Sony unveils $300 RDP-X500iP speaker dock, gives your iPad some sonic assistance

Sony’s churned out plenty of speaker docks for the smaller iDevices out there, but until now, it hadn’t given the largest Apple handheld any love. It’s a little late to the party, but the company finally jumped on the iPad bandwagon with its latest RDP-X500iP speaker dock. Sporting a built in subwoofer, magnetic fluid speakers and Sony’s Clear Phase DSP sonic technology, this little gem purportedly packs a pretty good bass punch while delivering quality audio. Picking one up will leave your wallet $300 lighter when it’s released next month, and you can reserve yours now by getting in on the pre-order over on Sony’s website.

Continue reading Sony unveils $300 RDP-X500iP speaker dock, gives your iPad some sonic assistance

Sony unveils $300 RDP-X500iP speaker dock, gives your iPad some sonic assistance originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NEC LaVie Touch Windows 7 tablet comes packed with DVD-sporting dock

NEC LaVie Touch

If this nifty little bugger looks familiar, that’s because it should. NEC’s LaVie Touch sports the same design and specs as the VersaPro model we spotted back in May. The difference here is, it comes packed with a bevy of accessories, including a keyboard, mouse and a dock that happens to hold a DVD drive. Underneath the 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800, IPS touchscreen is a 1.5GHz Oak Trail CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. Sure the pair of full USB ports, HDMI jack, WiFi, Bluetooth and SD reader are welcome, but it’s that optical drive packing stand that really makes this a unique package. The NEC LaVie Touch should be landing in Japan next month for around $1,200 with the accessories. Sadly, here’s no word of whether or not it’ll ever find its way stateside.

NEC LaVie Touch Windows 7 tablet comes packed with DVD-sporting dock originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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mLogic mDock extends your MacBook ports, steals your Thunder(bolt)


If you’re trying to make a name for yourself in the incredibly crowded portable storage space, you can innovate and create something totally awesome, or you can do this. The mDock from mLogic is an external hard drive, port extender and port blocker all rolled into one pricey coffin-like chamber of fail. $219 will net you an eternal resting place for 500 gigs of data, while $299 ups the ante to an entire terabyte. Plus, with a pair of front-facing USB ports, you can add a third-party portable storage yokel for the less-than-princely sum of 50 bucks. If you haven’t already gathered, the mDock is designed for mMacbook Pros, but there’s also the iMac-mountable mBack (curiously not the iBack), designed with Apple’s familiar desktop flavor in mind. That variant is slightly more affordable, with pricing ranging from $169 for 1TB to $349 for 3TB, but you’ll forgo the dock-like USB hub and headphone jack. There’s no word on when to expect these life-changing devices in stores, but it’s never too early to dust off the mChair iChair and park yourself on 5th Ave.

Update: As pointed out by many in the comments most ports that are blocked by the mDock are replicated on the silver brick, including the Magsafe. The only restriction appears to be a lack of pass-through for Thunderbolt, but you do get a mini DisplayPort for hooking up external monitors. We’ve added one more pic after the break.

Continue reading mLogic mDock extends your MacBook ports, steals your Thunder(bolt)

mLogic mDock extends your MacBook ports, steals your Thunder(bolt) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Sep 2011 09:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Induction Charging Kit Costs More Than the iPad it Juices

Like a zombie hungry for brains, all LaunchPort can think about is your moneyyyyyy

Nickel and dime, nickel and dime. Ching, ching! If you could hear design and marketing strategies as sounds, then that’s the sound you’d hear coming from LaunchPort, makers of inductive iPad chargers and mounts.

The product itself is appealing. You put your iPad into the PowerShuttle case, which adds the necessary charging circuitry, as well as a widening the bezel and adding a chin. This will cost you $150.

Next, you buy the WallStation, a giant magnet that screws to the wall and charges the iPad by induction when it is stuck up there inside its PowerShuttle case. This will cost you another $150. Subtotal: $300.

And if you want to use the system at your desk? You go for the BaseStation, a triangle of brushed aluminum with a magnet and the same charging functions. The cost? $200.

If you’re keeping score, you’ll realize that we’re up to $500, or the cost of a new iPad, just to get an oversized case, a desk dock and a wall dock. And that’s not all. Because these are not yet ready to ship, they’re available for pre-order only. And here’s the kicker: in order to do this, you have to pay a $10 “Exclusive Reservation Fee.” Ker-ching!

Apple’s $30 iPad dock looks pretty cheap now, huh?

LaunchPort product page [LaunchPort via Da Giz]

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KT’s Spider Concept phone is also a laptop, a tablet and a game console (video)

KT Spider Concept

You probably thought Motorola had a lock on this whole docks for your phone thing, but Korean company KT quietly launched an assault on the Atrix manufacturer at IFA. Rather than a single (and underwhelming) “Webtop,” KT’s Spider Concept has three different accessories that expand the capabilities of the 4.5-inch gingerbread device. The laptop dock adds a QWERTY keyboard, an extended battery and a revamped UI while relying on the phone itself as the touchpad. If keyboards aren’t your thing, there’s the Spider PAD tablet shell which blows the interface up to 10.1-inches while adding a few slate-friendly tweaks. Last is the gaming dock, a simple cradle with a D-pad and buttons that connects to the Spider via Bluetooth. The phone itself is no slouch, packing 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. Oh, and that 4.5-inch screen? A stunning 1280 x 800 resolution. It’s kind of hard to believe all that is jammed into a package just 9.34mm (0.37-inches) thin. The phone is expected to launch in Korea in either November or December, though price and international availability are still up in the air. Check out the pair of videos after the break.

