ASUS O!Play AIR HDP-R3 arrives with WiFi and card reader

We had a sneak peek at ASUS’ BR-HD3 just a week few back, and rather than holding out on us any longer, it looks as if the company has come forward to make things official. The O!Play Air HDP-R3 isn’t a tremendous update from the previous edition, though the addition of 802.11n WiFi and a multimedia card reader are certainly appreciated. Reportedly, the media player packs an HDMI 1.3 socket, support for just about every file format known to man and a respectable price tag of around €90 ($133). Too bad the Yanks in attendance are left in the lurch.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

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ASUS O!Play AIR HDP-R3 arrives with WiFi and card reader originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ViewSonic’s VMP70 media player does 1080p for less than a hundie

ViewSonic's VMP70 media player does 1080p for less than a hundie

The WD TV is still more or less the king of the tiny media player boxes, but now Viewsonic is getting into the game at a lower price point — and minus the whole network compatibility bit. The VMP70 is a “direct connect” media device, so it will play content from your choice of USB-compatible storage, pumping it at up to 1080p to your display over HDMI or component cables, also sporting composite for lower-def fare. It packs an S/PDIF port to get clean audio, and supports a slew of formats including the usual suspects (DivX,Xvid,H.264) along with some slightly less usual ones (RM/RMVB, DTS, OGG). It’s all available for an MSRP of $129.99, but order now and you’ll get special holiday pricing of $98.99. Operators are standing by… somewhere… probably.

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ViewSonic’s VMP70 media player does 1080p for less than a hundie originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Monster Looks Ahead to HDMI-Equipped Phones

Connector types pic.jpgMonster Cable occupies its own specialized niche in the technology industry: some swear that the company tempts nervous, uneducated buyers into paying for expensive audio/visual cables that they really don’t need. Beyond the hype, however, should be a realization that this is a company built on the need for bandwidth.

On Tuesday, Monster held what company executives billed as a “technology demo event” talking about the future of connectivity. A good deal of it was background on HDMI 1.4, and its bandwidth requirements, together with so-called “4K: resolutions that are coming down the pipe.

I found a couple of points noteworthy, however:  Brad Bramy, director of marketing for Silicon Image, predicted the 2010 and 2011 would be the year that the mobile and CE industries would begin to converge, offering the possibility that some of the 1.4 billion phones on the market would join some of the 160 million portable devices (such as camcorders) and offer HDMI out.

Motorola’s Zeppelin spotted, found to contain Android rather than hydrogen

Motorola's Zepplin spotted, found to contain Android rather than Hydrogen

Last week’s blurry little roadmap from Motorola gave us our first glimpse of the codename Zeppelin, and now just a few days later the back half of the thing has floated its way into the hands of someone at DIGI.QQ.com. The Android-powered handset is said to sport a five megapixel camera with flash, WiFi, a 3.1-inch 480 x 320 screen, HDMI output, and, in a first for Android, dual SIM slots marked GSM and CDMA — technically an R-UIM slot for CDMA, actually, which pretty much limits this thing to China. And indeed, rumor has it release will come behind the Great Wall sometime in the first quarter of next year, with worldwide shipments (of some other variant, we’d imagine) sometime later. Sure, that’s a long time to wait if your contract expiration is nigh, but we hear that Droid thing is pretty neat.

[Via AndroidOS.in]

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Motorola’s Zeppelin spotted, found to contain Android rather than hydrogen originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Designo MS gets handled, gushed over

ASUS’ stylish Designo MS monitors might not be quite on the same diet as the world’s thinnest LCDs, but they’re plenty svelte enough to collect glances of envious admiration. Suffering from a rather severe case of techno-lust, the Electric Pig crew got to handle a 23.6-inch sample and couldn’t stop talking about the sex appeal of the exterior — they were even big fans of the circular stand on the back of the display, which we suspect will have as many supporters as detractors. In spite of packing a full 1920 x 1080 resolution, the MS246 failed to impress with the quality of its output, but then if it was as gorgeous on the inside it’d have an Apple sticker on the front. Right? We kid, honestly. Calm down with a gallery of images at the read link.

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ASUS Designo MS gets handled, gushed over originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell SX2210T adds touchscreen functionality to 1080p panel (Update: multitouch!)

