That’s the tagline on billboards advertising the new Samsung Galaxy Note. When the company selling a product expresses uncertainly about what exactly their product is, you know you are dealing with something different.

Indeed, the Samsung Note seems like a new hybrid product that’s both an oversized phone and an undersized tablet. The phonelet weighs 6.3 ounces (178 grams) and has a 5.3-inch display—more than the largest smartphone and less than the smallest tablet. The Android operating system powered by 1.4GHz dual-core processor is capable of doing anything Samsung Galaxy tablets are (and then some). And it makes phone calls with all the functionality of a high-end Samsung smartphone.

So the Samsung Galaxy Note deliver the best features of a tablet and a smartphone? Or is the worst of both worlds? Spot Cool Stuff takes a look:

Review of the Samsung Galaxy Note Phone-Tablet Hybrid

Samsung Galaxy Note as a Phone

In terms of making and receiving phone calls, the Samsung Note is almost functionally identical to Samsung’s Galaxy S2 smartphones, of which Spot Cool Stuff is a fan. We’d describe the call quality over the 3G/4G quad-band GSM phone as “pretty good.” But two features stand out especially:

• The volume of the speakerphone—it’s appreciably louder than the iPhone or most any other Android phone. The call quality through the speaker is high too.

• The long phone battery life—you can talk over 3G on the Note for over an amazing 12 hours between charges. That compares to about 7.5 hours on the Apple iPhone 4S. Two reasons for this strong performance: 1) the Note’s large 2500mAh battery; and 2) the fact that the screen is off during phone calls. When the Note’s large, bright display is on the battery life drops considerably—you can only surf the web over 3G for around 3.5 hours on the Samsung Note compared to more than 7 hours on the Apple iPhone 4S.

The problem—and it isn’t inconsiderable—is the Samsung Note’s form factor. The Note is thin—as thin as a Galaxy S2—but the 5.3-inch screen is massive for a smartphone. It feels awkward (and looks a bit silly) holding the Samsung Note up to your ear during a phone call. The Note will fit in a medium-sized purse but not in a shirt pocket. We found that squeezing it into the front pocket of our jeans was a tight and uncomfortable fit.

In short: The Samsung Note is simply too large to be an everyday phone.

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Samsung Galaxy Note as a Tablet

The various models of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets are fantastic—we’ve listed them as top choices in both our review of the best tablets for travel and the best tablets for students. Happily, the Galaxy Note continues Samsung’s streak of tablet excellence. Among the highlight features of the Note:

• The display. It’s very crisp and bright. The 1280 x 800 pixel resolution screen uses the same Super AMOLED technology found in many Samsung HD televisions. That makes the colors bright and vivid; photos and videos show up especially gorgeous. Our one gripe (and it is relatively minor) is that the screen does not include the PenTile matrix structure that’s in new Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. As a result, the colors on the screen will turn a bit blue-green when viewed at an angle.

• The speed and memory. The internal makeup of the Note is more like a computer than an underpowered smartphone. The touchscreen is responsive and the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system feels zippy. The Note comes with either 16 or 32GB of internal storage. We love that the Note also has a microSD slot that can accommodate cards of to 32GB. The slot is handy for moving photos and videos on/off of the Note, which brings us to . . .

• The cameras. The front-facing camera is 2MP—more than sufficient for video calling. The rear-facing 8MP camera shines. It records video at 1080p and in daylight takes photos that rival those from the superlative iPhone 4S. The length and width of the Note is similar to that of an ultra-compact digital camera, which makes taking photos and videos with the Note feel natural.

The S Pen

Those highlights we list above don’t even include the most outstanding features of the Note. That would be the S Pen—Samsung doesn’t want you to call it a stylus—that you can use to write and draw on the screen.

The “S” is pressure sensitive, so the pen strokes look more natural on the screen. Hand drawn art actually looks good on the Note. (At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung had professional artists sketching people’s portraits. The results were pretty impressive).

What’s cool about the S Pen is that it is more than a gimmicky thing design to appeal to artists. Use of the pen is incorporated into many of the most used functions of the Note. Use the pen to crop images or write captions on photos. Quickly jot a sketches and share it via text, email or Twitter. Especially great is the bundled-in S Memo app you can take notes in any combination of voice, typed text, images and handwriting.

