Archive for the 'Media PCs' Category

« Previous Entries

Inteset’s “Julia” touchscreen-based MCE unit

Monday, September 11th, 2006

Filed under: ,

Inteset continues its unique naming scheme for its MCE devices, adding the Julia to its line-up to compliment its Denzel, Vana and, um, TeraRAID units. This one's particularly notable for the inclusion of a touchscreen display, which is no easy feat given Media Center's decidedly touchscreen-unfriendly interface. To get around that, Inteset whipped up some custom pop-up menus and keyboards so you can navigate your way around without cluttering up your desk or countertop. The unit itself packs a 17-inch widescreen display, along with a CD/DVD drive, TV and FM tuners, 80GB hard drive, and Ethernet and WiFi capabilities. While the Julia's designed to work in conjunction with Inteset's other media server products, it'll also apparently work as a standalone unit, which would suggest it's got a bit more under the hood, though exactly what isn't clear. Neither are price nor availability, unfortunately.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

Medion’s Akoya RIM 2550: 22-inches of all-in-one Media Center

Friday, September 8th, 2006

Filed under:

Medion is one of those low-end, consumer electronics manufactures whose products sell in the likes of Aldi, Woolworths, and Toys 'R Us around Europe. Still, they bring some design cred as demonstrated in this Akoya RIM 2550. This unspecified "Dual Core" all-in-oner brings Windows Media Center to that big 22-inch display and features 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, a DVD-burner, ExpressCard slot and suite of USB and Firewire jacks, Gigabit Ethernet, an integrated webcam in the bezel, and a dual analog/digital TV-tuner for good PVR'in fun. Yeah, the keyboard is wireless, but if you're a lefty just forget about using the touchpad, unless of course you bat from both sides of the plate. No drop date but expect the 2550 to pull €1,399 / $1,785 sometime before the sun burns itself out.

[Via gadgetzone (in Dutch)]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

Microsoft warns Europe of possible Vista delays

Friday, September 8th, 2006

Filed under: , , ,

First the PS3, now this. Microsoft is warning that their oft delayed, Windows Vista operating system might be delayed even further in Europe due to "unclear antitrust guidance" from the European Commission. Apparently this all began in a letter from the commission to Steve Ballmer in March with concerns that some of the features in Vista would breach the same laws XP violated a few years back. According to Microsoft, they proposed some changes but never heard back, saying "Once we receive the commission's response, we will know whether the commission is seeking additional product design changes that would result in delay in Europe." Tit for tat, a spokesman for the commission's antitrust division said Microsoft's statement was "misleading to imply that the commission could be the cause of delays. It is not up to us to tell Microsoft what it has to do to Vista, the onus is on Microsoft to design its product in conformity with European competition laws, which it is well aware of." Meow! So is this just legal posturing by Microsoft in their never-ending European antirust battle or a bit of preemptive blame-shifting in case of further delay? We don't know. But hey, Europe, consider yourselves warned.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

Hitachi’s PriusOne and PriusAIR do the Merom bump

Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

Filed under: ,

So in addition to the Prius K series of laptops, Hitachi brought the Core 2 Duo to their Prius Air type R and Prius One Desktop W. At the top of the Air type R series is the AR35RS2 Windows Media Center PC which features a 26-inch LCD with 1360x768 resolution, 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo E6300, Intel G965 Express graphics, 1GB memory (expandable to 2GB), 320GB of disk, dual-layer multi-drive, and integrated terrestrial digital TV tuner. That model demands ¥340,000 (about $2,930) and ready to ship October 26. Sure, lesser configs are available for less with a 19-inch display and Pentium 4524, but why settle? The Prius One type W also got a shot of Merom for more all-in-one PC fun. This series comes in W and S flavors with the AW37W2S bringing a 20-inch 1360x768 display, 1.66HGz Core 2 Duo T5500, Intel 945GM Express graphics, 1GB memory (2GB max) that generous 320GB of disk, dual-layer multi-drive, and integrated digital/analog TV tuner which provides a TV-mode to view the boob while the computer is off. The S brings much the same only with a lowly (and much cheaper) Celeron M 410 proc and 17-inch 1280x1024 display. Expect to fork over about ¥290,000 (about $2,499) for the W or ¥210,000 (about $1,810) for the S when they drop in September. Picture of the Air after the break.


Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

Philips LX1000 micro Media Center

Sunday, September 3rd, 2006

Filed under: ,

Philips is about to try their hand against the ubiquitous Mac mini with an ultra tiny desktop of their own, called the LX1000, and from what we can tell, unlike many minuscule units in its class, this thing is no slouch. Featuring a 1.8GHz AMD Turion 64, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB drive, integrated analog/digital TV tuner, WiFi, a dual-layer DVD burner, and NVIDIA GeForce 6600 graphics in a 195 x 58 x 212mm (7.6 x 2.2 x 8.3-inch) form factor, it might actually make for an itty bitty Media Center with a dash of horsepower. The £999 (about $1500) price might deter those who were considering a Boot Camped $800 mini, but stacked specs don't come for free.

P.S. -It would appear our eagle-eyed readers spotted this as being a rebadge of the Little Lluon. Nicely done, chaps! Though that doesn't make it any less sexay.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

ATI, nVIDIA graphics cards trump dedicated DVD players

Saturday, September 2nd, 2006

Filed under: ,

Judging the quality of a moving image is an extremely subjective task, so it's with a little trepidation that we report on Hardware.Info's test which compared two graphics cards with twelve dedicated HDMI-enabled DVD players on the same Samsung 24-inch LCD monitor. The tests found that the PC -- which alternated between a ATI Radeon X1900XTX running Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 and nVIDIA's GeForce 7900GTX running the card's PureVideo software -- offered substantially better video quality than the DVD players, but here's where the subjectiveness comes in: the testers chose to rely entirely on the HQV benchmark DVD -- which requires a human to rate each test -- to discern the quality of the playback. The test was also exclusively based around the HQV DVD, with not a single "real world" test in sight. Unsurprisingly, the ATI / nVIDIA setups blew away the DVD players with scores of 118 and 93 respectively: the closest score from the dedicated DVD players was the Panasonic DVD-S97 at 68, which goes for around $250 online. The reviewers concluded that people should ditch their DVD players for media center PC based on the results of their image quality tests: a conclusion that some would take issue with, mainly because there are a dozen different factors other than image quality that can contribute to a good movie experience -- but it's interesting to note all the same.

