Solid state drives rank up there with caviar and Russian girlfriends as expensive luxuries you can probably live without but OCZ has just unveiled three new models it says are 50% cheaper than similar high speed offerings currently on the market.

The 2.5" Core Series SATA II drives come in 32, 64 and 128GB sizes and will set you back £125, £199 and £349 respectively. That's still a healthy premium on conventional drives but probably at least slightly less eye watering than your last utility bill.

OCZ says they'll be in the UK via Ebuyer, Dabs and Aria within a week or so.

[HEXUS,channel]

The Google Mobile team has posted three new videos on its new Mobile Tricks YouTube channel. Two of which really aren’t worth wasting time on (sorry guys), but the other is definitely worth a look.

It’s an amusing skit by comedy group The Vacationeers (nope, us neither) that explains how to (and how not to) deal with the awkwardness that inevitably arises when someone someone you don’t want to have your phone number asks you for it. Watch the video after the cut.

The US Department of Transportation Security Administration - or TSA for short - has just confirmed it will be approving a range of laptop bags for airport X-Ray machines, finally meaning travellers will be able to leave their notebooks in their luggage when they pass through security.

Airport security's main concern with having laptops inside bags is that they tend to get obscured from view by chargers, discs, USB leads and all the other things that come on board the plane with you. So, the New York Times reports, the newly designed bags will either feature a fold-out section to effectively separate your laptop from the rest of your gear as it passes through the machine, or will simply be stand-alone protective sleeves with no clutter accumulating pockets to remove the X-Ray operator's view...

Well, the build-up to the July 11 iPhone 3G launch looks like it’s begun – Apple has posted a guided tour video of its new smartphone for punters eager for the slightest scrap of information. If you don’t mind listening to the inevitable Apple hyperbole (and can stand the unending gesticulations of the host), the thirty minute video is a comprehensive guide to just about everything the iPhone 3G is capable of, though existing owners won’t see much that’s new.

HSDPA mobile broadband is all well and good but when it comes to sending files from phones and laptops in tends to be a tad sluggish. Now T-Mobile has turned on what it says is the first nationwide deployment of HSUPA - that's High-Speed Uplink Packet Access - to offer upload speeds of up to 1.4Mbps - or around five times current sluggish speeds.

That should make a huge difference to people who upload phone snaps or send large files on the move. The improvements also go hand in hand with upgrades to T-Mobile's download service, with HSDPA speeds set to be upped to 7.2Mbps in Greater London and then other major cities later this year.

T-Mobile UK chief executive, Jim Hyde, said: "25 per cent of new contract customers are signing up [to mobile broadband] and we expect to quadruple our user base in 2008." To help things along it's offering a £5 discount on its £15 a month tariff for the first three months for people signing up before October.

[Telecoms.com]

Amid talk of delays in the US, the 10in MSI Wind UMPC has gone on sale in the UK. Richard Stewart, product marketing manager at MSI UK, confirmed to HEXUS.channel that today was the day, saying: "Initially it will be stocked by Play.com, Ebuyer and Morgan Computers."

A quick look at all three sites reveals the white, Windows XP Wind in stock at Ebuyer and Morgan Computers but Play.com, which offers the black Wind in Linux and XP versions and the pink model with XP, still stating a 31st July arrival date. Ebuyer and Play.com both quote £349.99 with free delivery. Morgan Computers pitches in at a pricier £387.74.

The Wind still isn't due to arrive in the US till next week, which makes a pleasant change on the normal run of things.

German site eeepcnews.de has what appear to be official product shots of the new Eee PC 904 and 905 we first heard news of yesterday. Other than confirming their 900 series in a 1000 series body appearance, there's not much to add to what we already knew, with no specs to accompany the photographs.

PC Retail put up a story this afternoon stating it could, "exclusively confirm that Asus is to launch a new Eee PC device" - apparently called the Eee PC 904 HD - "into the UK 'within a matter of weeks'," but then the page swiftly disappeared . The plot thickens.

The danger of Bluetooth headsets is that passers-by might not spot them and may assume you're randomly jabbering at them or worse, to yourself. Flying in the face of this danger, and at the risk of sounding like a Bodyform advert, Celleden has released a headset so discrete, even you may not notice you're wearing it.

Barely bigger than a piece of loose coinage, as the photo attests, it weighs in at a measly 6.5g. yet manages 4hrs talktime and 50hrs stand-by - all topped up by its handy charging stand.

The press release proclaims that: "users can rest assured that wearing one will not damage their street cred!" For those of us who any to damage, that is.

It's available now in black or white for £29.99 from twistedcarbon.com and 'selected' high street stores.

Last week, the online forum notebookreview.com unearthed the first details on Sony's rumoured SR and FW series - now it appears to have found confirmation. Both laptops have shown up on Circuit City's website. They were swiftly taken down, but not before several people managed to save the pages.

The 16.4in Sony VAIO FW, shown in white, is a multimedia-savvy laptop designed to replace the FZ series. Circuit City listed it as shipping with a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo T8400, 4GB DDR2 RAM and a 250GB 5400rpm hard drive for $1149.99 - that's without the optional Blu-Ray...

Murmurs appearing on Taiwanese site Digitimes are suggesting that Asus is about to launch two new Eee PCs that fuse the current 900 series with the new 1000 (pictured).

By keeping the same 8.9in screen of the 900 but placing it in 10.2in the body of the 1000, Asus hopes to create two inexpensive 8.9in models with more practical, larger keyboards.

The 904 and 905, as they've been dubbed, would get Intel Atom processors, and possibly larger batteries and greater storage.

Oddly, Digitimes sees them as eventually replacing the current 900 and 901 models, which seems a somewhat bizarre move as it would leave Asus without a true 8.9in sized laptop. Happy times for the competition should that happen.