Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve been trying to get a legitimate hands-on with Sony’s OLED-infused Walkman since we first caught the device on Wednesday, but security’s been super tight in the Sony booth and we couldn’t distract anyone long enough to unscrew the casing. So we can’t get an actual hands-on with the Walkman, but we don’t need to touch it to know that the OLED is seriously gorgeous and the UI looks super crisp. Sony’s reluctance to pull this out of its casing seems to show the player’s not ready for primetime, but we’ll keep trying to get something a bit more gratifying.

Update: Engadget Spanish got a video of the device in action, so check after the jump if you wanna see more and learn a little español.

Continue reading Sony OLED Walkman NWZ-X1000 eyes-on

Filed under: CES, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Sony OLED Walkman NWZ-X1000 eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We dropped by to get a look at Symwave’s SuperSpeed promised USB 3.0 setup, and got a real earful on the technology and its potential. Due to start shipping in devices near the end of the year, Symwave’s chipset will hold up the device-end of the transaction, communicating with SATA for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives. Since the host end of USB 3.0’s plug is fully compatible with USB 2.0 (and 1.0, as it turns out), they expect folks to start buying future-proof USB 3.0 hard drives and wait for computer manufacturers to build it in — or just grab a PCIe card if they’re really enthusiastic. With around 10 times the headroom — about 500MB a second — of USB 2.0, the real bottleneck now is hard drive speeds. In the test we saw, the drive averaged around 78MB per second, and we can easily see SSD and RAID scenarios exploring this transfer speed. Their prototype setup to accomplish this was sprawling and a little bit ghetto, but by the time this is shipping in devices the chip will be shrunk down to about the size of a stamp. Action video is after the break.

Continue reading SuperSpeed USB 3.0 in action

Filed under: Peripherals, Storage

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 in action originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We already had a little hands-on time with Logitech’s G9x, but TechRadar was able to spend a copious amount of time with it. So much time, in fact, that it wrote up a review explaining the pros and cons of owning one. The gist of it was that the G9x didn’t really mess with the original formula of the G9, and the 5,000DPI sensor was stellar under pressure. The scroll wheel and buttons were also found to be solid, and the accompanying software was also satisfactory. All in all, the G9x didn’t seem to really shock and awe, but if you’re currently in the market for a gaming mouse, this one should supposedly make it onto your “shortlist of candidates.”

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Logitech’s G9x gaming mouse reviewed, deemed worth a look originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pegatron has been pretty quiet ever since it split off from ASUS to do ODM stuff all by its lonesome — which is sort of the idea, since Pegatron’s mainly doing the behind-the-scenes manufacturing. We’re glad, however, that the company peeked out of its shell to show off these new Freescale-based netbooks. The Linux-running laptops boast 8.9-inch screens, 8 hour battery life, 8GB of storage and projected retail prices around $199, while the nettop holds similar power in a pico-style form factor. Under the hood is Freescale’s brand new ARM i.MX515 processor, which is a 1GHz chip that’s described as basically being three times faster than the iPhone. The win here is that the chip draws very little power and generates very little heat, allowing Pegatron to squeeze impressive battery life out of a very thin form factor. Freescale is working with Ubuntu to prep an ARM-Linux distro, which will hit in May, and Adobe will have an ARM happy version of Flash 10 sometime this year. Supplementing the processor are chips for DSP, 2D, 3D and 720p acceleration, which switch on and off as needed — we saw the computer in action playing 720p video smoothly while drawing a mere 0.5 watts and not even feeling warm to the touch. The limitation here is obviously straight-up processing power — it’s not very impressive, and certainly slower than Intel’s Atom — but for running an optimized Linux build and surfing the web or watching a vid, Pegatron and Freescale might’ve just found a new portability sweetspot. They’re hoping to have an OEM pick these up around May or June sometime.

Filed under: Laptops

Pegatron and Freescale team for low-power, ultra-cheap netbooks and nettops originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Samsung / Chumby digiframe was on hand at CES in a very, very early prototype form. In fact, the demo units didn’t even have a back plate covering up the innards. We were told that Samsung’s contribution is the processor within, and plans are to release it to market before the end of ’09. Our early impressions? The widgets were liquid smooth and lookin’ good; the video playback, however, was less than acceptable. Have a glance below for an early look.

Filed under: CES, Digital Cameras, Displays

Samsung / Chumby prototype digiframe hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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