We have been seeing a lot of good deals from Barnes and Noble recently, and now an even better one. They are currently offering both the Nook HD and the HD+ at discount rates through Mother’s Day on May 12.

You can now get the 8GB Nook HD for $149 and the 16GB version costs $179 (a $50 discount). The 9-inch 16GB HD+ will be yours for $179 (down from $269) and the 32GB model for $209 (drop from $299). The devices are available online at Barnes & Noble bookstores and on Nook.com, and at retailers including Best Buy.

The Nook tablets have suddenly become more appealing with this price drop, and also the slates now support Google Play (so access to more than 700,000 apps and games. That’s a big advantage over the Amazon Kindle Fire devices. At Amazon, the entry-level Kindle Fire has a price tag of $159, the 16GB Fire HD costs $199 and the 32GB 8.9-inch Fire HD tablet is available for $299.

As for other rivals, the Google Nexus 7 starts at $199 and Nexus 10 retails from $399. The Mac maker’s iPad mini starts at $329. Bottom-line, for the hardware, the Nook HD and HD+ are nothing less than a steal at their reduced pricing. What do you think, are you interested?

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We all like to have the latest greatest, feature-packed smartphone, but with high pricing and hefty carriers contracts it isn’t always possible. Now there is a gleam of hope thanks to Florida-based smartphone maker Blu.

Blu isn’t a household name like Apple or Samsung (yet), but the phone manufacturer has been shipping phones to happy customers since 2009 and have been seeing amazing growth with 4.1 million Blu phones shipped in 2012.

Blu’s current market is mainly around Latin America, but CEO Sammy Ohev-Zion hopes to break in to other markets with the $299 Blu Life One and Blu Life View Android smarpthones. Not only are these phones low-cost, contract free and unlocked but they also boast impressive hardware.

The flagship Blu One Life features a 5-inch HD display, 13 mega-pixel camera and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, while the Blu Life View packs a larger 5.7-inch HD display, 12 mega-pixel rear camera and 5 mega-pixel front.

Blu phone are currently available through online commerce sites such as Amazon and Newegg. How well do they actually rate though? It tends to depend a lot on the model, with some getting low-to-fair reviews and others scoring quite nicely. Bottom-line, the build quality or even the specs of a Blu phone won’t begin to compete with flagships from Samsung, Sony, Apple and others — but if you are looking for a higher-end phone without paying a fortune, it could still be worth a serious look.

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According to a recent survey, Apple’s iPhone 5 comes fifth in customer satisfaction ratings, with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 coming in in 4th place (the S3 isn’t even in the top 5!), while Motorola took 1st and 2nd places.

The phone which managed to please most U.S phone owners is the Motorola Atrix HD, A phone which is currently available on AT&T at just $49. Across the pond in the UK the HTC One reached the top spot with Apple coming in second, and the last 3 places all going to Samsung phone.

Does it surprise you that the iPhone or Samsung phones aren’t at the top of the smartphone sanctification list?

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Of course your not going to be seeing Snapdragon S4 Processors and 1080 HD displays at such a low price, but with MediaTek’s MT6589 CPU running the show, you can still expect a rather powerful device. The display is a 1280 x 720 unit which is fine for most users, a 2100mAh battery should last most of the day and the 8 mega-pixel rear camera should be more than up to the task of capturing spontaneous snapshots while on the go.

Unfortunately for the majority of readers, this Jelly Bean powered bargain won’t be easily available to you as the phone appears to be headed for India only.

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When you think of Android phone makers Panasonic is not a name you usually think of, but that isn’t the case in Japan. Now it seems that the company is preparing to enter into the 1080p smartphone race with its own high-end handset.

Courtesy of a server log, a model number P-02E with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and running Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.  Could this be a second attempt at the European released Panasonic Eluga earlier this year?  According to reports, Panasonic may be readying a release of the 1080p HD smartphone in 2013.

Recently Panasonic had announced it’s intentions to refocus its efforts back to Japan, and if so we may only see the P-02E released in Japan. Still, it would be nice to see a 1080p Panasonic handset reach Europe and the United States– we can dream at least.

Would you give the P-02E a shot?  Do you think Panasonic can make their mark on the already packed Android market?

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When it comes to the world of Bluetooth headsets, one of the most trusted names in the industry is Plantronics. And now you can get one of their better Bluetooth headsets for quite the impressive price.

You see, the Plantronics Voyager Pro HD normally retails for $99.99, but that price has been slashed by $40 down to just $59.99. In signature Plantronics style, the Voyager Pro HD has a slightly longer boom microphone than what you may find on some competing devices. This means that the clarity of your voice should be improved, as the mic is closer to your mouth. The headset also boasts “brilliant, HD streaming audio.”

Since the headset is going to be on the side of your head, you might not notice that it’s running out of battery. The cool thing is that Plantronics has an app for iOS and Android that lets you remotely monitor the battery on your headset. Speaking of battery, you should get up to 6 hours of talk time and up to 120 hours of standby. It’s also nice how it can “sense” when you’re wearing it.

Pick up the Plantronics Voyager Pro HD Bluetooth headset on Amazon.com for $59.99, including free super saver shipping.

