Maximum PC got their hands on one and liked it very much, from the capacitive screen that can play video to the onscreen keyboard. The only thing they didn’t like is that it’s thicker than the Kindle. Who cares about a few millimetres when you get more usability in return? I don’t. [Maximum PC]

You saw the ten-tongue Sqweel sexual toy yesterday (NSFW). While Fleshbot has its own review, Dr. Debby Herbenick has been trying it all weekend for us. Here is her review, non-explicit video included.

This weekend, I scored big time. First, I found a red Gone-with-the-Wind-ish petticoat in a vintage shop. Then, I arrived home to find the Sqweel—a brand new, pre-release, revolutionary, wow-factor sex toy—waiting for me in a stack of mail. The good news? The Sqweel is orgasmic-ly awesome. Even better? As of today, it is officially available to the rest of you.

How It Works

As the name suggests, the Sqweel merges the wheel (one of humankind’s greatest inventions) with sex (one of humankind’s greatest pleasures). Except instead of typical wheel spokes, it turns a series of tongues—10 tongues, actually—using three speeds. Let me repeat: there are TEN TONGUES. It’s like group oral sex with everyone somehow fitting in between your legs. Or oral sex with an extremely talented and eager lover.

The Sqweel is a remarkable sex toy designed by an Irishman (and animator) named Trevor Murphy who won LoveHoney’s Design a Sex Toy competition a few years back. This fact gives me tremendous hope that other animators, engineers and people who sit with their computers or graphics tablets all day will soon turn their talents to advanced sex-toy design and innovation. If not for me, then for the love of sex. Please?

Though not a vibrator, the folks at LoveHoney suggest (and I agree) that while vibrators can certainly contribute to highly pleasurable sex play, there’s something to be said for non-vibrating play that promotes slow yummy build-up, much as oral sex does, and that perhaps leads to an orgasm that leaves one feeling that curious mix of satisfaction and craving more.

The Rundown

These are the key points about the Sqweel, aside from the 10-tongue, 3-speed yum:

• Materials: The tongues are made of silicone (easy to clean, non-toxic awesomeness) while the black compartment is made of soft plastic.

• Hygiene: The tongue component can be removed from its holder for easy cleaning of both parts.

• Power: What does it run on, you ask? (Aside from the Grace of the Sex Gods). Three AAA batteries. I would have preferred AA batteries rather than the AAA batteries that few people keep lying around the house (whereas, if needed in a pinch, AA batteries may be scrounged from TV remotes or Flipcams).

• Cost: At £34.99 (around $61), I find the price fair. Especially if you want to switch out your vibrator from time to time, gift your partner with a tongue that doesn’t stop or give yourself a break from lockjaw. They ship to most countries in only a few waiting-with-bated-breath days

• Endurance: No more lock jaw! Or at least you get a break. The Sqweel is not intended to replace oral sex, nor should it (after all, oral sex can be lovely, intimate and passionate). But it may offer an occasional alternative, or complement, to oral play, which is especially useful for partners whose tongues, jaws, necks or lower backs get sore from extended oral play.

• Single or doubles? Both. The Sqweel can easily be used privately or with a partner. It’s comfortable to hold in one’s own hand during self-pleasure of one’s outside parts (please do NOT try to insert all the way in the anus, lest I recount one man’s salad tongs incident). When pleasuring your partner, it’s not so bulky (only 4.5 inches x 4 inches x 1 inch at its thickest) as to block your view.

• Education: Similar to the Sasi, which also mimics oral sex, women who would like to learn to orgasm from oral sex may find it helpful to practice with the Sqweel.

• Lube: Due to the Sqweel’s silicone components, silicone lube is a no-no. Instead, try a water-based lube applied directly to you or your partner’s body as: (1) there are too many tongues to put lube on every single one and (2) I could easily see the globs of lube go flying as the tongue spokes go round and round and no one needs lube on their ceiling.

• Convenience: Now you can provide your partner with oral pleasure via the Sqweel while simultaneously kissing each other, sitting back and watching, talking dirty, or breathing warm air on your partner’s genitals.

• Conversation: If your partner is using the Sqweel on you and you ask him or her a question, your partner can actually answer you rather than making that awkward “mwawahwah” sound that people make when they try to speak while performing oral sex.

