Platforms

FinePix Z3 Zoom For The Laydees
Thinner than a whippet with Montezuma’s Revenge, Fujifilm’s new FinePix Z3 sports a 5.1 million pixel sensor, ISO reaching down to the dim lights of 1600 and a 36-108mm (3x), F3.5 – 4.2 lens.
Apparently created with the laydees in mind, this minor update to the Z2 camera comes with improved resolution, an Intelligent-Flash mode and an improved 2.5-inch screen, with the camera available in silver, metallic blue and girly-girly light pink.
Fluffing up their announcement with a bit of cod-science, Fujifilm reckon that their research has revealed that most photos taken by women are ‘people pictures’* snapped in low light situations and in close proximity to the subject – the kind of photos that are notoriously hard to grab without camera shake or bleaching out faces..
(*A quick straw poll around the office found this claim to be total bollocks, by the way).
We’re sure that the ladies of the world will be lining up to thank Fujifilm for the Super CCD and Real Photo Processor II in the Z3 which combines with the camera’s high sensitivity (up to ISO1600) and Intelligent-Flash system to help banish those low-light photo blues.
Fujifilm’s Intelligent-Flash system claims to work by combining a well-exposed background and ‘natural skin tones’ on subjects in the foreground, with a ‘Dual-Shooting Mode’ blasting off two consecutive shots (one with flash and one without flash) to see which comes out best.
Rounding off the feature set is 14 pre-programmed scene positions, high resolution (230K Pixels) 2.5 inch LCD screen, 10 MB internal memory and ‘TV-quality’ VGA movie recording of 30 fps with sound
Availability and pricing to be announced.
Specifications:
Sensor – 5.1 million effective pixels
Image sizes – 2592 x 1944, 2736 x 1824 (3:2), 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 640 x 480
Movie clips – 640 x 480 @ 30fps, 320 x 240 @ 30fps, Mono sound
File formats – JPEG Exif v2.2, DPOF, AVI Motion JPEG
Lens – 36 – 108mm equiv, F3.5 – 4.2
Image stabilization – No
Conversion lenses – No
Digital zoom – up to 5.7x
Focus – Auto focus, Normal: approx 60cm – infinity, Macro: approx 8cm (wide)
Metering – TTL 256 zone
ISO sensitivity – Auto, ISO 64 – ISO 1600
Shuttter speed – 4 – 1/1000 sec
Aperture – F3.5 / F5.0 / F8 3 steps
Modes – Auto, Anti-Blur, Scene Position, Macro, Movie, Burst / Continuous
Scene modes – Natural Light, Natural Light with Flash, Portrait, Landscape, Sport, Night, Fireworks, Sunset, Snow, Beach, Museum, Party, Flower, Close-up, Text
White balance – Auto, Manual (Fine, Shade, Fluorescent Light (Daylight, Warm White & Cool White), Incandescent Light
Self timer – 2 or 10 sec
Continuous shooting – Top-3 (max 2.2 fps up to 3 frames), Final-3 (max 2.2 fps up to 3 frames), Long-period (max 0.7 fps up to memory card size)
Flash – Auto, Red-eye reduction, On / Off, Slow sync, Red-eye reduction + slow sync
Range – Wide approx 0.3 – 3.0m, Tele approx 0.6 – 2.3m
Viewfinder – No
LCD monitor – 2.5-inch, 230,000 pixels
Connectivity – NTSC / PAL, USB 2.0 High speed
Storage – xD-Picture Card, 10MB internal memory
Weight (no batt) 130 g (4.6 oz)
Dimensions 92.7 x 56.7 x 27.8 mm (3.6 x 2.2 x 1.1 in)
Fujifilm
31 May, 2006
LG’s KG810 Announced
LG has unveiled the KG810 clamshell phone; a super slim, quad band GSM handset which will be sold in Asia, China, Europe and CIS markets.
Although we’re not generally fans of the clamshell phones (our attempts to casually flip the things open one-handedly invariably saw the phone flying off into the distance), but the KG810 is certainly a bit of a looker.
Like the slider KG800 chocolate phone, the KG810 features the same external “Infrared Sensor” buttons on the front for controlling music playback.
These work by heat detection, so there should be little chance of you activating the controls when the phones in your pocket – unless you’re in the habit of carrying hot coals around in your pants, of course.
Under the screen there’s a touch-sensitive keypad and a fairly healthy 128 MB of internal memory.
