Whether you think a pico-projector is a pointless gadget or the future of mobile displays, the common criticism is that their resolution is poor compared to cellphone displays or full-sized projectors. Over at PicoProjector.info they’ve been speaking to Syndiant CTO Karl Guttag, however, and he’s promising something that could turn that all around: 1920 x 1080p resolution pico-modules.
No, not an NVIDIA Ion space-invader dive bombing a lurid netbook, but one of Point of View’s new Mobii ION 230 machines. Based on Intel’s Atom 230 processor, a curious choice considering the single-core 230 is more usually a nettop CPU, the Mobii attempts to redeem itself by using NVIDIA’s Ion GPU along with the typical 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard-drive.
Dell have announced a new 17-inch laptop, the Inspiron 17, and while it’s unlikely to win any prizes for either appearance or power, it’s a serious budget contender if you want a big screen for a small price. Starting at $499, the Inspiron 17 has a choice of Intel Pentium Dual Core or Core 2 Duo processors, with RAM starting at 2GB and storage from 160GB.
Last we heard – and admittedly it was a long time ago, all the way back in October last year – Belkin’s FlyWire wireless HD/HDMI system was “delayed”. Now Belkin admit that the system’s proposed $1,499 sticker price “would be out of line given the current state of the economy” and have thus pulled the plug.
Canon Japan have unveiled two new camcorders, each recording AVCHD footage at up to 24Mbps Full HD. The Canon iVIS HF21 and iVIS HF S11 have 64GB of onboard storage each, plus an SDHC card slot, and can record just under six hours of 24Mbps 1920 x 1080 footage to their internal memory. They also use Canon’s DIGIC DV III Video processor.
Samsung have unveiled their latest camcorder, and unlike some of the company’s more serious models the HMX-U10 has casual point-and-shoot in mind. A compact 56 x 103 x 15.5mm with a kick in the design to better fit your hand, the upright camera boasts both 10-megapixel stills capture and 1920 x 1080 Full HD video.
Intended to take on the Flip UltraHD, which we reviewed back in May, the HMX-U10 records to SDHC card and uses the H.264 video codec. Around the back there’s a 2-inch LCD for framing and reviewing, together with basic controls; the 1/2.3-inch CMOS lens is fixed focus and seemingly lacks any sort of zoom.
Gaming notebook manufacturer Rock have announced two new models, the Xtreme 790 and Xtreme 840, each offering NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M 1GB graphics, Blu-ray and up to 6GB of DDR3 RAM. The Xtreme 790 has a 17-inch Full HD display, up to 1.5TB of storage via three 500GB 7,200rpm HDDs (with RAID support) and Intel Core i7 processors, via the Xtreme 840 steps up to an 18.4-inch Full HD display, Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad CPUs, and the potential for two GTX 280M GPUs.
LaCie have given their LaCinema Rugged multimedia hard-drive an HD upgrade, in the shape of the unsurprisingly-titled LaCinema Rugged HD. The 500GB external hard-drive keeps the shock-resistant chassis, HDMI port and remote control, but now supports 1080p high-definition media in H.264, MKV, WMV9 and MPEG-4 formats.
Sharp have announced a new range of AQUOS LED-backlit LCD TVs, the LE700 series, ranging in size from 32- to 52-inches. Each offering Full HD 1080p, they use Sharp’s X-Gen LCD panel with 10-bit processing and a dynamic contrast ratio in excess of 2,000,000:1.
Panasonic have announced their latest HDD camcorder, the HCD-HS350. Packed with a 240GB hard-drive and using a 10.6-megapixel 3MOS sensor, the HCD-HS350 also sports an SDHC slot (content with up to 32GB cards) and 12x optical zoom; according to Panasonic, the HS350 can record more than 30 hours of Full HD video.
SlashGear Japan
