We thought the RAmos V8 was looking pretty sleek in render form, but now that some real pictures of the black PMP with the 4.3-inch screen and 16GB of storage have surfaced, we're really impressed -- with how much this thing looks like an iPod touch. (We'll be here all week, folks!) Of course, the V8's codec support is way better, but without pricing info and a look at that UI we're not ready to call this one a winner quite yet. Let us know if you hit China next month, okay?

[Via MP4nation]

Particularly of late, RAmos has really been exceeding expectations, and it seems to have raised its own bar once again with the easy-on-the-eyes V8. Sporting a svelte, black enclosure and a 4.3-inch display, this portable media player handles MP4, AVI, DivX, RMVB, MP3, WMA and FLAC file formats, boasts a TV output and even includes a text viewer. You'll also notice that it automatically detects rotation and orients the on-screen imagery in response. Per usual, price remains a mystery here, but at least this one is apt to be worth more than whatever change is currently residing in your pocket.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Steve's Digicams has a review up of Casio's Exilim V8, a slim 8.1 megapixel point-and-shoot featuring a 7x optical zoom, and a YouTube optimized H.264 video output. Key points of the review highlight the large 2.5-inch LCD on the back, decent movie recording quality -- it goes up to 848x480 at 30fps -- and some excellent camera shake / blur technologies, all crammed into an ultra compact case. On top of that it shoots some good photos, and has a relatively decent response time: in fact the only niggle Steve found was the fiddly controls. At only $299, sounds like a steal.

[Via Photography Blog]

We still think it's a little early in the RAZR 2's life to be changing up colors and trimmings and turning it into a special edition, but what do we know? As expected, Motorola's announced the "Luxury Edition" of the EDGE-only RAZR 2 V8, trimming the phone with 18 and 24 karat gold accents, a black "vacuum metal" finish, etched sides and nav wheel, and a soft-touch posterior endowed with a snakeskin pattern. A bundled H680 Bluetooth headset (trimmed with 18 karat gold, naturally) and a leather carrying case round out the package, fit for the aspiring Vertu owner who hasn't quite yet reached a Vertu salary. Look for it to start showing up in "select regions" -- the US included, we suspect -- before the year's out.

Casio just hit us with pair of new face detecting, YouTube-ready Exilim cameras. The EX-Z1080 is little more than their 10 megapixel EX-Z1050 with a bit of their new H.264, YouTube Capture Mode sprinkled in. The EX-V8 then, bumps the ho humly reviewed EX-V7 into 8.1 megapixel territory while maintaining the 7x zoom and CCD-shift image stabilization while slapping some YouTube branding and trickery atop its existing H.264 video capabilities. Both cams will pop in September with the V8 hitting for $330 and the Z1080 demanding a cool $280. Click on through for a picture of the Z1080 in a lovely shade of purple-nurple.

Read -- EX-V8
Read -- EX-Z1080

The idea of running your rig with 8-cores working their magic has already been available in various forms, but Intel is apparently hoping to effectively fire back at AMD's Quad FX with the unveiling of the V8 platform. Reviewers found that flexing the muscles of twin Xeon processors provided speed that was simply unparalleled in several testing scenarios, but for common jobs such as 3D gaming and unzipping gigabytes of data, the setup essentially fell flat on its face. Sure, blasting past competition in SiSoft Sandra XI and POV-Ray 3.7 is admirable, but unless you're looking to whisk away your day crunching AutoCAD and 3D Studio Max (read: working), this V8 isn't likely to be worth the investment. Notably, the reviewers were flabbergasted by the peaks and valleys in performance depending on what application was being critiqued, so be sure and hit the read link for the full skinny if you've got this one tabled on your must-have list.