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Samsung's Yepp YP-P2 touchscreen DAP with Bluetooth
Ok we admit it, we thought the device pictured over the weekend by Akihabara News was just the iPhone obscured by that iLuv case. But really, those pics were a bit preoccupied with something other than the, ehem, gadget. Fortunately, the good kids over at dapreview sorted it out with pictures and a video of Samsung's sleek new flash player: the Yepp YP-P2. A bit of digging also reveals plenty of specs courtesy of several unsubstantiated German language sites. These include up to 8GB of flash; biggie 3-inch, 428 x 240 pixel touch-screen display; MP3, WMV, WMA, and H.264 (MPEG4 AVC), MPEG-4 (ASF) support; Bluetooth (oh yes); integrated speaker and mic; and FM radio in a device just 100 x 52 x 9.2-mm thin. They've even implemented some of that virtual click-wheel action hinted at by Apple patent applications but never quite implemented. Check another pic and video walkthrough of the interface after the break. Read -- dapreview Read -- unconfirmed specs Read -- Akihabara News P2 promotion
Panasonic comes to NAB bearing P2 HD goodies
As Apple's keynote no doubt illustrated, NAB is for the most part concerned with one thing: HD video. Panasonic doesn't seem to have missed that point one bit with its slew of announcements, including a good amount of P2 HD products for us flash-memory fanboys to drool over. Panasonic is going to be releasing its 16GB P2 card in May for $900, and promises a 32GB version by the end of the year. If you haven't been tracking with this stuff, P2 is a PCMCIA-based storage format that allows for large amounts of flash memory to be swapped in and out of pro digital video cameras on the fly, perfect for quick turnaround jobs such as news editing. Along with the new cards, Panasonic is announcing the AJ-HPX3000 1080p, five-slot P2 HD camera, for $48k, and the AG-HPX500 four-slot 1080i / 720p camera (pictured) for $14k. Other related products to be released this year include a pair of "specialty cameras," and a portable P2 HD viewer going for $4k.
Blu-ray, SLI-equipped Alienware Area-51 7500 reviewed
Alienware's Area-51 7500 desktop has certainly been on the chopping block before, but the inquisitive folks over at Bit-Tech were able to land a refreshed unit that not only featured dual NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card and a 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor, but a built-in (unbranded Matshita) Blu-ray drive to boot. Instantly, reviewers expected the snazzy looking machine to spin right on through every benchmark laid in front of it, and for the coin you'd be paying, we can't say that's such an unrealistic request. During 2D / 3D testing, the SLI-equipped system simply dominated in terms of FPS, image quality, and smoothness, as reviewers actually stated that current games couldn't even take full advantage of all that horsepower just yet. Also of note was the Blu-ray playback, which ended up being practically flawless after the review crew had their (understandable) doubts about how well the unit itself and HDCP films would operate within a PC environment. After trying out both analog and digital monitor connections, the player streamed out films in crisp 1,920 x 1,080 resolution without a hitch after PowerDVD 6.5 was loaded up, officially allowing for a collective sigh of relief. With a system this pricey, however, criticisms come easier, and they were quick to note that the included Patriot RAM was likely hindering performance somewhat due to "faulty memory timings," and also stated that the lackluster audio card should have been spruced up given the lofty cost. Overall, Bit-Tech was quite pleased with Alienware's latest, but while the machine itself landed an 8 out of 10 rating, the £3,434 ($6,780) pricetag resulted in a paltry 5 out of 10 in the "Value" department, which is about par for the course for these guys.
Alienware's Area-51 7500 gaming desktop reviewed
When you pack Intel's blazing new Core 2 Extreme processor and a pair of top-of-the-line nVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX graphics cards into a single gaming desktop, you can pretty much expect it to post impressive benchmark numbers. It's no surprise, then, that Alienware's newly-speced Area-51 7500 showed the videogame addicts over at IGN some of the best performance they've ever seen, and ran surprisingly quietly while doing so -- thanks in no small part to the liquid-cooling system. Also noteworthy was the new P2 chassis Alienware employed for this model, which improves on older cases both aesthetically -- it sports a glossier paint job and more configurable lights to play with -- as well as functionally, with the shorter-but-deeper design intended to support extra-long graphics cards. Besides the relative lack of configurability -- there's only one open PCI slot, so you can add a physics processor or dedicated sound card, but not both -- the only real knock against this machine is it's price; at just under $5,000, you're paying a lot for the snazzy case and Alienware support network. Still, busy gamers don't always have time to build their own rigs (sometimes they don't even have time to go to the bathroom), so this version of the Area-51 sounds like a good way to get "best-of-the-best" performance without spending hours hunched over your work bench; instead, you'll be spending those hours working overtime at your day job to afford it.[Thanks, David]
Viliv announces new US-bound PMP, the P2
So apparently the viliv P1 personal media player is doing so well in the US, that the company has already announced plans to release their new model, the P2, Stateside as well. The P2 takes all the P1's multi-codec goodness (MPEG-1/2/4, H.264, DivX, WMV 7/8/9, XviD, MP3, WMA, OGG, AC-3, and WAV), subtracts the iPod resemblance, and adds a 60GB option as well as an optional GPS receiver. Powered by a 400MHz AMD processor, the P2 runs on Windows CE 5.0 and sports a large 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 widescreen LCD, and also can also act as a USB 2.0 host device. Expect to see these for sale sometime in the middle of August, although pricing has yet to be announced.