Naturally, the phone comes with all the usual multimedia widgets we expect to see on ‘lifestyle’ gadgets, with a 1.3 megapixel camera with video recording, bluetooth, FM radio, voice memo and music player bringing up the feature set.
It’s a pipsqueak of a phone too, measuring a handbag-unbulging 14.6mm thick. Pricing and availability is not known yet.
There’s been wide confusion over this, so let’s clear it up for you. The KG810 isn’t part of the Black label, design-driven phone line. The KG800, the ‘Chocolate phone’ is – and is currently the only phone in the Black label range. Thank to LG for getting in touch about this and clearing it up.
Barrel scraping celeb-fest
LG have been keen to insist that their ‘Black labal’ range of phones will lead punters into a world of impossible glamour and sophistication, with a recent glitzy London launch seeing freebie phones dished out to schlebs like Pierce Brosnan, Gwyneth Paltrow and Claudia Shiffer (our invitation must have got lost in the post).
Although these stars were clearly happy to scoop up any expensive freebies coming their way, when it came to electing the UK’s “primary Chocolate phone ambassador,” LG found the celebrity cupboard somewhat bare.
Finally settling on a barrel-scraping Z list ‘celebrity’ – whom we suspect wasn’t their first choice – LG awarded Colleen McLoughlan the ambassador’s job, enthusiastically insisting that she is a ‘fashion icon.’ LG _insist_ that Colleen was their choice numero uno, seeing her and her recent transformation to a ‘girl of style’ as perfect for the phone.
Just in case you’re not in tune with the world of ‘fashion icons’ we can inform you that Ms McLoughlan is in fact the girlfriend of nobbled England footie star, Wayne Rooney.
We can see that impressed you.
“The LG Chocolate phone is working as an accessory for any outfit. It’s unique, sleek and exactly the right size to pop into any handbag for any occasion. The black and red theme really makes this phone stand out and the touch sensitive buttons make it beautiful,” she enthused to anyone who would listen.
LG UK
31 May, 2006
Meizu Mini Pint Sized PMP Player
After consulting the well thumbed iPod design book, Chinese electronics manufacturers Meizu have rolled out their new Meizu Mini, a truly Lilliputian Personal Media Player.
Despite its me-too design influences, the pocket-sized Meizu looks to be quite an interesting PMP device, sporting a large 2.4″ 260K-Color QVGA (320×240) TFT LCD screen, backed by up to 4GB of memory.
Meizu have also bolted on FM support (76Mhz-108Mhz) with up to 50 preset channels, and there’s a microphone socket for voice recording – pretty impressive for a device smaller than a credit card (79mm x 48.2mm x 10mm, weight 55g).
Media compatibility comes in the shape of support for MP3/WAV/OGG/WMA audio files, Xvid for video and BMP, JPG, GIF photo playback up to 1024×1024 resolution.
Other onboard gizmos include Synchronized Lyric Display, E-book, alarm clock, calculator, calendar and some (unspecified) games.
Battery life is claimed at a decent 20 hours of battery life for audio and 6 hours for video playback, with charging taking less than 2.5 hours.
So far we’ve only seen Chinese language screen shots but the interface seems crisp and slick enough to us.
PC connectivity is via USB 2.0 with claimed transfer speeds of 8MB/s Read and 5MB/s Write.
The player comes with a white or black finish and a metal back just like the – yep, you’ve guessed it – iPod.
There’s multi-language support onboard covering English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages, which suggest there’s a remote hope it may find its way into the UK (or at least be available by mail order). Or maybe not.
Meizu
30 May, 2006
MP-B200 and MP-B300 MP3 Players From Sharp
Details are still a bit sketchy on these shiny new fellas, but Sharp’s new range of flash based MP3 players sure look mighty purdy to our jaded eyes.
Boasting a stylish crystal mirror-finish, the new flash-based MP3 players look set to keep even the tightest of trousers unruffled, with the sleek-n’slimline beasties measuring just 8.9mm thick and weighing a mere 65 grams.
The players come in four natty shades – silver, blue, black and lead grey – with the Sharp MP-B200 offering 512MB of flash memory and the top of the range MP-B300 coming with 1GB memory.
To keep music mad punters fully stocked with tunes while on the move, both players offer extra capacity in the shape of a miniSD slot, with the audio player offering WMA-DRM and MP3 file format support.
