The best protection money can buy....for your handheld device

Some of you will be buying those cute little handheld electronics games and cellphones for your loved ones this holiday season. I must pass along a story I got from a reader in Kings Mountain.

She bought a new Sprint HTC EVO phone for her son and was going to surprise him with it on Christmas Eve. She got it last week. Curious to see what all the fuss was about, she cracked open the case, and started fiddling around with it. She was cooking while she was talking on it, turned too quickly, and the EVO slipped from her hand and fell to her hardwood floor.

The EVO, which costs about $200 with a phone service contract, was ruined. It was cracked and bent and wasn't anything she could give to her 16-year-old anymore.

So she e-mailed me Sunday night and asked what could she get to protect her (second) investment in Sprint cellphone technology.

I've seen lots of protective covers and cases, but I think the King of Protection has to be the OtterBox series (otterbox.com). You can go with the Defender Series ($25-$50), which is like putting your device in a heavy, near-impenetrable shell, or the Commuter Series ($18-35), which is lighter and less protective but still able to survive the odd drop. Or two.

The Defender series is rugged and comes in different colors to fit BlackBerrys, iDevices and other handheld goodies. It's actually two cases in one. The first is a hard plastic shell that includes a clear screen protector. It's built into the case and sits well on your device. Once you slide your phone into the plastic shell, you put a silicone wrap around it.

Even though it adds heft, the Defender feels comfortable in your hand and allows access to all buttons and ports, which have covered access. Slight drawback: It can feel like a brick in your pocket at first.

I felt the only thing that could really, well, brick my phone with this case on it was dropping it in water. I wrapped one around one of my personal devices and climbed on a ladder and dropped it on my driveway. I said a quiet prayer as it fell. Nothing happened.

The alternative is the Commuter Series, which uses the same plastic-shell-wrapped -by-silicone-case tech, but everything is lighter and thinner, and you have the alternative peel-off screen protector. And where the Defender covers a portion of the front of the device at top and bottom, creating a bumper effect for drops, Commuter leaves the front more exposed. A face-front landing with Commuter might not be a good thing, but for everyday protection, it's a lighter alternative.

So the moral to my story is this: If you're buying handheld gadgets for the holidays, think about a good case to go with it.

Apple expected to introduce new iPod touch, iTV today

Apple, Inc, will hold its annual fall media conference Wednesday at 10 a.m. PST, and Steve Jobs is expected to announce a revamped Apple TV set-top box as well as introduce a new iPod Touch that will rival iPhone in screen resolution and other features.

The event will be streamed at apple.com and requires a Mac computer running the OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system and the Safari web browser, an iPod Touch or iPhone running the iOS 3.0 operating system or higher or an iPad.

Businessweek has reported that Jobs will introduce a new $99 Apple TV product that will stream movies and other content from Netflix. The current Apple TV costs more than twice that and is basically a movie and TV rental service that allows users to get content from iTunes and watch on their TV.

Other published reports have speculated that the new Apple TV will also allow users to download TV series for 99 cents per episode shortly after they air.

I think we can expect to see a new iPod Touch that will look a lot like the squarish iPhone 4. I think the new Touch will feature Apple's "Retina" display, front and back cameras and include FaceTime video chat. It will be interesting to see if Apple allows 3G over the device, which may include a microphone and would then allow users to make calls via services like Skype.

A new smaller iPod nano with a touch screen is also expected to debut.

Speculation is running wild about Apple TV and a new iPad 4.0 operating system that will bring features like folders to iPad. Apple may also debut a new iLife suite, which includes Apple's photo software (iPhoto), website creation tool (iWeb) and DVD creator (iDVD).

The wildest rumors claim we'll hear about the white iPhone 4 and the Verizon iPhone at the conference. Meanwhile, a Mexican carrier is claiming that we'll see a new iPhone 4 released at the end of September that has been redesigned to thwart the antenna issue that has caused some users to lose signal.

We'll have a full report tomorrow on what Apple does -- and does not -- do. As usual, the guys in Cupertino sure do know how to get the tech masses into a lather.