Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Look, we’re sorry, but we just don’t get this whole built-in speaker fad. All that bulk, for what? It’s not like anybody wants to hear what we’re listening to anyways, and the speaker “fidelity” can hardly be termed thus. But if we were to rock such a superfluous speaker, we might give this XNINE MMP X-500 player a shot. The 1GB Korean DAP sports a decent looking 2.2-inch screen, microSD expansion, FM radio, voice recording, video playback and that silly ol’ speaker — without putting on too terribly much bulk in the process (13.2mm thick to be exact, 0.52-inches). We’re also fairly impressed with the codec support on this little number, including AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG, WMV, WMA, ASF and MP3. XNINE even packed in a few games for kicks. No word on price, and we’re not expecting to see this thing in the States anytime soon, but at least we wouldn’t mind seeing it on this side of Pacific.

[Via AVING]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio

Listen up folks, while you might look mighty trendy rocking those headphones 24 / 7, you should be well aware by now that prolonged periods of heightened volumes can lead to embarrassing moments of near deafness in the future. While one (probably over concerned) citizen in Louisiana and a swarm of French folk both sued Apple for not providing volume limiters on its earbuds, your kid (or you, too) could be harmfully cranking it to eleven if your DAP doesn’t sport any kind of volume controlling functionality. Ingemi Corp. — where “kids comes first,” mind you — have unveiled the iHearSafe ‘buds which “have patent pending technology to keep the volume below 80 decibels,” regardless of how far you jam that volume knob or incensed you become. Featuring a standard 3.5-millimeter jack, the earbuds are reportedly compatible with any major MP3 player, but priced at just $24.99, we can’t imagine any sort of remarkable sound quality being emitted from these guys, quietly or otherwise.

[Via Techie Diva]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Portable Video, Wearables

Apparently snapping shots on a whim to tell your life story just isn’t good enough these days, as folks are writing scripts to take unplanned photos of their groggy faces and strapping head-mountable cameras to their skulls in hopes of producing the next worldwide YouTube hit. Jumping on the “record everything, everywhere” bandwagon is PMP-producer Archos, and its aptly-named Helmet Camcorder gives you on-the-go recording ability that reportedly plays nice with the company’s 404, 504, 604 and 604 WiFi units. The “plug-in mini-cam” records directly to MPEG4 and sports a built-in microphone / remote to somewhat control the insanity, and can presumably be channeled instantly to your Archos PMP or transferred to your PC via USB 2.0 for future editing. The company claims “DVD quality” (640 x 480 resolution) results from the 0.25-inch Sony Super HAD CCD, and the entire webcam gets its juice from the mighty Archos device that it’s plugged into. So if you still haven’t gotten around to using your PMP for television recording, you can make a few comedies of your own this winter for just $149.99.

[Via Tech Digest]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: GPS, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Here’s a bit of a head scratcher: BRAINic’s new JUCTOMA DMB and navigation unit features a single core unit that can be swapped between a 7-inch and 4.3-inch screen. We’re sure it costs an arm and a leg for that much touchscreen action, but the upshot is that you can keep the 7-inch version in your car, and slap the core module into your 4.3-inch screen for portable use. Of course, this being Korean, the JUCTOMA doesn’t skimp on other deets just because of its crazy setup: there’s Windows CE 5.0, SiRF Star III GPS, MP3, WMA, DivX, AVI, ASF, WMF, JPG and BMP playback, 128MB of RAM, 2GB of NAND and 32MB of NOR. The 4.3-inch device hits 0.95-inches in thickness, while the 7-incher hits right around 1-inch thick. No word on SD, but perhaps that’s pushing things a bit.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

You didn’t think that we were done with products from KES did you? Oh no, we’ve got another strictly-foreign device for you to lust after. How about an Anam portable media player with a T-DMB tuner? Yeah Sharp’s got a similar device, but this one has 7 channels of digital television along with 13 channels of digital radio rolled up into a 2.2-inch package that runs for five hours on the internal battery and lets you save all your shows to a nice little SD card. To be fair, the Sharp device does have GPS and a few other things too, but this little Anam portable T-DMB just has a bit more pizzazz, don’t you think? Okay, okay, we just like rooting for the underdog.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: GPS, Portable Audio, Portable Video

