Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

We’re not exactly sure why anyone would want to watch anything on a 1.5-inch screen, but apparently the unwashed masses do; as such, enter the TA 454 Digital Video Player. About the size of two quarters, this $80 256MB media player takes SD cards and will playback WMV, MP3, SMV, JPG and eBook files. We’re still mystified how the TA 454′s engineers managed to get an FM tuner into that tiny case, too, but that’s why they have advanced degrees and laboratories and we don’t. Still, we’d like to see it go head-to-head against the iRiver N20, the other tiny DAP with a screen du jour.

[Via The Raw Feed]

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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

Given that we’ve already seen some rather strange memory card readers, it’s high time that a company came out with one that’s actually convenient to use. We’ve always thought that a card reader directly built-in to a keyboard would do the job nicely, no? Fortunately Ainex has used its engineering powers to read our minds, and has released the AKB-88, a new compact keyboard with four, count ‘em four, card slots on the far side of the keyboard, featuring all your favorite types, including CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SD and the oft-neglected SmartMedia. Sadly, this flashy little keyboard is Windows-only, even though we think it would compliment the MacBook nicely, given that it comes in both white and black. The AKB-88 was just made available on the company’s website for the ever elusive “open price,” but if these ‘boards ever surf across the Pacific, we’ll let you know.

[Via Akihabara News]

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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: Digital Cameras, Peripherals

If you’re still rocking a digital camera older than the recently unveiled Nikon D80 or lineup of Canons, for instance, the lack of SDHC support may have you a bit down on your luck. Apparently Casio and Pentax aren’t wasting any time in making sure their customers are kept happy, as both companies have released firmware updates for a few popular shooters that sport SD slots. Pentax Japan is hooking up the *ist DL, *ist DL2, *ist DS, *ist DS2, and K100D (K110D to soon follow) with SDHC support, while Casio is upping the ante on its EX-S500, EX-Z600, and EX-Z850. So if you happen to own one of these select models, and you can’t resist the urge to drop some coin on those pricey (albeit spacious and speedy) SDHC cards, be sure to do your duty and treat that digicam to its respective upgrade first. While these may be the first few cameras in which SD 2.0 support is granted retroactively, we don’t imagine the list will stop here — so, dear camera manufacturers, what’s the holdup anyway?

Read – Pentax Firmware Updates
Read – Casio EX-S500 Firmware Update
Read – Casio EX-Z600 Firmware Update
Read – Casio EX-Z850 Firmware Update

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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: Digital Cameras, Portable Audio, Portable Video

You’d think that we would have heard of a company that’s made (or perhaps rebadged) literally hundreds of DAPs and PMPs since 2004, but until we came across the swivel-screen M790, we’d never caught wind of a Chinese manufacturer called Newman. Most of its products are simply cookie-cutter devices that resemble so many of the other products we’ve featured on these pages, but the M790′s unique design and large-ish 2.5-inch screen convinced us to give it another look. As with many foreign products of its ilk, this DAP’s exact specs are a little hard to come by, but we do know that it sports a QVGA resolution, built-in speakers, a camera of some undetermined pixel count (machine translation pegs it as a 20 megapixel shooter, but frankly we’re a bit suspect), and support for MP3, WMA, JPEG, and unspecified video files. Storage on this one is a paltry 512MB (expandable through the SD / MMC slot), but that’s just as well, as it’ll take a pretty long time to load up even that amount of data over the sluggish USB 1.1 connection. Also along for the ride are your typical assortment of dictionaries, games, voice recording, audio line-in, and the all important timekeeping functionality. It seems like you can pick up the M790 sometime this month (maybe even right now!), but it’s obviously not available in the US, so factor in the cost of a plane ticket to China along with however many yuan this happens to be retailing for.

[Via Anything But iPod]

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

If you’re wondering who the heck Voigtlaender is, rest assured you aren’t missing out on much. The German-based company’s Virtus D8 digicam is about as forgettable as they come, sporting no standout features and a long list of mediocre specs. The only thing mildy impressive about the 8.1 megapixel camera is its compact size — and of course its outlandish name. Essentially like every other average compact, you’ll get a 2.5-inch display screen, 3x optical zoom, meager ISO settings, a 640 x 480 video mode, and an SD slot that only accepts cards up to 1GB. More realistically, we presume this is just another digicam with too many megapixels for its own good, and priced at around $430, we don’t envision many enthusiasts rushing out to grab such an underwhelming offering.

