Today, one of our faithful readers will become the proud new owner of a new Apple iPad Mini. One winner will be chosen at random and it’s easy to enter.
UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who entered, we have our iPad Mini winner. Congratulations Jessica C. If you didn’t win this time around, don’t be disappointed as we will be having giveaways all summer with amazing products to win.
Here’s what you have to do:
1- Like the eMercedesBenz Facebook page if you haven’t already. You can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/emercedesbenz
2- Check out the photo gallery by CLICKING HERE or on the link below and find the photo with the “Code” (located in the bottom right hand corner) and message it to us through Facebook. (Do not post code in comments)
Extra Entry- Like and Share this post
(While we want all to participate, we can only ship the iPad Mini within the U.S.)
We told you it was coming, and today it’s official. We’ve finally managed to procure a 32GB Apple iPhone 4 in black, and we’re giving it away to you, our lovely readers. By now, I’m sure you already know the iPhone 4’s extensive feature set. It’s a phone; it’s got built in video calling; it’s got a new high resolution retina display; it records HD video; it’s got a 5 megapixel camera built in; and of course, it takes advantage of Apple’s huge app store. At present, it’s the best phone on the market.
To win the new iPhone 4, the rules are the same as they were for Apple iPad giveaway. First, leave a comment on this story telling us you want one (one comment per account please). It’s as simple as that. Once you’ve left a comment, you’re good to go. We pick the winner completely at random, and if we pick you, an email will be sent to the email address you used to register your eMercedesBenz account. We’re also giving you an optional two additional entries in the giveaway. First, “like” eMercedesBenz on Facebook, and leave a comment on the Facebook entry for this story telling us you want one there as well. Secondly, follow eMercedesBenz on Twitter, and re-tweet this article with the title “#Win an #iPhone4 in the #Apple #iPhone 4 #Giveaway @eMercedesBenz”.
The one stipulation is that you must comment directly on this story to be registered – you can’t use just Facebook or Twitter. If you do use additional entries on Facebook and/or Twitter, feel free to let us know in this comment section – as it makes our job searching the additional entries a little easier. The deadline for entering is Monday, July 12th at 12:00 pm midnight, and we’ll announce the winner on or before July 16th.
As always, best of luck to everyone that enters. And before I go, a bit of legal to avoid potential lawsuits:
*No purchase necessary. This giveaway is void where prohibited by law. The winner(s) will be chosen at random by a member of the eMercedesBenz editorial staff. Taxes if applicable are the responsibility of the winner. This giveaway is for the 32GB Apple iPhone 4 only. All other costs relating to the use of the iPhone 4 including (but not limited to) voice, data, texts, 3G and wi-fi plans are the responsibility of the winner. eMercedesBenz is not liable for anything relating to this giveaway.
Of recent product launches, few have garnered the tremendous hype generated the Apple iPad, which led us to think: wouldn’t it be great to give away an Apple iPad in one of our eMercedesBenz Giveaways? Of course it would be, so that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’ve got on hand one 32 GB, Wi-fi and 3G enabled Apple iPad (retail price: $729), and we’re giving it away to you, our lovely readers, with the same simple rules that you’ve come to expect from all our eMercedesBenz Giveaways.
To enter, first leave a comment on this story telling us you want one (one comment per account please). It’s as simple as that. Once you’ve left a comment, you’re good to go. We pick the winner completely at random, and if we pick you, an email will be sent to the email address you used to register your eMercedesBenz account. We’re also giving you an optional two additional entries in the giveaway. First, “like” eMercedesBenz on Facebook, and leave a comment on the Facebook entry for this story telling us you want one there as well. Secondly, follow eMercedesBenz on Twitter, and re-tweet this article with the title “Apple 3G iPad Giveaway @eMercedesBenz”. The one stipulation is that you must comment directly on this story to be registered – you can’t use just Facebook or Twitter. If you do use additional entries on Facebook and/or Twitter, feel free to let us know in this comment section – as it makes our job searching the additional entries a little easier. The deadline for entering is Sunday, June 20th at 12:00 pm midnight, and we’ll announce the winner on or before June 23rd.
