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Pentax *ist DL 6.1 megapixel DSLR reviewed
If you're looking for a relatively cheap way to enter the world of digital SLR photography, the UK's DigiCam Review thinks you could do a lot worse than the Pentax *ist DL, which despite its unpronouncable name, came out a clear winner in their testing. Successor cheaper alternative to the company's *ist DS, the 6.1 megapixel DL impresses on many fronts, including image quality, response times, ergonomics, and, perhaps most importantly to a DSLR newbie, ease-of-use. Specifically, the DL -- which was tested with the optional 15-55mm Pentax DA lens -- captured pictures with good contrast, detail and color, low noise except at the highest ISO setting, and a general lack of purple-fringing or red-eye, while providing a lot of features, such as RAW support, auto ISO, and a 2.5-inch display, for its $740 price tag. The only real knocks here seem to be the lack of image stabilization or CF card support -- meaning storage is limited to the most capacious SD card available -- but since this model is certainly not targeted at pros, those issues may not even matter to most.
Shinco's UK-bound Voyager GPS 400
Brits looking for an in-car GPS solution that they can also throw in a sack and take along on a constitution will soon have a new option from Chinese manufacturer Shinco. The Voyager GPS 400 is a PDA-size receiver in white with a 4-inch, 480 x 272 color touchscreen, birds-eye view mapping, SD slot for MP3 playback, and preloaded maps covering the two million hottest destinations on the British Isles. You seem to get a pretty solid accessory pack in the box as well, with a windshield mount, extension antenna, decent carrying case, and both car and wall chargers standard. E-tailer Firebox is currently taking pre-orders for the Voyager, which is supposed to arrive on the 11th, for a very reasonable $420.[Via Tech Digest]
The DTV transition is here
Ok, it officially started some time ago, but it is finally being adopted by the average consumer. I was visiting my parents this weekend which is like going back in time in regards to technology. I love my parents, but it pains me to visit and watch SD when I am used to HD. While I was visiting my parents, they came home with a new TV and to my surprise it was equipped with a ATSC and QAM tuner. My father plugged it (I helped him lift) into his basic cable and and my mother easily used the remote to setup the TV and a few minutes later we were watching down converted HD. If you have never seen down converted SD, let me tell you it looks much better than analog cable. The cool part is that the TV automatically found the QAM channels and added them to the line up. Of course the channels numbers are not the same as digital cable, but it was still nice to have them there. Here at HD Beat we are always talking about consumer acceptance and to me when my parents buy it, it has arrived. I mean my parents didn't buy a DVD player till I bought them one for Christmas in 2002!Have any of you seen these new ATSC SD TVs in action?
Eye-Fi embeds WiFi into your SD flash
Until now SD WiFi has come in the form of those oversized (well, relatively) cards too long to actually fit in your device except those specifically designed to take one, like Kodak's Easy Share One, or Treo 650 / 700. Well, according to Eye-Fi, we can all scratch that problem off the list. By building their wireless into the flash of an SD card they can save on precious space, and also get a GB of memory in there too. Of course this won't exactly help all those digital cameras out there that don't even come close to supporting such a thing, but sometimes this kind of gear has to precede the hardware support in order to prove its own demand.[Via TechCrunch]
Mio A701 GPS-enabled Windows Mobile smartphone reviewed
On paper, the Mio A701 smartphone sounds like almost the perfect convergence device, sporting a Windows Mobile 5.0-powered 520MHz Xscale processor, SiRF III GPS receiver, tri-band GSM radio, Bluetooth, and a 1.3 megapixel camera. Sadly, at least according to Reg Hardware, the A701 has so many little faults that the device is often barely usable, and sounds like a skip except for those folks who absolutely must have GPS and aren't into the square-screened iPaq hw6xxx series from HP. Some of the Reg's gripes with this model include its crappy camera (one of the worst they've ever seen, apparently), GPRS-only data connection, flimsy telescoping stylus, lack of dedicated buttons for WM5 softkey control, and buggy navigation software (luckily it's optional). Besides the full suite of accessories that come included in the box, there doesn't seem to be much good to say about the $660 to $790 A701, which is no doubt a big disappointment to those who may have been looking to import what appeared to be such a hot phone.