You know how we love those Korean GPS/PMP/DMB combo units we’re never going to get our hands on, and at the rate they keep on coming down the pipe, it looks like we’ll be able to safely feed our addiction ’till we get caught up to them over here. One of the latest is this Muto i7 unit, running Windows CE and packing an increasingly-standard 7-inch screen, with an SD slot for expansion, as well as a remote control to enjoy some DMB TV from a distance. No word on specific details on the GPS front, though it promises 3D graphics with “iconic 3D buildings and structures.” There’s also no word on price or availability, of course, though we’re guessing if you don’t exchange in won, you don’t need to know.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Emulation-packed PMPs are becoming a dime a dozen these days, but Ainol‘s V1000 manages to add a few impressive touches to the media-playing side of this two-faced device. The landscape oriented unit sports a sleek, silver enclosure with a simple five button control layout, and boasts a 2.5-inch QVGA display, 400MHz ADI Blackfin processor, and the ability to give every retro gamer his / her fill of NES emulation. Aside from the obvious Mario love, it supports AVI / MP4 video playback at 30 frames per second, and plays nice with MP3, WMA, and FLAC audio formats on the musical side. Handling all those audiophile-approved lossless files is the 512MB / 1GB of internal storage, while the addition of an SD slot ensures room for that bulging ROM collection. Although details concerning battery life, availability, connectivity, and price aren’t yet available, we’re sure these handy all-in-ones will be popping up in China’s gadget shops real soon.

[Via The MP3 Players]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Clix comparisons aside, this new Bitoy Cube100 looks like a not-shabby-at-all PMP offering for the Chinese company. Sporting a 3.6-inch QVGA screen, the Cube100 sadly lacks a D-Click interface, instead opting for some rather small navigation buttons across the bottom of the device. Still, quite a bit of screen for a device this small, and the codec support isn’t bad either, with MPEG-1, MPEG-4, MOV, MP3 and WAV all represented. The device can also play games, two of which are included. There’s an unfortunate 512MB of memory, but if our eyes don’t deceive us, the player has what looks to be a memory card slot — though it could just be some sort of docking port. No word on price or availability, but we’re guessing we won’t be seeing this one outside of China anytime soon.

[Via CNET; thanks alisonteck]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Don’t you hate how the hottest gear is usually restricted to non-US countries; just for once, why couldn’t the best cellphones, DAPs, and laptops make an appearance here fir…oh, wait. Nevermind. That intro is reserved for the type of lustworthy foreign gadget like Samsung’s 10-megapixel B600 cameraphone — this post features a nondescript, cookie-cutter PMP being shown off at the Taitronics Autumn 2006 trade show going on in Taiwan. What we’ve got here is the 2.4-inch “HT-250″ by Skardin Industrial, sporting a DVB-T tuner, SD/MMC slot, and not much else — since there’s no internal storage, you’ll have to cram your MPEG-1/2/4, DivX, and XviD files onto a 2GB card (it’s possible there’s SDHC support, but we’re not hopeful). Also notably absent is any mention of compatible audio codecs, so you may end up having to re-encode your tunes before loading them up.

[Via Anything But iPod]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Video

There are a few 3D devices that somehow manage to buck the “gimmick” stereotype and show a bit of promise, but Neovision Labs’ iFusion is definitely not a peripheral that we can take seriously. Doing the 3D realm more harm than good, this PMP add-on appears to be nothing more than a clear, acrylic screen protector; however, a flurry of less-than-reputable claims state that the simple LCD covering allows for “lifelike 3D images” to pop out of your handheld without the need for 3D goggles. The catch (there’s always a catch) is that the media you play must be anaglyphic in nature, meaning that it’s pre-encoded with 3D goodness. The “autostereoscopic” apparatus supposedly brings that atypical content to life without the need for special glasses, and doesn’t affect normal (read: 99.9+ percent of your files) media whatsoever. If you’re still curious, and don’t have a sneaking suspicion of being duped on this, the iFusion will be available for the iubi Blue and Microsoft Zune sometime this fall for an undisclosed price.

