Krzr K1, Z610i, KG810: Shiny Christmas clamshells
Mobile PhonesIt's coming up to Christmas soon and if you're planning on having a Christmas tree at home you're going to need decorations. But why settle for the usual mess of baubles and tinsel? Why not decorate your tree with these festively shiny clamshell mobile phones?
First up (from left to right) is the Motorola Krzr K1. The K1 comes with a 2-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth (A2DP), a music player that supports AAC, MP3 and AAC+ formats and a microSD slot. Continue reading...
Are you going to have Christmas in high definition?
TelevisionsIs it going to be a high-definition Christmas for you? By the end of this year there will be 2.4 million HD Ready TVs in UK households, according to market research honchos GfK. This means that nearly 10 per cent of all households will be HD Ready, compared to 2 per cent at the beginning of 2006.
Of course, having an HD Ready television doesn't mean that you've actually bothered to get an HD signal into your home. The absolute numbers of people who can enjoy these slick images are still quite small. Sky announced today that it has 96,000 subscribers for its Sky HD service, which kicked off back in April. Continue reading...
Panasonic PT-AE1000E: 100 inches of 1080p
TelevisionsWith next-generation devices like Samsung's BD-P1000 Blu-ray player (reviewed here), Toshiba's HD-E1 and HD-XE1 HD DVD players and Sony's PlayStation 3 (previewed here) moving from prototype to product, television buyers have been eyeing up 'Full HD' screens that support 1080p, the smoothest and most detailed of the hi-def signals. Equivalent projectors, however, seem to have been overlooked by all but the most hardcore enthusiasts.
This is probably due to the lack of dedicated demonstration rooms to let you find out what you're missing. But as any film buff will tell you, nothing comes closer to a cinematic experience than watching your favourite flick on a super-sized screen. For the same price as a 50-inch plasma or LCD (3,500), Panasonic's latest PT-AE1000E can display a full 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution image up to 100 inches in size from only 3m away. If size matters, do the maths. Continue reading...
Win Things: Win over £1,000 of gaming gear!
Games and GearYesterday we launched our Digital Christmas competition -- a festive frenzy in which one lucky person will win the entire contents of Santa's tech-laden sack, worth over 4,000! But it doesn't end there. Oh no -- we also want to pimp your gaming gear...
If you've got a cranky old console, a battered TV and you can complete all your games in one sitting, we have the ultimate prize for you -- we're giving away over 1,000 of gaming goodies to one lucky winner.
You could win an Xbox 360, a 32-inch Samsung LCD TV and three great games to play in the second of our competitions in our Win Things section in Digital Living. You can show off your fancy footwork in Pro Evolution Soccer 6, chainsaw the faces off ugly aliens in Gears of War and explore the compelling fantasy world of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion -- the Xbox 360 graphics will look stunning piped through the latest technology in Samsung's stylish LE32R74BD LCD TV. Continue reading...
LG Chocolate KG810: Serve with small cups of strong coffee
Mobile PhonesWith its glossy black front and glowing red touchpad, the LG Chocolate KG800 was the most stylish phone of the summer. Once you get past the pretty face, though, there's no denying that it has the figure of a Mars Bar -- rectangular and chunky. If you're looking for something svelte and slender, something more in the shape of an After Dinner Mint, then consider the follow-up model, the KG810. If ever a phone were designed to look good on a silver salver, this is it.
Also known as the Chocolate Folder, the KG810 is as thin as Motorola's Razrs, but slightly shorter and narrower. Peel open the black and silver front and you'll find a relatively plain interior with the same checkerboard keyboard as the original Chocolate phone. The checkerboard effect comes from alternating matte and gloss plastics, providing tactile feedback as you move from key to key. The low-profile keys are also impressively responsive, although we're less keen on the musical 'plinks' that accompany each press (if you value your sanity, turn these off). Continue reading...
Sony VGX-XL202: Blu-ray Media Center PC
DesktopsBlu-ray is well and truly here. We've seen the Samsung BD-P1000, Panasonic's DMP-BD10, and, as of tomorrow, an offering from LG. Never mind all that standalone Blu-ray guff though, Sony's just sent us its latest Blu-ray-equipped Media Center PC, the VGX-XL202, and a couple of DVD movies to play on it.
First impressions: it's big, intimidating and screams power. Either that or it's screaming, "I'll crush your hi-fi cabinet under my weight, you early-adopting tech whore". We're loving the brushed metal flip-down panel that takes up two thirds of the front, plus the slot-loading Blu-ray drive and accompanying logo -- it's perfect if you like to make a statement with your AV kit. Continue reading...
The death of TV: Google to smack down UK's top channels
TelevisionsThe deformed children of the first dotcom boom roam the streets like dogs, but it looks like background radiation must be reaching safe levels again because new heroes are rising. Google's purchase of YouTube for $1.65bn and Murdoch's acquisition of MySpace for $580m are just two of the more flamboyant transactions sprung from this new-found confidence.
But this is just the beginning. It's now reported that Google's advertising revenue will surpass that of the UK's main commercial TV channels. Could it be that the days of traditional broadcast advertising are numbered, or can the two co-exist like Ritalin stepkids in some horribly dysfunctional family?
