Hands on with SanDisk's USBTV

SanDisk wasn't exactly forthcoming with pictures and personal time of USBTV this thing, but justice won out in the end and we got to spend a few quality minutes with the new widget. We suppose we "unboxed" this thing in a physical sense, but while most of the specs are pretty well ironed out, the design is officially a concept, so we'll have to keep an eye out for a final version in the coming months. The word on capacities right now is a reasonable 2GB, 4GB and 8GB of flash storage, but that's about as much detail as we've got at the moment. Peep it all after the break, as always.

Ooh, pretty box.




For a concept device, this thing is pretty well packed.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 8th 2007 8:47PM]

This Device will do well, its easy for consumers (looks easy)

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 8th 2007 8:56PM]

There must be some serious bugs in it if they aren't going to release it now. Maybe it would be too expensive now but usually the earlier the release the better even with a high price-point.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 8th 2007 9:56PM]

This looks either A. Like a totally great idea...or B. A complete bomb!

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 8th 2007 11:18PM]

just curious, well i haven't heard about this before (i come on to engadget once in a while) but what does this do? other than what i'm guessing is make a computer with cable so it can watch standard cable channels?

[noahsaiah Posted Jan 9th 2007 1:15AM]

i still dont understand what it is

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 9th 2007 9:34AM]

It's a screenless video PMP. If the price is right and the memory is expandable this could be what I'm looking for to replace my protable DVD player on long trips with the kids. I'll just rip their DVDs to it, hook this up to the headrest LCDs and play movies. Hopefully eliminating the screen will save significant cost compared to the Sandisk video player.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 11th 2007 8:42AM]

Right now I use my laptop with TV-out to play my downloaded videos, with this I won't have to lug the laptop around and hook it up to the TV everytime. I can easily load what I want to watch on this USB device from my PC and then dock it on the TV. Maybe more steps than having a wireless networked media device hooked up to the TV, but they are on the expensive side. For me, the price has to be right, if they are not to far above the price of a flash based mp3 player, I will jump on it.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 9th 2007 2:52AM]

This is one of those simple things that really, the technology has been around for a while. A self contained player interface that loads on the tv.
Just not having to burn on DVD RWs anymore to watch media is great, or running x amount of feet of cable.
Can't wait

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 12th 2007 12:18AM]

how about usb to hdmi? then we dont have to worry about blue ray or the other one. now i can watch my movies and tv shows from the net on my hd tv in the den, wouldnt that be awesom!