The Kindle has also done very well in the market, leading to the Kindle 2, released earlier this year.  The main downside to the Kindle, and Kindle 2, is the price.

Well, Amazon has done something about that, marking down the Kindle 2 to under $300.

The new price represents a $60 cut, especially significant in this economy. And the Kindle 2 includes some nice upgrades from the original. Some of the big ones include a better screen that displays text and images more clearly; more memory, for more documents; and a huge increase in the types of documents it can display, including PDF, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP, among others. What all those acronyms mean is that the Kindle 2 can handle all types of graphics and a wider range of text documents.

There are hundreds of thousands of free books available for the Kindle 2, and that number is increasing all the time. Add into that the fact that there’s no monthly subscription to pay, and the Kindle 2 looks like an even better value.

According to reports on Apple’s Website and other outlets, battery life, which is supposed to be improved on the 3G S, may be drastically worse. 3G S owners are complaining about batteries that run out in less than a day, or are down to 10% or less battery life. Some of their solutions include resetting their phones to their original, pristine state, and draining the battery fully and recharging it fully before using it.

Even if those solutions work, they shouldn’t be necessary. It looks like Apple may have goofed big-time on this. The problem is made even worse by the fact that, unlike most smartphones and cellphones, the battery is sealed and the phone has to be returned to Apple for a replacement.

A few things I do on my 3G (the non-S model, thank goodness) to preserve battery life: I turn off ‘Push’ notification of e-mail. When I first got my iPhone and used it, I couldn’t figure out why the battery drained so quickly. Turning off this functionality was the biggest factor in improving my battery life. Also, I don’t turn on location services unless I need to use the GPS, and I turn off wi-fi unless I intend to use it. Those three simple things have helped the most.

In the meantime, carefully consider a possible purchase of an iPhone 3G S until more is known about the battery overheating and draining issues.

The good news? The iPhone 3G is more affordable than ever.

That’s not the only way to answer calls and talk, though. Motorola makes the  MOTOROKR T505 Bluetooth In-Car Speakerphone, which attaches to your visor via a clip. The T505 gives you a couple of options for listening to your phone: either through the built-in speaker or through your car speakers using the FM transmitter.

It’s easy to use: when a call comes in, simply touch the front button on the left, and start yapping. You can do more than make calls with the T505, too; it works to route your cellphone’s music through car speakers (if your phone is also a media player.)  Note that you need to have a Bluetooth-enabled phone to make this work, but that shouldn’t be a problem for most, since just about every cellphone released for the last several years has Bluetooth connectivity built in.

Consider the T505 or another Bluetooth headset to stay safe while driving; remember, the life you save may be mine!

Case in point: the Archos 605 media player. While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of an iPhone or Palm Pre for example, it does what it does very well, and with no monthly service contract. It’s not trying to be a phone: it knows what it is, and is comfortable with that. I like gadgets without an inferiority complex.

The Archos can be had for as little as $120.  For that you get a 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen with a resolution of 800×480. Compare that to the iPhone’s resolution of 480×320, and you can see that the Archos provides a better experience for viewing movies and videos.

The MP3 player plays all the standard music formats, and the Archos has a built-in external speaker. That helps if you don’t have headphones handy (although you probably don’t want to spend a lot of time listening to music or movies on that tiny speaker).

The Archos also includes wi-fi capability, and you can buy an Opera Web browser plug-in for the unit. That allows you to surf through the Archos portal for entertainment to download. One nice touch offered by the gadget is a fold-out kickstand, which allows you to sit the player upright for watching video. That’s a thoughtful addition, and something more media player manufacturers should do.

The Archos has been out for several years now, meaning it lacks that “Wow” factor that some folks just have to have. If you can live without that, and just need a good, basic media player, this may be your thing.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a lower-priced smartphone, the Eos (codenamed Pixie) is coming as early as this Fall. The Eos could be priced as low as $99 with the standard two-year contract, initial stories are saying.

The Eos is the successor to the Centro, Palm’s final PalmOS phone.  Among the alleged features are a 2.6-inch touchscreen, physical keyboard, 2MB camera and 4GB internal memory, which puts below the level of the very first, lowest-level iPhone. Still, for the price, that’s not bad.

The Eos is obviously aimed at the bottom end of the smartphone market. The question is whether, in this economy, a significantly cheaper phone with more limited capabilities will appeal to buyers of the iPhone, Android G1, BlackBerry and big brother Pre. In my opinion, it’s always good to have more options and a range of prices. Bring it on, Palm!

Distinguishing one phone from another, and determining relative strengths and weaknesses of each, can take a lot time. That’s why this handy grid from Wired magazine can help tremendously. It compares four smartphones: the aforementioned iPhone 3G S; the Google G1 (with the Android operating system); the Palm Pre; and the BlackBerry Storm (at left). At a glance you can see the major differences, including price.

