Sony Ericsson have just unleashed the T707, a stylish clamshell mobile phone with gesture control. And just in case you don’t believe them as to how good the T707 is, Sony Ericsson have employed tennis ace Maria Sharapova to market it! Here’s some more hype, we mean marketing blurb from Sony Ericsson

The T707 truly interacts with the user – it lights up when you receive a call and you can personalise the light settings to each of your friends, so you always know who wants you. If you are too busy to answer, simply end the call with a wave of your hand over the screen – you can also do the same gesture to snooze the alarm – your very own magic wand!

We’re not so sure about magic wands, but the T707 does sound kinda funky, here are a few more details on the unit

* GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSDPA 2100 support
* 2.2 inch 240×320 res internal display
* 1.1 inch 128 x 36 res monochromatic external display
* 3.2 megapixel camera
* Media player
* Access NetFront™ Web browser
* Email
* Text messaging
* Picture messaging
* Bluetooth connectivity
* 93 x 50 x 14.1 mm
* 95g
* Up to 10 hours talktime (GSM/GPRS)
* Up to 4 hours talktime (UMTS)
* 400 hours on standby
* Up to 2 hrs

And for those of you more concerned about looks than numbers, the T707 will be available in three colours, namely Mysterious Black, Spring Rose, and Lucid Blue when it’s finally released in 2009 Q2. Obviously the T707 is aimed at a certain market niche so its pricing will be intriguing, we’re guessing low but we’ll have to wait to get the final details on that.

Source: Sony Ericsson

Featured Tags cellphone, sony-ericsson


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Maingear may be one of the smaller laptop producers, but with the mX-L ultra-portable their name may well be on everyone’s lips. This little unit is totally configurable for small or large wallets and comes with some neat bells and whistles and is damn small and light too, weighing in at 4.45 lbs. Here are the basic specs for a unit costing you US$1100.

* 13.3 inch WXGA 1280 x 800 res LED display
* Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4 GHz
* 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz memory
* 120 GB HDD
* 8x Dual Layer DVD±RW, CD-RW Burner
* Gigabit Netword Card
* 802.11n connectivity
* Integrated 1.3 Mp webcam
* Vista Home Premium
* 14 month warranty
* Biometric Fingerprint Security
* 12.1 x 9.1 x 1.4 inches
* 4.45 lbs
* 3 USB 2.0 ports, headphone amd microphone jacks
* Built-in speakers and microphone

Not bad for US$1100, but what about those of us with a little bit more spare cash? Well here are some optional extras for you

* Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9800 (2.93GHz x 2) - $446
* 8GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - $432
* Intel® X25-M 160GB Solid-State Drive - $875
* Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW) - $169

Those little extras for the mX-L will crank the price tag up to $3022 but what a beast of a machine.

We like the configurability of the unit and the price tags for the optional extras don’t seem too extreme so there is potentially something for everyone here. So we reckon that Maingear may well have a winner on their hands with the mX-L ultra-portable.

Source: Maingear

Featured Tags laptop, maingear


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We hate to talk about gear you can’t actually get your hands on right now, or at least in the very near future, but we couldn’t help ourselves with the OPPO BDP-83 ‘universal’ Blu-Ray player. The BDP-83 supports more disk formats than you can shake a stick at, although we noticed that the 5.25 inch floppy disk format appears to be missing ;) Joking aside the BDP-83 is very a impressive unit, sporting 2.0 Profile support and 1080p upscaling. Here are a few more details about the OPPO BDP-83

* BD Profile 2.0
* Contains all necessary hardware for BD-Live
* Support for BD-Video, DVD-Video, AVCHD, SACD, CD, HDCD, Kodak Picture CD, CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW, DVD±R DL, BD-R/RE
* User selectable video output resolutions, including 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and up to 1080p 50 or 60Hz.
* True 24p Video
* HDMI v1.3 output with 30-bit and 36-bit Deep Color support
* Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, 7.1-Channel Analog Output
* Digital Optical and Coaxial Outputs
* Dual USB Ports
* 430mm x 336mm x 77mm
* 5.1kg

OPPO are testing the BDP-83 out with their ‘Early Adopter Program’, from the first group of 50 users, 48 returned a ‘Yes’ vote indicating that the BDP-83 was suitable for their home theatre system. OPPO are now carrying out a second program prior to its general release.

Unfortunately there’s no word on general retail figure, but the word cheap will not be appearing close to the BDP-83 any time soon.

