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

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Sony Ericsson W800 -- Walkman Mobile phone

I had the chance over the past few days to try out and play with the new Sony Ericsson W800. Without a doubt, it's been one of the most anticipated mobile phones. Touted as Sony's first Walkman mobile phone, the W800 is designed to help add music capabilities to your mobile phone. In truth, most mobile phones already allow for some playback of MP3. Like many other SE phones, the W800 takes a MS Pro Duo card to hold music tracks. The W800 does make it much easier to get it's music features working, but in truth I wasn't too impressed with it. It's small, compact and a decent phone. The interface is much better, but I'd wait for some of the buzz to die down and get a better value. At some 80% premium to other mobiles (for the 1GB model) the W800 is a pretty hefty premium for what I don't really think is something all that new. I like the design though and they were certainly flying off the shelves here. Ok, if I had to choose between an iPod Shuffle AND a mobile phone, I'd definitely just get a W800 instead (about the same price). But as I already have a Shuffle, a Mini iPod, several phones, do I want another mobile phone with MP3 capabilities. Not right now. If the next Generation Walkman phones comes with 4GB of space, then maybe, this could be a viable option. I can't wait to see that.

On the plus side, the 2 megapixel camera is quite nice and I do like the form/shape. On the downside, I don't like the color (orange) and the fact that it's only 2.5G tri-band and not dual mode 3G/2.5G.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 23:26 | 0 comments

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

New Casio Exilim Digital Camera

Casio has announced a few new digital cameras to its lineup. The Z120 is the new upgrade to the lineup with 7.2 Mega Pixels and the Anti-Shake DSP technology. I also like the 640x480 movie recording mode. But I don't really care for the design. This new Exilim looks even uglier than other past models and it's a shame because the Z500 is really quite a nice camera. Other new cameras include a 6 MP Z110 and a 5MP Z100. All in a not so exciting shape and design.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 23:26 | 0 comments

Friday, August 5, 2005

Sony Ericsson S600 mobile phone

Advertising now, SE has a number of new models that are on their way. The S600 seems to be a slim down version of the S700 handset and comes with much of the same features but in a smaller form. There's also a new Z series (clamshell) phone on the way in the Z520 -- a middle end phone with dual color screens. There's also a low end budget J210 phone that is coming. But the anticipation is still on the W800 which is the first in SE's "Walkman" series that comes with a 2 megapixel camera, and is primarily designed for Music playback (with a 512MB MS Pro Duo included and software to encode music). I really want to see what this model looks like, as it could catch on.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 0:11 | 0 comments

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

Sony DSC T5 Digital Camera

Sony announced that it is launching the T5 which seems to be a replacement to the T3 line of cameras. The already launched T7 seems to be it's flagship T-series digital camera, but the T5 seems to be a more "fashionable" camera with some very unique styling design. It has a more curved design, than other T models though it seems to be a very similar form. It has the same engine though -- a 5.1 megapixel, 3x zoom, though this time it builts-in a 32MB internal memory with optional MS Pro Duo cards to be added. The T5 is also touted as a more "affordable" camera, priced at US$349.95 versus the T7 at US$499.95. What struck me the most intersting about this camera was that the announcement and launch is coming out of the US and US websites rather than the Japanese and Sony's Japanese websites. I guess the T5 will arrive there later... or maybe not at all?

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 4:11 | 0 comments

Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Panasonic FX9 digital camera

Panasonic has decided to stay ahead of the competition by introducing its small form camera, but with 6 Mega-pixels of resolution. The FX9 is an upgrade to the only just introduced FX8 about 3 months ago. The camera also is supposed to have a better LCD screen. Sounds like fairly decent upgrades but the market is certainly crowded and introducing another model so soon after just intoducing the FX8 will certainly confuse consumers -- they should have just jumped to the new FX9 and anyone that bought the FX8 will probably wish they hadn't as the price will fall quickly and the model is already being phased out.

theVooner@yahoo.com

posted at 23:31 | 0 comments