The Experience

I found that holding the Sqweel steady and straight (aimed perpendicular at one’s body) was the best strategy — leaning it to one side or the other, as one might do with a typical vibrator, sometimes caused uncomfortable feelings due to the toy’s edges pressing against fairly sensitive parts. Try exploring the low, medium and high settings — for example, using the low setting to build arousal and the medium or high settings to up the intensity or as one approaches orgasm (if that’s your thing). You might even try turning the tongues upside down for a modified version of Sqweel play stimulation.

In regard to positions, one can lay back and enjoy self-directed or partnered stimulation OR you can prop it like some do with the Fleshlight (e.g. between sofa cushions, between the mattress and box springs or in a sneaker). The Sqweel can be used to stimulate men’s or women’s genitals though I don’t recommend it for internal anal stimulation lest it possibly get “lost” (and not lost in translation, which I just watched again late last night).

Please be careful how you hold it! In some hand positions, one’s fingers can get caught in the compartment and stop the movement of the tongues. This happened to me once or twice. It didn’t hurt, but just wanted to throw that out there in case you are used to moving your hands along with your toy of choice. Or if you have particularly long labia or hair down there that may possibly be an issue too.

The future

The folks at LoveHoney have said that they are planning to roll out different “attachments” in time — so if you decide to try to Sqweel, there should be even more to come. Personally, I would like to see a Sqweel iPhone app. It doesn’t have to vibrate like the fancy MyPleasure MyVibe app, it just has to have a great visual of rotating tongues in which the user can control the speed of vibration.

As it is, however, I love it. It’s yummy. The Sqweel is a very innovative sex toy. If you try it, please let me know what you think — I always enjoy hearing and learning about others’ perspectives and experiences with sex and, in particular, with sex toys.

10 tongues. TEN. The only thing better would be 11. Or 10 plus chocolate.

Silicone material

Comes apart for easy cleaning

Unlikely to produce Fleshlight-furniture-ish shame spiral during use, storage or cleaning

Comfortable to hold

Easy to store in a bedside table or sock drawer

Requires three AAA batteries (a con in my household given that I mostly keep AAs on hand, but may be fine in yours)

Looks like a tape measure

Only three speeds. Given how women and men vary, I’d have gone with five or seven.

Dr. Debby Herbenick, author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction, is the Associate Director of the centre for Sexual Health Promotion in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation at Indiana University (IU) where she is a Research Scientist. She is also a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction where she writes (and hosts audio podcasts of) the Kinsey Confidential column and coordinates educational programming. She has a PhD in Health behaviour from IU, a Master’s degree in Public Health Education (also from IU) and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. In addition, she is certified as a Sexuality Educator from the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists.

Debby writes regular sex columns for Men’s Health magazine, Time Out Chicago magazine, Velocity, Cheeky Chicago, Psychology Today and she has also written for Glamour magazine.

Playing with Intel’s monster four-screened concept laptop, you use gestures to select media (online or local) and fiddle with widgets developed for it with an SDK (calculator, IM). This will either be really great or totally horrible for productivity.

Crunchgear got their hands on it in June, but this version, closer to release, seems like it’s been refined and cleaned up for a Christmas-time launch.

The docking mechanism works by first latching another iPhone back onto your 3G or 3GS. There’s a hole in the back for the Bluetooth unit, as is the thought process for other Mogo units. To remove the headset, push down on the left side and it pops out. To charge, pop up the charging port on the bottom and plug in a microUSB charger.

This is one thing we’d like to see changed so that the headset can charge directly from the iPhone’s power supply so that it’s always juiced up. It would reduce battery life, but if you’re always on your Bluetooth headset anyway, it’d be super useful. And, if they could build a battery pack into the unit, that would solve two problems at once.

As for the performance, it’s actually surprisingly good. The wife said I sounded as good on this tiny sliver of a headset as I did on larger ones, and I could hear her just fine as well, even though she was at a gas station. One tricky part was to make sure the ear padding is oriented the correct direction. If you flip it around, the headset falls off easily.

Whether or not the Mogo Talk for iPhone is worth $US130 is up to how much you talk on your phone. I, for one, love the fact that I can now always have a Bluetooth headset with me, but the problem of always keeping it charged (especially with the need for separate microUSB charging) still remains. As much as having to use a Bluetooth headset is a hassle, I don’t want to get ticketed for talking on the phone while driving, so using the Mogo Talk would make the whole thing less of a pain. [Newton Peripherals]

The Archos 5 improves on some of the complaints we had about the previous Archos 5. Archos has upped the storage with loads of options—it now comes with flash (8GB or 32GB) or an HDD (160GB to 500GB). The flash version’s way thinner, at .4-inches. The metal backing felt nice in my hand.

