Cambridge-based Arcam is renowned for its excellent quality of audio products, producing kit that comes with the very best components, along with all the attention to detail you want from your high-end audio gear. The company was one of the first to get into DAB digital products (and in fact made the first domestic digital tuner in the world), and now it's taken the technology a stage further with its latest tuner. The DT91 will set you back a hefty £449, which we're hoping means the radio is as good as Arcam promises. Providing both DAB and FM tuner, the DT91 comes with digital processing for FM. Digital output from DAB or FM can be used to feed external DACs, recorders, or an AV processor. The tuner's available from March.
Following the path previously trod by JVC with its Everio, comes NHJ and its painfully monikered D'Zign DV-5. This hard disk drive digital camcorder comes with a 2GB hard drive for storing digital video, allowing you to record MP4s at 640 x 480 pixels and 30fps using the 3.2-megapixel camera. You can also play back MP3s, hence the earphones. Hard drive seems to be the done thing for camcorders at the moment, and we're expecting a good crop to arrive in the UK in the not too distant future. While NHJ don't sell directly over here, the company frequently gets picked up by other retailers, so there's a good chance we'll be seeing this one soon.
GPS specialist, Navman, has done a bit of branching out and come up with this range of sports kit designed to appeal to active types. The company's decided to keep it all very simple with colour coding, creating GPS Sports Tools that are tailored to specific sporting activities. The lowest-priced unit, is the Inline Skaters' unit, costing £79. It provides speed and distance information, and has a special alarm that will let you know when your speed drops below a designated rate. The other units are for Walkers (£89), Runners (£99) and Alpine (Snowboarding and Skiing, £119). There's also a Marine version on its way for windsurfers and water sports enthusiasts. They all have similar features, but these are slightly tweaked depending on the pastime.
Hard drive stories may not be the most thrilling in the world, but when Hitachi sent us a load of neat little photos of its latest products, even we were momentarily beguiled by the tiny things. The mîcrodrives, nicknamed "Mikey" and "Slim" are one-inch and 1.8-inch hard disk drives respectively. Mikey is 20 percent smaller than the company's previous drive, and will have a maximum capacity of 8-10 gigabytes.
Mindful that many celebrities are living on the bread line, Motorola is doing its bit by handing out free special edition V3 Razr handsets at this year's Oscars. A special black version of the super-skinny model will be gifted to all the super skinny models - winners and presenters - in attendance at the Academy Awards ceremony on 27th February. It's not clear whether the phone will also be offered for sale to the general public. More news as and when, etc.
Mio, the company responsible for providing countless UK laptop companies with re-badged PDA offerings, has been dipping its toes into the Sat Nav market once more. The Mio 168 PDA/GPS hybrid went down pretty well, and now the company has branched out with 2 new GPS handhelds. This time the satellite navigation products are standalone devices, offering portable navigation for less than £300. The Mio268 (pictured) is the cheaper option, while the Mio269 comes pre-installed with all the European mapping software, which bumps its price up to £399.
The latest version of the Rio Forge has just arrived in Europe. With an RRP of £129, the Forge now comes with a 512MB capacity. The flash device is Rio's sporty player, with durable strainless steel face plates and protective rubber grips. The SD/MMC memory card slot means that the capacity can be exanded up to 1.5 gigabytes, and there's some nice features such as the FM tuner that also lets you record straight to memory. A Stopwatch and lap timer, along with armband and sport clip earphones, make this a nice little sporting companion.
Panasonic has just launched its first smartphone onto the UK market. The X700 handset is based on Symbian's Series 60 platform and comes with all the usual PIM features associated with that OS. It's also a camera phone, with video capability, as VGA camera and a flash light for nightime shooting. Support for Mini SD memory cards will come in handy for storing music, images and video files, but there's no mention of the phone's built-in memory capacity. There's a 65K colour main display and a colour outer display on the clamshell chassis. Other features include Bluetooth, voice recognition and tri-band frequency range.
Brought to you in bullet form:
- Nintendo has allocated 650,000 units to Europe
- There's an aggressive marketing budget of €35m for the launch
- The company showed off MarioKart DS with eight-player Wi-Fi wireless play, due for launch at some point in 2005.
- Nintendo says it will be marketing the DS to women.
All this and more on Games Digest
Well the news gamers have been waiting for all day is just in. In Paris today Nintendo confirmed that its new DS handheld will launch in the UK on March 11th and will retail for £99.99. There will apparently be 14 games available from day one.
The dual screen handheld has already been quite a hit in both the US and the Far East and its launch is eagerly awaited in Europe. Among the early games, which will cost between Those games will cost between £19.99 and £29.99, are Super Mario 64DS, Rayman DS, Project Rub, The Urbz, Pokémon Dash, Sprung, Asphalt Urban GT, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Zoo Keeper, Ping Pals, Robots, Polarium and Spiderman 2. The actual DS hardware will ship with Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt.
Loads more details and background stuff from the launch on Games Digest in the next couple of days.
Siemens may not be having too good a time in the mobile phone handset market, but the slidey design it patented on the much loved SL55, goes from strength to strength. The latest company to offer a SL55 tribute/rip-off (delete as you see fit) is Panasonic with its just launched X500.
It might attract a few SL55 fans on account of its cute design and pocketable size (it weighs only 96g and measures 85x47x22.5mm). Also like the SL55 it is pretty low-end in terms of its features with just a VGA camera, video capture, Java and not a great deal else. No idea yet who is going to take it in the UK but Virgin Mobile is sure to be a contender.