[Via Slashdot]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

AOpen opens the door to Core 2 Duo miniPCs

Wednesday, August 30th, 2006

Filed under: ,

AOpen, creator of the Mac mini-mimicking miniPC, is the latest PC manufacturer to announce that it'll be using Intel's notebook version of the Core 2 Duo processor, this time in its ultra small form factor PCs. From now on, the company's MP945-X, -VX, and -VXR PCs, along with a range of Series i975 and i945 motherboards, will all support Core 2 Duo. If you bought one of these products before this announcement and fancy getting in on the Core 2 Duo action, then all you need to do to add support is grab a new BIOS and set of drivers from the official site. UK-based miniPC reseller Evesham has already offered up some shots of a Core 2 Duo T7200 (2GHz, 4MB cache) and Windows MCE '05-equipped model which also has a built-in digital TV tuner, 1GB of RAM, a 100GB 2.5-inch hard drive, along with a bundled remote control. Finally, the DVI port at the back runs off an integrated graphics chip, which isn't much of a surprise considering the machine's diminutive 50 x 165 x 165mm dimensions, although the £799 incl. VAT price tag doesn't make us feel any better about it.

[Via TrustedReviews]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

HP’s Pavilion dv9000t media laptop

Wednesday, August 30th, 2006

Filed under: ,

HP's latest model of their media power laptop lineup, the dv9000 series, now has one more option for users to configure when they go to order theirs: Core 2 Duo. It's not as though we haven't seen enough of these Core 2 Duo machines already this week (and truth be told, we still don't see a C2D option on their site), but we assume the new dv9000t will be configurable with the same as their previous dv9000 release (the one that featured an AMD Turioun 64 X2) with a 17-inch 1680 x 1050 or 1440 x 900 widescreen display, dual SATA RAID drives, 256MB GeForce Go 7600 graphics, 5-in-1 media reader, 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth, dual-layer DVD burner with LightScribe, ExpressCard/54, HDMI, and the like. Weights start at 7.8 pounds, thickness at 1.57-inches, and prices at $1,200.

[Via Laptop Mag]

Update: did we mention that the dv6000t with Core 2 Duo is out, too? Because it is, and Laptop mag even has a review of one. We think you know what to expect, yeah?
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

Engadget Podcast 086 – 08.29.2006

Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

Filed under: , , , , , , , , ,

Just what happens when some dude on the internet cracks Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM scheme and sets a few major online media companies reeling, the Zune gets outed on the FCC, Apple settles, kisses, and makes up with Creative, then recalls 1.8 million Sony-built batteries, Dell axes the DJ Ditty, and the TiVo Series3 gets leaked on the internets? One bizarre week for news, and Engadget Podcast 86. Enjoy!

Get the podcast
 [iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (MP3).
[RSS] Add the Engadget Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically (MP3).
[MP3] Download the show (MP3).
[AAC] Download the enhanced show (AAC).
[OGG] Download the show (OGG).

Hosts: Peter Rojas and Ryan Block

Producer: Trent Wolbe

Music: Solvent - Instructograph (Ghostly International)

Format: 50:01, 22.9 MB, MP3

Program:
00:58 - FairUse4WM strips Windows Media DRM!
10:52 - Zune revealed by FCC as "Toshiba 1089"
15:43 - Apple and Creative settle, Apple forks out $100m
22:00 - Apple to recall 1.8 million Sony-made batteries
25:25 - TiVo Series 3 beta box snapped in the wild!
27:15 - TiVo Series 3 coming September 17th for $799?
32:28 - Dell finishes off its MP3 offerings, axes the Ditty
36:30 - Hands-on with the Optimus mini three
40:25 - Hands on with the Logitech VX and MX Revolution

LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)
LISTEN (OGG)

Contact the podcast: 1-888-ENGADGET, Engadget (Gizmo Project) or podcast at engadget dawt com

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

LG’s got Blu-ray fever: coughs-up media, player, desktop, and regurgitates writer

Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

Filed under: , , , ,

LG's been all over the place in the next gen optical disc battles. Today they bring the Blu-ray love in a big way with the introduction of BD media and three consumer level devices: The XPION x600 series PCs, the GBW-H10N Blu-ray burner we've seen before, and a mysterious living room player lacking any deets at all. LG tidied up the GBW-H10N branding by slapping on the "Super Multi Blue" moniker and dropping 'em in their new XPION X600 series desktops. LG, who apparently missed the design memo from Redmond, chose to dress the desktop in drab, and feature Intel's 64-bit, 3.4GHz dual-core Pentium D945 proc, a 320GB disk, 1GB DDR2 memory and nVIDIA's HDCP-enabled GeForce 7900GT graphics cards with 256MB of onboard memory. So yeah, no matter what those media player ISVs decide, these boxes will pump full 1080p HD vid off commercial BDs. Look out for the Super Multi Blue drive and X600 series PCs to drop first in Korea, Germany and France with their Blu-ray media and player scheduled for release sometime before the end of the year.

[Via Akihabara News]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Posted in Media PCs | Comments Off

« Previous Entries