As always, best of luck to everyone that enters. And before I go, a bit of legal to avoid potential lawsuits:
*No purchase necessary. This giveaway is void where prohibited by law. The winner(s) will be chosen at random by a member of the eMercedesBenz editorial staff. Taxes if applicable are the responsibility of the winner. 3G and wi-fi service costs are the responsibility of the winner. eMercedesBenz is not liable for anything relating to this giveaway.
Update: Entries for the eMercedesBenz 32GB 3G Apple iPad giveaway are now closed. We’re going to go through each of the Twitter and Facebook entries and add them to the list, and we’ll announce the winner in the next day or two. To everyone that entered, a huge thank you, and if you don’t win this time, stay tuned, as we’ve got fantastic giveaways coming up all summer (including a new phone you may have heard about). Best of luck to everyone that entered.
Yesterday we told you of our affinity for the Dyson DC23 Turbinehead vacuum cleaner, and really the Dyson brand as a whole. While it’s the upright and canister vacuums the company is best known for, Dyson also has a pair of entrants in the handheld vacuum market: the DC31 and DC31 Animal ($220 and $270, respectively). Aside from color (the DC31 is yellow, the DC31 Animal is purple), the only difference between the two is that the DC31 Animal includes a motorized brush bar attachment, whereas the traditional DC31 does not. What they both have, however, is a motor that according to Dyson founder James Dyson, is “the fastest motor in the world.” It’s capable of achieving 104,000 revolutions per minute – roughly ten times as fast as a commercial jet engine, and roughly five times as fast as an F1 engine. The result is a supremely powerful handheld vacuum – one that can generate 38 air watts of constant suction in regular mode or 65 air watts of constant suction in high power mode – all while looking like a bad-ass phaser gun straight out of the future.
Around the house, the Dyson DC31 is really one of those things you don’t realize you need until you have one. I initially questioned spending $200 on a handheld vacuum, but the time and effort it’s saved me on quick cleanups as opposed to having to bring out the full sized Dyson is alone worth the cost. It’s great in the kitchen – coffee grinds, breadcrumbs, etc. in corners, drawers and other hard to reach places immediately come to mind. In my home office, I use it to clean my computer keyboard and suck up any other stray dust around the desk. And of course, it’s fantastic in the car. Floor mats, the console, the dashboard – I pretty much use it clean anything and everything related to my Merc. At 2.9 pounds, it’s easy enough to take anywhere I need it, and because it is so portable, I’m far better at cleaning right away. Before it was more a case of I’ll leave it until I vacuum; now spot cleaning is a 20 second task. I hate dust and I love saving time at arduous chores, so for me, it’s a win win.
Another thing that I was a little worried about was the relatively short battery life (10 minutes for normal mode, 6 minutes for high power mode). But after using the DC31, I’ve found the battery life to be sufficient. Because it’s trigger activated, you’re only turing it on a moment before you actually want to use it, so the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Half the time cleaning is spent moving from one place to another, so in real world use the DC31 lasts significantly longer than you’d expect. In cases where I’d need to use it for a straight 10 minutes, chances are I’d be better served using a regular vacuum with an attachment instead, so nine out of ten times the battery is going to be a non-issue.
