Jabra has just announced its next series of headsets that should appeal to both the casual music listener as well as audiophiles everywhere. There are 3 new products in Jabra’s line-up: The Jabra REVO headphones, the Jabra REVO wireless headphones, and the Jabra VOX in-ear earphones. All offer great portability without sacrificing good quality music.
Jabra has worked together with Dolby to provide an even better music listening experience to consumers. With these new line-up of headphones comes support for Dolby’s Digital Plus technology. Users can download Jabra’s exclusive sound app for iOS and Android devices to enhance their music listening experience, similar to how Beats Audio devices are optimized for Beats Audio’s headphones.
Jabra emphasizes that its new lineup of headsets are able to be “used and abused”. The Jabra REVO headphones are built using steel aluminum frame, steel hinges, a shatter-proof headband. The Jabra VOX has tangle-free, durable cables that won’t tear apart when pulled too roughly. So you can spend the small fortune to purchase these headsets, and not have to worry about them breaking within a short amount of time.
The Jabra REVO headphones and Jabra VOX earphones are now available on both Amazon and Dell’s websites. You can purchase the Jabra REVO Wireless Bluetooth headphone for $249.99, the Jabra REVO corded headphone for $199.99, and the Jabra VOX earphones for $99.99. For those of you who don’t know, Jabra is a renown brand in the audio business, and has recently won the Red Dot Design Award, an award given to the “best in design and business”.
Mad Catz launched the F.R.E.Q. 5 gaming headset just over a year ago, and it’s already skipping two model numbers ahead to the F.R.E.Q. 7. What justifies the out-of-order sequencing? The Dolby Pro Logic IIx processing, mostly. The pseudo-surround effect widens stereo and 5.1-channel signals to 7.1 channels for gamers who want the greater audio precision. Appropriately enough for its name, the F.R.E.Q. 7 also brings software-driven EQ to emphasize voice or music in computer games, as well as separate volume adjustment for chat and the main action. Pre-orders for the USB- and 3.5mm-friendly headset are available in red, white and two styles of black at $200, although you’ll have to wait until the start of Mad Catz’s fiscal 2014 — after March, for non-accountants — before it reaches your door.
Show full PR text
Mad Catz(R) Announces the F.R.E.Q.7 Surround Sound Gaming Headset for Windows(R) PC and Smart Devices
GameSmart[TM] Headset Features Dolby(R) Headphone 7.1 Surround Sound and Multiple EQ Settings
SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. (“Mad Catz”) (NYSE MKT: MCZ) announced that the F.R.E.Q.7 Surround Sound Gaming Headset featuring Dolby(R) Headphone Technology is now available for pre-order. Part of the Company’s range of GameSmart products, the F.R.E.Q.7is compatible with a wide variety of devices and is expected to ship in the first quarter of fiscal 2014.
Ideal for use with gaming, movies, music and more, the F.R.E.Q.7 features Dolby Headphone Technology and Dolby(R) Pro Logic(R) IIx technology, expanding stereo and 5.1 audio to rich 7.1 surround sound, perfect for empowering gamers with a competitive edge. In addition, PC gamers can instantly toggle between surround sound and stereo to ensure they have the right audio for their game or music.
Darren Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. stated, “Part of our GameSmart initiative, we believe the F.R.E.Q.7 offers uncompromising levels of performance and versatility which will resonate with the passionate gamer.”
The F.R.E.Q.7 features software driven EQ, providing multiple settings for gaming, voice and music as well as the ability to separately adjust chat and game volume levels. The detachable in-line cable allows for easy conversion from USB to 3.5mm to support stereo audio on iPhone(R), tablets and most Smart Devices.
Although the UltraViolet common file format (CFF) was supposed to offer the promise of download once, play anywhere sometime in 2012, that year is behind us. There is some hope that 2013 will indeed be the year your UltraViolet Digital copies, that were bundled with a disc or upgraded via a disc-to-digital program, as Dolby has proudly announced that three of the major studios have chosen Dolby Digital Plus (aka E-AC-3) as their audio codec of choice for their CFF encodes. Essentially this means the most efficient surround sound codec will give them the ability to deliver high quality downloadable versions of your movies with up to 7.1 surround sound. The following press release stops short of specific dates and titles, but we are promised thousands of movies and TV series from Sony, Universal and Warner when UltraViolet CFF launches later this year.
Changes in a speaker’s audio quality might not be quite as noticeable as a big jump in a screen’s pixel density, but the sound of a movie can have a much bigger effect on how you experience it. In short, good audio ain’t just for audiophiles. Here’s the sound technology that changed the aural universe this year. More »
It’s been a while since we last took a look at a smartphone from Acer. Today’s offering — the S500 CloudMobile — however, might not be all that unfamiliar, having first met our eyes way back at MWC in spring. This time around Acer presents us with a leaner, slicker, much more design-conscious handset, one that isn’t just about the pretty looks, either.