And unlike the Palm personal organizers of days old, the Note is intended to be used as a touchscreen. So you never need to use the stylus S Pen to use the device if you don’t want to.

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Our Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Note is clearly a better tablet than it is a phone.

As an everyday phone, we wouldn’t recommend it—the Note is simply too large. Which makes it especially unfortunate that, at least in the United States, the Note will priced as a smartphone would: overly expensive if you buy an unlocked version but a bargain if you sign up for a two-year contract with a carrier.

If you already have a smartphone and are looking to buy one and only one tablet, we wouldn’t the Samsung Note either. We’d rather have a tablet with a larger screen like a Sony S, Apple iPad or one of the Samsung Galaxy Tabs.

That said, the Samsung Galaxy Note is a high quality device. And there are people for whom this hybrid would be an excellent choice. Among them:

• Travelers who don’t want to carry for a phone and a tablet on their trips.

• Students who want a tablet for class (the S pen is ideal for note taking) and want a phone for occasional use.

• Nearly anyone in the market for a second tablet or backup phone.

If you are shopping for a tablet-phone and happen to fall into any of those groups, take Note.

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Related posts:
Reviews of the Best Tablets for Travelers / Students
Should You Upgrade to an Apple iPhone 4S
Samsung Reclaim: The Eco-Smartphone Made From Corn
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After some contemplation, we’ve settled on our answer: Liquipel. It’s a nanotechnology service that waterproofs electronic gadgets without adding any weight to a device or any altering it in any discernible way.

Futurists have long recognized the potential of nanotechnology—the study of manipulating matter on an atomic or molecular level—to revolutionize products we use in our daily lives. Spot Cool Stuff believes that one day it will. But we’ve seen little evidence that day will arrive soon. In fact, Liquipel might be the most compelling use of nanotech we’ve seen in an everyday consumer item.

It works like this: Liquipel places your device in one of it’s special chambers for around 40 minutes. During that time the Liquipel solution covers the entire exterior device and interior electronics with a water repelling nano-layer¹.

The Liquipel coating is odorless and 1000 times thinner than a human hair. Compare a Liquipelified iPhone with a regular one and you won’t notice any difference. At least not until you submerge them in water. Drop the Liquipel-coated iPhone in a full sink and it will still work when you lift it out. The regular iPhone, probably not so much.

This does not mean you can use a Liquipel iPhone to take underwater photos. For that, you’ll still need a waterproof iPhone case. An iPhone treated with Liquipel has an Ingress Protection Rating of IPX-7, which means it can spend up to 30 minutes submerged in 1 meter (3.3 feet) of water. That doesn’t technically qualify as “waterproof,” but it is sufficient protection for an iPhone that’s, say, dropped in a toilet or left outside in the rain.

And because the Liquipel coating bonds with a device on a molecular level, it will never rub off.

The downside of Liquipel? Unless you live close to the company’s Santa Ana, California headquarters you’ll have to mail in your gadget to get it Liquipelified. And at $60 per device (plus an optional $10 rush fee) the service is a little on the pricey side. But then that’s cheaper than having to replace an iPhone.

At the moment the company is only waterproofing the Apple iPhone, Motorola Droid, Samsung Charge and four HTC smartphone models. The Liquipel coating can bond to nearly any mobile device. (At CES, we even saw a tissue that was treated with Liquipel—you could dunk it in water and it remain bone dry). So we hope for the day mobile electronic devices will routinely be sold with Liquipel already applied.

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¹ Applying Liquipel to a device will not void Apple’s warranty. The same is generally true for other manufacturers too.

Related posts:
A Review of the Best Waterproof Cases for an iPod and iPhone
The Seal Flex Waterproof, Dishwasher-Safe Keyboard
Waterproof, Durable Pentax Optio W90 Ultra-Compact Camera

You know the sort of unpowered speakers we’re talking about—the kind with copper analog wires that clamp awkwardly into round sockets on the back of stereo amplifiers. Spot Cool Stuff has a pair of these up in our attic that we bought in high school. They are still good speakers. But they’ve been rendered obsolete in today’s computer-based digital music world.

