We’ve just spotted an unlocked version of the QWERTY keypad Nokia E72 NAM at Amazon for US$470. Unfortunately it’s not available yet but Amazon are taking pre-orders and that means it can’t be far away from hitting their electronic shelves. Here’s the lowdown on what your $470 will get you.

* 2.36 inch 320 x 240 res display
* Full QWERTY keyboard
* 3.5 mm audio jack
* Internal memory 250 MB storage, 128 MB RAM
* Up to 16GB microSD expandable memory
* 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash still and video camera
* Symbian OS 9.3, Series 60 v3.2 UI
* ARM 11 600 MHz processor
* WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML browser
* WMV/RV/MP4/3GP video player
* MP3/WMA/WAV/RA/AAC/M4A audio player
* Up to 480 hours on standby
* Up to 6 hours of talktime
* GPRS and EDGE connectivity
* HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA 2 Mbps
* Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
* Bluetooth and micro USB connectivity
* 114 x 58 x 10 mm
* 128 g

Pretty impressive specs, just about everything but the kitchen sink is in the Nokia E72. And just to back up the specs there’s a glowing review over at Best Mobile Contracts plus a good side-by-side comparison over at Nokia Symbian Themes. And on youtube is a quick video review from Mobile Burn.

Featured tags: amazon cellphone nokia

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For you Toshiba fans out there, they have just released a 400 GB notebook HDD. At 2.5 inches yet spinning at 7,200 rpm this little sucker is top-end slimline HDD material. Check out the specs for yourself

* 2.5 inch 400 GB capacity
* Acoustic noise reduced by 2 db
* 20% energy consumption improvement

Other than that Toshiba aren’t giving out much more detail. There are bigger drives out there at the same physical size, but the reduced noise may persuade a movie-loving laptop owner to pick up one of these suckers. At Our Picks we’re not sure these suckers will cause much of a ripple in the HDD world.

Source: Business Wire

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Looking for a great little network media storage device that offers so much more? Well, the Mvix MX-780HD may be the solution you are after. Hook this little sucker up to your HD TV, link it in to your network and you can store all the media you want on its internal hard drive (user provided) and away you go. Of course that media is still available to your PCs and laptops across your wireless network. Sounds good, eh? Well it looks even better with a US$340 price tag on it too and here’s some more bells and whistles for you to drool over.

* 64 MB memory
* video support for DivX® (3/4/5), DivX® 6, AVI, Xvid, BivX®, MPEG, MPG, VCD(DAT), DVD(VOB, IFO), ISO, WMV(WMV-9), ASF(WMV-9), TP, TS, TRP
* audio support for MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, PCM, AC3, DTS decoding including down-mixing, DTS pass through
* image support for BMP, JPEG/JPG, PNG
* video outputs Composite, S-Video, Component, and HDMI1.2
* audio outputs Stereo RCA, 5.1 channel RCA, Coaxial, Optical
* wireless 802.11b/g
* Ethernet (10/100) LAN
* Hard disk support for 3.5 inch IDE(PATA) OR 3.5 inch SATA
* USB 2.0 support
* 187 x 193 x 58 mm

Well, I think that just about covers the bases. If the guys at Mvix have missed anything out then I can’t spot it. They are offering the unit with their own hard drives supplied which bumps the price up accordingly, 300 GB - US$100, 500 GB - US$170, 750 GB - US$250 and 1 TB - US$330. So $670 will get you an almost literally all singing and dancing media centre, not a bad deal in my opinion.

If you don’t believe me then check out this review over at anythingbutipod whose main complaints are about the UI and lack of support for H.264 and MKV.

Source: Mvix

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Knoll are enthusing about their latest projector, the HDP460, which features 1080p DLP Darkchip4 technology. Apparently this projector

raises the bar when it comes to flawless, spectacular, award-winning image quality.

and

This projector delivers amazing technology and stunning high-definition.

Advertising hyperbole aside, here are some hard numbers on the HDP460

* brightness of 1600 lumens
* 5000:1 contrast ratio
* HDMI 1.3 connectivity allowing over a billion colours to be displayed
* 1080p DLP DarkChip4
* Built-in scaling support for 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Unfortunately no pricing is available and you’ll have to wait until April to get your grubby little paws on one of these suckers. However the stats match the advertising enthusiasm and the HDP460 could be the very next home theatre upgrade on your list.

Source: Knoll

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Toshiba announced their entry into the NAND flash-based SSD market with a selection of units, the most notable of which is 1.8 inch form factor SATA 128 GB unit which unfortunately won’t be in mass production until May next year. The units have a max read speed of 100 MB/s and max write of 40 MB/s with a SATA-2 interface (3 Gbps).

Now that SSDs are becoming a bit more mainstream hopefully the price tags will follow that trend too, but we’ll have to wait and see until May what these suckers from Toshiba will set you back.

And if you want an early sneak preview of these units then get yourself on down to the CES in Las Vegas on Jan 7th as apparently Tosh will be showing them off at the show.

Source: Toshiba

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This week Epson launched its latest home cinema projector on to the market. The PowerLite Home Cinema 720 is priced at US$1,300 making it a mid-range purchase, suitable for a home enthusiast looking for a hi-def projector. The PowerLite’s features include 1,600 lumens of brightness, 10,000:1 contrast ratio, 16:9 display ratio, hi def quality up to 120 inch display, 4,000 hours of lamp life plus numerous inputs including HMDI, Component Video, S-Video and Composite Video. It also sports 3LCD technology which according to the blurb

3LCD is the world’s leading projection technology, delivering unbelievable color, amazing detail and road-tested reliability. Using an advanced 3-chip design, 3LCD offers full-time RGB for brilliant quality images without the possibility of color break-up.

So how does this sucker stack up against other projectors

	Panasonic PT-AX100U	Mitsubishi HC2000U
Resolution	1280 x 720	1280 x 720
Brightness (lumens)	2,000	700
Contrast Ratio	6,000:1	3,600:1
Projection Size (inches)	200	250
Aspect Ratio	16:9	16:9
HDMI input	Yes	Yes
PC input	Yes	Yes
Component in	Yes	Yes
Price (US$) *	$1,859	$1,700

* Prices from Amazon

I deliberately picked higher priced projectors, but even so the Epson stacks well against these competitors. The only downside may be the 120 inch display with both the Panasonic and Mitsubishi giving at least 66% diagonal width to your movie. So it looks as if Epson have come up with a winner here.

If anyone has one of these suckers feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Source: PR News Wire

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As reported by InfoWorld it appears as if someone in the Zune team is having a bit of joke by setting up an amnesty bin for team member’s to deposit their iPods! This image was posted on flickr supposedly taken at Zune HQ. The bin’s probably a bit of a joke as Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, points out

“Most of the people [working on] Zune would want to have an iPod to keep track of the competition,” he said. “On that team, they’re all into digital music, so all of them probably have a bunch of players.”

Nice to see a sense of humour in the workplace!

Source: InfoWorld

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