With a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus processor, 1GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera and a 720p display, all for £289 SIM-free, it’s pitched against similarly specced phones like the HTC One S. In short, it’s yet another alternative for people seeking a full-featured smartphone, except it comes without the pocket-draining price tag. More importantly for Acer, however, is the chance to get back onto people’s smartphone radars. So, now that the CloudMobile has gently drifted over our shores, does it have us looking to the sky, or putting on our raincoats of indifference? Read on to find out.
If it were ever time for another Android tablet with a thin frame and a 10.1-inch display, it’s now, and it’s Huawei who’s bringing this device into the world. Huawei makes a valiant effort at creating a tablet with the MediaPad 10 FHD, and it does indeed bring on an impressive package, especially for media playback. If you’re looking for the most massively impressive tablet on the market – this isn’t it – but if you do have this device on your radar and wonder if it’s worth the cash, let me give you a spoiler: it’s definitely nice to watch a movie on, but that’s just about where it ends.
Hardware
The 10.1-inch display on this device has 1920 x 1200 pixels and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The tablet is 8.8mm thin and weighs 580g – that’s just a bit heavier than it it seems like it should be given the aesthetics of the device. This just means that the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, which is 20g heavier than the MediaPad, seems light simply because it’s got plastic on the outside, giant-looking speakers on the front, and a pen built-in. The MediaPad 10 FHD on the other hand does too good a job of hiding it all – but the speakers can certainly be heard loud and clear.
The speakers on this device are nice – Dolby Surround Sound back them up and you do indeed get some impressive blasts when you hold the device the right way or have it propped up with a stand or up against a wall. What I mean is that, like the rest of the past generation of tablets out there, the speakers on this unit are facing the back. Even though we would like them to face the front, they still sound nicer than the vast majority of the smart devices out there – and that includes smartphones.
This device is available in 8, 16, or 32GB internal memory configurations – there’s no microSD slot, so choose wisely on that internal number right out of the box. The battery is 6600 mAh large, you’ll be connecting to the device for charging with a unique port at the bottom. The bottom of this tablet also shows a couple of ports that allow for the keyboard accessory which – sadly – we have not worked with at this time.
The display on this device is relatively sharp at 1920 x 1200 pixels, that placing the pixel density at 224 PPI, well below the iPad 4th gen’s 263.92 PPI and in a different league compared to the Google Nexus 10 which has 300 PPI. If you’ve seen neither of these tablets up close and personal before, you’ll find the MediaTab FHD to be rather bright and sharp.
The tablet is not unlike many, many other high-end tablets on the market right this minute, coming rather close to the original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in its appearance and feel – it’s as if Huawei has taken a dash of Apple metal-love and placed it in a mixing pot with the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and out popped the MediaPad we’re looking at today.
Software and Performance
The Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich you see here is ever-so-slightly modified beyond its vanilla state. It’s not the abilities you’ll have added, but the slight side-steps you’ll be taking that really show you where Huawei was going with the user interface here. One example is the complete absence of an apps drawer – you’ll have everything out in the open here like MIUI or iOS rather than home screens and an app drawer separate.
There are also some slight changes in your standard settings in how you’ll be able to work with your device, but nothing to absolutely write home about. This device is not made to be competing directly with the US market for tablet dominance, so it’s not difficult to see why Huawei wouldn’t push too hard on the features list, especially in the software. You can play movies you’ve downloaded or transferred to the tablet with the standard movie playing app, you can play some MP3s if you wish, or you can straight up rely on Google’s suite of media-playing apps, which certainly is a viable option with Google’s family as mature as it is at the moment.
Above you’re seeing the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD next to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a 3rd generation iPad with Retina display. They don’t look or feel all that different from one another when they’ve got their displays turned off, that’s for sure. See if you can name each tablet by their corners and edges!
Then have a peek at a few benchmarks taking note that this tablet works with Huawei’s own quad-core processor (quad-core 1.4GHz Cortex-A9 to be exact) but doesn’t quite beat out the competition in a standardized competition. You’ll be able to run many high-powered applications here but don’t expect much more power than you had with your NVIDIA Tegra 2 tablet – don’t be fooled by a simple addition of a couple cores to the name. Have a peek once more at the hands-on video above to see how well it does in everyday switching between apps and you’ll see the truth.
Camera and Battery
This device works essentially as well as the rest of the top-tier Android universe as far as battery life goes, with a massive 6600mAh battery under the hood to keep you up all night. What happens with a tablet – unless you carry it with you all day long – is that you leave it asleep for the major part of your day. When you do this, the machine gets a relatively unfair advantage over the smartphone you’ve got in your pocket as far as battery life goes because it’s not getting punched in the gut all day long with mobile data. It’s true too with this Huawei tablet: because you’re not prone to using it all day long, you’ll be getting several days of battery life if you use it regularly (or 26 days if you don’t use it at all). If you’re a heavy user, expect as short a battery life as 8 hours.
