When Apple has a major product new launch, a lot of websites will give you the specs and highlights of latest iWhatever. At Spot Cool Stuff, we do that too. But then we focus on the practical questions at hand: Whether or not the new product is worth spending your money on.

That was our approached when the iPhone 4S launched. So it was with the release of the 3rd generation iPad. And now we turn our attention to Apple’s latest announcement: Should you upgrade to the new iPhone 5?

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Is it a tablet? Or is it a phone?

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 really is something different—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 does the Samsung Galaxy Note deliver the best features of a tablet and a smartphone? Or is it the worst of both worlds? Spot Cool Stuff takes a look:

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Since returning from the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show the question we’ve been asked most is: What was the coolest thing you saw?

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.

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“Thinner and Brighter” could be the unofficial moto of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. One tech company taking that to an extreme is China-based Huawei (pronounced “Wah-Way”). At CES, they unveiled the Ascend P1 S, the world’s thinnest smartphone.

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Thirty years from now will every adult have cell phone shaped cancerous tumors around their ears?

Disturbingly, the answer to that question is: maybe.

Some government agencies, such as America’s Food and Drug Administration, say risk from cell phone radiation is minimal. Others, such as the UN’s World Health Organization, say that alarm bells would make for an appropriate ringtone. France has gone so far as to ban children from using cell phones specifically because kids are most susceptible to radiation.

The wisdom of French lawmakers aside, the truth is that no one really knows with certainty the effects years of cell phone radiation can have. Only after long term studies can there be conclusive answers. At which point it might be too late.

So what’s one to do?

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Color us cynical, but when we first heard of the cell phone made out of corn-based materials we figured that the product would be little more than a green gimmick. (Perhaps we are still haunted by memories of drinking cheap corn-made beer—”beer” that literally cost less than bottled water—while in college in Iowa. But ANYWAY . . .)

. . . then we tried out the Samsung Reclaim. Turns out, the phone much cooler and less, well, corny, than we had imagined.

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Sleek-looking smartphones are multiplying like Tribbles these days. Yet, even through all the noise created by the likes of the iPhone 3GS and upcoming Palm Pre, the HTC Hero caught our attention. And not only because this phone journeyed from drawing board concept to availability on Amazon.co.uk in a remarkable short period of time. In terms of form and function, the HTC Hero is one of the best phones out there.

It’s features include:

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There’s been a clear design trend towards cell phones with screens that occupy an increasingly large percentage of a device’s surface area. (Just compare the screen size of the BlackBerry Storm, for example, with the similarly sized BlackBerry models from a few years ago).

Might this trend towards having more glass on the front of a cell phone lead to more glass on the back and sides too?

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