Hasta La Gadget!

JVC Kenwood is releasing 2 new headphone models HA-SZ2000 and HA-SZ1000 in late May.

They feature their new head phone structure “Live Beat System” that makes it possible to have both real deep bass sound and high-resolution medium and high pitch sound.

The HA-SZ2000 model is especially focused on details. For example, it has a silver-plated wire as its core wire to enhance sound resolution, and plush leather for the earpad material.

HA‐SZ2000
Price: around 35,000 yen
Output sound pressure level: 108dB/1mW
Frequency range: 4Hz ~ 35,000Hz
Impedance: 16Ω
Weight: 480g

HA‐SZ1000
Price: around 25,000yen
Output sound pressure level: 107dB/1mW
Frequency range: 5Hz ~ 33,000Hz
Impedance: 16Ω
Weight: 450g

From Sharp comes the latest from its AQUOS line with an emphasis on compatibility and coordination with smartphones – the MX Series LC-24MX1, due to be released on May 30. It comes in 3 colors: green, orange and silver.

Sharp announced the release yesterday and the LC-24MX1 was reviewed by ASCII.jp which I would like to share with you.

Strictly in terms of viewing specs, there is nothing special here. It’s a relatively small size 23.6 inch with standard 1366×758 dot resolution. There is 1 built-in tuner and is compatible with USB HDD and can record for a long period of time.

The best characteristic of the TV seems to be the built-in 2.1ch speaker. When the TV is in standby mode, they speakers can be accessed through the user’s smartphone and automatically come alive to play music from the smartphone.

The speaker unit is 5W+5W output, with a 10W subwoofer, built by Pioneer. When connected to a smartphone, it turns to “music mode” which will make better high pitch and low pitch sound than regular TV audio play mode, which helps make the TV audio better to listen to.

Also when playing Blu-ray, surround-sound mode can be employed.

So, despite its small size and and basic resolution, the viewing experience is fairly enjoyable.

Through its Miracast functionality, images from your smartphone can be wirelessy broadcast to the TV screen, and it can be used as a custom remote control device.

Another big feature of this TV is introduction of the specialized “AQUOS Connect” application. The TV screen and your smartphone screen can simultaneously show the same content.

It will automatically compensate for the horizontal TV screen interacting with the vertical smartphone screen to properly show content on both. And interaction of sound between TV and smartphone can be adjusted by waving the smartphone.

AQUOS Connect also gives “Keyword Search” functionality. Keywords related to a TV program currently on air are automatically extracted, and you can search further information by selecting a keyword you want to know about.

AQUOS Connect can be used through both wireless Miracast and wired MHL, but when you use wired MHL you need to have a wired internet environment.

AQUOS Connect provides an Android version and iOS version, however iOS devices are not compatible with Miracast or MHL. So in that case, a wired internet connection is needed for Miracast and HDMI output adapter is needed for MHL.

The bottom line assessment by Ascii is that it is useful for (mainly younger) people who are used to accessing and viewing content through their smart device and wanting to use the TV as a larger, viewing aid, with better audio, for their content.

Estimated price: 69,800 yen
Display: 24 inch (1,366 x 768)
Size: 56.5 × 17.5 × 41.8cm
Weight: 7kg
Tuner: Digital terrestrial broadcasting, BS/CS, analog broadcasting
Audio output: Max 20W (5W＋5W＋10W)

GEANEE released a record/cassette player “TCE-26WPC”. You can play records and cassette tapes on the audio player and digitally save audio files extracted from your old records and cassette tapes via a USB connection.

Price: Around 7,000 yen
Size: W 317 x D 273 x H 146 mm
Weight: 3.75 kg
Turn table: Belt-drive turntable
Rotation: 33 or 45 rpm
Built-in speaker: 2W (1W+1W)
PC OS: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7

Epson started selling its new sliding style Windows 8 notebook PC “Endeavor S series NY10S” today on their online shopping site Epson Direct Shop.

Sliding the 11.6 inch full HD touch panel screen back and forth, “Endeavor S series NY10S” transforms between being a note PC and a tablet.

It has an Intel Core i7-3537U processor as CPU, 8GB RAM, and 124GB SSD built-in.

It is 19.8 mm thin and weights 1.2 kg when it’s in a tablet form.

Price: About 120,000 yen
OS: Windows 8 64bit
CPU: Intel Core i7-3537U processor
LCD: 11.6 inch full HD (1920 x 1080)
Touch panel: 10 point multi touch (capacitive sensing method)
Built-in battery: 6 hours battery life

Sanwa Direct just released a Bluetooth compliant keychain that prevents you from losing your iPhone and keys. By connecting it to your iPhone wirelessly, it works in the following ways:

1) When your keychain is missing, you can ring an alarm on the keychain by controlling your iPhone.
2) When your iPhone is missing, you can ring an alarm on the iPhone by controlling the keychain.
3) When your iPhone and keychain are more than a certain distance (set by you), both start ringing an alarm.
4) When you are not holding your iPhone, the keychain lets you know that you have calls.
5) When you lose the keychain and don’t know where you lost it, a map will be created on your iPhone telling you where you lost the keychain.

The retail price is 2,980 yen. Before starting to use it, you need to download a free application called “HiProx”. If there is any function above that you don’t need, you can turn it off in the settings. The battery lasts 3-6 months before needing replacement.