Including a two-year subscription plan, the Pre comes out ahead, being almost $700 cheaper than the nearest competition. The downside is that it has a paltry 30 apps available, compared to more than 50,000 for the iPhone. So the question is, is it worth the extra dough for the benefits of the iPhone? Those are the questions only you can answer.

Now Microsoft is trying to go mano-a-mano with Apple again, this time with the iPod Touch. The key upgrade to the new Zune, expected this fall, is a touchscreen. Details are sketchy at present, but it is known that the new player, called the “Zune HD”, will feature an HD Radio tuner, high-definition video playback, and an organic light emitting diode (OLED) screen, which should give the Zune very good battery life.

The Zune HD will also be the first-ever Zune player to include the Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser. The browser will have an onscreen keyboard, like the Touch.

HD Radio has better sound than standard radio (at least I’m told — I’ve never tried it). Zune HD also has wi-fi capabilities, which will offer live streaming from the Zune store, which Microsoft says has more than five million tracks available.

Microsoft didn’t give any more information at the announcement of the Zune HD, including pricing information, available colors and the like. As soon as we hear more, we’ll pass it along, of course.

First, the good: this phone is loaded. It has a sleek, minimalist design without a lot of button clutter, and a 3.5″ touchscreen. Internal memory is up to 32 GB, and it has expandable memory up to an additional 16 GB. The camera is 5 megapixels, plenty for taking sharp pictures. The video camera, naturally, is the same megapixel rating, and can take up to 30 frames of video per second. That’s substantially better than the specs for the iPhone’s camera (and the video camera that’s part of the new iPhone 3G S).

The N97 also includes built-in GPS, synching with e-mail and a standard media player. But what I like best about it is the keyboard. It’s a slide-out model with a screen that tilts. In my opinion, this is the best type of keyboard. It’s laid out landscape-style, so the keys aren’t cramped at all, making typing a much more pleasurable experience. All in all, there’s a lot to like.

The major downside with the phone is the application store. It’s becoming pretty much a smartphone requirement these days to have third-party applications that can enhance the usability and fun of a phone. But, from initial reports, the Ovi Store, which is what Nokia calls its app store, is having serious problems.

To begin with, there were fewer than 1,000 apps available as of June 26. That’s a pittance compared to the many thousands (or tens of thousands) of apps available for the iPhone, Android phones and BlackBerries on the market. It means you’ll be much more limited in your choices, at least initially.

The bigger issue is that the Ovi Store, according to this story from TechCrunch, is a nightmare.  TechCrunch said that downloads were terribly slow, apps that were there previously would suddenly disappear, and that navigation was a complicated mess. Nokia followed up that most of the problems were caused by a heavy volume of downloads at the store’s opening. My response: well, what did you folks think was going to happen when you opened the store? Duh. If you, readers, have any new information on how the store is operating now, please pass it along.

Bottom line: the N97 is a fine smartphone, for the most part. If your main interest in a phone is the applications you can use on it, you might want to wait a bit until there are more available, and Nokia has straightened out the issues.

Under this deal, Apple will provide a rebate for an iPod Touch if you buy a Mac now through Sept. 8. The catch is that you need to buy both the Mac and the Touch at the same time. You will need to submit your rebate request online by Oct. 8, then Apple will issue a check for the price of the Touch.

Now, I am not a big fan of online rebates. Apple should have provided some type of program that let you get the free Touch at the same time you buy your Mac, instead of having to buy them both and then get a rebate who-knows-when. Still, getting a free Touch is a good deal, and somewhat mitigates the cost of a Mac.

If this is going to be a college computer, I recommend getting a smaller Mac laptop; for instance the MacBook with the 13.3″ screen. That size display provides a good compromise between portability and screen real estate. Macs are wonderful computers, and will work well throughout your child’s education. They’re generally more reliable than Windows machines and easier to use (and I’m also a PC fan — no flame wars, please).

The Touch will be useful in a college setting, too. Since the Touch isn’t a cell phone, it only has wi-fi capability; since most colleges are wi-fi enabled, however, this shouldn’t present much of an obstacle toward getting online. And the apps, games and other functions of a Touch make it a useful addition on campus.

Jobs has been on leave from Apple since January. He’s expected to resume working later this month, on at least a part-time basis, the story reports.

Jobs’ health first made headlines in August 2004, when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Since then, the press has speculated a great deal about his health, a situation made worse by the secrecy for which Apple is famous.

Apple was struggling mightily in the mid-1990s when Steve Jobs, absent for a number of years from the company he helped found, came back on board (things got so bad for Apple, in fact, that the company needed a loan from Microsoft of all companies to help stay afloat). Soon after Jobs’ return, things began to turn around for Apple.

Now, of course, the company is hugely profitable and influential in the industry, and losing Jobs would be a  gigantic blow. To that end, we wish Jobs a speedy recovery and hope he has many years of health — and creating great gadgets — left in him.