Hasta La Gadget!

The typical Micro Four Thirds review seems to come down to a matter of tradeoffs — size and convenience for a bit of a drop from the image quality and performance of a real DSLR. The GF1 doesn’t break that trend, but it has some pretty nice things to offer for the inquisitive interchangeable lens shopper. The most notable feature when put up against its direct competition, the E-P1, is the GF1’s built-in pop-up flash, and the primary drawback of both of these cams versus their regular Micro Four Thirds counterparts is the lack of an eye-level viewfinder, though the GF1 does offer a pricey hot-shoe mounted approximation. As for images PhotographyBLOG says the camera gets “almost everything right,” and video doesn’t look bad neither — a couple samples are after the break. The camera is no ultra-compact, but it seems another good proof for the existence of Micro Four Thirds as a DSLR alternative.

Continue reading Panasonic Lumix GF1 reviewed

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Panasonic Lumix GF1 reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

We’ve always heard that life was full of compromises, and evidently Pentax made a few when it decided to build its toughest, most rugged point-and-shoot camera of all time. On paper, the Optio W80 looked mighty promising, but in practice, the all-important image quality was found to fall short. Over at PhotographyBLOG, critics found that the camera could withstand “virtually anything” within reason, and while the 5x optical zoom and HD movie mode were both appreciated, most everything else was at least somewhat disappointing. The anti-shake system was found to simply slow the camera down, and the image quality was hamstrung by excessive noise at all ISO levels — even 100. Feel free to peek the full review down in the read link, but make sure to keep your expectations in check.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Pentax’s waterproof Optio W80 reviewed: tough as nails, ‘so-so’ image quality originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

It wouldn’t have taken a gadget guru to see this one coming: the first review of the Lanyu LY-EB01, the $98 smartbook with a 266MHz (yes, one-quarter of one GHz) ARM processor, is not especially positive, scoring 15 points out of a possible 30 at Shanzai.com. Build quality is actually reasonably highly rated, with the machine having a solid feel and, impressively, not a single moving part (unless you count electrons). After that everything goes downhill, with the keyboard said to be cramped, that tiny screen too tiny, and its Windows CE 5.0 operating system described as “Win 98 with a hangover.” Having spent a few too many nights up late cleaning up after that animal, we’re not particularly inclined to show up for this party. CE is apparently the biggest killer here, with minimal support for multimedia content, productivity apps, and even web surfing. An Android install would have made this thing into something of an interesting commodity, but as-is it seems less functional than your average smartphone. See for yourself in the video review after the break.

Continue reading Video: Lanyu’s $98 LY-EB01 smartbook reviewed, disliked

Filed under: Laptops

Video: Lanyu’s $98 LY-EB01 smartbook reviewed, disliked originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Looking for an ultra-cheap machine to take to school, are you? If you couldn’t care less about extreme portability, Toshiba’s shockingly inexpensive Satellite L355 (S7915) could be just the thing. $348 at Walmart nets you a 17-inch display (1,440 x 900), a 2.2GHz Celeron 900 CPU, Vista Basic, 3GB of RAM, a 250GB (5400RPM) hard drive, 8x DVD writer and GMA 4500M integrated graphics. The 7-pound machine was recently tested over at Laptop Mag, and critics were noticeably stunned at just how well the machine performed. The display was bright, the keyboard was more than adequate and the six-cell battery managed to hang on for over 2.5 hours in real-world testing. All in all, reviewers felt that the rig was perfectly suitable for handling schoolwork and other basic tasks, and save for the omission of a webcam, they couldn’t find any huge beefs given the uncharacteristically low MSRP. ‘Course, if you already snapped up that $298 Compaq, maybe you should just plug your ears here and pretend this whole thing never happened.

Filed under: Laptops

Walmart’s $348 17-inch Toshiba Satellite L355 reviewed: surprisingly awesome originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Much like Lenovo’s ThinkPad W700ds, we get the feeling that EVGA’s newly launched InterView Dual-Display will only cater to a select niche, but that’s not to say it can’t be a winner to at least a few individuals. The crew over at HotHardware took an in-depth look at the new rotatable, twin-LCD device, and while they certainly appreciated the 34-inch desktop in screen spanning mode, the auto re-orientation and the stunning build quality, a few minor issues held it back from greatness. For starters, the machine requires dual VGA or DVI inputs in order to run both panels from a single machine, and the fact that each LCD is only 17-inches could also turn some folks off. The most egregious choice, however, was to equip each display with just a 1,440 x 900 resolution, which isn’t even enough to showcase 1080p material. At $650, the InterView is tough to recommend to all but those who are certain they’ll take advantage of the nuances, but you can hit the read link for a few more looks and a complete video walk-through before making up your mind either way.

Filed under: Displays

EVGA’s quirky InterView dual-LCD display reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments