Moxi and Pocket Surfer: My two new toys

Coincidentally, two very interesting fun dealy-bobs just came into my life.

One is the latest and greatest (IMHO) way to "surf TV" as you do the Web. It's a two-tuner DVR that Bend Broadband is offering, from Paul Allen's company, digeo. It's called Moxi. (To see my article about it, click here.)

Then there's one I read about recently in Time and decided, for the price, I just had to try it. It's called the Pocket Surfer, from Datawind and it's a Web surfer that's about the size of a checkbook (and not much heavier). It costs just $200 and uses your cell phone to connect to the Web via Bluetooth (if your phone, like mine, isn't Bluetooth-enabled, you can get a little USB-connect Bluetooth dongle to make that wireless connection.)

I've drooled over similar form-factor "palmtop PCs" for years, but the $800-plus price tag always scared me off - what if I drop the thing or leave it somewhere by accident? (Or break it?) When I saw the price, I figured this was the Christmas toy for me.

The "cool factor" alone is worth a good chunk of the price - which is fortunate, because despite a couple positive reviews and the touting of it's speed, it's been a bit pokey for me. (Whether that has anything to do with Sprint not supporting using phones as modems and having to use it by the minute, rather than megabyte, I don't know.)

But the pages render accurately, and you can click through and use the thumb keyboard to enter info in forms, etc. I still dream of a faster lil device, about the same size, with file storage, word processing, etc., for a similar price point. But this is a door to the future, and like CompuServe in 1985 or America Online in 1990, you can see the promise coming down the pike to reality. I'm jazzed!;-) (This image is of the top of the Bend.com home page.)