Sorell DN10 GPS/DMB-enabled Korean PMP
We haven't featured a foreign PMP on these pages in awhile, so for those of you hungry for a feature-filled device that you'll never get your hands on, we proudly present the Sorell DN10. With only 1GB of internal flash memory, the DN10 isn't going to win any capacity awards, although an SD card slot allows you to jack that total up to a still-low-but-acceptable 3GB. Features, then, and not storage, are what should draw Koreans to this model, as it boasts a 3.5-inch screen and both a GPS receiver for navigation and DMB tuner for watching OTA programming when they get sick of the two movies that they were able to cram onto the device. Filetypes supported include AVI, DivX, XviD, WMA, MP3, and JPEG, and pricing comes in at under $400 (measured in won, of course).
Let It Wave introduces Super-Resolution Bandelet upconversion technology
Yeah sure thats a mouthful, but if it is nearly as good at converting SD sources to HDTV resolutions as they claim, you'll memorize it pretty soon. They claim their bandlet (or bandelet depending which page of the site you read) technology allows them to upconvert SD sources to HDTV resolutions with no flickering or artifacting whatsoever. We won't try to decipher the mathematic reasons they give as to why this is possible, but you can check out their tech page for yourself.Their press release includes an endorsement by the namesake of the Faroudja DCDi upconverter, now all we need to do is see some products and maybe watching standard definition won't hurt so bad anymore.
Evergreen's $8.50 DN-2000 MP3 player
Japanese Co. Evergreen is no stranger to the cheap and crap-plasticy product. Now they combine their love of the two and apparent hatred for human-kind in this $8.50 DN-2000 MP3 player targeting the ill-fated shores of Japan, and perhaps, beyond. It runs for 5-hours on a single AAA battery and supports 1GB SD cards. You realize of course, that we are now at the dawn of disposable MP3 players don't you? Gawd save our souls.
Nintendo Revolution to have SD slot and USB for external drives
If, like us, you were curious as to how Nintendo's expectedly hard drive-free Revolution was going to be able to compete with Sony's and Microsoft's drive-toting next-gen consoles, let your fears be allayed. In a recent CNN Money interview with Iwata-san, the N-man divulged that the Rev would come with an SD slot (which we'd heard) to complement its 512MB internal flash memory (for, you know, downloading games n' stuff), but that it'd also have USB ports for external storage solutions, like flash drives and hard drives. That's not going to be a huge boon if the Rev isn't going to have crazy media features like the 360 has and the PS3 is expected to, but it's still nice to know we're not gonna be left in the lurch on the storage thing.[Via Joystiq and PSFK]
PSP Neo 5in1 Pad: CF/SD/MMC Adapter, AA Batteries, USB Ports
Lik-Sang has a gotten their hands on a variety of different PSP adaptors, including the Neo 5in1 pad. The Neo 5in1 promises a bevy of features including: Compact Flash, Secure Digital, Multimedia Card, regular sized Memory Sticks, support for up to 4 AA batteries, and USB support for recharging or to mount the unit on a PC as a card-reader. While this is certainly an impressive list of features, look at what its done to the once lovely form of the PSP! Does the absence of a long-lasting battery and an open standard media format on the PSP really drive market adoption of these monstrosities or is this a case of a product looking for a market?[Thanks, pspnews]
Shocker: 32" widescreen set is smaller than 32" 4x3
From the Capt. Obvious department, if you're shopping for a new HDTV, and you buy a widescreen TV (there 4x3 HDTV's also, which this site fails to mention), even if the size is listed as the same, it will be a few inches shorter in height. They've got a chart to make sure you don't actually end up with a smaller (height-wise) TV than you had before.Of course, you'll probably be gaining quite a bit of real estate when you watch widescreen formatted programming like high definition broadcasts or DVD's, which in my opinion is a lot more important. I know I'm looking at my 4x3 32" Sony with a questioning eye now that I do all of my gaming in 1080i. I suppose especially for people who might not be getting high definition broadcasting right away (like 50% of you), the last thing you would want to do is spend the money and look at a smaller picture, so consider this an FYI. [Via digg]
