Haven’t taken the Blu-Ray plunge yet? Players still costing too much? Well Wal-Mart may well have come up with a deal to tempt you to take that plunge into the pool of HD. On Black Friday they will be offering the Magnavox NB500MG9 Blu-ray player for a mere US$128. Wow! The unit apparently did very well in a Consumer Reports review, where it received a score of 87 according to DVICE. When you compare this to the Sony BDP-350 which was rated at 84 you gotta think that the Magnavox unit must have something going for it as well as the price tag! Here are its bells and whistles
* 1080 HD output
* Upscaling to 1080i for your DVDs
* Handles BD, BD-RE (single/dual), BD-R (single/dual), DVD, and DVD-R/RW format discs
* Also cranks out tunes from CD, CD-R, and CD-RW format discs
* Composite and Component video output
* HDMI audio output for Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound
* Digital audio output via coaxial
Not bad for US$128, and even at the current price of US$200 it’s still pretty impressive. However, the only possible downside is that the player does not sport BD-Live as it’s a Profile 1.1 unit. Here’s a great article on CNET explaining the pluses and minuses of the profiles. But if you can live without the bells and whistles of the later profiles than the Magnavox could just be the Black Friday bargain you’ve been waiting for.
AT&T have just launched the touchscreen LG Incite. This Windows Mobile Smartphone doesn’t look very sexy but has all the bells and whistles associated with a smartphone and at US$500 without contract it’s price tag is looking pretty impressive. Here’s a few more bits and pieces on the Incite
* Windows Mobile 6.1 OS
* 528 MHz processor
* 3G, Wi-Fi, Quad band and Bluetooth connectivity
* Touch screen interface
* Voice guided GPS
* 3 Mp camera (still and video)
* Windows Media Player Mobile 10
* MP3, AAC, WMA, and WAV audio format support
* Streaming XM Satellite Radio
* Text and Instant Messaging (AOL, Yahoo and Windows Messenger)
* Mobile email, Xpress mail and Microsoft Direct Push
* Web browser
* 8.7 hours of talktime
* 21 days on standby
* 4.23 oz
* 4.21 x 2.2 x 0.55 inches
* Up to 32 GB of MicroSD expandable memory
* 3″ touchscreen 240 x 400 res wQVGA display
* On screen QWERTY keyboard
Well, certainly a lot of features but nothing to write home about in smartphone terms. If you decide to shackle yourself to a two year plan and take advantage of all rebates, this little sucker will set you back only US$200 which compares nicely to the 8 GB iPhone. Of course the iPhone’s interface may be more appealing than Wi-Mo 6.1!
We mananged to dig up this unboxing video for you to take a look at the unit - unfortunately it doesn’t show off any of the Incite’s features, but does do size comparisons with other units.
Not a bad unit but just not a ground breaker either.
We’re serious ;-) T-Mobile really have brought out the Samsung Gravity slider cellphone in Aqua and Lime no less. For US$50 you get a snazzy cellphone designed for the serious messagers out there. Here’s the low down on this little sucker.
* 4.5 x 2.1 x 0.7 Inches
* 4.3 Ounces
* Up to 6 hours talk time
* Up to 12 days standby time
* Bands - 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz
* 1.3 Mp camera
* Stereo bluetooth connectivity
* MicroSD memory slot
* Full QWERTY slider keyboard
There’s really nothing stunning about the Gravity but at US$50 what do you expect? And for those of you who are heavy texters, the slider keyboard may be all you need to persuade you to purchase one of these puppies. Of course the price tag comes with the usual two year shackle and a mail-in rebate is part of the deal too. But given all that the Gravity may be the winner T-Mobile are looking for.