You asked, questioned and implored — why, with all these underpowered touchscreen all-in-ones prowling our lands, can we not get a decent standalone touchscreen monitor? Well, somebody somewhere listened, and somebody else, presumably elsewhere, leaked. Presenting the entirely unofficial, but all the same real, Dell SX2210T: a 1920 x 1080 21.5-inch panel that has HDMI and DVI inputs alongside an integrated 2 megapixel webcam and microphone for your Skyping convenience. If its 1,000:1 contrast ratio and 2ms grey-to-grey response time sound familiar, it’s because the non-touch sensitive SX2210 has been available for a while already. From the support documentation we’re looking at, you’ll need to hook up an extra USB connection for the touch interface, which doesnt appear to be multitouch, but we can always hope for a miraculous firmware update down the line, right?

Update: More info has surfaced on this monitor, which can now be purchased for $469 from Dell’s online store, and will come with multtitouch panning and zooming when attached to a Windows 7 machine.

[Thanks, Bruce and dennispg]

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Dell SX2210T adds touchscreen functionality to 1080p panel (Update: multitouch!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS working up BR-HD3 wireless HDMI streamer

ASUS has been toying around with wireless transmissions to displays for a hot minute now, and it sure looks as if the outfit is fixing to pick up where the Belkin FlyWire left off by introducing the BR-HD3. Currently in testing, the wireless HDMI streamer is said to pass along 1080p content “with no lag,” though there’s currently no official range to speak of. The real kicker, however, is the price. The aforesaid FlyWire — which worked amazingly in the trade show demos that we saw — was priced at $1,499, which is obviously far too much for most consumers. This box? £399 ($654), and it could be out as early as next month. Unfortunately, the device only supports a single HDMI input (so you can forget about connecting your Blu-ray player and Xbox 360 at the same time), but ASUS is planning to introduce a three-port version in June 2010 as well as a niche spinoff in Q1 that’ll wirelessly stream one source to three HDTVs.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

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ASUS working up BR-HD3 wireless HDMI streamer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer’s Atom 330, Win7-packin’ AspireRevo now shipping to America

Acer’s been on quite the rampage of late, pumping out more machines during this week before the Windows 7 launch than in the past few months combined. The latest rig to get the a-okay from the shipping department is the refreshed AspireRevo R3610-U9012, a machine which was originally outed back at IFA. This one ups the ante over the former with a 1.66GHz dual-core Atom 330 (as opposed to an Atom 230), Windows 7 Home Premium, NVIDIA Ion graphics, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB hard drive, six USB 2.0 sockets, an HDMI port, eSATA connector, VGA, multicard reader and gigabit Ethernet. There’s also WiFi, audio in / out and a bundled wireless keyboard and mouse, though all that oomph in such a small package will cost you $329.99 to bring home.

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Acer’s Atom 330, Win7-packin’ AspireRevo now shipping to America originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PSP to HDMI, all with one giant converter box

Props to Lenkeng for dressing up their otherwise anonymous VGA-to-HDMI converter box with a PSP-related angle — the LKV8000 comes with the necessary cables to take your PSP-2000 or above’s 480p video output and push out a 720p HDMI signal complete with stereo audio. Not a bad idea — except that we can’t think of an HDTV that lacks either component or VGA jacks and that doesn’t have a built-in scaler to do the same job. Maybe you’re just out of ports? In any event, this guy needs a Stateside distributor before we can tell you pricing or availability, so you’re stuck swapping cables for a while, Sparky.

[Via Oh Gizmo!]

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PSP to HDMI, all with one giant converter box originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kanex Mini DisplayPort Adapter will take your Mac mini to HDMI town

Kanex Mini DisplayPort Adapter will bring your Mac Mini to HDMI town

Your Mac mini cranks out its video via DisplayPort and audio via a mini Toslink. Chances are your home entertainment system doesn’t like either of those. It will, however, like the Kanex Mini DisplayPort Adapter, which can turn a DisplayPort video signal into a 1080p signal over HDMI, and will even integrate either digital or analog audio into the mix. It’s USB powered, so there’s no need for a clunky power adapter, and while $70 isn’t particularly cheap for a chubby cable ($50 for the USB analog audio model), it’s about the cleanest way to get your Mini pumping tunes and vids through your system.

[Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog]

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Kanex Mini DisplayPort Adapter will take your Mac mini to HDMI town originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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