[Via DAPreview]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: GPS, Portable Audio, Portable Video

As if we needed another Europe-only GPS device that brings nothing new to the table, Adapt is busting out their all-in-one navigation system which sports a few PMP features and an SD slot, but looks just as bulky as the rest of the similarly-specced devices on the market — with a particular TomTom Go flavor. The 279 Euro ($354 US) unit sports a 3.5-inch touchscreen display, and is powered by a 400MHz processor from Samsung, along with that ubiquitos SiRF Star III chip and software courtesy of Route 66. There’s 64MB of built-in storage, and some sort of music / photo / movie/ eBook playback ability, but we’re not sure about formats or codecs. No word on the release date for this little guy either, but we’re sure it and five other West Europe-only units will make it to market in the time it takes us to get a single one onto our lowly shores.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video, Storage

It might look a little clunky, but Wolverine Data‘s new ESP PMP is all substance. Inside the 0.9-inch thick monstrosity is a 80 or 120GB HDD and a 7-in-1 card reader, making this the perfect tool for photogs looking for a good memory card backup solution. There’s JPG, BMP, TIFF and RAW support, and all main memory formats can be used by the reader. If you’d rather be entertained, the ESP can do that too, with a 3.6-inch LCD and MPEG-1, MPEG-4, WMV9 and XviD codec support, along with the usual audio suspects, including AAC and CDA. The unit also includes built-in speakers, an FM tuner, audio-in, TV-out and can record video with an optional cradle that’ll set you back $80. It seems like if you just want the entertainment factor, there are plenty of better PMP options than this thing, but for the photographer on the go, the video support couldn’t hurt, and the $400 (80GB) and $500 (120GB) pricetags aren’t too shabby at all.

[Via PVR Wire]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Portable Audio

Surely Sony would love it if a new music player could drown out the sound of the company’s exploding battery bruhaha, but sadly that probably won’t be the case. Nevertheless, Sony has just released the new NW-S706, which comes in an elegant elliptical form factor along the lines of the NW-E series — that said, it appears to be an update to the NW-S205. All we know so far, according to one British online retailer, is that the NW-S706 comes in three colors (purple, black and pink), packs 4GB of storage, up to 50 hours of battery life (probably only if you’re bumping ATRAC), line-in recording, an FM tuner, and should be due out on October 9 for £180, or $336. We’re still unsure if this is a Europe and Asia-only release, but nontheless, we’d love to be able to snag one of these Stateside real soon.

[Via CNET Asia]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Video

While Amazon has done a commendable job in (presumably) dispelling the hot air of a Griffin spokesperson, it’s not always, um, entirely reliable. However, we’d bet the gallery of Zune accessories gracing its pages now weren’t uploaded erroneously. Boasting everything from the premium earphones, travel pack, FM transmitter, and dock to the sync cable, wireless remote, A / V cable, and car charger that we’ve known were on the way, we’re just glad we can finally match a face with a name. Although none of the Microsoft-branded accessories are priced or available for pre-order, the Zunes themselves certainly are (in all three colors, no less) for those who aren’t feeling lucky. Say, doesn’t that dock connector look awfully familiar?

[Thanks, Darryl]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Acer‘s been quite busy as of late, demoing everything from GPS units to its new sleek laptops, not to mention its new personal media player, the MP-340. Just when we were getting into that upcoming newer, cheaper Acer device, our friends in Taiwan go out and show off what may be an update to the previous MP-500. This new slick little box, more technically known as the MP-400, has many of the same specs as the MP-500, including a 3.5-inch screen, MP3, WMA, DivX, and MPEG-2/4 support, an SD card slot and AV in/out — and as Anything But iPod points out, it looks a slight bit like the iRiver Clix, what with the clean face and all. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to find out how much of your vids and snaps the MP-400 will hold, nor what it will retail for or when this little black bundle might be be our own (assuming it ever actually comes to the US).

[Via Anything but iPod]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Gaming, Portable Audio, Portable Video

It won’t give you as many retro-gaming options as the GP2X, but if you’re satisfied with a little classic NES action as a break from your daily grind, Odna’s upcoming VX737 PMP looks like it should suit you just fine. Of course in addition to emulating that massive library of 8-bit goodness, the PMP will also handle MP3, OGG, FLAC, and WAV audio, as well as AVI, MPEG-4 SP, XviD, and DivX video, which you can view on the player’s 2.5-inch QVGA screen. What’s more, it appears that Odna’s “inspiration” knows no bounds, with the VX737 sporting a curiously familiar menu system so you’ll feel right at home (check after the break). On the storage tip, you’ll get 512MB built-in, though there’s no mention of an SD slot or other means of expansion; there’s also no word on pricing or availability, but as with oh so many of these foreign products, it seems safe to assume that we won’t be seeing this reaching our shores anytime soon, lest they get their asses sued by a tag team of Sony and Nintendo.

