Get this: the first North American carrier to offer up Nokia's 8GB N95 isn't AT&T. Heck, it's not even a US-based operator. No friends, it's Canada's own Rogers Wireless. Just as we had heard late last month, the N95 8GB has officially landed in the Great North, and starting on May 6th, consumers up that way will be able to secure one for a hefty $399.99 with a three-year activation on the Rogers Vision Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan. Don't weep too heavily, AT&T users -- your time should be coming soon.

Remember those dirt-cheap refurbished iPhones we mentioned you could snag in-store? Well it looks like AT&T has decided to share the bounty with the public at large, and has begun taking orders for the $249 8GB models online. If you've been on the fence, here's your chance to get in for $150 less than retail (and sadly for you early adopters, a whopping $350 tumble in price). In our experience, you can grab one in person with no activation, though it looks like you'll have to sign on the dotted line to have it delivered.

Update: According to our commenters, you can get these mailed to you activation / contract free.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Creative keeps slashing Zen prices -- just a couple weeks after cutting the 32GB model to $299, it's back with price cuts to the midrange. The 4GB Zen is now just $99, while the 8GB model falls to $149 -- the same price as the 4GB iPod nano, for those of you keeping score at home. Not bad, not bad at all -- but we'll wait to see what comes of this Zen Share rumor first.

The bits, they just keep coming -- now that 16GB SDHC cards are old hat, SanDisk's gone and upped the ante with these new 32GB cards. That matches Toshiba's record, but you won't be able to get your hands on one until April, when they ship for $349. A 16GB version and a new 8GB Ultra II SDHC Plus with flip-out USB connecter will also hit in March for $179 and $99, respectively -- but you know you want the big'un, don't lie.

Don't look now, but those not quite satisfied with the Eee PC's 512MB of RAM and 4GB hard drive can finally get what they've been asking for. E-tailer Dynamism is offering up Asus' 7-inch darling (in Pearl White and Galaxy Black) with 1GB of RAM and an 8GB SSD, but all of the remaining specifications look to be the same. Of course, you'll be coughing up nearly five bills for this version, so we'll leave it to you to decide if it's worth it. Oh, and don't expect either flavor to arrive before "mid-to-late December."

[Via jkkmobile]

Take note, Zune dudes and dudettes: the Zune Originals engraving -- which has heretofore been relegated to the 4GB and 8GB flash versions of Microsoft's new player -- is now available on the big daddy, the 80GB. That's right -- now text, wild graphics, and combinations of the two can be emblazoned upon your media player, serving as a testament to your original and inimitable personality till the end of time. Did we mention it's free? Motor over there and check it out, right this second.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Well, would you look at this. Thanks to the oh-so-disclosing FCC website, we're now seeing drawings of what looks to be 4GB and 8GB versions of Microsoft's forthcoming flash-based Zunes. Sure enough, the pictures match the leaked photos from yesterday to a T, so it shouldn't be long before these things get officially official. Additionally, the documentation includes what appears to be a matching Zune FM transmitter module and dock, which is pictured after the jump for your enjoyment. Hold tight kids, the new Zunes are nearly here.

UPDATE: Looks like these bad boys should also have built-in WiFi (likely 802.11b/g enabled) courtesy of a Marvel 88W8686 chipset.

[Via Technabob, thanks Daniel G.]
Read - Flash-based Zunes in FCC
Read - Zune FM Transmitter in FCC

As it so often goes in this business, the adrenaline rush of a good leaked image is quickly followed by the security felt from an official press release. And so it goes... meet the 8GB Nokia N95, all in black and all official. Feels good eh? We're still talking N95 specs -- 2.8-inch display, 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, GPS, microSD, and such -- only now with a hefty slab of hot, hot flash for all your media. Sure, slim is in but we can love a fatty too. Europe-first and ready for action in October for €560/$761.

No matter how many we lose in the couch, we just can never get enough capacity in our thumb drives and SanDisk never seems to get tired of meeting our demands. The company just announced that it's sticking 8GB of flash into its Cruzer Micro USB flash drives, and will sell the new model mid-September for around $130. Of course, you can always score a 4GB drive for $70, or even a 2GB for $40, so choose your obscene amount of flash capacity wisely.

