ColorScreen
Latest
TI-84 calculator with color screen surfaces, geeks giddy with anticipation
Texas Instrument's TI-84 makes quick work of graphs and equations like nobody's business, but it's done so for years while clinging to an outdated black and white screen. Now, however, it looks like that'll change for at least one flavor of the souped-up digital abacus. Cemetech forum user 0rac343 posted a photo of a TI-84+ C Silver Edition, claiming that it was one of 24 provided by TI for in-classroom testing and that it's slated to launch next spring. Tech Powered Math reports that a contact who's worked with Texas Instruments has confirmed that the calculator is the real McCoy. In fact, the firm's website has a page where visitors can sign up for updates about the number cruncher in question. With the help of the refreshed TI-84, we might finally be able to tell if Blinky, Inky, Pinky or Clyde is the ghost chasing us down in the hardware's Pac-Man clone.
Memorex finally goes color with MMP8640 4GB DAP
Apple, Creative, Microsoft, SanDisk, and Sony would like to officially welcome Memorex into the 21st Century, as the jack-of-all trades manufacturer has finally discovered that monochrome displays are totally played, introducing its first digital audio player to feature a color screen. The MMP8640, as it's known, joins the 2GB MMP8575, 1GB MMP8565, and 512MB MMP3774, but trumps all of these models with its 4GB capacity and 1.8-inch QCIF+ screen capable of displaying JPEGs and playing back MPEG-4 content in either landscape or portrait mode. Also on board are LED lighting to give the device six different themes, one-touch recording for dictation or capturing content from the FM tuner, and 100 pre-loaded songs that you'll have to delete. The claimed 20-hours of battery life for tunes sounds pretty decent, but you'd better plug in for watching movies, because that number plunges to a mere two hours when playing video content. Although Memorex states that these are stocked at Target, we couldn't find it on the retail monster's site, and no other pricing or release information has been given. [Via Chip Chick]
Creative's new Zen Neeon 2
First Creative rolled out the hard drive-based Zen Neeon, then it brought the model up-to-date with a little flash memory, and now the company's added a full color screen and dubbed this new device Neeon 2. Available in 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB capacities, the newest Neeons clearly have their sights set on the nano, even allowing you to play back specially-formatted video on the admittedly-cramped 128 x 128, 1.5-inch display. As with most Creative DAPs, you're also getting an FM radio, voice recorder, and line-in audio capture, but the color screen definitely takes a toll on battery life, as this model offers a maximum 20 hours of listening. When these Neeons drop later this month -- perhaps in Asia only -- they'll go for $125, $170, or $190, depending on capacity -- not a bad deal, especially for those folks who like personalizing their players with Creative's swappable skins.[Via Cnet Asia, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Klegg Mini: bigger size, same false advertising
Despite the fact that the folks over at Anything But iPod already broke out their considerable math skills to refute the Klegg Mini's claim of being the world's smallest color MP3 player, the device's manufacturer is nonetheless using the same angle to promote the Mini's recently-announced 1GB upgrade. Best known as the DAP of choice for that diminutive star of the Austin Powers movies, the Mini doesn't get any new features along with the capacity bump scheduled for this summer, but apparently that 1-inch screen, 26-hour battery life, and compact design have made this model popular enough to warrant continued sales. Oh, and Klegg, even if you still haven't heard of the MPIO ONE player that exposed the fallacy of your boasts, you're sure not gonna be able to miss the minuscule, color screen MobiBlu Cube 2 once it begins showing up in thousands of Wal-mart stores and on millions of ears nationwide. So, like, you might want to take this opportunity to call up your ad agency and give them a head start on working towards a more truthful slogan.
