Celestron Nexstar CN16 GPS Accessory

Use the power and accuracy of GPS satellites to align your telescope. Plug in this 16-channel GPS module into your telescope's drive base port to link up and automatically download information from one of many global positioning satellites. Controlled with the NexStar computerized hand control (p/n 93962), the CN-16 will greatly improve the accuracy of your star alignments by locating north and leveling the optical tube with more precision than can be done by hand.
Customer Review: Useful, but not as much as expected
This unit has a GPS unit, an electronic compass, and an electronic level built in. Your scope will only use the GPS part, and it will only use it to set your location, and the time. Since the scope remembers the last location you entered, and has an internal clock to keep track of time, after you first set it, this doesn't supply anything absolutley necessary if you always use your telescope in the same place. On the other hand, if you take you scope with you to various places not near your home location, it can be very useful, especially if you change time zones.
Customer Review: Disappointed
I bought the GPS attachment to the telescope and was quite disappointed with it. It failed to work properly so I returned it. It did not establish my location, was slow to operate, etc.

If you're not interested in becoming part of the iPhone cult but want a media-friendly smartphone that also looks good, HTC have made the phone for you. It's compact (11mm thin), has a high-resolution 2.8-inch VGA screen and an accelerometer (automatically changes the screen from portrait to landscape depending on how you hold the phone). The HTC Touch Diamond is unarguably attractive. The angular back of the phone is reminiscent of the Nokia Prism. The phone has a circular directional pad, similar to that on the HTC Touch Cruise.

The specifications and features of the HTC Touch Diamond are a big improvement on previous HTC phones. The usual 400 MHz processor has been replaced with a Qualcomm MSM 7201A 528MHz processor. Increased RAM (192MB) means that the interface is much faster than that of the Touch Cruise. It might not be as swift as the iPhone's interface, but it comes close. The HTC Touch Diamond has a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus, which is also an improvement on precious HTC models. A welcome touch is that the HTC Touch Diamond has a brilliant browser. The scroll wheel allows you to zoom in on web pages in slow motion, and there's little to no rendering. The browser could rival Skyfire and NetFront Browser 3.5. Other specifications are a generous 4GB internal storage, GPS, HSDPA connectivity and Wifi.

HTC have focused much of their promotion on the HTC's Diamond TouchFLO 3D interface. It allows you to navigate programs, browse the web and flip through your contacts, photos and albums with ease. None of the demos showed a hint of the traditional Windows Mobile interface. HTC has made the wise decision to try and mask the operating system with a lot of fancy gimmicks. How long before the clunky Windows Mobile 6.1 sneaks past this disguise to surprise the unwary user?

Of course HTC will have to face the accusation that the Touch Diamond is only a rip-off of the iPhone. How justified is this accusation? Yes the phone is black and yes it has a touchscreen, but the similarities end there. The UI is radically different, the design is different (apart from the black), and the screen sizes are different. Even the touch screen technology is different; the iPhone uses capacitive technology whereas the HTC Touch Diamond uses the more standard resistive technology.

In conclusion, the HTC Touch Diamond is a very, very nice phone and a strong contender to the iPhone's crown. It could well be the perfect phone for Windows Mobile fans. For more information and further specs visit our HTC Touch Diamond overview page.

Kate is a regular contributor to the Omio.com blog. When she's not reviewing handsets, she enjoys reading technology blogs and laughing at less fortunate mobile phones.