Mustek announces DV536 super gadget
How much would you pay for a music- and video-playing gadget that could also take 10 megapixel still photos with a 10x zoom, capture 30fps VGA movies, record your whimsical musings, function as a digital card reader, and even encode footage directly from your TV or DVD player? $1000? How about $750? Surely you'd shell out at least $500 for such an amazing product. Well you'll be shocked to learn that Mustek is practically giving away all this and more for under $200 with its new DV536 Digital Camcorder-PVR. Too good to be true, you say? Well, yes and no; you really do get all of those functions in this new super gadget, but the list of caveats is rather long: the 2.4-inch screen isn't the best for watching flicks, that 10 megapixel resolution is really achieved through interpolation from a 5 megapixel CMOS sensor, and the 10x zoom we mentioned is of the digital variety, as no optical zoom is included. Plus, there's no way to schedule recordings and you're only getting 32MB of internal memory, meaning that you'll need a pretty big SD card if you want to store all those movies, photos, video clips, and songs you'll be loading this up with. Still, $200 isn't too bad for all the features you're getting here, even if none of them hold a candle to dedicated devices performing the same tasks. [Warning: PDF link]