Not a whole lot of background on this one just yet, but judging by the list of flash-based audio players that Philips recognizes as its own, there's a few 8GB flavors of the GoGear SA3300 series that apparently weren't there too long ago. While the SA3300 lineup had members with 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB of internal storage in the past, several new models -- including the SA3385/02, SA3385/37, SA3385/55, SA3385/85, and SA3385/97 -- are all appearing as 8GB siblings. We've no idea if the capacious newcomers will share the 2.4-inch QVGA display, FM tuner, MP3 / MPEG4 support, and preset equalizers found in existing (albeit smaller) versions, but we'll keep an ear to the ground for further developments.

[Via AnythingButiPod]

While the rest of the world struggles to get by with their 2GB or 4GB gen 2 Clix, those lucky S.Koreans will see an 8GB unit drop tomorrow. No word on pricing, just the simple full-page, minimalistic tease we've grown accustomed to from iriver "announcements." Fortunately for us, this update (unlike so much of their gear) will likely make its way westward in due time.

[Via Misticriver]

Digital Experience is a bi-annual press event wherein dozens of your favorite tech companies corral hundreds of your favorite tech journalists, fill them up with free food and booze, and attempt to squeeze a little more coverage out of already-announced products. The theme for this year's New York show -- held last night at the Metropolitan Pavilion -- was British Invasion, and while we certainly appreciated the Beatles cover band, darts competitions, and of course the Bass- and Boddingtons-serving HP Notebook Pub (pictured above, although we still prefer the Sun beer server), the choice to offer traditional English cuisine was, quite frankly, not that well thought out. Nonetheless, we braved numerous flying darts and sketchy-looking meat pies to photograph a few devices we thought you'd enjoy; click on to check out the highlights...

We know that you've been barely able to sleep since the new miCARD memory card format was announced -- who would be the first manufacturer to get these out the door, you wondered -- so you can finally rest easy with the news that Pretec is showing off its own version of the multi-functional little wafers (pictured larger than actual size, of course) at Computex in Taipei. The company's S-Diamond line already tops off at an impressive 8GB (with theoretical capacities of 2TB, but we're not holding our breath), and like the flood of other miCARDs soon to hit the market, will work with regular SD/MMC-capable devices through the use of an adapter. Pretec still isn't being forthcoming with any pricing or release info on these, but since there's no miCARD-specific hardware on the market yet anyway, we doubt that many of you care.

[Via Everything USB]

Wow, it seems like we were just marveling over the introduction of the world's first 8GB SD card a few moons back. Ah, that's right, we were. Alas, Samsung took it to heart that SD doesn't cut it for your average cellphone (they run a bumpin' mobile business, after all), announcing that it has managed to pack a full eight gigabytes into the microSD form factor for mid-2008 production. That's particularly timely considering that 4GB examples haven't even gotten into widespread circulation yet -- "8GB" just has a nicer ring to it -- not to mention that the new card handily surpasses SDHC guidelines with 16MB/s reads and 6MB/s writes. For the record, a microSD card rocks a little over 20 percent of the surface area of its SD counterpart, so does this mean we can expect 40GB SD cards, like, now? Not quite.

Sure we've seen 4GB and 8GB Class 6 SDHC cards before -- Lexar's got a pair, as does Transcend -- but when it's SanDisk that steps up to the plate with new Ultra II and Extreme III models, well, that's certainly worth a mention. As we're all well aware by now, Class 6 cards have a minimum sustained write speed of 6MBps, though both the 8GB Ultra II and 4GB Extreme III easily surpass that, clocking in at 9MBps and 20MBps, respectively. Available in June -- along with the new 4GB EIII Memory Stick PRO Duo card -- the 4GB EIII will retail for $180, the 8GB UII will fetch $240, and both models will toss in a "free" MicroMate USB 2.0 reader.

Read - Extreme III
Read - Ultra II