But the real changes are to the operating system: It’s using Android, with Archos’ customer interface built on top, like the Super Widget, a series of multimedia shortcuts on the main Android screen. Beyond that you’ll find the usual Android drawer full of applications, since Archos is throwing in a few preloaded.

Multimedia is the Archos 5 Internet Tablet’s bread and butter. Its Texas Instruments ARM Cortex A8 plays back 720p video smoothly and you can buy a dock to output it to a larger display. It is a sweet device for storing video, photos and music. Archos has always been able to do that really well. It also has a 3D map software program for GPS navigation.

Too bad it falls down on actually being an internet tablet: It runs on Wi-Fi using Android’s built-in browser, but it won’t automatically load full web pages—it defaults to mobile versions. The tablet does not support full Flash yet, which means no streaming video. (Even though HTC managed to build Flash support into the Hero.) Archo is instead waiting until there is Flash 10 support from Adobe.

It might sound spoiled, but on a device that is meant for the internet I want to be able to get video and full Flash websites. I don’t want the broken internet on a standalone device. What Archos does do is throw in a bunch of Android apps (including some paid apps). Apps are great, but sometimes you want to just visit a site and not have to page around or adjust the settings. To its credit, Archos says they will be updating soon when Flash 10 is available for download. (Which they tell us will be in December, not than the predicted October). If you are buying the tablet for Internet I’d wait until then, however as a PMP Archos is still more than solid. [Archos]

The unit CTL (Intel designs the Classmate PC, and companies like CTL bring it to market) sent me is lab coat white with a silver, grayish handle and I’ve got to say it is pretty ugly even for kids. That little bear is way cuter and so is Dell’s Latitude 2100 education netbook (which comes in school bus yellow and ball field green) and the ASUS Disney Netpal Eee PC. Thankfully the pictures of the Classmate PC in blue and grey look a lot better, but if I were a kid given this egg white netbook I’d cover it in magic marker and Hello Kitty stickers. I do actually really like the detachable lunchbox-like handle, however.

What the Classmate lacks in style it makes up for in durability. The 10-inch netbook (unlike its convertible tablet sibling) can take a beating. It’s hard drive is shock mounted and the chassis can withstand a 70-centimetre drop. And I wasn’t scared to drool on it since its keyboard is spill resistant.

The netbook has one of the most cramped keyboards I’ve seen on a 10-inch netbook (though the Shift key is now full size), but I’m willing to be forgiving for that since it is meant for the small handed. Win on the trackpad though; it has been expanded and with its dedicated scroll bar is a pleasure to navigate the desktop with.

The $US449 netbook has the usual specs—a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, Windows XP and 160GB hard drive. That is plenty fine for writing a homework assignment in Microsoft Works and hitting up kid friendly websites. However, the best part of the whole netbook is the Blue Dolphin skin over Windows XP that Intel has created.The UI is pretty neat and has large animated shortcuts to frequently used programs (it is pretty easy to customise too). Its six-cell battery which doesn’t protrude from the system should blast out about five hours of runtime and last well into recess.

The $US449 price seems like overkill considering most netbooks on the market, which are hands down more attractive, are at least $US50 less. However, for a kid its got durability, easy to use software and is 100 percent cootie free. [CTL]

Compared to the G1 this thing is svelte, and the keyboard is aligned correctly with the screen so there’s no weird jarring going on when you’re typing. The addition of the D-Pad is going to be fantastic for gaming/emulation gaming, and works like a D-Pad when navigating the phone as well. Very useful.

The sliding mechanism feels solid and desirable, as in I want to open and close the thing all day just to hear the sound. The version I saw was white, and the finish was classy without being ostentatious, and definitely not cheap feeling. There’s a heft to it, but it’s definitely not heavy.

The camera hole is on the bottom left of the face, so you end up putting your fingers over the lens and mic a lot if you’re right handed. Slightly annoying.

The video recording is a capable 640×480, and there are 16 or so video effects you can overlay in real time onto your video. There’s no zooming or editing, so this is barebones, but for quick video that you can take when you need it, it’s pretty decent. Note: It does not take still photos.

Its pedometer functionality works as you’d expect. Same with the voice recorder—they’re both straightforward, and the voice recorder is basically the same one you’ve seen on the iPhone.

The FM radio has the same problem that small devices have with radio in that you need to have your headphones in to get reception. Not a huge deal with the nano, since you’re going to always have your headphones in anyway. But we didn’t get a chance to test FM reception since there were no headphones available.