They brought you the LaCinema and then the Rugged, what next? Simply the LaCie LaCinema Rugged. This tough portable HDD allows the user to store their HD video collection on it and then hook it up to their HDTV via an HDMI (or composite video) connection. The 1080i upscaling feature of the LaCinema Rugged then displays your vids on the HDTV. Simple, eh? These HDD cum media centres seem all the rage at the moment and seem like an ideal Christmas pressie to accompany the HDTV from last year ;)
If you’re still keen here are a few bits and pieces on the LaCie LaCinema Rugged
* Talks nicely with Windows and Mac
* USB 2.0 connectivity
* 1080i upscaling
* MP3, WMA, AC3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC audio formats
* MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (AVI, VOB, IFO, ISO), MPEG-4 (AVI, XviD) video formats
* JPEG (up to 8M pixels), GIF, PNG, BMP image formats
* Comes in two capacities 250 GB and 320 GB
* 90 x 145 x 25 mm
* 250 g
The 250 GB unit comes with a US$220 price tag whilst the larger model at 320 GB can be yours for a nice US$250. Not bad for a external HDD with media player that you can stomp on. Errr, probably best if you don’t try that last bit though. I must admit combining an external HDD with a media centre is an awesome idea, making it real easy to show off your holiday pics at your friends house.
It’ll be interesting to see if hardware manufacturers come up with any more intriguing combination toys for us all to drool over.
Gaming rigs cost an arm and a leg, right? Well, Alienware are trying to prove us wrong by releasing the Area-51 750i gaming desktop for almost under US$1000. At US$1,049, the Area-51 750i may end up finding a place underneath a few Christmas trees this year as Santa delivers the unit to some lucky youngsters. The downside is of course that for your money you’ll get the minimum spec unit as follows:
* Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz 6MB Cache 1333MHz FSB
* Alienware® P2 Chassis with AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling
* Single 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800 GT
* 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 x 1024MB
* Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1
* 250GB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 16MB Cache
* 20X Dual-Layer Burner (DVD±RW)
Other accessories come as extra, such as monitor, speakers etc but for the price tag the unit isn’t too shabby. Whilst not the slickest gaming unit out there, it’ll probably handle with a few late-night gaming sessions well.
Of course you can max the 750i out, with an Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme CPU, Dual 2GB GDDR5 ATI® Radeon® HD 4870 X2, 8GB memory and a 1TB HDD, but of course all that extra grunt will also max out the credit card piling on an extra $2,680 to the base cost.
Have you been waiting for Eternity for the Eternity? Well, your wait is over with AT&T rolling out this little touchscreen sucker, which also goes by the moniker Samsung SGH-a867. The price tag is currently US$150 with a two year contract after rebate, or US$400 with ‘no commitment’. A lot of cellphones seem to be heading in the same user interface direction as the Eternity using a touchscreen QWERTY keypad instead of ‘real’ buttons. So what makes the Eternity stand out from the touchscreen crowd? Here are its details for you to make up your own mind as to whether it’s a winner or not.
* Mobile TV, AT&T Navigator GPS, Video Share, 3G Web browsing
* 3 mp camera with 3x zoom
* Plays nicely with MP3, AAC, Real, WAV, WMA audio formats
* Instant and Text messaging functionality
* 3G (850/1900 MHz)
* Quad-band (850/900/1800/900 MHz)
* Bluetooth connectivity
* 5 hours talktime on battery
* 10 days standby
* 3.88 ounces
* 4.3 x 2.2 x 0.5 inches
* MicroSD expandable memory up to 8GB
* 3.2 inch 240 x 400 res display
We’re not exactly doing backflips over the AT&T Eternity because there are so many other phones out there at a similar price with similar functionality too, but may be if you’re an existing AT&T customer looking for a not so smart phone then your eternal waiting is over!
If anyone has had a play with one of these suckers, drop us a comment below and let us know what you think!
We were impressed with the Samsung Messager (aka SCH-R450) when we first saw it back in August. At US$200 it looked like a neat little phone which focused on messaging not surprisingly. We’ve managed to dig out a shortish video review of the unit for you to check out.
There are some other reviews of the Samsung Messager around, with a user review over at mobile huddle giving it 4.5 out of 5, more user reviews at phoneDog giving it a 4.2 again out of 5. Whilst phone Arena honour the Messager with a 10 out of 10 Average Joe rating.
So it looks as if this little slider is really taking off and becoming a big hit with you guys out there. If any one begs to differ or even agrees and wants to rave about the Messager, feel free to let us know all about it.
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