Channel 4 is predicted to collect 800m in returns from advertisers this year, but Google is expected to surpass this figure in the UK. It is then likely that the Internet search giant will overtake ITV1 within 18 months. What's not clear is how parasitic the relationship between online and offline advertising is. It's too early to tell whether advertisers are turning away from television onto the Web, or if they're supplementing TV ads with online versions. Continue reading...
Win a Digital Christmas worth over £4,000!
GadgetsWant all your Christmases to come at once? CNET.co.uk has teamed up with some of the tech industry's most important players to bring you a Digital Christmas to remember. We've put together a mammoth package of tech goodies and we're giving it away -- to one lucky winner.
You could go in the draw to win over 4,000 worth of kit -- a 37-inch Panasonic plasma TV, a 15-inch Asus laptop, a state-of-the-art digital SLR camera from Olympus, a Samsung E900 slider phone, a Denon DVD player, a pair of Sennheiser headphones, a Sling Media Slingbox, an 8GB Apple iPod nano and a Nintendo DS Lite. You could surprise all your friends and family with great gifts at Christmas, or you could be the ultimate Scrooge and keep them all for yourself, you lucky little elf. Continue reading...
Camcorder or digiscope for bird photography?
I notice that several budget-priced camcorders offer 30x optical magnification. Does this level give a good performance for bird photography? What about the quality of budget models such as Panasonic's NV-GS27EB-S and VDR-D100EB?
Or would digiscoping be better? What typical magnification is achieved by digiscopes?
Gordon Scoble
You could use these camcorders to record video of birds, although you should use a tripod to keep them steady when you're working at maximum zoom. They are far from ideal for taking photographs, though.
In general, camcorders don't make good still cameras, because they are optimised for video -- which is more complicated than still photography in some ways, but a lot more forgiving in others, because the movement conceals all sorts of image problems.
The resolution of video images is quite low, so they don't record fine detail. A frame of standard-definition video only contains around 0.4 megapixels, and even hi-def video only contains 0.9 or 1.8 megapixels per frame. Digital camera resolutions currently range from around 5 megapixels to 10 megapixels or more. If you want to capture the details of a bird's plumage, rather than an overall impression of its size and markings, you'll appreciate the greater resolution of a proper camera. It will also give you more control over the focus and exposure of your photographs.
The camcorders you mention would be particularly poor choices for photography. Because the NV-GS27EB-S and the VDR-D100EB are budget models, Panasonic has concentrated on the core features required for video. They can capture still images, but only at low resolutions, and only onto tape or DVD respectively. Neither camcorder enables you to record photographs onto a memory card. This feature is commonly offered by more expensive models and makes it much easier to transfer the photos onto your computer.
I think you'll get better results by digiscoping (using a digital camera to take photos through a spotting scope). Depending on your scope and camera, you can achieve effective focal lengths of anything from around 1000mm (30x magnification) to over 4000mm. Richard Ford has a nice set of photographs showing the magnifications you can achieve on his Digital Wildlife Web site and Dylan Mackay has an animated explanation of a typical setup on DigiDylan. Continue reading...
PlayStation 3: What's with the watts?
Games and GearSony is not a company renowned for its good table manners and self-restraint, but early reports suggest that the PlayStation 3 scoffs 380 watts, more than eight times as much power as the PlayStation 2 (45 watts), and more than twice as much power as the Xbox 360 (160 watts). So, while an Intel Core 2 Duo PC with high-end graphics card chews politely on a 160 watt entr, the PlayStation 3 gorges itself, splashing electricity about like a toddler with a bucket of fizzy drink.
In these heady days of well-publicised impending global environmental apocalypse, some might think it a little brash of Sony to unleash an electronic Bacchus on the scene. The culprit may be the new Cell processor the PS3 uses. Cell is based on a Power processing core, surrounded by several 'helper' processors. Whether it's related is unclear, but Apple certainly had problems putting G5 PowerPC chips into their laptops on account of heat and power-consumption issues -- eventually it gave up and switched to Intel for this reason, among others. Continue reading...
Evesham 47": Cheap Full HD LCD TV
TelevisionsWe all know Full HD 1080p tellies are teef. You can spend upwards of 3,500 on a 46-inch Sony, so what hope is there for the broke, stinking proletariat?
Fear not -- Evesham chief executive Richard Austin seems to have handed us a lifeline. Possibly feeling a twinge of guilt after splashing a tramp with freezing puddle water while driving one of his many sports cars, he's just given the go-ahead to unleash a massive 47-inch LCD for just 1,899. Continue reading...
Motorola Slvr L7e: The Slvr L7 gets a makeover
Mobile PhonesOver the past year or so, Motorola handsets have been relatively thin on the ground. Compared to the likes of Nokia and Samsung, Motorola has taken a more relaxed approach. It's not that it's doing badly -- in fact, it's doing very well -- but it just wasn't as rushed when it came to making new phones. At least, that's what we thought.