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High speeding down the slopes, you cut through a half dozen trees before lifting off and grabbing huge air, you think, shouldn’t I be recording this?  If you did, you have to wait until you get to a computer before uploading your adventure to the world.  That’s not the case if you own the ION Air Pro HD camera. It lets you share your clips in real time to social networking sites.

The new cam will record your rides in full 1080p HD and there’s also an option for snapping 5-megapixel stills. It features a 170-degree wide-angle lens, which is more than enough to record all the action.  The catch is there is no display on it. But there is no need to check whether or not it is recording, just flip a switch and your broadcasting live.   Aside from that critical button, there’s two more; for switching it on and off and taking stills.

Engadget got a their little hands one one, they say that the cam feels comfortable.  Weighing just 123 grams, about 20 less than GoPro in its housing. The new cam also comes with a tripod mount,  memory card slot, HDMI port, AV out all accessible from the rear removable panel.

The realtime feature is not built into the camera itself, you will need to attach a Wi-Fi “Podz” on its rear. You just have to download a free app and you can see what your camera sees (and yes, there is a range limit). The app will allow you to upload clips directly to Facebook and YouTube too.

But that’s not all. You get 8GB of cloud storage. That’s really sweet. Head here to check out a few stills snapped with the cam and check out the first video to know more about it. The second video is a sample and it’s a bit shaky, but you will understand its capabilities.

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The ION Air Pro will be available next month. As for the pricing, it’s £229 (about $365) for the camera alone, £249 ($395) if you are interested in the bike mount and tripod kit, and £299 ($475) for the full Wi-Fi kit.

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The biggest name in this wearable action video camera niche has to be GoPro, or at least the ones with the most marketing bucks. But it’s starting to face some stiff competition from Swann, a company you may be more familiar with for its surveillance products. They now have a GoPro alternative and its called the Freestyle HD. Talking with one of the reps at CES, it has already had a soft launch with some strong and positive feedback. It brings a lot to the table (or the top of your snowboard helmet, as the case may be) that competing products might not. For instance, it has a detachable LCD screen. That’s handy.

There’s also a remote for starting and stopping the recording without having to physically handle the Freestyle HD itself. A built-in laser helps you line up shots. And since you can’t see that when the camera is mounted to the side of your head. it obviously make sense. While the MSRP is set at $280, the street price can drop close to the $200 mark.

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T-Mobile hasn’t announced much about their upcoming Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G (pictured above). What we do know is that the handset will come with a 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 processor, Android (most likely Gingerbread) and a “brilliant Super AMOLED touch screen”. Yes, no Super AMOLED Plus or HD.

And we are not seeing a “II” after that “S” anywhere on the press release. From the looks of things, the carrier is most probably going to launch a reworked Galaxy S 4G. Hopefully they will release an HD variant of the Galaxy S II.

But whatever the carrier is launching, the device will have access to T-Mobile’s 42Mbps HSPA+ network.

And speaking of network, the carrier has also announced that they have doubled the speed of its 4G network in 12 additional markets. Now, 184 million Americans in 175 markets will be covered with HSPA+ 42. The carrier has also expanded HSPA+ 21 to nine additional markets, now covering 217 markets across the US.

For those who are looking for a Windows handset from T-Mobile, the Lumia 710 will be available from today, Jan 11, at T-Mobile retail stores, select dealers and retailers nationwide, and from the carrier’s website. It’s coming with a price tag of $49.99 after a $50 mail-in-rebate and a two-year contract.

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The rumored specs and release dates of the Apple iPad 3 are definitely going to be a hot topic for the next couple of months. Especially over the next week as Apple fans and perhaps even underground marketing agents persist to steal the spotlight and pull the carpet from all the electronics companies knee deep in sand out in Las Vegas @ CES.

The latest rumor on the much anticipated device has come from iLounge’s Jeremy Horwitz.  This isn’t as much of a real discovery – like the iPhone 5 having a quad-core A6 – but more along the lines of what someone “thinks” could happen.   Horwitz believes that the next iPad will come equipped with better cameras, not much of a shocker there since every Apple device that follows its predecessor has a better camera.

According to Horwitz, who gave life to the new rumors via his Twitter account, the iPad 3 will boast a FaceTime HD camera on the front of the device and its rear camera will be upgraded to either the 8MP cam on the iPhone 4S, or the camera unit in the iPhone 4.

As you might already know, the iPad 3 has been long rumored to be coming with a Retina Display. If Apple decides to stick with the iPad 2′s front camera for the iPad 3, the images would look extremely bad.

But if a combination of an HD FaceTime camera and Retina Display is coming, the new tablet will definitely be a head turner.

Horwitz also claims that the new iPad will be slightly thicker to accommodate new internal parts, but will retain a case design similar to the current iPad. He said: “Curve radiuses on the body will change only a little to accommodate the added thickness, not dramatically. Think iPad 2 Pro, not a redesign”.

But a thicker iPad will be against Apple’s rules. They will always try to go thinner, because that is perceived by the majority as an improvement.

We expect the iPad 3 to be released in March. And as we reported before, Apple could possibly lower the price of the iPad 2 to $399 to fight off lower-priced competing devices such as the Kindle Fire.

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