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2G HD DVD players announced - HD-A2 & HD-XA2: $499 & $999 - UPDATE
Toshiba's HD DVD press conference at CEDIA 2006 just ended and the first big news is out. It appears we will be getting the same players announced in Europe recently, named the HD-A2 and HD-XA2, this fall. They both feature the new slim design -- hopefully a sign of dedicated hardware as opposed to the stripped-down laptop that made up the HD-A1 -- and the XA2 will feature an HDMI 1.3 output with 1080p. The A2 will start shipping in October for a price of $499, while the HD-XA2 will debut in December with a price-tag of $999. No other specifics were available, but we would not be surprised if the HD-A2 matched its European cousin in losing the analog 5.1 output present on current HD-A1s. Also mentioned in the press release was their estimate of 25,000 HD DVD-equipped homes in the US, as well as upcoming movie releases like Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift, Batman Begins, and The Polar Express. Niveus has announced HD DVD-enabled Media Center PCs with 3TB of storage scheduled to ship in September.UPDATE: Pics of both players straight from CEDIA
8GB black 2G iPod nano gets unboxed
When Apple says "available now," they mean it. Just one day after the revamped nanos were announced at the "It's Showtime" event, some drool-worthy shots of the green and blue 2G nanos managed to surface, and now we're graced with a photoset containing the esteemed 8GB black-only model. Apparently following in the footsteps of the BlackBook, Apple is only offering the 8GB unit in a single color, so if black's your thing, be prepared to go high-end or bust in order to get one -- be sure to hit the read link for a luscious gallery of Tony Chang's presumably coveted 'Pod. Oh yeah, and PC Mag reviewed the 8GB unit, too, giving it a 4.5 / 5, and calling it the "finest flash player out there in terms of look and feel," and had only the usual nits with it: nonremovable battery, no FM tuner (oh, and something about buggy playback on longer tracks -- no way!). Still, looks for many to be a pretty solid investment; we'd suggest you wait until later today, however, to make any buying decisions on portable audio players, yeah?
Hands-on with the 2G iPod nano rainbow
Guess what, we also caught a glimpse of the 2G iPod nanomini, er, nano, which is their very "retro" 2004 version of their ultraslim flash device, It's hot alright, but is its 8GB of capacity enough to take out their number one competitor in the US, SanDisk? Hard to tell, but it's not like we don't have enough images after the break to support the case.
Vodafone Japan announces summer lineup
New Softbank property Vodafone K.K. has announced four new 3G handsets -- along with the 2G Toshiba V304T "simplephone" -- that will be released this summer in Japan, including Sharp's 905SH clamshell with a 2 megapixel camera and One Seg digital TV reception. Also seen before was Voda's version of Nokia's N71, dubbed the 804NK, which sports those same multimedia and smartphone features along with obvious addition of bilingual menus. Like the three models mentioned previously, the Toshiba 705T and Sharp 705SH SLIMIA also sport clamshell designs, with the Tosh featuring external music controls and the Sharp (pictured) rocking dual cameras. Additionally, a sixth model, Sharp's 2G V403SH (also a flip phone), was announced as getting a summer makeover, and will now come in your choice of cloth beige or cloth blue.
SK Telecom launches HSDPA network with new Samsung SCH-W200
South Korean consumers looking for some serious mobile bandwidth need not wait until June to pick up one of LG's SH100 handsets that we brought you earlier today, because SK Telecom has just announced that their HSDPA network is live in 25 cities as of today, and that a new model from Samsung is available for the rollout. Besides 2G, 3G, and 3.5G data support, the new Samsung SCH-W200 -- which is the first of five impending HSDPA phones, including the SH100, that will available by year's end -- offers both a two megapixel as well as a VGA camera, S-DMB TV capabilities, MP3/AAC playback, text-to-speech, and perhaps most importantly with all these features, multitasking. Although theoretically capable of 12Mbps downstream traffic, SKT's HSDPA network will currently only deliver a relatively pokey 1.8Mbps to the W200 -- with 3.6Mbps promised for later this year -- but claims to be the only WCDMA network in the world to offer guaranteed video conferencing performance through circuit, and not packet, switching. Read- HSDPA rollout Read- HSDPA speeds (subscription required)Read- Samsung SCH-W200
Qualcomm chips to power 3G world phones
In a move sure to excite both business travelers and wandering geeks, Qualcomm announced earlier this week that it expects to ship chips for high-speed world phones by the end of this year. Handsets with the new Qualcomm chipsets will be able to access both EV-DO services on CDMA networks as well as W-CDMA-powered GSM UMTS networks, effectively allowing for 3G connections almost anywhere in the world. Even customers not willing to shell out the big bucks that these first models will cost will still benefit from the new chips, as prices on current-gen 2G and 2.5G world phones will drop accordingly as a result of their new mid-tier market status.