At a not especially glitzy bash O2 this morning confirmed its 3G launch for consumers, announcing a February 1st roll out date for the handsets and services.
The company seemed keen to stress that 3G was an evolution rather than a revolution and this was reflected in its choice of handsets. Some we have seen before, notably the Nokia 6630 (available through Orange and Vodafone and without a video calling facility, the Samsung Z107 (another Voda handset) and the Sony Ericsson SE V800 (Voda's lead 3G handset). Others, like the Nokia 6680, are new.
Yet O2 has chosen to launch 3G to its consumers with an own-branded handset that bizarrely doesn't feature video calling facilities. Available from February 1st and retailing for either £30 or nothing, depending on which contract you choose, is the X4. A deadringer for the O2 X3, although it is a little bulkier, the X4 features a 262K colour screen, a 1.3 mega pixel camera with 8x digital zoom, an MP3 player and video downloading and streaming facilities via O2's newly launched 3G O2 Active site.
The handset which like the X3 is made by Taiwanese manufacturer BenQ has 10MB of storage, though this can be upgraded via a memory card.
Allright so we haven't actually seen one and Nokia still isn't acknowledging that it exists, but O2 in the UK today announced it would be first network to sell the new Nokia 3G handset, the 6680.
The company promised that the model, Nokia's first to boast two cameras and therefore offer full video calling facilities, would be in the stores soon after it launches its 3G consumer service on February 1st. Naturally we don't believe O2, especially after the press office failed to furnish us with a pic.
Nevertheless we have a very good experience with the Nokia 6630 3G phone on Vodafone, and like the look of the 6680. Still can't see us making any video calls though. The only other stuff we know about the 6680 is that it has Series 60 interface like the 6630, features a 1.3 mega pixel camera and, rumour has it, a 3D menu system.
Here's the ideal gift for the discerning memory card owner: Vaja's memory card cases. There's a selection of cases available, with room for various types of memory card. All cases are padded, with a soft leather lining to keep your cards in the lap of luxury at all times. There's also a magnetic clasp, which always makes everything feel that little bit special. As ever with Vaja, you can get the cases custom made, with your own personalised touches added. Prices start at $30.
Despite being such a newcomer to the UK market, Aigo has now launched so many products it already has a strong portfolio of music players under its belt. The company's latest addition to the range is the P880. The 20GB hard disk player retails for £280 and comes with a number of additional features that should appeal. A dock comes included in the price, while the 65K colour screen lets you view JPEG images. These can be downloaded straight to the device from a digital camera, but there's also an SD/MMC card reader on board for transferring images and tunes. The inclusion of an FM radio sets it apart from most the other jukeboxes on the market, and the voice recorder is another nice addition. MP3, WMA and WAV files are all supported.
We don't normally get too excited about hard disk storage but there's something rather cute about the new Pocket Drive from Seagate. Targeted at PC users who want large amounts of storage in a pocket size device the Pocket Drive has a diamater of just 7xm and weighs only 63 grams. It connects to PCs via an integrated USB 2.0 connector and is available with storage of either 2.5 (£119) of 5 (£139) Gigabytes. It is on sale now.
Seagate is also aiming for digital camera users with a one inch CompactFlash card. Set to launch later in spring the card will be available with storage of either 2.5 or 5 Gigabytes Seagate also has a larger Portable Drive, which works in a similar way top the Pocket versions and offers storage capacity of either 40 (£129) or 100 (£219) Gigabytes.
Alcatel, which has a bit of an okey cokey attitude to the UK mobile phone market, seems definitely to be back 'in' after announcing a deal with leading Chinese phone manufacturer TCL, and the imminent arrival of the One Touch 655.
On sale now via its website and you'll be able to pick it up through Virgin and The Carphone Warehouse later in the month, the OneTouch 756 is a chocolate bar style camera phone with a 262k colour screen. Other features include a VGA camera with an 8x zoom, video capture of up to 30 seconds and JPEG and GIF image format support. There are also MP3 ringtones, Java for downloading games and WAP and email compatibility. The triband handset has a talk time of nine hours and standby of 250 hours. Expect to pay in the region of £120 on a pay as you go contract for one.
Dead pixels in the LCD display, short battery life and UMD discs that randomly pop out when the unit's twisted. These are just a few of the gripes owners of Sony's new PSP handheld console have been moaning about online.
The latest glitch is that almost 5,000 PSPs have had to be returned already due to a faulty button. The square control button is placed extremely close to the edge of the large screen, and Sony's designers appear to have been unwilling to either move the button or shrink the screen. The result? The control switch inside the PSP isn't actually directly under the button, which has meant a "sticky" or stuck button for some users. Surprisingly Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi responded aggressively to The Nikkei Journal over this fault saying: "It wasn't a mistake. There may be people who complain about it, but that's something users and game developers will have to adapt to."
Speaking to BBC News, Rory Armes, European Studio General Manager for Electronic Arts has said: "The rumours are that PS3 will have a little more under the hood than Xbox 2." Armes also revealed that his teams have received early "development kits" for Xbox 2, but not for either PS3 or Nintendo's "Revolution" machine.
The KiSS DP-558 DVD Player has a a veritable feast of features. DVD playback with DivX3.11, 4 and 5 plus MPEG-4, along with MP3 CDs (as well as normal CDs obviously), Ogg Vorbis and JPEG images are all supported. As well as that, there's Ethernet connection to broadband internet, which lets you listen to online radio and play back audio, video and picture files from a PC. But it doesn't end there.
From: Apple tease Galaxy Note owners with iPhone stylus patent application