Category: IFA 2008
IFA 2008: Fortune Technology's Sound Base G1 – surround sound for your laptop
Dan’s been taking a look at a laptop dock from Fortune Technology called the Sound Base G1. You sit your laptop on it, plug it in via USB, and then you get to enjoy surround sound with your music. Simple, and attractive. No word on when it’s out or how much it costs…
IFA 2008: Hands on with the Samsung X360
Lucky Zara from ShinyShiny has just managed to get her hands on the Samsung X360 which we were talking about yesterday. Turns out that it’s just as attractive in person as it was in the promo photos (the laptop, not Zara).
IFA 2008: Epson announces four new high definition projectors: EH-TW420, EH-TW3000, EH-TW3800, EH-TW5000
Epson has announced five new high definition projector systems at this year’s IFA, offering a range of features for different budgets. Get ready for some specs…
EH-TW420
The EH-TW420 is one of Epson’s more entry level 3LCD projectors, offering 720p projection, 2,000 ANSI lumens brightness, decent connectivity including HDMI and USB, various colour modes including a game mode to better process fast moving images, in-built 7W speaker, and keystone correction.
Retailing for around £649 and available from September.
IFA 2008: Sony's PDV-IT1000 speakers are epic thin
Susi Weaser writes…
So you’ve got your 9.9mm LCD TV from Sony – it’d be a shame to spoil it all now with some fat speakers, wouldn’t it? These new speakers from Sony are just 16mm thick, and were wonderfully codenamed ‘Pocky’ after that delicious Japanese biscuit/chocolate/confectionery thing…
IFA 2008: Gear4 end radio tuning hell with their new iPod transmitters
Susi Weaser writes…
iPod radio transmitters come under the bracket of ‘great in theory, poor in performance’. Often no matter how carefully you choose a clear frequency, the signal between the iPod and the car radio will drop out. Gear4 hope that they’ve rectified the problem, however, with their Follow Me technology…
IFA 2008: Creative lines up three GigaWorks models – T3, T20 and T40
Lucy Hedges writes…
Creative announced the launch of three GigaWorks speaker systems today – the GigaWorks T20 Series II, GigaWorks T40 Series II and the GigaWorks T3. Based on the huge paragraph dedicated to the T3 and the 2 lines allocated to the T20 and T40 in the press release, it’s fair to say the T3 is the one Creative really wants to grab your attention with. Not to stand in the way of the intentions of a press release, it’s the T3 up first. Looking like an impressive piece of kit, the T3 is a 2.1 speaker, combining innovative design with what Creative are calling ‘the best audio components and state-of-the-art technologies’, to deliver a sound that’ll raise your listening experience to a whole new level of fantastic-ness and produce a sound any audiophile would be proud of…
IFA 2008: Harman/Kardon MS 100 all-in-one audio system
In stark contrast to the ugly ugly speakers we saw earlier, this all-in-one audio unit is considerably prettier. All-in-one isn’t an empty promise, either. It’s got an iPod dock, a CD player, FM radio, speakers, and a clock radio. Basically, sit this on your bedside table and you’ll never be wanting of audio entertainment ever again…
IFA 2008: Philips gets in on the thin scene with its 42" Essence LCD – only 38mm thick
This year’s “thing” at IFA 2008 is definitely thin TVs. Everyone’s at it. Spec sheets now list LCD thickness in millimetres, as companies fight – like children over a dropped sweet – to see who’s got the thinnest TV.
That award has already been won by Sony’s BRAVIA ZX1, to be honest – but the new Philips Essence LCD isn’t far behind. Peaking at a max width of 38mm, the 42″ screen has been designed to sit flush against a wall…
IFA 2008: Philips shows off 42PFL9803 42" Flat TV
Get ready for this, specification fans – the Philips Flat TV features a 2ms response time and a dynamic contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1. It does this by a very technically complex fashion to do with an LED LUX system the stops light leaking. I’ll let Andy from HDTV explain. He’s better at understanding stuff to do with pixels and ratios:
“The LED LUX system comprises of 128 segments of LEDs in 8 rows containing 16 segments. Nine LEDs are assigned to each individual segment, and these can be individually dimmed to precisely control the output of each pixel.”
And that’s how it works. It also…
IFA 2008: Harman/Kardon GLA-55 loudspeakers
There are two basic things you can rate speakers on. The most important is obviously how they sound. Harman-Kardon have a great track record in this area – I expect the GLA-55s sound amazing. They’ve got a 3.5″ mini-jack connection – designed for your PC or for an MP3 player – and they’re 56 Watts, so you should be able to crank them a fair bit…