Or, they were rendered obsolete until the Griffin Twenty made them relevant again. Plug those old speakers into the back of Twenty, attach an Apple Airport Express wifi base station to the top, and now you can wifelessly stream audio to your old speakers via iTunes, Pandora, last.fm, Spotify or any software or app that follows the AirPlay wireless protocol.

The Griffin Twenty has a sleek-looking volume nob on its base, though you can control the volume remotely too. Also cool: You can also plug a powered sub-woofer into the Griffin Twenty to add some extra base.

Griffin Technology hasn’t officially announced pricing on the Griffin Twenty yet, but except it to be under $200. The Griffin Twenty goes on sale in February 2012.

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Related posts:
Review of the Sonos Wireless Home Music System
The Beamz Laser Music Instrument
The Hotel Triton: The Most Fun Boutique Hotel in San Francisco

And the refrigerator can not only quickly chill liquids in aluminum cans. The Blast Chiller will also turn a warm one liter glass bottle of liquid cold in about eight minutes.

The fast chilling is accomplished through a combination of two methods. First, the refrigerator quickly cycles very cold air from freezer through the small Blast Chiller drawer. Second, it swirls the can or bottle in the drawer so that the chilling effect is efficiently spread through the liquid. LG says that this swirling effect does not agitate carbonated liquids, so your newly chilled can of soda won’t explode when opened.

The catch? Because the Blast Chiller uses air from the freezer there are limits to how frequently it can be used. Chill three bottles of wine one right after the other and you’ll have to wait around three hours before you can chill a fourth.

LG’s Ultra-Capacity French Door Refrigerator is also excellent in ways besides the Blast Chiller. Features include:

• 31 cubic feet (877 liters) of storage, enough for 50 gallons of milk;
• Interior sensors that continually adjust the temperature, humidity and air circulation;
• 13-inch extra-tall ice and water dispenser.

LG hasn’t officially announced the how much the Ultra-Capacity French Door Refrigerator with Blast Chiller will cost. But then how can you put a price on a quickly cooled beer?

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See an overview of the Consumer Electronics Show and the four tech trends for 2012

So what does the teen pop idol have to do with Vietnamese robots?

Very little, so far as we are aware.

Yet that didn’t stop tongs of proud geeks and self-confessed nerds from descending upon Tosy’s tiny corner of the Las Vegas Convention Center and jostling for the best position to get a glimpse of the star. Not that most of the crowd could recognize him.

“Which one is he?” a Microsoft employee behind us asked.

“The one in the pink and grey stripped shirt.” a helpful person said.

“No, I think maybe he’s the one in the brown hoodie,” suggested one one else in the crowd.

“Who’s Justin Bieber?” asked another.

As for the mRobo, Tosy describes it as an “18-inch tall entertainment robot.”

It isn’t as pornographic as it sounds. The robot features 2GB of internal memory onto which music can be loaded via a USB slot. Choose a song for the mRobo to play and it will dance along to the beats. That’s more impressive than it sounds given that the mRobo dances using bipedal motion and is able to bust moves similar to those a human would.

The mRobo will even dance to Bieber’s new album. Justin told the crowd that it will be out “in a couple of month.”

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See an overview of the Consumer Electronics Show and the four tech trends for 2012

The Huawei Ascend P1 S is 6.68mm (0.26 inches) thick. That’s about the same thickness as a pencil!

But the cool thing about the Ascend P1 S is that it doesn’t seem to be super-thin for the sake of being so. The device feels very solidly built. And the 4.3-inch screen is bright and gorgeous-looking. It sports a 960 x 540 resolution and is topped by Corning Gorilla Glass.

Under the hood—to the extent that something this thin has an “under the hood”—the P1 S has some technological game too. Features include:

• Dual-core 1.6GHz processor
• 8 MP rear-facing camera with 1080p HD video
• 1.3 front-facing camera
• 5.1 surround sound with Dolby Mobile 3.0 Plus
• 1800mAh battery

Add to all that Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and the Huawei Ascend P1 S is looking like thin goodness.

The P1 S is expected to be available in Europe this spring and North America in the summer.