Over the past couple of months, Motorola has announced a whole bunch of new handsets including the Krzr K1, which is now available in shops, and the Razr xx, which features HSDPA connectivity. A few days ago, Motorola added another new handset to its portfolio -- the Motorola Slvr L7e.
iHalloween: Turn your iPod into a Ouija board
MP3 PlayersWhen we first heard that occultists were using the new iPod to channel spirits, we had our doubts. Why would ancient spirits choose to manifest themselves in consumer electronics -- don't they prefer the dusty seclusion of basement seances? Apparently not Continue reading...
Photos: Benefon Twig -- the mobile phone with sat-nav
Mobile PhonesEarlier this year we heard about a phone called the Benefon Twig. We weren't sure what the Twig was, or exactly what it did, but we did know it was something to do with GPS. Fortunately, Benefon has been kind enough to give us one of the first available Twigs in the UK, and while it may look like a really old phone, it packs a seriously modern feature -- satellite navigation.
The phone has a built-in GPS receiver and preloaded navigation software. You'd be right in thinking that this isn't a completely new concept -- we've seen it before in devices like the HP iPaq hw6915 and the Mio A701 -- but what sets the Twig apart, and makes it rather interesting, is its size and the range of goodies Benefon has managed to cram into it. Continue reading...
Acer VP not "feeling" Vista
SoftwareWe've just celebrated the fifth birthday of the venerable Windows XP. But unlike human five-year-olds, who've usually learned to stop soiling themselves and can contribute to society in some small measure, Bill Gates' OS offspring is just about to cash in its pension.
"Yippee," you might say, drooling at the prospect of its successor, Windows Vista. "The king is dead, long live the king," you may add, gawking at the sexy leaked pictures of Windows Vista packaging you see to your right. But stop a minute to consider the fact that Microsoft's great white hope has just been slagged off by the top brass of one of the biggest PC makers on the planet.
Jim Wong, senior VP of Acer, has said the 'Home Basic' version of Vista -- the one MS is planning to sell to you, the ordinary man in the street, for 155 -- will be so basic that users will be forced to buy the 190 Premium version to see any real benefit at all.
Wong told UK computer magazine PC Pro "if you get Basic, you won't feel it at all," referring to an absence of stuff actually worth owning. "There's no [Aero] graphics, no Media Center, no remote control," he added. Continue reading...
Let the people rip, says influential think tank
MP3 PlayersIf a law was passed to forbid breathing, it could hardly cause a more universal criminalisation of the western world than the laws of music copyright. Current law makes thieves of most of us and liars of the rest. We all know that each time you plug your iPod into the iTunes library of your painstakingly ripped CD collection, a fairy dies, but what harm can it really do if you already own legitimate versions of the CDs you've ripped, and these are stacked inertly on a dusty shelf?
With this logic in mind, a UK government think tank is proposing a 'private right to copy', which would give UK citizens the right to duplicate CDs and DVDs for personal use. In the report, the influential IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research) calls for explicit laws legalising practises like the ripping of CDs onto iPods. Continue reading...
Sony NV-U51: Gesture controlled GPS
GadgetsGet this: Sony has just announced a sat-nav that can react to finger gestures. Instead of navigating through menus or tapping stuff on its touchscreen, the NV-U51 gives drivers a 'Gesture Command' feature. This lets you draw a line or shape with your finger, which the system interprets as directions to your destination.
Apparently it'll also understand handwritten commands like "get me home" or "find the nearest petrol station", but let's hope these can be scaled down to just "home" and "gas" -- we can't imagine anyone wanting to write whole sentences while hurtling down the M1 in the driving rain. Continue reading...
Mac Expo London: Wild photos!
DesktopsLaCie's gear was the most innovative at this year's Mac Expo in London's Kensington Olympia. These may look like the sort of arty trinket that Harajuku girls hang from their ears, but they're actually USB hard disks.
We also got an exclusive glimpse at the company's new installation artwork/accessory mash-up project the Hubbie. Click through for more photos from Mac Expo. Continue reading...
Goodmans GHD8015F: Affordable recordable
Home CinemaThe early price of digital recorders left most people clinging to their VCRs and praying for a pay rise. But, in only a few years, prices have plummeted and now it's not just DVD recorders that are stocking the budget shelves but hard disk recorders too.
The Goodmans GHD8015F is the first hard disk recorder we've seen that costs less than 100, the last bastion of budget pricing. It may not be a big-name brand and the design appears uninspiring, but the affordable price is guaranteed to attract entry-level buyers finally prepared to give up the VCR ghost.
For the same cost of a standard set-top box, the GHD8015F features an integrated 80GB hard drive recorder and dual digital tuners. Continue reading...
LaCie Huby: The prettiest of USB hubs
AccessoriesUSB hubs are normally as dull as mud. Not the shiny mud you get after a rainstorm, rather the dry mud you get at the bottom of a river bed after months of drought. But not this baby: this is the LaCie Huby -- the most outrageously stylish USB hub known to man.
It's designed by the same guy who came up with the Lego-inspired LaCie Brick Desktop Hard Drive, and we have to say it's a work of peripheral genius. The Huby looks a lot like a vase and has eight flexible USB stalks to give it a plant aesthetic. We saw it yesterday at the Mac Expo in London. Continue reading...
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