Overall, the Dyson DC31 a fantastic little vacuum for anyone who hates dust and dirt as much as I do, and like my Dyson DC23 Turbinehead, I recommend it, especially if you’re in the market for a new handheld. And just to prove how great it is, we’re going to give a DC31 to one of you, our dear readers, so you too can partake in the beauty of Dyson engineering. The rules are simple: for your chance to win the Dyson DC31, all you need to do is register for an eMercedesBenz account (if you haven’t already) and leave a comment in this article telling us you want it. Easy, I know. The contest will end next Monday (May 24th) at 5:00 PM CST, and we’ll announce the winner the next day. In addition, we’re going to test a couple of new ways in this giveaway to help you increase your odds of winning. First, after leaving a comment on this article, you can also become a fan of eMercedesBenz on Facebook and add a comment on the Facebook entry for this article telling us you want it; and secondly, you can follow eMercedesBenz on Twitter and re-tweet the article. That gives you a possible total of 3 entries in this giveaway, if you use all three methods.
So to recap: 1) Leave a comment on this article and you’re entered; 2) “like” us on Facebook and leave a comment under the Dyson Giveaway Facebook post for a second chance to win; and 3) follow us on Twitter and re-tweet the Dyson Giveaway article for a third chance to win. If you don’t use Facebook and/or Twitter, you don’t need to use either to be entered in the giveaway, just leave a comment; and if you use only Facebook but not Twitter (or vice versa), you can enter a second time via your social site of choice. The one stipulation is that you must leave a comment directly on the eMercedesBenz.com article in addition to Facebook/Twitter – using only Facebook/Twitter won’t register you. And by the way, feel free to let us know what you think of the new Facebook and Twitter giveaway options. We always want your feedback, so if you love them, hate them, or have any other feelings, regarding them let us know – our goal is make eMercedesBenz as great as possible for you.
And that’s it. Get your comments in to get registered, and as always, best of luck to everyone that enters.
*No purchase necessary. This giveaway is void where prohibited by law. The winner(s) will be chosen at random by a member of the eMercedesBenz editorial staff. Taxes if applicable are the responsibility of the winner. eMercedesBenz is not liable for anything relating to this giveaway.
If you have a wife, girlfriend, female aquaintance, or have simply spent any amount of time with a woman, you know that if there’s one thing a girl loves, it’s her purse. I take that back – it’s her purses, plural. Don’t believe me? Ask my wife. She has half a closet dedicated to housing her collection of hand bags, and I’m pretty sure she’s been secretly meeting with an architect to discuss building them their own guest house.
Men, we do things a little differently. First, we don’t have purses, we have briefcases. Second, we’re loyal. We may own multiple briefcases, but when we find the one we love, it becomes an extension of ourselves. We don’t change briefcases based on our mood or what color pants we’re wearing. It’s like that perfectly broken in baseball glove or the perfectly worn pair of jeans – when you have the one you love, you don’t need anything else.
If you don’t know the feeling, it’s because you still haven’t found that special briefcase, but today I’m going to help change that. Seeking the perfect briefcase, you may be inclined to look at the larger name brands. Forget them. There’s a company in the great state of Texas that goes by the name of Saddleback Leather Co., and they specialize in… you guessed it… leather. Leather luggage, leather messenger bags, leather overnight bags, and the first Saddleback product that came to being: the Saddleback Leather briefcase.
Typically I’d take this opportunity to tell you about Saddleback Leather’s history, but the fact is I really can’t do it justice. I can tell you that the story begins in Southern Mexico, when Saddleback Leather’s founder Dave was volunteering as an English teacher to the local kids. He sought the perfect bag, and after partaking in a bull fight, he found the perfect material to create it. With the help of a small Mexican leather shop, Dave’s first design (and the first Saddleback briefcase) was born, and the rest, as they say is history. Sort of. Because along the way, Dave’s story took a variety of turns. A crooked Federale was sent to kill Dave. On two occasions, Dave traded his black lab Blue’s puppies for 100 tacos. For a couple years Dave lived in a $100/month apartment in Juarez, Mexico with no hot water. And along the way, Dave met his wife (who played/plays an integral role in Saddleback Leather) on MySpace. It’s an incredible story, and well worth reading to gain insight into Saddleback’s history and principles.
