Gadgety News

Fancy an Android powered iPod Touch?

You know; something thin, with over four inches of touchscreen in a mini tablet form?

Well, here you are!

This is the Giinii Movit Mini.

It could actually almost be an iPhone challenger but it’s lacking the actual mobile phone bit, but it is Android so there’s VoIP to take care of that side of things….

…and don’t forget - that also means no tarrif and 18 month contract to deal with

The soft keyboard seems pretty good from what I can see with a decent layout and a size that real manly men can use.

Apparently the resistive touchscreen was a let down as it lacked responsiveness meaning that it was hard to push buttons and an effort to scroll more than once.

Saying that; we have to remember that it is still at the prototype stage and these are things that could be ironed out.

I think that this has a lot of promise and at the possible price of $149 it could be a winner.

A mini puter shoved inside a keyboard?

That’s what Asus seems to have acheived with their latest typepad.

The standard keyboard that comes with the Eee Top is real nice to use but this wireless offering with a 5-inch touch panel, solid state drive, Wi-Fi, ethernet and connectivity for just about every screen around the house is something else.

That 5-inch touchscreen can be used for shortcuts, media browsing and use as a virtual mouse.

As this is just a prototype at the moment, ASUS were cagey about its potential for market availability but here’s hoping that this kind of ‘all in one’ appears soon

If the Cowon O2 failed to cut the mustard then this most certainly will!

The most hyped Cowon media player thus far, the S9, is just filling out it’s citizenship forms and will be in the UK on Friday.

The much loved Advanced MP3 Players will be carrying the first units, and hope to be able to deliver S9s to homes across the country on Monday or Tuesday next week - In loads of time for crimbo!

Sorry, I seem to have gotten quite carried away there.

Why all the hullabaloo?  What is this thing of which I speak?

The S9 is the curvy, funky, and gorgeous music and video player from Cowon who are quite possibly in the top 3, if not the top, manufacturers of the best-sounding audio players on the market.

The S9 will come in 8GB and 16GB flavours priced at £169 and £199 respectively.

It features a 3.3-inch touch-sensitive AMOLED screen, and can rock out to MP3, WAV, WMV, FLAC, OGG and APE audio files and WMV video files (plus some others apparently).

Other points of interest is the stereo Bluetooth and 55 hours of claimed battery life.

The S9 is being introduced at parties as the best-sounding MP3 player in history!

No small claim that but apparently Cowon’s own CEO, Namkyu Park, has personally supervised the S9’s audio capabilities.

So if you disagree, you know who to call

Crave

Sony’s Walkman series of media players has done its best to keep pace but generally, sadly, fall by the wayside as young upstarts such as Creative and Apple lure us all away.

Sony have (finally) realised that touchscreens is where it’s at and now seem ready to break down and get all touchable.

According to Sony Insider there will be 16 and 32GB touchscreen Walkman players at CES 2009 this coming January.

The new machine is said to be rockin a 3-inch OLED display (praps even that 3.3-inch panel making the rounds, or something more Sony specific).

Also planned for the Touchy Walkman is WiFi, enabling a YouTube app, over the air podcast downloads, built-in access to Amazon’s MP3 store and an unspecified web browser.

The shots of the player above are obviously mockups, and the real hardware is supposed to have physical music control buttons and will be drawn to scale.

All this info is exclusive to the Sony Insider know-alls so it’s still not hard n fast truth til Sony says so but hey - I’m sure lots of the Sony faithful will be looking forward to the verification of such a beast.

Sony Insider

It seems that Nokia have slipped out details of the N97 whilst my back was turned!

Their new flagship phone packs a 3.5-inch, 640 x 360 pixel (that’s a 16:9 aspect ratio) resistive touchscreen display with tactile feedback.

Nok have also slipped a QWERTY keyboard into this sliding communicator that features an “always open” window to favourite internet or social networking site.

Nokia is calling the N97 the “world’s most advanced mobile computer.”

Well they have crammed in HSDPA, WiFi, and Bluetooth radios, A-GPS, a 3.5-mm headjack, 32GB of onboard memory with microSD expansion (for up to 48GB total capacity), and a battery capable of up to 1.5 days of continuous audio playback or 4.5-hours video.

As befits the N9* series it has that rather spanky 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss glass and “DVD quality” video capture at 30fps.

It does read as being quite the special smartphone but will the S60 5th Edition OS can support it?

Also for that “mobile computer” claim it will have to drag the likes of me away from the simple and effective iPhone interweb browsing experience.

The N97 will launch early 2009 with a retail price set at around €550 - don’t forget to add on all those lovely taxes as well.

Nokia N97 announced – via Dialaphone

Well, the first lot of Asus Eee Top’s have hit the UK and even though I’m digging it at the mo I’m gonna hang on a while longer.

I’ve chatted about the 15.6-inch Eee Top before and, as far as I can tell, the touchscreen PC looks a decent bit of kit. 

You get a budget PC-based alternative to the iMac with a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drive, Wi-Fi, 1.3MP webcam, stereo speakers, plenty of connectivity plus Windows XP for your OS.

Don’t forget you still get a keyboard and mouse so can navigate your way round even when your hands are covered in jam.

But if you think that the 15.6 inch screen is letting down the whole package there is good news on on its way.

According to Asus CEO Jerry Shen, the  Eee Top is being outsourced to Quanta Computer, which will be producing new 20-inch and 22-inch models for 2009.

And this aint no limited edition. Five million of the things will be produced in the next couple of years - so says Mr Shen.