[Via über gizmo]

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Filed under: Peripherals, Storage

Filed under: Storage

With Toshiba and Panasonic having already unveiled their respective 4GB SDHC cards, you didn’t really think that industry powerhouse SanDisk would be too far behind, did you? For the uninitiated, SDHC (or SD 2.0, as it’s also known) is a new FAT32-compliant format designed for capacities up to 32GB, with cards that look exactly like regular SD models, but that won’t work in any but the newest of digital devices. SanDisk’s offering — available sometime before the end of the month — is rated as a Class 2 card, meaning that it guarantees a minimum transfer rate of 2MB per second. The $200 pricetag also gets you a “free” MicroMate card reader, which is not only handy but vital to making the most out of your new card, as the SD readers you currently own won’t have any idea what to do with this thing.

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Filed under: Portable Audio

Filed under: Storage

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

You could say that we're a bit "lappy happy" today (ugh, that was terrible), as we have two more notebooks -- and one convertible tablet -- from HP to show you, to join the Toshiba Qosmio, Sony VAIOs, and pair of Alienwares we brought you earlier. Both 14.1-inch laptops are replacements for previous HP models -- the redesigned dv2000 (pictured, left) replaces the dv1000 in the Digital Entertainment Center line and the Compaq Presario v3000 (pictured, right) puts the v2000 out to pasture -- with the main upgrades coming under the hood, where each model now offers you a choice of Celeron Duo or Core Duo processors from Intel or the Mobile Sempron or Turion 64 X2 from AMD. Also rocking Core Duo (in three flavors: 1.83GHz, 2.0GHz, or 2.16GHz) is the Compaq tc4400 tablet, which sports a 12.1-inch XGA display with digitizer, integrated graphics, 512MB to two gigs of RAM, 60GB, 80GB, or 100GB hard drive, WiFi, PC Type I/II and SD card slots, and the usual assortment of inputs and outputs. The tablet, which you can peep after the jump, will be available on May 22nd for an undisclosed sum of money (but it's safe to assume that it'll be more than the $1,550 Pentium M-sporting tc4200), while the Intel-based notebooks will ship this month -- with the AMD models following shortly after -- all starting at around $1,049 after rebates and junk.

Read- dv2000 and v3000
Read- tc4400

Filed under: Digital Cameras

If you’re looking for a relatively cheap way to enter the world of digital SLR photography, the UK’s DigiCam Review thinks you could do a lot worse than the Pentax *ist DL, which despite its unpronouncable name, came out a clear winner in their testing. Successor to the company’s *ist DS, the 6.1 megapixel DL impresses on many fronts, including image quality, response times, ergonomics, and, perhaps most importantly to a DSLR newbie, ease-of-use. Specifically, the DL — which was tested with the optional 15-55mm Pentax DA lens — captured pictures with good contrast, detail and color, low noise except at the highest ISO setting, and a general lack of purple-fringing or red-eye, while providing a lot of features, such as RAW support, auto ISO, and a 2.5-inch display, for its $740 price tag. The only real knocks here seem to be the lack of image stabilization or CF card support — meaning storage is limited to the most capacious SD card available — but since this model is certainly not targeted at pros, those issues may not even matter to most.

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Filed under: GPS, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Transportation

Brits looking for an in-car GPS solution that they can also throw in a sack and take along on a constitution will soon have a new option from Chinese manufacturer Shinco. The Voyager GPS 400 is a PDA-size receiver in white with a 4-inch, 480 x 272 color touchscreen, birds-eye view mapping, SD slot for MP3 playback, and preloaded maps covering the two million hottest destinations on the British Isles. You seem to get a pretty solid accessory pack in the box as well, with a windshield mount, extension antenna, decent carrying case, and both car and wall chargers standard. E-tailer Firebox is currently taking pre-orders for the Voyager, which is supposed to arrive on the 11th, for a very reasonable $420.

