During CES 2008, Samsung announced twenty-seven new LCD and plasma TV’s, all of which had not received price tags, until now. These new models range in size anywhere from a small 18.9-inches to the large 63-inch model. Beginning with the Series 4 LCD models, which are lower-end 720p TV’s. These range in size from an 18.9-inch model up to 39.9-inches and retail from $429 up to $1,299. Next, we have the Series 5 LCD models, which are low-end 1080p models. These range in size from 31.5-inches up to a 52.2-inch model. They are priced from $1,099 up to $2,799. Next up is the Series 6 LCD models, which are the high-end 1080p models. (Read the full post about ‘Samsung announces LCD, Plasma model pricing from CES’…)
Levi’s is quietly spreading its mobile phone presence out in Europe and they don’t seem to be nearing a stop any time soon, since Orange France has been granted the exclusive privilege to market its tri-band GSM, 3G network connected handset. No other details about the deal have been provided, except to say that there will be a free 1GB memory card for every purchase, which customers can use to upgrade the memory of their devices through the built-in microSD card slot. It also sports a 2-megapixel camera for your regular snaps, and don’t forget, it’s a 3G network enabled handset. That means you can transfer all you want - or not - but it’s a few notches faster than any old GPRS or EDGE connection can ever give you. (Read the full post about ‘Levi’s 3G slider handset headed to Orange France’…)
While we are taking some time getting our full thoughts down, we wanted to show off the pics of the latest gadget to make its way into the Gadgetell headquarters. Its the Kicker iK500 iPod speaker system. While we have the iK500 which is made exclusively for the iPod, Kicker also has the zKick ZK500 for the Microsoft Zune. Aside from the obvious difference that one is made for the Zune and the other for the iPod, they both offer the same features. The systems both ship with a remote control that offers a full range of options, and have two 5-inch woofers, two 3/4-inch tweeters, one 6-inch square reflex subwoofer that are powered by a 40-watt stereo amplifier. (Read the full post about ‘Gadgetell Peep Show: Kicker iK500 iPod Speaker System’…)
Its always important for a company to keep the product line-up fresh and lately Toshiba is trying to do this with their Satellite Pro series, by adding nice, new features and giving their laptops an overall boost. Basically, the L300 and L300D will remain the starting laptop and every laptop on from there will be a little more advanced. You can choose to have an Intel Core 2 Duo in the L300 or the AMD Turion 64 X2 in the L300D. Screenwise, they both offer a 15.4-inch display. Now, a $699 L300D sports a 1.9GHz AMD processor, 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. A $799 L300 boasts a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a 160GB hard drive. Both of these laptops look really good, but to me, the L300 might be a little bit better of a deal. (Read the full post about ‘Toshiba updates their Satellite Pro notebook line-up’…)
Imagine a business card. Now, reduce it by about 1/2 to 2/3. That’s how small the Intel demonstrated PC motherboard was at the Intel Developer Forum earlier this month in Shanghai. The board was not skimping on features either. It included the processor (Moorestown), chipset, graphics, memory, 3G silicon, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.
Intel demonstrated the future x86-based system that can be used in mobile devices, allowing their Atom processor to take over existing markets with x86 tools, software and knowledge-inertia from the PC industry.
It might not be too much longer until our cell phones are physically capable of running x86-based Linux (or Windows or another OS), the same as our desktops are, just maybe slightly slower with less graphics–and that’s about the only difference.
(Read the full post about ‘World’s smallest x86 motherboard shown’…)
Tall, sleepy air travelers, rejoice! The Cozy Suite manages to stretch legroom by two inches while fitting airplane seats into the standard economy class 32″ pitch. It does this by offsetting the seats diagonally: they still point forward, but each chair sits behind its neighbor. This staggered arrangement also means that there is space to put in a padded side section to lean against and get some proper mile-high shuteye. What’s not to like? More legroom (and at 6′3″ I really appreciate every last inch I can get) and a comfy place to park my noggin while falling asleep to the Gadget Lab podcast (it’s your soothing voices, guys, not the content). The only problem might be in holding a conversation with your neighbor. (Read the full post about ‘Delta Airlines To Install Non-Painful Economy Seating’…)
Great news for people in the UK as more details have been discovered about the new FreeSat and FreeSat HD service. Currently the only way to get HD in the UK is via Sky HD (Review), which comes with monthly subscription charges.
by Darren Murph, posted Apr 23rd 2008 at 8:36AM As if we Earthlings didn’t have enough to worry over with robots from every corner of the globe likely mounting a silent offensive to overtake our societies and claim ownership of our land, now we’re faced with the startling realization that even our sporting events aren’t safe from subterfuge. At the seventh annual RoboCup German Open, hordes of teams have descended upon the pitch in order to compete in robot-only soccer, er, football matchups. Quite honestly, everything seemed fine and dandy until we hit a quote from Stefan Kohlbrecher, a member of the Technical University of Darmstadt’s Darmstadt Dribblers team: “The goal of the RoboCup is to compete against human world champions with robots by the year 2050.” Funny, we’ll supposedly be fornicating with androids by that same year. (Read the full post about ‘Robotic soccer players seek to challenge humans by 2050′…)
Memory maestros Crucial have started shipping the Lexar Solid State Drives announced in January . The swap-in 2.5″ (notebook sized) drives come in 32GB and 64GB flavors. If you’re looking for one of Crucial’s usual bargains, though, forget it. The 32GB model is $800, and the 64GB version a crazy $1500. This makes Apple’s $1000 option for the macbook air look positively cheap, and you won’t hear us saying that very often. Our advice? Wait it out. The prices are sure to stay the same for a couple of years, but the capacity will grow. Then, when SSDs become commodity goods, we’ll see a drop. Plus, how many BitTorrented movies can you fit on 64GB anyway? (Read the full post about ‘Crucial Shipping SSDs, And They’re Not Cheap’…)
by Joshua Topolsky, posted Apr 23rd 2008 at 9:56AM The Eee-sparked trend towards smaller, cheaper laptops continues unabated — which is good news if you like small, cheap things. The lastest entry into the ultraportable market comes in the form of the Medion Akoya Mini, a handsome looking entry that clearly aims to compete with ASUS’ wunderkind. The 10-inch laptop scores big points right out of the box due to its inclusion of Intel’s infamous Atom CPU. The system will feature a traditional hard drive, with some form of Linux on-board, 1GB of RAM standard, two USB ports, a memory card slot, VGA out, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. No word on if we’ll see this in the States, but it’s hitting Europe soon with a starting price of (Read the full post about ‘Medion’s Akoya Mini takes aim at the Eee’…)