As is de rigueur these days with (non Apple) MP3 players, there’s an FM tuner onboard with direct audio encoding – great for recording radio shows or capturing your mobile mumblings via the built in microphone
The built in audio player comes with WMA-DRM and MP3 file format support, and sports a useful audio in function.
The measurements of the MP-B200 and MP-B300 are 49 x 87.6 x 8.9mm – pretty damn small, but positively bun-scoffing compared to 6.8mm thickness of the Apple iPod.
No news of pricing or UK availability yet, but it should be in Japanese stores from next month.
Sharp [Japan}
30 May, 2006
Yamaha YSP-1 Review: Digital Sound Projector (70%) (pt.2)
Here’s the conclusion of the Yamaha YSP-1 speaker system review, following on from yesterday’s first instalment. The geek bit
The technology behind the YSP-1 is similar to how modern radar systems work using phased arrays. These work by using lots of little speakers (or radars) and combining their outputs to steer the beams (by phase shifting the output of each speaker). So although the sound originates from a single unit, the ear puts all the sounds back together again in such a way that it “hears” different beams coming from different parts of the room. It’s all very complicated maths, but it works.
YSP-800 and YSP-1000
The biggest criticism of the YSP-1 must be the set-up, it’s complicated and takes considerable time to get right. Yamaha have taken this into consideration and the next generation of sound projectors come with a microphone and an auto-set-up feature.
The YSP-800 is designed for 32″ inch systems and will retail for £600 (~$1,126,~e878), while the YSP-1000 is a replacement for the YSP-1 offering the same basic unit with the added microphone for easy set-up/tuning.
Tech specs
120W of multi-channel sound produced from a unit about 42″ across with 42 speakers inside (2 bass speakers and 40 small speakers that steer the beams). 3 digital inputs (2 optical and 1 co-ax), stereo input and sub-woofer output. Decodes Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS.
Recommendations
Sound Quality 8/10 it really does give you multi-channel sound from a single unit.
Ease of Set-up 5/10 the main gripe of the YSP-1, though vastly improved with the newer models.
Overall 7/10 you can get better quality by installing multiple speakers and a decent amplifier, but wiring it all is a complete pain. The YSP-1 really does make it easy though it still doesn’t completely remove the need for connecting wires, at least there’s only one set.
26 May, 2006
YSP-1 Yamaha Review (70%) (pt.1)
Yamaha’s YSP-1 is a marvel of technology, it’s about 42 inches long by 4 inches high and about 4 inches deep but can produce 5.1 audio that really does sounds like a conventional set-up with speakers in-front and behind you.
The magic is all done inside the box using clever electronics and the 40 speakers in the front-panel (there are actually 42, but the two at the end just add a bit of mid-range). It works by cleverly combining the channels and then playing various bits out of various speakers which make the channels come out as “beams” which can then be steered to various parts of the room.
The system does lack the punch and heavy bass of a conventional system as the speakers are so small, but there’s a sub-woofer output to drive an active external unit which adds the missing low frequencies.
There are analogue (stereo) and three digital inputs to connect to TV, DVD and AUX systems, two being optical connections and the 3rd digital co-ax. The digital input supports both Dolby Digital and DTS encoding.
Before Yamaha came out with the YSP-1, the only equivalent system was the Pioneer DSP-1 which cost around £25,000 (~$46k, ~e36k). The YSP-1 is much more affordable with a retail price of around £800 (~$1500, ~e1171) .
The system supports stereo, 3.1 and 5.1 output configurations.
A box is a box without careful set-up
Though Yamaha provide some sensible defaults, the system really needs a good tweak in order to get the most out of it. This means taking the video output and plugging it into your TV and going through the set-up screens (video output is via standard definition composite video).
Unfortunately it isn’t easy. You have to put in the room dimensions then listen to where the test sounds are and steer the beams. The YSP-1 is meant to sit just under the TV/Plasma and there isn’t a way to tell it that it’s on the floor while the screen is six feet higher.
Tuning the YSP-1 is very fiddly and complicated, going through several screens of settings. It will take a while to get right.
However once it is set-up (which will probably take a few goes), viewing a DVD with either Dolby or DTS 5.1 multi-channel output does work, sounds really do appear to be coming from behind and sweep through the room.
The YSP-1 really needs to be mounted as close to the TV as possible so that sounds eminate from the picture. It does still work mounting below (i.e. on the floor), but there’s a bit of spatial distortion as sounds come from below the screen and the YSP-1 doesn’t seem to have any compensation for that, it probably could be tuned manually, but that gets more complicated again and you’re really on your own.
