theVooner's weblog

A weblog for theVooner.com where the best cool gear and gadgets get reviewed.

last modified Jul 15, 2003 at 1:45

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

2 new Sony Qualia products

Sony has another two new Qualia products. Qualia, their super high-end equipment line has a new headphones, the 010, and a new MD player, the 017. The headphones look pretty intimadating with their big speaker sets and red padding. Well for US$2400 you'd better be getting some pretty incredible sound. The 017 is a remarkably sharp looking MD player. But at US$1700, this is not for the faint of heart. You can even get some optional plates attached like gold and silver face plates for only between US$500 to US$600 -- a bargain!

I can't understand why these products are sooooooo expensive. As exclusive as they are, they still get outdated probably pretty fast. Even B&O wouldn't charge that much for an MD player! Definitely buying it for the design, not the function.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 21:43 | 1 comments

Monday, April 19, 2004

JVC Mini-Notebook

Although not known for their laptops, JVC has decided to put themselves in the market with this mini-marvel. It's a mini-notebook that makes my TR2 look bulky. The MP-XP7310 mini-notebook (couldn't they come up with a better name/model number?) accomplishes this by ditching the most combersome of add-ons, the CD/DVD drive. The result is a mini-notebook that weighs only 905 grams although with a 8.9" screen (cutting down on space) but still has much of the same function as a full laptop. In fact, it has pretty similar specs in terms of processor, etc. to the TR2. Pretty remarkable. I got to see one in person the other day and I would admit that it does look very nice and sleek. Why am I looking at this? Well, I've been getting tired of carrying around my TR2 even though it is small. So I was just taking a look at what other options are out there and this is one of them.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 1:39 | 0 comments

Sunday, April 18, 2004

It's all part of the gadget cycle... New Hitachi Plasma

Well I was in the store that I bought my Plasma from and I was just admiring a new laptop when I saw my Hitachi Plasma on display. I guess I couldn't help admire it, except that something was different. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I looked at the specs:

37" Plasma TV ...

Darn it!!! I just bought the 32". I already had said that the 42" was too much. But 37" would have been a pretty good fit. How frustrating. I haven't had it for more than 3 months or so. Worse, it only costs about US$400 more which would have easily been justified. Oh well, that's the cycle of buying anything electronic, a new model comes out usually much faster than you anticipate.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 23:17 | 0 comments

Friday, April 16, 2004

Sony DSC-T11 Digital Camera

Even though my T1 is still relatively new and quite popular, Sony has decided that it still need an update and has introduced the T11. The T11 (interestingly not called the T2 because its not enough of an update and also not to be confused with the Terminator! HA) has most of the same specs as the T1. In fact, most of the major changes seem to be cosmetic. The T11 gets rid of the sliding door on the front, something I quite liked, and also has this weird handle on the side of the camera. From the back though, it looks almost identical with the same screen and similar buttons/layout.

Sony also launched several other models including the P100 and W1.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 4:50 | 5 comments

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Archos Gmini 220

I've mentioned Archos a few times in my Blogs in the past but today was the first time I got to see some of their products up close and personal. I'm in the market for a new MP3 player and was looking at the JNC SSF-M2 which I wrote about a few days ago or the mini iPod (hard to find these guys at a decent value isn't it?). I stumbled onto the Gmini 220 today as I was looking at different MP3 options. For the price (about US$350) the Gmini 220 does a lot of different things and looks pretty amazing. First of all, its a nice 20GB MP3 player. But more than that, it can also be a photo viewer with a built in I/O port for CF cards that allow you to download pictures to the device. This little player isn't very heavy and it doesn't look bad either. Certainly, its a viable option outside of the iPods. One reason though that I didn't immediately buy one is because even though you get to view photos on the screen, its still a 2.5" GRAYSCALE LCD which makes rendering images pretty useless. I want color! How hard is that? Why wasn't that an option? Maybe because they want you to purchase its bigger brother, AV320 which does that and more. Unfortunately it's 3 times the size, twice the weight, and more than twice the cost. So that's a little different and not something I want right now.

I guess the M2 is still going to be my choice. It's only got a measly 128MB, but maybe I can work around that.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 1:58 | 2 comments

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Bluetooth for your speakers?

D-Link, a Taiwan company known for the WiFi products, have a device that allows you to wirelessly connect speakers using Bluetooth. The DSM-910BT Bluetooth Stereo Adapter Kit is designed to allow you to hook up a stereo to your speakers wirelessly. It comes with a stereo kit and a speaker kit that allows you to stream audio to your speakers anywhere. Yeah! Just what I wanted for my surround sound without having to plunk down big $$ for some of the options out there.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 0:58 | 0 comments

Monday, April 12, 2004

JNC Multimedia Player - M2

I was walking around this Easter holidays and stumbled onto a pretty cool looking multimedia player from JNC, the SSF-M2. It's a small LCD screen device which plays lots of different multimedia options. It's 3.5" LCD screen means you can play and watch video relatively adequately. It also records content so you can record TV or video through this device. Of course it plays MP3 files as well and can even double as a photo album player. Very cool. The big downside is that it's only available right now with 128MB. That's not even close to being enough. But it does accept SD cards and I've got quite a few of those. I wonder about the battery life too as the screen must eat up batteries. I think I might just have to get one!

Except I still want a mini-iPod. Do I want one because it's a cool MP3 player, or do I want one because it's so hard to find? Maybe both!

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 20:43 | 0 comments

Thursday, April 8, 2004

Nokia 7200 selling well...

From what I could see over the past few days, the Nokia 7200 has actually caught on well with users here in Hong Kong. Very strange as i would have thought that the phone lacked appeal because it has a quirky keypad and its a clamshell design from Nokia. I was wrong. There are quite a number of people I see that have the phone and even more wanting to buy the phone.

The 7200 has plent of "design" options that allow you to change the shape and color of the outside. The screen is also pretty nice for a Nokia. I didn't like the look at first but now that I've seen a number of them in person, I must say it does have its charm. My big complaint would be why the didn't make this a tri-band phone and only a dual band phone. Some of us travel you know Nokia!

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 18:58 | 0 comments

Monday, April 5, 2004

Sharp GX-32 GSM mobile phone -- w/ 1MP camera!

Sharp has been running a series of ads in Hong Kong about their new handset. The GX-32 is nothing spectacular and is more of an upgrade to the previous GX models. The GX-32 has a very nice display run by their "CG Silicon" screen which shows 262k colors. I have seen the screen and it looks pretty amazing. More imporantly, the GX-32 has a a built-in 1 mega-pixel camera which makes it one of the first (if not the first) GSM phone with such a high resolution. Although I'm waiting for the SE K700, that won't be available for probably another 4-6 months. So if you need the latest and best till then, this might hold some people over...

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 19:48 | 3 comments

Thursday, April 1, 2004

B&O BeoCenter 2

I don't know what it is about the overpriced beauty of B&O that makes it so darn appealing. I mean the technology isn't even that great. But its just SOOO cool.

The BeoCenter 2 is the newest addition to their Audio lineup. It's a standalone CD/DVD player. As you go to hit the eject button, the "wings" of the system open up to reveal your disc. That's about the coolest thing since the sliding doors of the B&O BeoSound 3XXX series. The BeoCenter is the epitome of form and function as many B&O products often are. The system isn't the most high-tech nor is it probably that great, but as a total design/function product, B&O products are pretty cool. Of course all of this comes at a price... usually and outrageous price so its a little hard to just go out and get one. Still, I can dream.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 3:09 | 2 comments