Hasta La Gadget!

Looking for an… alternative after being given a 1080p-streaming brick by Western Digital earlier this month? A.C. Ryan has a new option, the Playon!HD Mini. It’s a smaller version of the bigger Playon!HD that seems to lose only its internal drive bay, card reader, and €50, meaning this one retails for €99 — about $144. Yes, a good bit more than the WD TV, but it hits all the right marks, including 1080p output over HDMI or component, support for streaming media or USB mass storage, and even the ability to tune into Shoutcast and other undisclosed “internet feeds.” The company also promises “very active new firmware releases” which, without a little restraint, could be a recipe to repeat WD’s disaster.

[Thanks, Gavie]

A.C. Ryan’s Playon!HD Mini player is tiny, still pushes 1080p worth of pixels originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Archos 5 Internet Tablet hasn’t had the smoothest ride into the commercial realm, but thanks to a few firmware updates, the Android-based player seems to finally be humming along just fine. That said, not everyone’s interested in shelling out big bucks for a capacious version, which makes the latest edition perfect for those simply curious to see how Google’s mobile OS fares on a portable media player. The 8GB model has surfaced over at Radio Shack, bringing with it all the goods on the larger siblings but with far less internal space. The best part? That $249.99 price tag (and that little “In Stock” icon beside it).

Android-based Archos 5 Internet Tablet surfaces in 8GB form for $250 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boxee‘s growing up! The media center’s hit beta status, and with the new Greek letter comes a revamped UI and some new functionality. For starters, the front page has been redesigned to highlight the menu, your personal queue, featured content, and recommendations that are fed in from Facebook or Twitter. For video, local files and online content are integrated into the same menu, can be filtered by free or pay content, and television shows are now sorted by season and episode. We’re particularly fond of the new global menu for quick shuffling through the menu and to shortcuts. At an event tonight in New York, the company’s also announced three new apps: The Escapist, Suicide Girls, and most interesting of all, “TV Guide to the Web” Clicker. On the more technical side of things, the graphical backend has switched from OpenGL to DirectX, and NVIDIA’s been cooperating to better optimize the software for use on the Ion platform via DXVA and Flash 10.1. Good changes all around, except we did just hear that it won’t support 64-bit in Karmick Koala — sorry, Ubuntu fans. As previously mentioned, there’s no wide release available yet, so you’ll just have to live vicariously through the gallery below!

Boxee Beta unveiled: refreshed UI, DirectX support, and new content partners originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ready to start lusting after a new smartphone? If Creative has its way, you’ll soon be enjoying Full HD video on a 3.5 / 4G device, with built-in WiFi, 5 megapixel autofocus camera, accelerated 3D graphics, and mini-HDMI and Composite video outputs. The newly announced 3.1-inch, multitouch-capable Zii Trinity has been designed by Creative subsidiary Ziilabs, and will be licensed out to clients who’ll be able to customize a Zii-optimized Android install and Plaszma interface. As if we haven’t got enough smartphone ecosystems knocking about already, this also marks the introduction of ZiiLife, which aims to be both a content delivery and productivity suite. Powered by the ARM-based ZMS-05 or ZMS-08, the new handset actually seems destined to perform plenty of KIRF and grey market duties, judging by Creative’s “strategic partnerships” with Chinese manufacturers, but that might be no bad thing as, according to Gartner, the grey market is booming right now.

Zii Trinity mobile platform packs 1080p punch, looking for OEM love originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like the wait for a real HD PMP is finally over: Hallods of Japan has just released their F43 MP4 player featuring a 4.3-inch 1280×720 screen, easily beating other sub-5-inch, 480p screens found on big names like the Archos 5 and Viewsonic’s VPD400. Under that sharp screen is 8GB of internal storage and a hot-swappable microSD slot, along with a battery life of about four hours and ten hours for video and music, respectively. Like many PMPs out there the F43 supports videos encoded in MPEG4, FLV, RMVB and DivX-WVGA. Sure, there’s the ironic lack of HDMI output, but for ¥16,800 ($188) this is still a pretty good deal. Let’s just hope Hallods will send them over to the US soon.

[Via i4u]

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Video

Hallods F43 MP4 player packs a 4.3-inch 720p screen, outed in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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