Quick Mobile Marketplace app
Free for Google Android; available later this year for Apple iOS devices
I haven’t sold anything on the online auction site eBay in a long time, but this slick new app from a Boston company appeals to my entrepreneurial side. Quick is a simple, attractive retail service that makes it easy to buy or sell online.
Once you’ve signed up for the Quick service, you can use the phone’s camera to photograph your item or scan its bar code to provide shoppers with an image and other useful data. Then post the item on Quick’s own marketplace, as well as on eBay, Craigslist, and even Facebook. In fact, you can list the item at all four venues simultaneously, improving your chances for a quick sale.
If you’re looking to buy, the app’s search feature will look across multiple shopping services for the item you want. You can easily fire off messages to prospective sellers to get more information about the goods. Or you can have Quick specifically search for nearby sellers, in case you’d like to negotiate face-to-face.
With an elegant interface and efficient design, Quick looks like an ideal app for one-to-one retailing.
Series 7 Gamer laptop, by Samsung Corp.
$1,857.98 at Amazon.com
Nearly $1,900 for a laptop computer? Well, the Series 7 just barely counts as a laptop. It’s a 17-inch, nine-pound behemoth with a massive brick-size AC adapter that feels almost as heavy. This isn’t the sort of machine you carry along on a business trip, unless your business is blowing up aliens.
The Series 7 is optimized for serious video gamers. It has an Intel Corp. Core i7 processor, one of the most powerful you can get, along with 16 gigabytes of RAM memory. Apart from its 1.5-terabyte hard drive, it packs 8 gigabytes of flash memory that lets it boot up the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system in just a few seconds. There’s also an advanced graphics chip and a Blu-ray optical disk drive. And don’t forget a massive set of Dolby speakers to simulate full-surround sound.
I found the Series 7 delivered decent performance running a favorite shooter game, Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Graphics were decent though not spectacular. However, the game played smoothly, with no visual stutter, and it responded to every command without hesitation.
I’m not enough of a gamer to splash out this much cash. But if you’re in the market for a ferocious game machine that will (barely) fit in a backpack, the Series 7 is surely worth a look.
Droid Incredible 4G LTE phone,by HTC Corp.
$149.99 at Verizonwireless.com
HTC has fallen in love with big-screen smartphones, like the very snazzy One X, but the company still knows how to make something a little bit smaller. Here’s a relatively diminutive entry in the company’s Droid Incredible line, sold exclusively through Verizon Wireless.
The handset has an attractive red-and-black motif to attract the eye and is sheathed in tough finger-friendly black plastic. The four-inch LCD screen is sharp and bright enough for decent video viewing.
The Incredible packs a lot of power for its size, thanks to a dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera, and support for Verizon’s 4G LTE service. As usual, the 4G system delivers snappy Internet downloads, and with the optional mobile hot spot feature you can share the wealth with friends or colleagues who use Wi-Fi devices.
And it’s got a Beats Audio system for enhanced music listening.
While it’s not exactly incredible — you’ll find plenty of equally powerful Android phones out there — HTC has succeeded in building a smaller smartphone that competes well against its giant brethren.