The camera is OK, certainly nothing to write home about. It’s utterly blown away by competitors such as the HTC Jetstream and the Google Nexus 10 tablet from Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1‘s camera takes the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD to the cleaners even though the Note has 5 megapixels under the hood and the MediaPad has 8 – food for thought. The video it captures, on the other hand, is fairly nice.
Wrap-up
This device is a rather nice addition to the Android tablet universe, and certainly offers up a unique option where otherwise you’d be handling either a Samsung tablet or going over to Apple for an iPad. If you’re thinking about grabbing the highest quality Android tablet on the market today, I would still personally point you toward the Galaxy Note 10.1 simply due to its much more well-rounded ecosystem and matured device family. [See: “Smart Device specs are over, long live the ecosystem” column for more information.]
If on the other hand you want to take a fresh look at the Android tablet and don’t mind that your device looks strikingly similar to an original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Huawei is here to back you up. The speaker system is strong, the display is fairly nice, and you’ll definitely be the only one on your block with this tablet, guaranteed. The cost of this device for anyone outside of China will certainly be prohibitive at $600 USD or more, on the other hand, so unless you can get this machine for next-to-nothing, you’ll be better off skipping it and waiting for Huawei to present a more complete package – and a wider release, to boot.
The next Star Trek big-time motion picture event “Star Trek Into Darkness” has been announced to be working with none other than Dolby Atmos for superior sound. The production teams at Bad Robot and director J.J. Abrams have let it be known that they’ll be integrating the Dolby Professional Reference Monitor PRM-4200 into their pre and post-production workflows and that the Dolby Atmos audio system will bring the whole Star Trek into Darkness soundtrack experience to a whole new galaxy. This film has been announced to be hitting theaters on May 17th, 2013.
This announcement has Paramount Pictures, a division of Viacom Inc., bringing this news to ShowEast 2012 where they’ve made it clear that they’re aiming for the latest in technical achievements as well as cinematic storytelling with this new beast of a film. With the Dolby hardware and software they’ll be using here, the biggest and the best can be a reality, especially since Academy Award winner Andy Nelson and multiple Academy Award nominee Anna Behlmer are up in the re-recording mix laboratory for the Dolby Atmos mix.
Academy Award winner Ben Burtt and multiple Academy Award nominee Matt Wood are the supervising sound editors for this project as well, bringing a revolution to the sound experience with a “new level of creative control” afforded by Dolby. This experience is said to be bringing the “full impact of the sound mix” regardless of the configuration of the theater in which you’re experiencing Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013.
“We are in the incredible and lucky position to have access to the latest technology, the best possible tools, and the most talented artists in the business. We are therefore thrilled to announce that we will be employing the amazingly immersive Dolby Atmos audio system to bring the Star Trek into Darkness soundtrack to life.” – Abrams
Oddly this does not mean that every theater will have a certified Dolby Atmos experience – a list of theaters selected to show “Star Trek into Darkness in Dolby Atmos” will be released closer to the release date of the film. This film was written by Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci and is produced by the same trio along with Abrams. The film will be produced by the four through Bad Robot Productions and, again, will be directed by Abrams. SlashGear will be continuing to cover Star Trek Into Darkness until it’s released – stay tuned!
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is shaping up to be a groundbreaking event for film technology. First, we heard that Director Peter Jackson shot the film at 48 frames-per-second, and now he’s telling us that the film’s sound will be mixed for Dolby’s ultra-intense new Atmos system. More »
The CinemaCon crowd may not have been keen on 48fps footage of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but we defy anyone to say they don’t want the best sound possible. A select few will get just that, as Dolby and Peter Jackson’s own Park Road Post Production have announced the film will be mixed for the speaker-packed Atmos technology. If you’re lucky enough to live near one of the select establishments it’s installed in, we doubt you’ll be grumbling about the immersive audio, even if the frame rate makes those orcs look unsettlingly real.
Update: That link of “select establishments” is somewhat out of date and, although the official list of locations you’ll be able to see The Hobbit in Atmos has yet to be released, Dolby says there should be between 80 and 100 screens capable of delivering the over-the-top audio experience by the film’s debut.
Although ZTE is no stranger to the US, it hasn’t been as quick to embrace LTE-based 4G as some of its rivals. The new Anthem 4G for MetroPCS puts the company back in sync, and then some. In addition to the faster speeds, the company’s first American LTE phone touts a comparatively speedy dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, a 4.3-inch, 800 x 480 screen and perks like HDMI video output with Dolby Surround sound. Our only immediate reservation is the use of Android 2.3, which really shouldn’t be on any shipping devices almost two years after it first left Google’s doors. Any takers may forgive the old software when they see their bill, though — the Anthem 4G’s $219 contract-free price will put it at the more affordable end of MetroPCS’ spectrum when it arrives sometime within the next few weeks.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