Continue reading KT’s Spider Concept phone is also a laptop, a tablet and a game console (video)

KT’s Spider Concept phone is also a laptop, a tablet and a game console (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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XtremeMac showcases the Soma Stand, Soma Travel and more at IFA (video)

There were lots of cool Apple-centric products to been seen around XtremeMac’s extremely orange booth at IFA this week, proving that there’s still interesting things to be done in the world of iPhone / iPad / iPod docks.

At the top of the list is the Soma Stand, a pyramid-shaped dock that folds up for portability. The accessory is mostly speaker, which faces outward, so sound isn’t blocked when you’ve got an iPad on the thing. The Soma Stand should be hitting shelves around October, running around €100 here in Europe.

The Soma Travel, meanwhile, works without the need batteries or wires, running directly off the power from your docked Apple device. XtremeMac claims that a docked iPhone 4 playing through the speakers will get about 34 hours of audio playback on a charge. As expected, the thing doesn’t get too loud, but it should do the trick for solo listening. The peripheral will run around €50 on its release.

The Tango Bar is a style-conscious sound bar with a silver grill that fits in quite nicely with the current generation iMac. The speaker pulls both audio and power from a single USB cable and outputs audio at ten watts. Like the Soma Stand, the Tango Bar will run around €100. Check out video of the Soma Stand after the break.

Continue reading XtremeMac showcases the Soma Stand, Soma Travel and more at IFA (video)

XtremeMac showcases the Soma Stand, Soma Travel and more at IFA (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Sep 2011 18:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Revo K2 is a mountainous slab of music-blasting aluminum

Revo K2

Revo’s K2 can pull in FM, DAB and DAB+ broadcasts, stream internet radio and tunes from Last.fm. Not enough? Well you can hook up your iPod, iPhone or iPad too, and pull in music wirelessly from the library on you computer. It pumps out a total of 40-watts of “room-filling” audio using four drivers powered by a pair of Class-D amps. But let’s be honest — you want’ it cause it’s pretty. The hidden-until-activated OLED screen, aluminum body, and black rubber accents are the real draw here. Sure the iOS remote apps and DLNA compatibility are nice to have, but this £299.95 ($488) radio is all about drawing attention. The K2 is available for pre-order now and will start shipping on October 17th, while the Revo RadioControl app should land in iTunes around the same time. Check out the gallery below and the PR after the break.

Gallery: Revo K2

Continue reading Revo K2 is a mountainous slab of music-blasting aluminum

Revo K2 is a mountainous slab of music-blasting aluminum originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin Lightning Review: High Fidelity, High Price, High on the Christmas List

You can get an iPod dock for $50, and it’ll do everything you’d expect: play your music, charge your phone. So how the hell can you justify spending $600 on one? You find something that surprises and delights you. More »

Engadget’s back to school guide 2011: accessories

Welcome to Engadget’s Back to School guide! We know that this time of year can be pretty annoying and stressful for everyone, so we’re here to help out with the heartbreaking process of gadget buying for the school-aged crowd. Today, we’ve got a slew of accessories — and you can head to the Back to School hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here!

Fall’s slowly, but surely creeping back in, and we bet you’ve already started to gather up the necessary gear for your return to the residence hall. Sure, you’ve got the basics covered, with a computer, smartphone, MP3 player and even a tablet at the ready. But wouldn’t it be nice to start the school year off in style with some handy accoutrements to trick out those digital crutches? Let’s face it, you’re going to need a lapdesk buffer zone between you and your laptop’s scorching heat for those countless hours spent churning out term papers. Or, an external hard drive, so you can store those full seasons of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and bring the late night funny to your stressed-out friends. However you manage to make it through the year and snag that 4.0 GPA, we’ve got a selection of accessorized aids to match your collegiate budget. Oh, and don’t forget, we’re giving away $3,000 worth of essential back to school gear to 15 readers, and you can be among the chosen few simply by dropping a comment below! Click on past the break to start browsing.

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school guide 2011: accessories

Engadget’s back to school guide 2011: accessories originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Vaio Z gets the in-house teardown treatment (video)

Another official teardown, another predictable revelation: the new Sony Vaio Z‘s viscera are thinner, flatter and, er, more compressed than those of its predecessor. But at least this dissection is performed by an actual Vaio engineer who ought to know his stuff. In the video after the break, Shinji Oguchi explains how cooling was improved using a range of tricks, like aerating the laptop’s guts via holes in the keyboard. He also splits open the innovative external media dock, which connects via Intel’s Light Peak technology and uses a discrete GPU to give the Vaio Z some gaming oomph. Finally, there’s a separate, speeded-up video of Shinji putting the whole thing back together again from memory. The poor guy must be sick of it by now.

Continue reading Sony Vaio Z gets the in-house teardown treatment (video)

Sony Vaio Z gets the in-house teardown treatment (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Aug 2011 07:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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