It’s likely you can get get a better sound from a system with real speakers mounted behind you, but it’s probably going to cost more than the 800 quid that that YSP-1 costs. There’s also the hassle of what to do with all the wires that have to trail all over the room.
Though the YSP-1 does save on speaker wiring, it does still require cables to it for the digital sources, power and video out – but they can generally be hidden behind the unit if carefully mounted, especially if under a plasma then all the video/audio wires can be concealed together.
Read the second part of review.
25 May, 2006
USB Turntable Records Vinyl Straight To PC
If you’ve got a big stack of top notch vinyl gathering dust at home, you may want to consider using this natty USB Turntable to record the platters that matter straight on to your desktop or laptop PC.
Simply slam the turntable’s USB plug into any spare port on your computer, load up the easy-peasy Audacity software and you should be away in minutes.
The USB Turntable plays 33 1/3 and 45rpm records (no 78s, so tough luck granddad) and comes with adjustable pitch control (+/- 8 per cent), anti-skating control and a “high-speed vinyl recording function” (whatever that is).
The turntable can also be hooked up to any home stereo with CD or auxiliary inputs so you can rock out to your old punk rock 45s after a night in the pub.
The deck is a belt driven jobbie, so wannabe superstar DJs can forget all about getting scratchy on the thing, and is now available from Firebox for £120 (€176.40 or US$225.00).
Using your existing turntable
We have to say that if you really value your tunes, you’ll get infinitely better quality by using a ‘proper’ turntable like the Pro-ject Debut III turntable, which sells for around the same price as the USB turntable.
Although the turntable can’t be plugged into an USB port – or even your computer for that matter – you can capture the glorious sound of that lovely old vinyl by using a twenty quid phono pre-amp to convert the signal into an output compatible with your sound card instead.
25 May, 2006
Samsung Announces World’s First Solid State Laptops
Samsung has announced the imminent release of the world’s first solid state laptops, in the shape of the Q1,an Ultra Mobile PC and the Q30-SSD, a 12.1-inch screen notebook PC
Instead of the rattling old hard disk drives we’ve grown to love, Samsung’s new models will come with a 32-gigabyte flash memory as their main storage device.
Known as a solid-state drive (SSD), Samsung’s flash memory drive can read data three times faster than conventional hard disks (53MB/s) and write data 150 percent quicker (28MB/s). Scorchio!
Best of all, with no disks to spin up, there’s better protection against shock, 25-50% faster boot-up/sleep recovery times, longer battery life and no noise from whirring fans.
Sounds good? Well, check out the price before reaching for your plastic.
The Q30-SSD looks set to come with a mighty sting of around $3,700 US-equiv when it hits the shelves in Korea (only) from early June onward, and the Ultra Mobile PC will come with the same trouser tightening sting.
“The SSD laptops are targeting a different consumer group from conventional laptop users,” explained Samsung spokesperson Lee Seung-han. “And the price will go down gradually.”
The company also said that it was only selling the SSD laptops in South Korea to reduce the risks from teething problems.
Hybrid Hard Drive (HHD)
With the high price of flash memory proving unattractive to PC manufacturers, Samsung are looking to sweeten the pill by developing a Hybrid Hard Drive (HHD), which is being debuted at a Microsoft conference in Seattle this week.
Samsung’s Lee was enthusiastic about the new technlogy, claiming that early tests show the hybrid hard drive outperforming the flash memory-only drive in terms of processing speed.
“The Windows boot-up time is significantly faster in the Hybrid Disk than in the Solid-State Disk, maybe because the SSD is still in its early development state,” he said.
