Hasta La Gadget!

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET Networks)

During the 2008 holiday season, we found plenty of affordable Blu-ray players to recommend under $300. Fast-forward a couple months, and we’re surprised to find that many of the players are either discontinued (Panasonic DMP-BD35) or no longer discounted (Sony BDP-S350.)

The Insignia NS-2BRDVD …

We just played around with Viliv’s latest MIDs, the stylish S5 and X70. Both devices use haptic feedback for onscreen keyboard input, and despite the resistive screen we found them both to offer some of the best touchscreen interaction we’ve seen on devices like this. They were both running Windows Vista, and seemed rather responsive and usable, even with Atom under the hood. What’s really impressive is the X70 (pictured), which is thinner than the S5, and also can be mounted to an optional leather case that brings a keyboard and foldability to the device, and turns the unit into a laptop of sorts. Neither device is particularly thin or light, but there’s a lot of quality going on here, and for folks sold on this sort of functionality and form factor, it would be hard to do much better than these at the moment — of course, you’ll have to swim to Korea to do it. Video of the S5 is after the break.

Continue reading Viliv S5 and X70 MIDs hands-on with video!

Filed under: Tablet PCs

Viliv S5 and X70 MIDs hands-on with video! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week’s podcast is a little late coming to the blog, thanks to Monday’s holiday and a power outage in the Wired.com offices Tuesday. But we won’t let such details keep us from you forever!

Without further ado, here’s the 63rd episode of the Gadget Lab Audio Podcast. (Click that link if you want to subscribe in iTunes and get this podcast automatically every week.)

This week, we talk about Wired’s newly-upgraded iPhone application, which now lets you browse the entire Gadget Lab blog — and view gadget videos from Wired.com — as well as giving you access to the entire Wired Product Reviews site.

We also discuss an iPhone app that earned its creator more than half a million dollars, and a new wireless card from Qualcomm that lets you connect to any cellular data network in the world. And we go over our recent reviews of the Universal Remote Digital R50 and the dual-screened Lenovo Thinkpad W700DS.

This week’s episode features Gadget Labbers Dylan Tweney, Danny Dumas and Priya Ganapati, with audio engineering by Fernando Cardoso.

If the embedded player above doesn’t work, you can download the Gadget Lab podcast #63 MP3.

Use iTunes? Subscribe to the Gadget Lab Audio Podcast in iTunes. Do it now!

Like video? Aim your browser at the Gadget Lab Video Podcast — available on iTunes and right here on the Gadget Lab blog.

The gadget: The GigaPan Epic, the famous mechanism behind the 1,474 megapixel ubershot of the Presidential Inauguration that allows a standard digital camera to take massive landscapes.

The price: $380, plus your point and shoot digital camera of choice.

The verdict: The Epic really is an interesting product, but it’s lacking the polish and execution that most of us expect in a $400 gadget. Let me explain.
The Epic is essentially a robotic arm that automates the process of large scale digital photography. Attaching to a tripod (or just sitting on a solid surface), you show the system the top left and bottom right corners of a landscape, and it will automatically tilt and pan your camera, snapping all necessary shots with a tiny arm that pushes down your shutter button.
You download the 100s of pictures from your digital camera to proprietary GigaPan software, and it will, over a few hours, stitch the photos together into magnificent landscapes.
And it works! With a few caveats.

You’ll need to lock your camera’s zoom, focus and exposure down, lest various pictures be lighter or darker than others. This can be easier said than done on the dummy point and shoot cameras that the Epic is designed for. And taking a large panorama is still a process that will take several minutes to complete, meaning that there’s a good chance pedestrian will stop and stare into the lens in any public atmosphere you choose to photograph. Also, GigaPan’s software essentially requires you to upload images to the web, then grab stills through that interface. A simple mega TIF output would have been a welcome option. UPDATE: Apparently I missed the export screen.

Still, check out the shot I was able to capture outside the Hancock building in Chicago, despite not locking down the f-stop. (Check it out for yourself here.)



Neat, right? You create a photo that can be zoomed in to the full potential of your lens while still maintaining a vast master shot.

Here’s the real issue: Manual overrides are reasonable for the average Gizmodo reader. What’s tougher is that the battery life is atrocious. The Epic runs off of 6 AA batteries that, for me, took about 200 shots (or two panoramas) before dying. (GigaPan has assured me that premium batteries can take 1,000 pictures at room temperature.) Believe it or not, 200 shots is a limiting proposition, especially for the average guy who would be interested in this unit. I actually ran out of battery during my example shot—a whole column of photos is missing. Why would a company design such a functional product with such an obvious Achilles’ heel?

I can’t deny that the GigaPan Epic is absurdly cool. And I can’t wait for a sunny day when I can explore the city and grab some stunning, massive images through my dinky consumer camera. But I really don’t want to find myself perched precariously on a ledge with the perfect shot, only to see the unit die with 60 pictures left to go.

Then again, give me a heftier battery option and maybe some SLR compatibility, and it’s on.

GigaPan Epic In Brief:

My mom could use it, pending a brief tutorial

Works with simple consumer cameras

Facilitates truly amazing shots, even when you screw up a bit

An SLR-compatible model would be welcomed

Battery life severely cripples functionality

The talk this week at Mobile World Congress has been largely positive about Microsoft’s latest iteration of its smartphone UI, Windows Mobile 6.5. Still, some of us at Engadget (well, one of us, at least), feel like the folks in Redmond missed the mark by a longshot. Instead of demonstrating its technical prowess and vast resources, Microsoft limped out a half-hearted rehash of an OS we’ve seen all too much of, and managed to blind most onlookers with a storm of big time partnerships and bloated PR. While their major competitors (and even some allies) in the mobile space seem bent on changing ideas about how we interact with our portable devices, the company proved once again that it’s content to rest on its laurels and learn little from its mistakes.

To give you another side of the story — a side which I think Microsoft has done an immaculate job of hiding this week — here’s ten reasons why Windows Mobile 6.5 disappoints.

Continue reading Editorial: Ten reasons why Windows Mobile 6.5 misses the mark

Filed under: Cellphones

Editorial: Ten reasons why Windows Mobile 6.5 misses the mark originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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