Networked media players are, if not quite ten-a-penny, then at least increasingly common these days, so it takes more than an ethernet port and an HDMI output to impress us. QNAP are hoping their NMP-1000 will do just that, however, thanks to its onboard 3.5-inch hard-drive (up to 2TB), Full HD 1080p output, YouTube and Flickr support, automatic NAS backup functionality and UPnP streaming.
Video overview after the cut
Samsung and Sprint have finally come clean and officially announced the Instinct HD, which will hit stores in the US from September 27th. The Instinct HD brings with it a 3.2-inch 320 x 480 touchscreen, EVDO Rev.A, WiFi b/g, GPS, a 5-megapixel camera recording 720p (1280 x 720 30fps) video and, perhaps most interesting, a TV-out connection supporting HD resolutions with an optional HDMI adapter.
Toshiba have announced the Qosmio X500, their 18.4-inch Full HD desktop-replacement notebook packing an Intel Core-i7 2.8GHz processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 250MNV 1GB graphics. Set to arrive by the end of October, the Qosmio X500 squeezes in a Blu-ray burner, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, twin 500GB 5,400rpm hard-drives and WiFi b/g/n.
If you haven’t guessed by now, we’re big fans of ultraportable computers, and even happier when they can cope with 1080p video playback. One such device tickling our fancy is SmartDevices’ SmartV 5 MID, a 5-inch WVGA touchscreen handheld with a 600MHz processor, 2GB of flash storage and a choice of Android, Windows CE 6.0 or Ubuntu as OS.
The SmartV 5 MID also has a microSD card slot (content with up to 32GB cards) for all that lovely high-definition footage you’ll be storing, together with both WiFi and Bluetooth. RAM is 256MB and the MID has native support of 1080p MKV/H.264 content and an HDMI output.
ASUS have outed two new Republic of Gamers notebooks, the G60 and G71X, offering Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors respectively. The two new laptops each have NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 260M with 1GB of dedicated memory, driving a 16-inch 1,366 x 768 display in the case of the G60, and a 1,920 x 1,200 in the G71X. Both machines have Blu-ray drives, dual HDDs set up in RAID arrays (640GB total in the G60; 1TB total in the G71X) and both HDMI and eSATA ports.
When you start calling your new product the “ultimate Mini-ITX HD multimedia platform” you better have some meat to back it up, but we’ve a feeling VIA’s new mainboard will be able to deliver. The VIA VB8003 is the world’s first such ‘board with discrete onboard graphics, capable of pumping out 1080p high-definition video through two HDMI ports; there’s also a DVI port and a VGA port.
Video demo after the cut
It’s obviously a day for promising 1080p PMPs, with Teclast’s upcoming T56 also boasting Full HD. The T56 has a 5-inch 16m color WVGA (800 x 480) display and some endearingly angular styling to its case; it also has an HDMI output for putting 1080p clips onto your nearest HDTV.
Seagate have announced their latest media player, the 1080p-capable FreeAgent Theater+, and if you’ve already bought into – or are willing to adopt – the company’s FreeAgent Go USB hard-drives then it might be a straightforward way to get digital content on your HDTV. The FreeAgent Theater+ adds HDMI, ethernet and both Dolby Digital and DTS 2.0 audio to the original Theater, as well as a whole flood of supported codecs.
Last we saw of the ODROID Android Entertainment device was a spec-sheet and some tiny images; now, at least, we know they have a working prototype. The company has sent us a video demonstrating the ODROID’s HD movie-out connectivity, as well as some big-screen gameplay, with the gaming handheld’s ARM Cortex A8 processor proving just as capable as we’ve seen from the iPhone 3GS.
Video demo after the cut
JVC have announced that the super-slim 32-inch LCD display they released in Japan back in August will hit the US in November. The tuner-free panel measures 6.4mm (1/4-inch) deep at its thinner point, and weighs 5.7kg (12.5lbs), and will launch as the JVC LT-32WX50 in US.
SlashGear Japan