If you’re cool with the 15.6 model Eee Top you can grab one from this month for around £399.

I’ve been pointed in the direction of this rather natty media device called the TouchDiva.

Nope, I’d not heard of it before either - which is worrying as it is supposed to be released in the UK and Europe in a matter of weeks!

The specs match the looks with the guts of a B&O in the two 125W ICEpower (Bang & Olufsen-manufactured) amps and that 15.4-inch touchscreen.

You pay a subscription of  around a tenner a month and for that you can download as much music as you wish.

The Danish manufacturers claim to have “agreements with the four major music companies in the world (Warner, EMI, Sony-BMG and Universal),” giving them access to over 2 million songs.

The Diva itself has just two buttons - on/off and a reset.

If you like the idea of having a touchscreen digital jukebox you’ll be looking to have to pay around £750 from December 1st apparently.

TouchDiva

iRiver is a name that you’d generally associate with media players but they have been flashing their phone concept at various shows.

I’m guessing that all the feedback was positive as it is a dream no more! 

Wave hello to the iRiver Wave!

This Wave is a bit of a looker as well.  Check out that large touchscreen and that lovely, metallic case.  

It’s from iRiver so media-playing is pretty much a given, with video streaming on that large screen that flips from horizontal to vertical viewing……I’m sure something else does this….. 

Also squeezed in are an FM radio, handwriting recognition and a dictionary - Naturally!

Wi-Fi and card expansion is all very groovy but I would have expected digital TV as well - Am I being unreasonable?

The iRiver Wave is set for launch in Korea in March 2009.

If you fancy one it might be worth noting that iRiver products have a habit of getting into the UK

HallyuTech

If you’re looking for something that’s like an iPod then you could do a lot worse than to check this little beauty out!

The Cowon O2 is coming to the UK and it is more than adequate to taunt the iPod and blow raspberries at the best of the rest.

Memory for all your media ranges from 16GB to a lovely 32GB of flash storage.

That’s not enough? Then whack in an SDHC card for up to 32GB more!

Video caresses those eyes of yours via the HD-friendly 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen and there’s compatibility for just about every audio and video format around - yes, even MP3’s!

If it wont play; well……you’ve probably made it up yourself!

Throw in video recording, photo viewing, a respectable battery life of 18 hours of music per charge and an open source operating system - the latter of which could bring forth some interesting downloads, stuff and things.

There’s no pricing details as yet, but as most of us know, Cowon players are generally very competitively priced

Cowon

There’s official word from my roots back in Canada.

RIM’s Canadian HQ have confirmed that their Storm touchscreen handset will be hitting the United Kingdom within the first 7 days of November.

No word on tariffs but I reckon it’s safe to say that they would be competitive with the likes of the iPhone and the G1 Android.

I’m thinking unlimited downloads and an 18-month contract - these seem to have become de rigueur in the clever phone world.

More news as I get it

If you were in any doubt; it looks like interest in the 3G iPhone is almost four times more than that generated by its 2G predecessor.

This comes direct from O2, Apple’s UK network partner for the device.

They say that over 130,000 people have pre-registered their interest in the new handset via O2’s website since the phone was unveiled a week ago.  Yup, that includes yours truly.

Compare that to the 35,000 people that pre-registered their interest in the previous phone between its unveiling on September 18 last year and November 9, when it went on sale in the UK.

Let’s face it.  The £269 initial price and being cuffed into an 18 month contract for the first iPhone was a bit scary, so Apple has allowed O2 to heavily subsidise the new handset giving it away ‘free’ on some contracts when it goes on sale on July 11.

O2 UK chief executive, Ronan Dunne, said that the cost of the 2G iPhone had been “an issue for some segments of the market”, but added that iPhone customers were spending 30% more a year on their mobile bills on average.

The fact that the iPhone has settled into a more standard UK mobile phone purchasing model and with that long awaited addition of 3G should see it breaking some records, if only those set by its trailblazing sibling.

If you’re feelng a little overwhelmed with the amount of mobiles being released you may have thought that Samsung have attempted to slip the same phone in with 2 different names amongst all the confusion.

I’m talking about the Tocco and the Omnia (SGH-i900).

Well, this is what I thought even if you didn’t.

So off I went to search out these two touch-friendly devices and find out if this was just a Sammy-scam (not that they would do such a thing).

Righty, both mobiles include those lifestyle-friendly apps such as a touchscreen, five-meg camera, MP3 player, FM radio and Bluetooth. Check.

But, the Omnia starts pulling ahead when I look closer.

It has a larger display - 3.2-inch in comparison to the Tocco’s 2.8-incher. Also the Omnia is sporting GPS, Wi-Fi and runs Windows 6.1 OS.

You also get a choice of 8GB or 16GB of in built memory as well as being able to shove in extra via the microSDHC slot to the tune of 32GB.

All of this is squeezed within a platinum finished12.5mm thin body.

Confusion over.

I think.

For now.

Here’s either a brilliant idea or just a totally weird one.

I’ve been known to be a bit precious with some of my tech and especially with my CD and Vinyl collection but I’ve never got to the stage where I’d snap on latex gloves before touching an album or picking up a UMD.

PhoneFingers, on the other hand (sorry), think otherwise. If you have a touchscreen phone (iPhone, PRADA, Touch, et al) and are fed up with your paw-prints being left on the screen well here’s the answer to your prayers.

The opposite to fingerless gloves in rubber they cost 6.90 Euros per pack and come in a range of sizes. No ribbed or lubricated ones yet though.

Can’t really say much else about them really.