All in all it feels exactly like the old nano, except with new features—which is the point. So yeah, the polished/glossy finish looks very nice, and the new features like voiceover are useful if you’re into that.

Have a look at our video, plus the full details.

The Details

The important bits: It still runs webOS, still has a keyboard, still only for Sprint (for now) and can pretty much do everything the bigger Pre can do. There’s no Wi-Fi, but GPS and the accelerometer are still there. The Pixi is slightly lighter than the Pre, losing a lot of weight from not having to slide itself out to reveal a keyboard, but has a little bit of a lobotomised brain. Palm wouldn’t get into details, but you can make out from the hints and insinuations that the CPU and the RAM were less of what you’d get with the Pre.

What you’d miss the most is the 80 pixels they had to shave off because of the smaller display. At 2.63 inches, all the Pixi can handle is a 320×400 resolution. This translates into more work for developers, who need to somehow manage two different resolution sizes as well hardware different specs if you want your app to run on both phones. Oh, and there’s a 2MP camera as opposed to the Pre’s 3MP camera.

Hands-on Impressions

The Pixi’s handlers didn’t give people a chance to manhandle the phone very much, despite my attempts at charming them by both showering and brushing my teeth beforehand, so the impressions are limited to some typing, some navigating and a lot of eyeballing. What I saw was good. It’s the same OS, so you can do everything you could do before, but the ball is replaced by a touch “area”—the same area you’d use for the off-screen forward and back gestures before. Just tap it and you get the same effect as the Pre. And in all the apps I saw there wasn’t a huge difference in speed between the two devices.

What’s most surprising is that even though the keyboard is technically smaller on the Pixi than on the Pre, each key is more raised because there’s no sliding lid to maintain clearance of. So even though the keys are slightly different and smaller, I was able to thumb out words faster and with fewer errors than before. High five.

Overall, it’s definitely slimmer, lighter and more pocketable than the Pre. It has almost all the same features—no Wi-Fi won’t affect your ability to download apps or music—so you’re not missing on that much stuff if for some reason you choose the Pixi over the Pre. But when asked about whether or not you can run the same number of apps simultaneously, multitasking, as on the Pre, I was once again met with what amounted to “no comment.” Think of it like a less pricey computer.

What’s To Come

Palm is targeting the Pixi at the cheap man segment, the person for which $US200 or $US150 is too much for a phone, but something a little less is just right. (This person also wouldn’t recognise that any difference would be dwarfed by the monthly phone bill anyway, but that’s neither here nor there.) No concrete details on the price, but it’s definitely going to be less than the $US150 of the Pre.

There was no concrete launch date yet, but Palm’s aiming for sometime “before the Holidays”. The Pixi will come loaded with a native Facebook app as well as Synergy integration with LinkedIn and Yahoo. For those of you who like customised backplates, there will be a limited edition run of five artist-designed Touchstone-compatible backs just for you, provided you’re among the people who order the limited edition backplates in time.

The 0.63-inch thin Archos 9 feels pretty sturdy, but one major complaint is that it feels heavy. Archos says it only weighs half a kilo, but something about the balance is wrong, because it felt heavier than that in my hands. The hardware is pretty simple—a 9-inch resistive touchscreen (no multitouch) with a few surrounding physical buttons.

There is a Ctrl+Alt+Delete button and a keyboard trigger on the right, the latter which quickly launches Win 7’s finger-friendly keyboard. (Archos will also market a USB keyboard along with a case.) If you don’t like using your finger on the screen, there is a tiny optical trackpad on the right and two mouse buttons on the left side. The touchscreen is pretty responsive, and there is a stylus on the back, so I don’t see the need to really reach for the bitty mouse. I’ve always found optical trackpad annoying as hell.

The Archos 9 comes with Windows 7 Starter (remember that means no wallpaper changing or Aero) and its 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z515 processor and 1GB of RAM run it well. Watching a 720p Windows Media clip was decent, and when I fired up Wi-Fi and launched a browser, I was able to watch some streaming videos.

It only has 60GB of storage space, which could get cramped if you plan on keeping loads of video on it but doesn’t seem like a deal breaker to me. My biggest worry is battery life. It has a 4-cell battery (which is actually swappable) but I am guessing it won’t get more than 3 hours of juice.

I’ll withhold final judgement until the full review. I am in search of a tablet like this for sitting back on the couch and surfing. The Archos could be it—though $US500 is a bit much—but I’ve also still got my fingers crossed for a thinner and lighter Apple one.