Hasta La Gadget!

If you want a capable 12 megapixel camera with a Leica lens and built-in GPS, we’d recommend the $400 Lumix DMC-ZS7 from Panasonic. If you want exactly the same camera, but are willing to spend an extra $300 or so for a red dot on the front, we instead suggest you take a look at the Leica V-Lux 20, leaked by Leica Rumors and expected in stores on May 9th.

The Leica has very average, if capable, specs: A 3-inch LCD screen, HD movie recording (720p), shoots JPEG only and will reach a disappointing ISO 1600 in regular, non-boosted mode. These features sit well in Panasonic’s product line, but when you add the Leica tax the price puts you in range of Panasonic’s amazing GF1, the mirrorless Micro Four Thirds compact (which I own and totally dig).

Our advice? Stick with the Panasonic and spend a couple of bucks on a pack of red dot stickers, or go for the GF1.

First picture of Leica V-Lux 20 surfaces [Leica Rumors]

See Also:

• Hands-On With Panasonic's Leica-Lite GF1
• Leica
• Leica D-Lux 4

Can it be, did Sony Ericsson just post its first quarterly profit since Q2 2008? Make.Believe it: the fantastically handsome crew from Stockholm is reporting a Q1 2010 net profit of €21 million, besting analysts who were expecting a €128 million loss. Importantly, SE managed to bump the average handset selling price to €134 on 10.5 million sold compared to the 14.5 million sold at an average of €120 a year prior thanks, in part, to the launch of its uneven X10 and buggy Vivaz. For those keeping track, that drops Sony Ericsson’s share of global handset sales down from 5% last quarter to around 4% currently. So yeah, slashing head count and closing facilities has earned Sony Ericsson a short-term win on Wall Street. Remains to be seen, however, if they’re now spread too thin to continue juggling Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Android with expectations for even more Sony Ericsson supported OSes in the future.

Sony Ericsson posts surprise profit from unsurprising handsets originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though Toshiba’s flagship ZX900 Cell TV has yet to make its feature-packed US debut, the company is already planning fancy new toys for the motherland. This week, Toshiba announced a full fifteen new LCD HDTVs destined to spice up the sweltering Japanese summer — each of them ready to pull double duty as DVR — and Nikkei Electronics reports that the company’s 3D-converting sets will debut around the same time. Meanwhile, Google Translate tells us a bit about the rest. While the low-end REGZA HE1 series have only a built-in 500GB hard drive and LED-backlit LCDs (as if that weren’t enough), the RE1 can send footage to up to four external hard drives over USB in a system that gives each family member their own dedicated hard drive. But the Z1 series takes the cake — it’s got fleshed out DVR functionality that lets users record two programs at once (while watching a third) and jack into a LAN switch with eight drives for a veritable NAS of up to 4TB. It’s little things like this that make us wish we lived in Japan.

Toshiba’s new REGZA record over LAN, convert 2D to 3D quite soon in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been quite some time, relatively speaking, since Nikon’s updated its DSLR lineup. Not that we’re complaining about the D3S or D300s (pictured), mind you, but our eyes are perennially fixated on staring into the next big thing. Nikon Rumors seems to think it’s got a handle on three new photo-snappers in the pipeline. While one of the trio is completely shrouded in mystery, another is said to be poised for the an entry level model, likely a successor to the D3000 dubbed — you guessed it — the D4000. The third and final camera of the group is quite detailed in this report: 39 autofocus points, 16 megapixels with 6400 ISO + HI2 position, and 1080p / 24 frames per second video. NR uses the number of AF points to speculate it’d be a new product category, a D700 replacement that sacrifices some fine-tuning for video and more resolution, or a successor to the old favorite D90.

Nikon DSLR triplets on the horizon? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Before the iPhone, Microsoft Surface or even Jeff Han’s famous 2006 demonstration at TED, a commercial multitouch display already existed. It’s a customizable music control surface called the Jazzmutant Lemur, and it dates back to at least 2004. Under the new name Stantum, Jazzmutant’s touchscreens continue to impress, and now that its groundbreaking original finally has a potential competitor in the iPad, company co-founder Guillaume Largillier has granted Create Digital Music a sizable interview to comment on the future of the technology. Amidst jabs at Apple for developing a solution only a “Neanderthal” could love, the co-founder hints that the $2000 Lemur might finally see a price drop, and that the company’s decided to license their tech to other multitouch tablet manufacturers. Be sure to bring your table salt before hitting our source link, as the second half of the piece is an editorial very much in Stantum’s favor, but you might hold off on the full pinch — it’s a pretty good read nonetheless.

Multitouch pioneer Jazzmutant / Stantum makes cocky three finger pan from past to future of input originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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