b6
Latest
Kempler & Strauss' Billionair B6 and B7 pose alongside the W watchphone
Kempler & Strauss -- which pretty much came out of nowhere this week to announce a pair of 3G WinMo devices and a watchphone -- is pulling out all the stops here at CTIA to get its new products noticed, so everything they've got is on display and ready to use (or in some cases, wear). First up are the Billionair B6 and B7, full touch and portrait QWERTY WinMo devices respectively that currently run 6.1 -- but we're told that 6.5 upgrades will be available by the end of the year. Neither phone looks that awesome and feel generally cheap; the B6 borrows styling cues from the original HTC Touch, to boot, so there's an overall KIRFy feel to the thing. The skin they've dropped atop the operating system is pretty uninspiring, too -- though many WinMo skins look uninspiring when they're up against something thoroughly modern like a recent build of TouchFLO 3D. The phones' saving grace might be the fact that they're cheap -- sub-$300 -- and in the case of the B7, the combo portrait keyboard / QVGA touchscreen is still a nice, sadly too-rare combo. Turning our attention to the more interesting device of the trio, the W is a watchphone that employs a pretty standard GUI we've seen on similar models, but this one employs perhaps the most livable styling that we've seen this side of an LG GD910, and it all comes at a small fraction of the price. The touchscreen doesn't come with a traditional stylus, per se, but instead you get a "communicator" accessory that functions as a combination stylus / Bluetooth handsfree / remote control -- pretty cool, although we'd feel pretty silly (and sad) if we misplaced it. At $200, we could almost justify buying one of these just for the sheer novelty of it -- just don't expect desktop-class browsing on that display, and you should be a happy camper. %Gallery-75032%
Kempler & Strauss launch Billionair 6 WinMo phone
Kempler & Strauss (who just the other day unveiled an epically cool watchphone) have just announced the imminent arrival of its newest Windows Mobile handset, the touchscreen Billionair 6. This 3G HSPA devil has a 624MHz ARM processor, boasts GPS and WiFi, and has a micro SD slot for up to 4GB of storage, plus a 3 megapixel camera. The B6, as it's affectionately called, runs a custom interface over WinMo and boasts an accelerometer to boot. The B6 runs $260 and it's available now.
PSB rolls out a whole new Image-series speaker lineup
There's no shortage of quality loudspeaker brands that come to the US from its neighbor-to-the-north, and the incremental improvements to longstanding models flowing across the border usually goes without notice. But when updates are made across an entire product series, it deserves mention -- as in the case of PSB updating its Image lineup (not to be confused with its Imagine speakers). All in, there are eight new models that can blanket your HT setup: T5 ($899) and T6 ($1,199) floorstanders, B5 ($399) and B6 ($499) monitors, B4 ($299) sub-compact/surrounds, C4 ($275) and C5 ($375) center channels, and S5 ($799) bipolar surrounds. The Image lineup has always been value-conscious, so all those prices are per pair -- not the cheapest, but you've got to pay for quality. Interested? Hit that link for details.