[Via Tech Digest]

Filed under: Wireless, Storage

src="http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/05/eye-fi.jpg" alt="" />Until now SD WiFi has come in the form of those
oversized (well, relatively) cards too long to actually fit in your device except those specifically designed to take
one, like href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/25/kodak-plans-easyshare-one-follow-up-with-better-hotspot-support/">Kodak’s Easy
Share One, or Treo 650 / 700. Well, according to Eye-Fi, we can
all scratch that problem off the list. By building their wireless into the flash of an SD card they can save on precious
space, and also get a GB of memory in there too. Of course this won’t exactly help all those digital cameras out there
that don’t even come close to supporting such a thing, but sometimes this kind of gear has to precede the hardware
support in order to prove its own demand.

[Via href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/04/28/eye-fi-to-combine-wifi-flash-memory/">TechCrunch]

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Filed under: Handsets, Reviews, Windows Mobile, GSM, GPRS

src="http://www.engadgetmobile.com/media/2006/04/a701.jpg" alt="" />On paper, the href="http://www.engadget.com/2005/08/25/mios-a701-gps-enabled-pocket-pc-phone/">Mio A701 smartphone sounds like
almost the perfect convergence device, sporting a Windows Mobile 5.0-powered 520MHz Xscale processor, SiRF III GPS
receiver, tri-band GSM radio, Bluetooth, and a 1.3 megapixel camera. Sadly, at least according to Reg Hardware, the
A701 has so many little faults that the device is often barely usable, and sounds like a skip except for those folks
who absolutely must have GPS and aren’t into the square-screened iPaq href="http://engadget.com/search/?q=hw6900">hw6xxx series from HP. Some of the Reg’s gripes with this model include
its crappy camera (one of the worst they’ve ever seen, apparently), GPRS-only data connection, flimsy telescoping
stylus, lack of dedicated buttons for WM5 softkey control, and buggy navigation software (luckily it’s optional).
Besides the full suite of accessories that come included in the box, there doesn’t seem to be much good to say about
the $660 to $790 A701, which is no doubt a big disappointment to those who may have been looking to import what
appeared to be such a hot phone.

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Filed under: GPS, Portable Audio, Portable Video

hspace="4" border="1" alt="" src="http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/04/sorell.jpg" />

We haven’t
featured a foreign PMP on these pages in awhile, so for those of you
hungry for a feature-filled device that you’ll never get your hands on, we proudly present the Sorell DN10. With only
1GB of internal flash memory, the DN10 isn’t going to win any capacity awards, although an SD card slot allows you to
jack that total up to a still-low-but-acceptable 3GB. Features, then, and not storage, are what should draw Koreans to
this model, as it boasts a 3.5-inch screen and both a GPS receiver for navigation and DMB tuner for watching OTA
programming when they get sick of the two movies that they were able to cram onto the device. Filetypes supported
include AVI, DivX, XviD, WMA, MP3, and JPEG, and pricing comes in at under $400 (measured in won, of course).

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Filed under: Portable Audio

Japanese Co. Evergreen is no stranger to the cheap and crap-plasticy product. Now they combine their love of the two and apparent hatred for human-kind in this $8.50 DN-2000 MP3 player targeting the ill-fated shores of Japan, and perhaps, beyond. It runs for 5-hours on a single AAA battery and supports 1GB SD cards. You realize of course, that we are now at the dawn of disposable MP3 players don't you? Gawd save our souls.

Filed under: Gaming, Storage

If, like us, you were curious as to how Nintendo's expectedly hard drive-free Revolution was going to be able to compete with Sony's and Microsoft's drive-toting next-gen consoles, let your fears be allayed. In a recent CNN Money interview with Iwata-san, the N-man divulged that the Rev would come with an SD slot to complement its 512MB internal flash memory (for, you know, downloading games n' stuff), but that it'd also have USB ports for external storage solutions, like flash drives and hard drives. That's not going to be a huge boon if the Rev isn't going to have crazy media features like the 360 has and the PS3 is expected to, but it's still nice to know we're not gonna be left in the lurch on the storage thing.

[Via Joystiq and PSFK]