Specs: NT-Q30-SSD/NT-Q1-SSD
Processor Intel Celero M 753 (1.2GHz)/Intel Celero M 353(900 MHz)
Memory 1 SODIMM Socket, DDR2 400 MHz, 512 MB (both)
LCD 12.1″ WXGA (1280 x 768) TFT-LCD/ 7″ WVGA (800 x 480) TFT-LCD
Graphic Intel GMA 900/Intel GMA 900
Video Memory DVMT (both)
Storage 32GB SSD (both)
External ODD Ultra-slim (9.5mmH) Super-multi Drive (Red)/ –
Communications Modem/Lan Combo, WLAN (802.11 b/g)/10/100 Ethernet, Mini card WLAN (802.11 b/g), Bluetooth v2.0
TV / DMB Embedded DMB/Embedded DMB
Keyboard 83-key Korean Keyboard/Keyboard and Organizer Package included
AudioSRS 3D Sound Support, 16-bit Stereo, SB Pro compatible, Internal Stereo Speaker (2W x 2) (both)
Power 60W AC adapter (110-240 free volt) (both)
Battery Li-ion Battery, Standard 3-Cell, Extended 6-Cell (both)
Dimension (without battery) 287.7 x 197.5 x 18.0 ~ 23.8 mm/ 227.5 x 139.5 x 24.5~26.5 mm
Weight1.14 kg (HDD onboard notebook: 1.16kg)/ 751 g (HDD onboard notebook: 777g)
Samsung
24 May, 2006
LG MFJM53 Nano-Like MP3 Player Launches
It may not have the swish designer lines of the iPod and the name may roll off the tongue as smoothly as a mouth full of dry nuts, but LG Electronics new MFJM53 MP3 player looks more than a bit useful.
Boasting a huge 30-hour battery life that smacks the botty of the iPod and sends it home to bed, the 8GB MFJM53 is compatible with the PlaysForSure digital rights management (DRM) technology, offering integration with subscription services such as Napster and Rhapsody, which use Microsoft’s DRM.
The player also supports MP3, WMA, WAV, Ogg, MPEG4, and ASF music files, as well as MPEG4 video encoded in AVI files with support for JPEG pictures and text files.
Bringing up the impressive multimedia feature set is an on board microphone, a line-in port for recording, an FM radio and a mysterious new feature described on their website as ‘Music Theraphy’ (sic).
Touchy touchy
The MFJM53 sports a large-ish 1.77-inch, 262K, 60 X 128 pixels OLED screen which gets one over its rivals by being touch-sensitive, boasting ‘Index Finger Navigation’ (great for developing that ‘smudgy screen’ look).
The LG is a pocketable number too, weighing 88g and measuring 10.1 x 4.8 x 1.4cm.
Although we like the look of this fella – the feature set particularly impresses – the lack of a scroll/clickwheel is going to seriously hamper its ability to challenge the dominance of the uber-iPod.
Moreover, the marketing geniuses who dreamt up a name so instantly unmemorable as ‘MFJM53’ needs a thwack in the Oggs for their stupidity.
Why dream up a name that’s near impossible to remember when one of the strengths of your greatest rival is its easy-to-remember product name? The fools!
Anyhow, crap name aside, LGs new – what was it called again? – ah, yes, MFJM53 player will be available in just black and white, with pricing and availability to be announced.
LG product specs
24 May, 2006
Moto Q Smartphone Finally Launches
Months later than expected, Motorola’s new ‘Blackberry-killer’ smartphone, the Moto Q has finally been launched on the Verizon network in the US.
Dubbed the RAZRberry, the pocket-size Q is slightly thinner than Motorola’s monster-selling RAZR phone, with the company claiming that it’s the smallest device offering a QWERTY keyboard on the market.
Powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system, Motorola are describing the Moto Q as a “mini notebook” that will enable customers to leave their bulky laptops at home.
As we reported back in July 2005, the handset comes with EVDO wireless capabilities, a QVGA screen (at 320 x 240, still noticeably smaller than the 320 x 320 resolution of rival Palm Treo 700p), Bluetooth 1.2, 1.3MP camera and handy thumb scrollwheel. But no Wi-Fi.
Denny Strigl, president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, was on hand to whip up a whirlwind of PR froth: “The Moto Q offers power, style and ease-of-use in a cool ultrathin format, giving Verizon Wireless customers an uncompromising experience in one device.”
The Moto Q sure packs in a lot of functionality, offering e-mail, instant messages and short messages, backed up by business features like integration with Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat.
“We think the opportunity extends beyond business users,” enthused Mark Shockley who regales under the fabulously American job title of “vice president of seamless mobility” in Motorola’s Mobile Devices unit.
Shockley insisted that the Q is for people with a “life balance” (a what?) who want to use their phones to listen to music, take photos, record short videos and play games.
Although Motorola seem to be aiming this phone at the mass market, we see it more as a bit of superslim strumpet aiming to woo current BlackBerry/Palm Treo users.
Although both those phones command a fierecly local user base, that wafer-thin form factor might just be enough to tempt them to jump ship.
Moto Q
23 May, 2006