, if it ever makes it to the marketplace.

Nike has patented a self-lacing shoe although its street date is probably some time away.

The concept involves a self-cinching ankle strap that can tighten or loosen on demand as well as spooled laces that can tighten just like when you tie your own shoes. Apparently it is like a shoe designed by Marty McFly in Back to the Future 2.

The shoe will be powered by battery and may recharge via USB.

Pretty amazing to see things changing right before our eyes. I think the general public will jump on the Internet TV bandwagon it gets easier to setup and use. The geek (like Andre Reynolds) has no problem pulling up high def TV on any desktop or laptop…but the technical expertise to setup everything is still above most of the common folk out there.

I’d be pretty amazing to see a piece of hardware that’s quick to setup and easy to use. Some say that Apple TV is it…I don’t think so. Once I walk into the office and hear everybody raving about a new and easy product that’s as easy to use as Direct TV, then I’ll pay more attention. In the meantime we’ll still have the Cable/Satellite TV camp and the separate Geek Internet TV camp.

Whirlpool wants to change all that with its sub-tub concept.  The OLED TV (the size to the tub it stands over) folds down into the tub providing later access to a sink and mirror above.  I like it.  It’s compact and fun.  It’s only a concept so who knows how much it would cost if it ever got made.  Here’s hoping it gets made at all.

Bigfoot the toy makes noise, dances, shakes, etc, and now you can take him with you on your iPhone via a new free app.

You can shake your phone and watch him do headstands and somersaults or play games such as mazes. Kids can also investigate Bigfoot sightings throughout the world.

The robot toy comes with a preschooler friendly remote control and programmed with 80 phrases and action. $99.99

I’m sure it will be big this Christmas.

See also:

Wowwee Roborover

It’s a pretty huge deal. I’m the kind of guy who avoids this kind of stuff since I think it poisons the mind. Hopefully the case will case Craiglist will change their tune. It would certainly lessen the filth on the internet.