[Via Anything But iPod]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Presigio may be setting a new trend in portable media players with its new “portable multimedia recorder,” the PMR-701. This device purports to record video or single frames from an external source like a TV, DVD player or camcorder. There’s also an integrated TV tuner (doesn’t say what kind) to pick up free broadcast channels, and while the press release claims you can also watch cable, but there’s no apparent dock or coax jack. That said, its built-in 20 or 30GB storage turns it into a portable DVR, which is sorta sweet. The PMR-701 has a 3.5-inch 320 x 240 color display and it supports MPEG-4, AVI (DivX and XviD), WMV9 and MP4 and MP3, WMA9, AC3, AAC, and OGG files. Funny though, the press release fails to list a price, and says it will be available “immediately at Prestigio partners’ stores across the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.” What, no love for the Americas, Western Europe or Asia / Oceania?

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Hot off the floors of IFA is the V-Mate memory card recorder from SanDisk. This device is really pretty simple and could be really practical for people who love getting their video fix on portable media players like the iPod, PSP, etc. The V-Mate connects to any analog video and audio output. It can then record video directly to a wide variety of portable media formats like SD, MMC, and all of the Sony varieties. It records the video at 640 x 480, therefore being perfect for any of the portable media players out there. The TV-based interface allows you to control and adjust all features of the V-Mate. This device will be available in October for $130 or so. – Travis Hudson

IFA 2006: SanDisk V-Mate memory card recorder [TechDigest]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

As if South Koreans didn’t have enough DMB / PMP devices to keep themselves occupied, Hampex has thrown down the rather uninspiring looking HDMB-T300CR, a DMB receiver with a 3.5-inch display that can view and record digital media broadcasts. The company decided to go down the DIY-route with this player, opting for an empty SD slot over an internal hard drive or built-in flash memory. Once you’ve plugged in up to 2GB of SD memory, you’ll be able to start recording your favorite Korean TV and digital radio shows thanks to the hardwired H.264 decoder and PAL/NTSC video encoder chipsets. The receiver is currently selling in Korea at around 180,000 won, but as always, we’re not optimistic that this’ll ever hit American soil, let alone at the sub-$200 price you get after conversion.

[Via Akihabara News]

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Well, well, well — it seems that Toshiba’s been up to more in the portable media space lately than just helping Microsoft out with the Zune manufacturing. In fact, ole Tosh has been working on a DTV-less version of its Japanese OneSeg-capable 30GB V30T; shake off the TV tuner, and you’ve got America’s own MEV30K. This model borrows many of its features from the popular S series — including Microsoft’s Portable Media Center software, WMV9, WMV10, and PlaysForSure video playback, plus support for MP3, WMA, WMA lossless, WAV, and Windows DRM 9 / 10 audio files — but, like the V30T, tosses what will probably be some well-received spec bumps into the mix. Besides the addition of a built-in speaker, the main changes here involve screen size and battery life: the V30K sports a 3.5-inch TFT LCD (compared to the 2.5-incher on the S, though both share the same QVGA resolution) and promises up to 8 hours of video or 25 hours of audio playback on a full charge (as opposed to the meager 2.5 and 12 hour lifespans for video and audio, respectively, on the S). We’re sure that there are more than few people interested in this stamina-filled $400 Gigabeat, so the good news is that pre-ordering begins today through Crutchfield and Amazon, though a nationwide rollout is not expected until sometime in October. Let the iPod comparisons commence!

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Video

Those pranksters at Samsung are always mixing up the display sizes on us, and now they’ve thrown down a 16:9 widescreen 10-incher for your DMB viewing pleasure. The R7 features MP3 and photo playback, and can even handle an external drive for viewing video, but it seems mostly suited to lounging around the home with some up-close and personal DMB broadcasts. Samsung wants to move the TV from a “fixed, family-oriented device to a more mobile, personal gadget.” We’re not so sure that ethic would go over so hot if verbalized in the States, but it’s not like they’ll be shipping it over here anyways, so the point is moot.