Source: OPPO

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SuperTalent have just brought out two new ranges of SSDs, the UltraDrive ME and LE. Both ranges come in a 2.5 inch form factor and with a SATA-II inter ideal for laptops. Here’s some more information about the units

* UltraDrive LE capacity range from 32 to 128 GB
* UltraDrive ME capacity range from 32 to 256 GB
* 69.85 x 100.20 x 9.50 mm
* LE sequential read speed of 230 MB/sec max and write speed of 170 MB/sec max
* ME sequential read speed of 200 MB/sec max and write speed of 160 MB/sec max
* 10 year data integrity

The LE series is primarily aimed at servers, video solutions and telecommunications, whilst the ME is aimed at the laptop and gaming markets. Of course both ranges offer the usual power, reliability and noise benefits of the humble SSD. NewEgg.com are already offering the UltraDrive ME starting at US$128 for the 32GB version and going up to US$645 for the 256GB big boy.

Featured Tags SSD, supertalent


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Onkyo have just unleashed the TX-SR607 receiver which is the first receiver to feature vertical Dolby Pro Logic. Formally called Dolby Pro Logic IIz, this feature allows home theatre systems that have two extra front channel speakers placed up at a high level to play sounds that would naturally be above the movie watcher. According to Onkyo this new feature

enhances the spatial sensation of music, movies, and video games by letting you incorporate front height channels.

Impressive, eh? Well it doesn’t end there for the TX-SR607 receiver as the unit also sports a massive six HDMI inputs, five at the back and one at the front as well as upconversion to 1080i for analog input. You can also hook up an iPod dock via the proprietary U.Port. Other details include

* 7.2 Channels
* 90 W per channel
* Dolby Decoder DD PLus, TrueHD, DTS Decoder DTS-HD Master Audio
* Dolby PLIIz
* Onkyo Game Surround Modes
* 192K/24 Bit DACs
* 2 Optical Audio Inputs
* 2 Component Inputs
* 6 HDMI V1.3a Inputs
* Analog to HDMI Upconversion
* 1080i Upscaling
* 435 x 174.3 x 374.7 mm
* 10.8 kg

The Onkyo TX-SR607 also sports quite a nice US$600 price tag too and will be available in April. This looks like a pretty sweet deal if you’re after a new receiver, given the extra bells and whistles of Dolby Pro Logic IIz. So we’re sure other receiver manufacturers will be hurrying to get their versions of the TX-SR607 out very soon!

Featured Tags onkyo, receiver


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Another Samsung toy for you to drool over, the Q1EX UMPC has been launched and a compact little unit it is too, clocking in at 8.96 x 4.92 x 0.9 inches in size, sporting a 1024 x 600 res display and capable of surviving 4.5 hours on its standard Li-Ion battery. Here are some more details on the snazzy Q1EX

* Genuine Windows® XP Tablet Edition OS
* VIA Nano™ ULV U2500 (1.2 GHz) processor
* 2 GB DDR2 667 MHz memory
* VIA Chrome9 HC graphics
* 60 GB 1.8 inch HDD
* 802.11 b/g wireless and Bluetooth v2.0 wireless connectivity
* 8.96″ x 0.9″ x 4.92″
* 1.43 lbs.

Samsung are offering the Q1EX for a snip at US$750 which seems a touch on the high side but you can’t beat those specs. So if you’re willing to fork out a bit of extra cash then the Samsung Q1EX is a pretty good UMPC option.

Featured Tags samsung, umpc


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Having given up on squeezing more zeroes and ones onto their platters to tempt us with, HDD manufacturers are now trying the ‘green’ marketing ploy. Thus, Samsung have just launched the EcoGreen F2EG 1.5 TB hard disk drive with 500 GB platters because

Lower platter count means less power to start the motor, less power to continuously spin the motor and a lighter head-stack which takes less power to seek

Makes sense I guess and the EcoGreen also sports Samsung’s EcoTriangle technology to suck even less juice from the grid. The figures come out at a 40% reduction in power consumption at idle and 45% lower in read/write mode when compared to ‘competitive drives’ according to Samsung. The EcoGreen also sports 500 GB and 1 TB models which are available to OEM manufacturers, plus the usual SATA 3 Gb/sec interface.

The 1.5 TB ‘big boy’ option is available to all with a price tag of US$150 which actually sounds like a bit of a bargain to me!

Source: Samsung

Featured Tags hdd, samsung


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