Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

It’s coming out a little later than we expected, but Sony has finally announced a solid release window for the Bravia TAV-L1 complete home theater system that we first spotted all the way back in February. As you may recall, this model consists of a 32-inch LCD monitor covered by a motorized panel containing speakers and a slot-loading DVD/SACD player, along with a single HDMI input and two vibration-canceling subwoofers in the base. Knowing full well that consumers love to personalize their gear, Sony will be offering the L1 with optional green, gray, burgundy, orange, or silver speaker grills for $100 apiece starting in September, about a month after the product itself is released. Also on the horizon is a $1,300 system called the RHT-G1000, which features speakers and a receiver built right into a TV stand, allowing users to hook up their own flat panel sets and rear satellites for the full home theater experience. Expect the G1000 to be available sometime in October, while the $4,000 TAV-L1 is scheduled for release next month — well past the May launch we’d first heard, but also a lot cheaper than the $7,000 we originally reported.

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Filed under: GPS, Handhelds, Home Entertainment, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Wireless

Filed under: GPS, Portable Audio, Transportation

Personal Tech Pipeline got a chance to tour around with Mio's C310 portable GPS receiver with built-in DAP that we first spotted at CES, and claim that although the unit is a pretty good value, its performance is a bit underwhelming. Rather than building a product from the ground up like the Garmins and Magellans of the world, Mio has assembled a Windows CE-powered unit featuring software from Destinator Technologies and maps from TeleAtlas -- which, while not necessarily a bad thing, means some of the features aren't as polished as they are on vertically-integrated products. For example, PTP found that many important options were buried under several sub-menus, which made simple tasks like changing to night mode or selecting a new destination while driving more difficult than they should be, and probably more dangerous. The C310 seemed to perform its navigation duties fairly well, though, and even ships with ActiveSync for loading up your Outlook contacts' addresses, but little annoyances like a cluttered 3.5-inch screen and awful built-in speakers might be enough to convince most folks to put their $600 towards a more expensive model that operates a little more smoothly.

Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs

DualCor Technologies has just released the final specs for their cPC “ultimate convergence device,” and those who were looking forward to this model are bound to be horribly disappointed: not only will the production version lack cellphone capabilities out of the box as first promised, but the device contains no radios whatsover. That’s right, if you want to get your WiFi, Bluetooth, or 3G on with the cPC, you’ll need to bring your your own CF cards or USB dongles to get connected, which takes an awful lot of convenience out of a product designed to lighten your load. Besides the crushing lack of wireless, the rest of the specs seem decent enough, with the XP side of the device powered by a 1.5GHz Via processor that’s backed by a full gig of DDR2 RAM. Both OSes can store data on the 30GB hard drive (and not 40GB as we previously reported) or the 1GB of NAND flash memory, with the Windows Mobile 5.0 side is supported by a 400MHz Intel PXA263 chip and 128MB of DRAM. GottaBeMobile is reporting that the cPC will be shipping within the next 90 days, though now that the product is devoid of any wireless capabilities, we’re curious to see what type of customer actually picks one up. [Warning: PDF link]

[Via jkOnTheRun]

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Filed under: Features, GPS

Indeed, it has been possible to bring together these functions for years through those perennial
jacks-of-all-trades, PDAs. Garmin has tried several GPS / PDA hybrids and Palm has pushed a GPS it as a key accessory
for its abstractly named LifeDrive Mobile Manager. But GPS customers have shown a preference for dedicated devices.
Probably the best example of this convergence today is the Garmin nuvi. This popular, sleek navigation product includes
a photo viewer and MP3 and Audible audiobook support as well as some travel-friendly features such as a world travel
clock and currency and measurement converters. The nuvi is pricey, but other newcomers to the market like Korea’s
FineDigital are also embracing the slim portable GPS form factor.

While the nuvi 300′s screen isn’t large
compared to other GPS devices and lacks the hard disk of competitors from Magellan and Lowrence, its screen is larger
than that of the video iPod’s and has the same resolution. What would be unthinkable for hanging around your neck while
jogging is a better form factor for watching videos or looking at navigation maps, but manufacturers might struggle in
marketing a product that has two distinct usage scenarios: in the car and outside of it.

On the surface,
combining video and GPS may seem like creating a Frankendevice. The last thing anyone wants to encourage is distracted
driving, but some simple electronics could prevent video on the main screen while attached to a suction mount. Besides,
several of today’s DVD-based in-dash GPS systems such as those from Pioneer already support DVD video for delivery to
passengers’ screens. As shrinking storage prices make such products more practical, portable GPS systems may do the
same using high-speed wireless technologies such as ultra wideband.

Ross
Rubin is director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm href="http://www.npdtechworld.com/">The NPD Group and a contributing editor for LAPTOP. Views expressed in Switched
On are his own. Feedback is welcome at fliptheswitch@gmail.com.

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