[Thanks, Dan]

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Filed under: GPS, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

We’re a bit miffed that Maxtek chose to go soft on one of the three pillars of Korean gadgetry: PMP playback, but their new MNT-4300DMB device has plenty to love all the same. First off, there’s a 4.3-inch touchscreen, which can handle picture-in-picture just in case the GPS isn’t enough of a reason to keep your eyes off the road. Navigation is powered by a SiRF III GPS module, and TV is of the T-DMB variety. The device can also handle MP3s and photos with its unmentioned amount of storage, but there doesn’t seem to be any PMP functionality in sight. Not too terrible for 349,000 won ($363 US), but if PMP is your thing there will always be plenty of other choices.

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

So Acer’s upcoming MP-340 PMP doesn’t really hold a candle to the last media player we saw from the company — it’s pretty sparse in the video codec department and has a smaller, lower-resolution screen — but on the plus side, it’s infinitely more pocketable and probably a whole lot cheaper. Unlike the MP-500 which preceded it, this model’s got just a 1.8-inch, 160 x 128 TFT display (a little too small for extended viewing sessions, in our opinion) and only supports H.264-formatted video; however, you’re still getting a 20GB hard drive, MP3, WMA, and WMA DRM compatibility, along with voice recording and the obligatory JPEG photo playback. Also on board are an SD slot for a little expansion action, two headphone jacks for sharing that tiny screen with a friend, a 10-hour rechargeable battery (with the screen off, of course) and a number of preloaded games, including everyone’s new favorite, Sudoku. Since this model is officially debuting at IFA in Germany next month, pricing and availability are still a closely guarded secret, but if you happen to be in Berlin from the 1st through the 6th, try to stop by the Acer booth and smooth talk that info out of the booth babes company reps for us.

[Via MobileWhack]

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Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Chances are good that if you’re reading this publication you already have a pretty decent grasp of English (probably better than ours, in fact), but for the native Japanese speaker looking to brush up on his/her foreign language skills, we can’t think of a device better suited for the task than NHC’s rather awkwardly-named Magic-Talker Color Personal Multi-lingual Assistant. Like previous offerings we’ve seen from Sharp, iRiver, and Franklin, the USB 2.0-compatible Magic-Talker contains numerous dictionaries along with incorporating MP3 and WMA music playback functionality, but those goodies are just the tip of the iceberg. You’re also getting tons of conversation tutorials — complete with animated representations on the full color QVGA display — and several practice tests for acing the TOEIC exam and impressing business colleagues with your copious English skillz. But that’s not all, as this 256MB device (upgradable by 2GB with an SD card) also supports DivX and MPEG-4 video playback (with a TV out for vids up to 640 x 480 at 30fps) and sports an FM tuner (with direct recording, of course), line-in recording, and the ubiquitous voice recorder for practicing your pronunciation. Games, a calculator, and an E-Book reader are also standard, making the ¥44,800 ($386) LM-500J (as it’s officially known) seem like a veritable steal compared to similarly-priced devices without nearly as many features. Throw in some WiFi, Bluetooth, and WLAN radios, and we’d even buy one, though we couldn’t for the life of us tell you the difference between kanji, katakana, and hiragana.

[Via Impress]

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Wireless

Not too many surprises here — after all, we’ve already seen a full review of one of these new models — but now PMP pioneer Archos has officially taken the wraps off of all the so-called Generation 4 devices we initially spotted over two months ago. First out of the gate will be the 3.5-inch 404 and 4.3-inch 604 media players whose specs and performance have gradually been revealed over the last few weeks, and all we really had wrong about the two thirty giggers was their prices: the former will go for $300 while the latter will set you back $350 when they ship next month (though pre-orders are already being taken). Coming later in the year will be a version of the 404 with an integrated camcorder as well as a touchscreen, wireless-enabled iteration of the 604 (for downloading internet content), and like all the Gen4 models, these will require a separate DVR docking station in order to record content from and playback content to external sources and monitors. Last but certainly not least is the surprisingly capacious 160GB 504 (we originally thought it would sport only a 40GB HDD), although at this point Archos is keeping mum on such deets as screen size, pricing, and availability. All-in-all a very exciting new crop of PMPs, and like previous products from the company, these will likely continue to be the media players against which all other competitors are judged.

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