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See an overview of the Consumer Electronics Show and the four tech trends for 2012

So Spot Cool Stuff is thrilled that there’s one company getting it right: Powerbag.

Though are currently several Powerbag models on the market, three new collections are coming in 2012: the Urban Collection, the Executive Collection and the Fūl Collection.

The Fūl bags—their IKEA-esque name notwithstanding—are the coolest of the lot. We love what we saw of the Fūl Deluxe Backpack (pic to right)—it has a 6000 mAh battery built in. (For comparison, an iPhone 4S has a 1900 mAh battery, the latest 15″ MacBook Pro has a 5500 mAh.) The Fūl Collection also includes a wheeled briefcase, two types of messengers and a sling style bag.

The great thing about a Powerbag is that it contains a complete charging system. Three connectors are built into the bag: one mini USB, one micro USB and one Apple 30-pin (eg. to charge an iPad or iPhone). There’s also a USB slot for using your own cord. So, altogether, you can charge up to four gadgets at once. The battery’s smart-charging system will automatically send the optimal amount of power to every device it is charging.

Spot Cool Stuff hopes and expects that large strides in battery power will be forthcoming over the next decade. In the meantime, a Powerbag is a practical—and stylish—way for recharging your gadgets when on the go.

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See an overview of the Consumer Electronics Show and the four tech trends for 2012

So what new tech will you likely see in 2012? Here’s the rundown of the four basic trends we’re seeing:

Ultrabooks

First there were laptops. Then netbooks. And now ultrabooks. A trickle of ultrabooks have already come to market. Many, many more on the way.

So what’s an ultrabook? It’s a notebook that meets certain technical specifications for portability and power. Among them: Being less than 21mm (.83 inches) thick, powering up in less than 7 seconds and having a battery life over 5 hours. More conceptually, an ultrabook is a device that’s a hybrid between a traditional laptop and a tablet computer. Lenovo, Toshiba, LG and Acer are all among the companies introducing an ultrabook at CES.

Convergence

Web browsing, television watching, social networking and gaming are merging together. Tech manufacturers are scrambling to be at the forefront of that. LG, Samsung, Sony and Vizio are each announcing televisions at CES with Google TV built in. Apple (which doesn’t have an official presence at CES) is rumored to be extending their iOS operating system to traditional televisions. A slew of other companies at CES are launching services to allow you to watch and control television across multiple devices.

Apps and Appcessories

Last year at CES, it seemed every other company was introducing a tablet computer. Plenty of new tablets will launch at this year’s show too. But expect 2012 to be less about new devices and more about new ways to use existing ones. The top app makers will be at CES, most for the first time. Many more companies will focus on appcessories—physical objects that interface with smartphones via an app. Three appcessories that especially caught our eye:

• Nukotoys is introducing trading cards that can be read by an iPad or iPhone simply by touching the card to the touchscreen. Hold a lion card to an iPad, for example, and a virtual lion will instantly spawn on the screen. The first two games are scheduled for release in March: Monsterology (see pic, below) for kids older than 7 and an Animal Planet game aimed at children 3 to 7 years old.

• Wowwee will be launching AppGear, collectible toys that have a virtual component. For instance: a real foam airplane that you can take on a Word War I mission via an accompanying app.

• Transgaming is developing games you play on your mobile device and on your television—at the same time. The first title, Ants at a Picnic, involves squishing virtual insects on your TV by flicking them on your smartphone.

For more, see our review of 5 cool appcessory toys currently out on the market.

Battery Power

Electronic devices have increased their power and portability at a rapid pace. But their battery power has not kept up. So while research and development firms work on making traditional batteries better, other companies are coming out with products to fill the void. Those generally fall into two categories:

Adding extra batteries: Many new smartphone cases with supplementary batteries are being unvieled at CES. Also popular are bags, from handbags to backpacks, with batteries built-in for on-the-go charging.

Battery alternatives such as a solar-powered Kindle case. Most promising? PowerTrekk is introducing a portable fuel cell (pic below) that can charge gadgets using tap water!

In addition to following up on those trends, Spot Cool Stuff will be scouring the Consumer Electronics Show for all manner of cool gear and gadgets. To follow along, join us on Twitter or visit our archive of CES posts.