Which brings us to the Saddleback Leather Briefcase today. After over a decade of using his briefcases day-in and day-out, Dave has fine-tuned their construction to make them as durable (yet handsome) as possible. First, they’re constructed from 100% thick full grain boot leather. If you’re unfamiliar with the various leather types, here’s a page that describes the differences in leather quality. If you’re not in the mood to read the details, trust me, you’re not going to find a tougher bag. Secondly, Saddleback briefcases feature no breakable parts. If you’re on the road, there’s nothing worse than having a briefcase you can’t use. With the Saddleback, it’s not going to happen. Thirdly, industrial Polyster thread (the best on the market), hidden nylon reinforcement straps and rivets at the key stress points each serve to add another layer of strength to the Saddleback briefcase. As a result, Saddleback Leather backs the briefcase with a 100 year warranty, fully transferrable to whoever’s fortunate enough to get their hands on the briefcase once you’re in the grave.
From a functional standpoint, the Saddleback Leather briefcase works exactly as you’d expect – it protects your gear in ruggedly good-looking fashion. Saddleback’s interiors are suede or pigskin lined, there’s no pretty fabrics to ruin its strength. There’s a key strap, eight exterior D-rings, a couple side exterior pockets for a GPS or water bottle, and a back newspaper pocket. Inside, there’s a pair open pockets for your gadgets along with two side pen pockets. If you’re on the go, the removable shoulder strap can be fed through the briefcases top-most ring, easily converting it into a backpack. Size wise, I find the large to be perfect. It measures 16″w X 12″h X 9″d, making it just large enough to fit my 17″ Macbook Pro (it’s tight but it works). There’s a medium and extra large as well, with the dimensions available on the Saddleback briefcases page (under specifics). As for weight, the large briefcase weighs 7.5 lbs with the other sizes moving down a pound for the medium or up a half pound for the extra large. I can’t emphasize enough the build quality of the Saddleback, and the weight is simply a testament to this fact.
All of this brings to me conclude, if you’re looking for the perfect briefcase, the Saddleback Leather briefcase may very well be it. It’s beautifully crafted, will last a lifetime, and it’s so good looking you’ll likely have to fend off admirers multiple times a day when you carry it. I picked up the large chestnut Saddleback briefcase for $555, and I’d buy another in a heartbeat – it’s that great. If you need a briefcase, get one, you won’t regret it.
In fact, we’re so in love with Saddleback Leather Briefcase that we’re giving one away: a large Saddleback Leather Briefcase in Chestnut, to be precise. As with our previous giveaway, winning it is simple. All you need to do is register with eMercedesBenz, leave a comment in this post telling us you want one, and we’ll pick a winner at random, exactly one week from today. No, we’re not going to send you spam, we’re not going to sell your account info, and we’re not going to harass you in any way. We’re doing it because we want you to be involved with eMercedesBenz, and we want you to experience firsthand the products we love and that we think you’ll enjoy. That’s all there is to it. So sign up, get your comments in (one per account please), and best of luck. And remember, if you don’t win, get one anyways – you’ll love it.
Before I go, a bit of legal info to avoid any potential lawsuits:
*No purchase necessary. This giveaway is void where prohibited by law. The winner(s) will be chosen at random by a member of the eMercedesBenz editorial staff. Taxes if applicable are the responsibility of the winner. eMercedesBenz is not liable for anything relating to this giveaway.
Update: As of 5:00 PM CST, we are no longer accepting new comments for the Saddleback Leather Briefcase Giveaway. We’re going to go through the comments tonight to take out any duplicates, and we’ll announce the winner tomorrow morning after selecting one completely at random. A huge thanks to everyone that entered, and if your name’s on the list, best of luck.
