Hasta La Gadget!

We heard that Japanese carrier KDDI au had unveiled a Toshiba “e-reader,” and now we’re getting a first look at it. The e-inkless Biblio has a 3.5-inch, 960 x 480 LCD, with WiFi, 7GB of onboard storage, an electronic dictionary, and a 5.1 megapixel camera. The device features a slide-out keyboard which displays a numeric pad in the portrait orientation and doubles as full QWERTY in landscape. There’s no word on pricing or availability for this bad boy as of yet, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled and our ears to the ground. One more shot after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba Biblio e-reader handled, deemed extremely small

Filed under: Handhelds

Toshiba Biblio e-reader handled, deemed extremely small originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 May 2009 23:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Japanese carrier KDDI au has now followed Softbank and NTT DoCoMo in pulling the red velvet cover off its summer 2009 devices, and as always, there are some neat tricks in here. From Toshiba, the Biblio is billed as an e-book reader; granted, it’s using an LCD instead of an E-Ink display, but it’s a doozy at 3.5 inches at 960 x 480. It features 7GB of user-accessible storage on board for books, and also has a slide-out dynamic keyboard that can display a numeric pad in the portrait orientation or full QWERTY in landscape. Moving on, the Sharp Sportio Water Beat — as its name suggests — is a waterproof sports-oriented set with advanced calorie and distance tracking (a la Nike+), but you’re still never too far from your true destiny as a couch potato thanks to the phone’s one-seg reception. Next, the Hitachi Mobile Hi-Vision Cam Wooo is the latest in the multimedia-centric Wooo series, becoming KDDI’s first phone capable of 720p video recording at 30fps — and there’s HDMI-out on board for when the time comes to enjoy your footage. Finally, the SH002 is the realization of Sharp’s solar phone concept from earlier this year, delivering one minute of talk time for every 10 minutes of charge time. There are other announcements in the mix here — eight new phones in total — but those were the killers of the bunch, and as always, this post is about as close as most North Americans will ever get to them.

[Via Engadget Japanese]

Filed under: Cellphones

KDDI au unveils summer ’09 lineup: e-books, solar power, and 720p recording originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 May 2009 23:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Toshiba today announced the release of the Portege R600-ST4203, the first ever solid-state notebook with a 512GB hard drive. The R600 weighs 2.4 pounds and measures less than an inch thick. The notebook utilizes Toshiba’s proprietary Mult-Level Cell NAND flash memory, which allows for more storage space and allows for faster boot times

TheR600 also features a backlit 12.1-inch widescreen display, a Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor, and is Energy Star 4.0 compliant. It will go onsale early next month, exclusively through Toshiba’s site for $3,499.99.

Toshiba’s Cell-based SpursEngine HD video co-processor has made plenty of appearances within monstrous gaming machines, but this marks the very first time where it has stepped out of the laptop chassis and into a portable enclosure. Granted, the language barrier is killing us here, but it seems as if the Leadtek WinFast HPVC1100 wraps a SpursEngine encoder into an on-the-go solution that can be lugged around with a standard laptop in order to churn through video while on set, in the field or on the road. Other specs include 128MB of RAM, a PCI-Express slot and a weight of 1.54 pounds; there’s no word just yet on pricing or availability. One more shot is after the break.

[Via Akihabara News]

Continue reading WinFast HPVC1100 is world’s first external SpursEngine encoder

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Video

WinFast HPVC1100 is world’s first external SpursEngine encoder originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 May 2009 08:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

If you plan to set your mom up on Facebook as a Mother’s Day gift, you might be a cheap geek.

1. Sometimes a deal seems too good, and yet there it is. Get this: Tiger Direct is selling the Westinghouse VM-42F140S 42-inch widescreen monitor for $579.99. It offers 1080p resolution, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, and three HDMI ports. Use it to give yourself a big view of the Web or connect it to your cable or satellite box for home theater viewing. Or do both. Get that big flat screen you’ve been wanting and thank me later.

2. Can you really buy a notebook with pocket change? Of course, assuming you have hundreds of dollars of coins in your pocket. Trade it all in for this Toshiba L305-S5918 notebook from Frys.com. It runs Windows Vista Home Premium and has an Intel Pentium 2.16-GHz processor, 2GB RAM, and a 160GB hard drive.

3. I’m always looking for new things to feature on Cheap Geek, since let’s face it, it’s mostly HDTVs and digital cameras. That’s why I was excited to see this 45 piece computer tool kit on sale for $19.99 (with free shipping) at NewEgg.com. Be your own IT guy with this handy set.