Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Plasma market getting smaller and higher-end, but it's still alive

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/13/plasma-market-getting-smaller-and-higher-end-but-its-still-her/


Pioneer's decision to axe the Kuro earlier this year set off a wave of gloomy predictions about the future of plasma, but we've never really bought into it -- and it sounds like the product planners at LG, Samsung, and Panasonic haven't either. HD Guru asked reps from each company for their thoughts on the state of the plasma market, and the responses were pretty similar across the board: plasma remains the connoisseur's choice overall, and it still makes up just about half of 50-inch and bigger sales. Of course, that means that plasma's niche is shrinking and moving higher-end while LCDs more or less take over the rest of HDTV market, but until something like OLED develops into a true competitor we think plasma's around for a while. Check out the full company responses at the read link.

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Plasma market getting smaller and higher-end, but it's still alive originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 14:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:10 PM

MSI X-Slim X340 gets reviewed, loved on - despite the 'flexy' keyboard

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/13/msi-x-slim-x340-gets-reviewed-loved-on-despite-the-flexy-ke/


We've had our eyes on MSI's answer to the MacBook Air (yeah, we said it!) for a while now -- and that includes a shady, late night hands-on photo session live from the Neville Island Motel and a horrifying back-alley vivisection, to boot. Now it looks like the crazy kids at Laptop are dead set on having their say on the X340 13.4-inch ultra-portable -- and why not? The more the merrier! According to the reviewer, what this character lacks in processing power, it more than makes up for in price, weight, and battery life -- at 2.9 pounds the device is certainly lighter than the Air, and its over three hours on a single charge are none too shabby. Even the 1.4GHz Core 2 Solo processor (coupled here with 2GB memory and running Windows Vista) is characterized as "snappy." Sadly, the keyboard is said to be flimsy and graphic performance pretty weak -- but still, at $899 (price as reviewed) this is sure to be right up some of your proverbial alleys. Interested? Hit that read link for all the gory details.

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MSI X-Slim X340 gets reviewed, loved on - despite the 'flexy' keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 16:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:09 PM

Verizon MiFi 2200 review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/13/verizon-mifi-2200-review/

We've been following Novatel's MiFi with bated breath since its December announcement, and the totally pocketable 3G / WiFi router has finally graced a US carrier. Though it'll ultimately come in a variety of physical designs, bands, and radio technologies for different carriers and parts of the world, the MiFi 2200 for Verizon naturally packs CDMA with EV-DO Rev. A, which means uplink speeds should be reasonably speedy to go along with your 1Mbps-plus downloads. Obviously, the concept of a credit card-shaped object connecting up to five WiFi-enabled devices to high-speed internet from wherever the road takes you is an incredibly intoxicating one -- but does the MiFi 2200 deliver? Get the whole story over on Engadget Mobile!

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Verizon MiFi 2200 review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 12:53 PM

Zotac Ion-based IONITX-A SFF motherboard review roundup

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/13/zotac-ion-based-ionitx-a-sff-motherboard-review-roundup/


Jonesing for a new small form factor PC, are you? Not so keen on selecting a pre-fabricated unit? If you definitely fit the bill here, it's worth taking a gander at Zotac's recently released IONITX-A motherboard. As the first of its breed to actually ship, a whole lot is riding on its solder points, and according to reviews found 'round the web, it's done a satisfactory job of living up to expectations. The test bench-abusin' kids over at Hot Hardware found that Zotac's board (and the included dual-core Atom 330 CPU) performed "as expected," notching results that were "significantly better than any of the single core Atom 230-based systems." The unique DC power input was also lauded, and the silent nature made this a perfect candidate for a low-power, highly-capable carputer building block. All in all, this here mobo won't transform your life, but it's certainly a welcome extra in the all-too-stale DIY SFF market. Check the links below for all the bar charts you can handle.

Read - Hot Hardware ("most appealing of the Ion-based products")
Read - PC Perspective ("an impressive motherboard for its size")
Read - The Tech Report ("as good as the Ion platform gets")
Read - Tom's Hardware ("it's most promising destination is in the HTPC space")

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Zotac Ion-based IONITX-A SFF motherboard review roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 08:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 11:40 AM

12-inch MSI U200 thin-and-light appears a day early?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/13/12-inch-msi-u200-thin-and-light-appears-a-day-early/

Well, well, look what we've got; a new CULV-based thin-and-light laptop from MSI. The image comes by way of Engadget Chinese whose trusted source lays out the following specs: a 12-inch, 1366 x 768 pixel LED-backlit display, with GMA 4500M integrated graphics, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 2GB of DDR2 memory, and 250GB disk all wrapped up in a bigger-than-a-netbook but not-quite-a-laptop chassis weighing just 1.4-kgs (3-pounds) with paltry 3-cell battery. We expect pricing to be announced tomorrow but we'll bet dollars to doughnuts that it'll be about $700.

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12-inch MSI U200 thin-and-light appears a day early? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 09:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 11:40 AM

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