technicalupdates

Mar 24, 2009

Nokia's 7205 Intrigue for Verizon now available

Right on schedule, the Nokia 7205 Intrigue for Verizon Wireless is online and ready for purchase. Price is exactly in-line with expectations as well, at $180 with a two-year contract, plus a handy $50 rebate to bring it down to $130. Design-wise the flip phone is already a long ways ahead of the frumpy Nokia 6205, at a mere 0.55-inches thick, but there's nothing much here to get Nokia's GSM customers jealous -- other than that subsidized price, of course. The handset has a 2 megapixel camera, A2DP Bluetooth, a fancy new homescreen (including Habitat Mode), PMOLED display on the back cover, and a microSD slot.

LG's X120 netbook granted a release date

Despite letting us play with the thing at CES and then giving us all the details of what's going on inside its upcoming white and green netbook, LG still wouldn't commit to just when its X120 would be hitting retail. Not one for protracted pre-order periods, apparently, the company has now confirmed the laptop will be shipping to Japanese users by the end of this very month, and to Europe and 20 other nations within the next one. We're not entirely sure that the US is going to be one of those 20, but since LG has just over a week left before March becomes April, it had better get shipping already.

Samsung's NC10 successor, the N110

There's nothing like a little surprise to get the week off on the right foot, so thanks to Samsung for getting us rolling by sneaking a successor to its venerable NC10 netbook straight into the willing hands of Laptop Magazine -- now clad in a sophisticated, red-rimmed, matte exterior. With battery life topping eight hours in real-world usage, and a price of $469, this one picks up where its predecessor left off and seems like a good choice for those who want a little more style with their netbooking -- or who are too impatient to wait for the , where it was stealthily given the full review treatment. From what we can tell this new N110 is mainly a style refresh, offering the same keyboard 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor, memory, and storage of the NC10, as well as the bigger battery and more usable touchpad the company added to the recent special editionNC20.

Lenovo's X1 for China is full of KIRF

What you're looking at here is the award-winning Lenovo X1 -- as opposed to, say, the Sony Ericsson X1 -- which is a triband EDGE handset Lenovo sells in China. To us, it looks like an Instinct with a slide-out keypad and TouchWiz, but what do we know? Coincidentally, Lenovo calls this totally original UI "Touch Dream," which sounds just a little bit (okay, a whole lot) like an HTC device. So, to summarize: Sony Ericsson and HTC branding, Samsung design, made by Lenovo. Right then.

11.6-inch Acer Aspire

It's very possible that we're just reading too far between the lines here, but a recent post over at macles* lines up awesomely with specifications gleaned from a recent Acer FCC filing. Basically, what we're probably looking at is a forthcoming Aspire One with an 11.6-inch panel (as opposed to the 10-inch versions available now), a 1,366 x 768 resolution and very strangely placed Ethernet and VGA ports. Furthermore, we're also told that this bugger will house an Atom Z530 CPU, Intel's SCH USW15S chipset (Poulsbo) and GMA500 integrated graphics. Oh, and there's also an extended battery option that should provide up to eight hours of life.

iriver E50

iriver's E50 PMP has had a bit of a roundabout launch since it first appeared on the scene back in December, but it looks like it's now finally available in at least a few parts of the world, and the folks at Le Journal du Geek have promptly gotten their hands on one and done the full unboxing and review honors. As was pretty clear from the early shots, this one's a sleek little device and, while it doesn't exactly pack a whole slew of features, it looks to perform all the basic tasks with welcome simplicity. On the downside, the 1.8-inch screen apparently leaves a bit to be desired, especially when playing videos and, while the included earphones are a tad better than the usual fare, the sound quality from the player itself is apparently just average. Hit up the link below for the full blow-by-blow account, including a bonus unboxing / demo video.

Marantz unveils high-end UD9004 Blu-ray / SACD player

We can definitely see where this is headed. Hot on the heels of Denon's DVD-A1UD and OPPO's BDP-83 comes yet another Blu-ray player that does just a pinch more than handle audio CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. Unveiled as a prototype over in Munich, the Marantz UD9004 is just one format shy (it's lacking DVD-Audio support) of being a complete "universal" Blu-ray player. Said device, which is slated to get official sometime in 2009, is built upon the $6,500 SA-7S1 SACD player (pictured) and features a 10-bit Silicon Optix chipset, 14-bit video DAC, an SD card reader, RS-232 control interface, support for BD-Live and an Ethernet port. Outside of that, details are nonexistent, but we'll definitely be keeping an ear to the ground for more.

Logitech Harmony Adapter for PlayStation 3

Just a day after we caught wind of Logitech's Harmony Adapter for PlayStation 3 (via the always informative FCC), the aforesaid company has come forward and confessed to its plans. The good news is that the adapter is for real, and while we're still not being told too much about the device itself, we do know that it will operate with any Harmony remote and it won't take up a USB port on your console. In other words, it's a simple Infrared-to-Bluetooth converter, though it promises to give Harmony remote users "complete control (including power on / off) over the movie-watching experience on a PS3." We're pleading for more information on pricing and availability, but until that's received, just enjoy your weekend knowing that you'll be able to buy one soon enough.

Razer Mamba wireless gaming mouse hands-on

We had the opportunity to have a listen with Razer's Carcharias headset, and now we're seeing just how precise the same outfit's latest mouse is when it comes to clicking oh-so-carefully within Minesweeper. The downright gorgeous Razer Mamba just showed up on our doorstep, and we couldn't resist photographing the unboxing experience and hosting it up for all to enjoy. Our Mamba came housed in a special Razer suitcase that also included the aforementioned Carcharias headset. The mouse packaging alone was some of the most extravagant we've seen, with even the delightfully braided USB cable (yes, it's wired or wireless) encased in a soft black cover. Bottom line? The aesthetics here are top-notch all the way around, and while we plan on giving this thing a run-through over the weekend in order to speak on actual performance, we'd suggest diving in below to whet your appetite.

SanDisk slotRadio player launching to much fanfare on March 31st

SanDisk's slotRadio player, which we're still struggling to understand, is all set to ship on March 31st after debuting alongside a gazillion other gadgets at CES. For those who've forced themselves to forget, this microSD music player can handle your own jams on your own microSD card, or alternatively, can accept pre-loaded Billboard hits cards which house over 1,000 songs that are nicely categorized by genre. It'll be available from SanDisk's own website on March 31st for $99 (which includes a card with over a thousand songs), and it should be ready to ruin Father's Day when it slips into Radio Shack locations shortly thereafter.

Cyberpower Gamer Dragon 9500 desktop Review

It's not the first Dragon-based gaming rig out there but, according to ComputerShopper, Cyberpower's new Gamer Dragon 9500 may just be one of the best bargains around, with it even able to do double duty as a media PC if you're looking to keep your number of boxes to a minimum. That latter attribute comes larger from its addition of a Blu-ray drive, but the system expectedly really delivers the goods when it comes to gaming, with the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics (with 2GB of DDR5 memory) helping to pump out some respectable frame rates at even ridiculous resolutions. The $1,499 base price will also get you a generous 1TB hard drive, 4GB of RAM and, of course, the 3.6GHz AMD Phenom II X4 940 processor at the heart of the rig. Hit up the link below for the full rundown, and a few benchmark numbers.