In keeping with this week’s MBUSA sponsored AMG Miami Beach Polo World Cup theme, we’re back with another round of polo-inspired style. But today, ladies and gentlemen, is a little different. Up until now, we’ve only had the pleasure of telling you about the various products we enjoy. The problem is, as much as we love telling you about the products, we want you to be able to experience them as well. So we decided the best way to make this happen is to start giving some of these fantastic lifestyle products away, to you, our readers. Getting you involved with our products is something we’ve wanted to do since we originally envisioned our lifestyle section, so I can’t tell you how excited we are to finally start making it happen. It’s going to be awesome – we’ve got some great products planned, and we think you’re going to love them.
Which brings us to our first ever eMercedesBenz Giveaway. As noted above, it’s Miami Beach Polo World Cup week, so we wanted to bring you something indicative of the occasion. Thinking of Miami Beach, images of the ocean, the sun and the summer all come to mind. And regardless of what your summer activities consist of, whether it’s going to the beach, sailing, boating, etc., one of the accessories you’re going to use the most is a bag to haul your required gear, so we decided we’ll give away not one but two great summer accessories: the True Wind Duffel Bag and True Wind Classic Tote Bag.
If you’re unfamiliar with True Wind, they’re a company that specializes in delivering superbly high quality bags in a variety of nautical themes. Giving them their unique appeal, True Wind bags are constructed from new, high-quality Dacron sailcloth that’s been custom woven in Ireland by Hood Sailmakers. It’s the same material that powers some of the largest and most prestigious yachts in existence, and thanks to its high resistance to sunlight, abrasion, and water (vital attributes for a sail), it’s a material that’s perfectly suited for soft-sided bags. Complimenting the high quality Dacron sailcloth, trigger snaps, D-rings, and sliders are all constructed from solid brass and coated with a nickel finish, ensuring the bags’ metal parts will never rust or corrode. Zig zag stitching (the same method used in sail construction) is utilized throughout the bag, and seams are either double or triple stitched for added strength. Water-repellant treated nylon adds a secondary level of water protection for your contents, and it’s color-fast, meaning the colors won’t run or fade when washed. All of this adds up to a beautiful bag that just as importantly, holds up beautifully in real world use, enough so that it’s guaranteed for life by True Wind.
When choosing which bags to give away, we opted to give away two of our favorites from the True Wind Signals Collection. The first is the large True Wind Navigator Duffel Bag in red with navy stripes ($210). Measuring 24″x12″x12″, it’s the perfect size for a weekend getaway or if you need to carry a little extra gear, but it’s not too large to the point that it’s difficult to carry. The second bag is the True Winds Classic Tote Bag in navy with red stripes ($170). Measuring 20″x14.5″x9″, the tote is a little smaller, and it’s ideally sized for a trip the beach, the market, or any other everyday task. Both are fantastic bags, and the craftsmanship of True Wind brand really is exemplary.
So, you’re probably wondering how you can win one of the two True Wind bags. The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is simple. All you need to do is sign up for a eMercedesBenz account if you haven’t already, and reply in the comment section of this story that you want one. The two winners will be plucked from the comments completely at random one week from today, and we’ll decide which bag each of the winners will receive completely at random as well. It doesn’t get much easier than that. All we ask is that you leave one comment per your account. Of course, if you don’t win, don’t feel bad. You can always head over to the True Wind website (www.TrueWindUSA.com) and get one for yourself.
I’ve included some photos of the two bags in the gallery below (the bags in the grass are the bags you’ll be winning); and I’ve also included some additional color options showing more of the True Wind line. And before I go, a bit of fine print as recommended by our legal team.
*No purchase necessary. This giveaway is void where prohibited by law. The winner(s) will be chosen at random by a member of the eMercedesBenz editorial staff. Taxes if applicable are the responsibility of the winner. eMercedesBenz is not liable for anything relating to this giveaway.
Update: If you haven’t already, sign up and add your comment below to be entered in our True Wind Navigator Duffel and Classic Tote Bag Giveaway. The deadline is Thursday at midnight Central Time, so be sure to get your comments in before then. As of this writing your odds of winning are 1 in 32, and unlike Vegas, you’ve got nothing to lose – you can’t get much better than that.