Best Gadgets World

Posted Feb 27th 2008 12:58PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
It’s confirmed: Apple’s next event is scheduled for March 6th, next Thursday. It’ll be a Town Hall event; obviously new MacBooks and MacBook Pros aren’t to be expected, but the unambiguous “iphone software roadmap” and the image above should help guide our assumptions as to what will be discussed. The SDK’s a given, but “exciting new enterprise features,” eh?

Posted Feb 27th 2008 10:27AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Laptops
What’s more fun than seeing a highly-anticipated device get the full-on dissection treatment? Upgrading it, of course. Cloudbooker forum member Azazel got a Cloudbook to play with and is doing just that: ripping apart the laptop piece by piece for you viewing pleasure, while also upgrading the RAM and documenting the process. He’s already spotted a way to add Bluetooth internally, and how to open up the laptop without voiding your warranty, but we’ve still got a long ways to go before we start to see Eee PC-level hackerdom.

Read - Part 1
Read - Part 2

We saw the drive change to an officially dead product and now it seems Microsoft is just trying to get rid of them. For anyone still willing to purchase a drive that belongs to the now dead hd dvd format, Best Buy is currently selling the Xbox 360 drive for just $50.

While it may not be a good next generation disc player, for $50 this could still make a nice addition to an Xbox, depending on where the game system lives. In a room with little space such as a college dorm, this could still make a nice replacement to a regular sized DVD player.

Via [Wired]

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Posted Feb 27th 2008 8:24AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops var It’s a good thing Microsoft has tons and tons of money, because they keep finding themselves in a position where they’ve got to pay out — big time. Such is the case today, where the European Commission has fined the monolithic company $1.4 billion due to failure to comply with a 2004 ruling on monopolistic business practices. The Commission found that the folks in Redmond had been guilty of — gasp! — freezing out competition by not providing “vital information” to rival software companies. This isn’t the first time it’s had to pay, as the company already dropped $357 million on the case back in 2006. “Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision,” said Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Perhaps Ballmer and co. saw this one coming when they went “open” last week, though we’re fairly confident this kind of fine carries only the slightest sting for the software giant.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Everex is following up on the not-so-stellar release of the Cloudbook and have made the gPC mini official. As a new mini on the market Everex is pushing this as a nice option to hook up to your big screen TV or have it used as a “space-saving” PC. Running gOS, the gPC mini features a 1.86 GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core Mobile Processor, 512 MB RAM, 120GB hard drive, a DVD burner along with a graphics media accelerator GMA950 and Realtek ALC268 high-definition audio. The mini sized PC also has a full set of ports to include gigabit Ethernet, DVI, S-Video, Firewire, four USB 2.0, a 4-in-1 card reader, headphone/line-out and a microphone/line-in.

The mini gPC will retail for $499 and is scheduled to be available at NewEgg.com beginning March 1, 2008.

Read [Everex]

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Posted Feb 27th 2008 12:46AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: HDTV, Home EntertainmentWhen CES 2007 came around, a good portion of the US stopped and thanked their lucky stars as MediaGate’s fairly well-spec’d lineup finally came stateside. Now, the same firm is introducing the MG-350HD’s (pictured) successor, the MG-450HD. Said entertainment server enables owners to wirelessly stream HD video, music, and other media to an HDTV or stereo from their PC, and it also fetches content from networked hard drives and locally attached USB drives. Unfortunately, this one caps out at 802.11g, but it does include HDMI, optical / coaxial digital audio outs and Ethernet to boot. At $249, it’s still a bit more expensive than Popcorn Hour’s highly praised A-100, but loyalists probably won’t mind.

Posted Feb 27th 2008 2:01AM by Chris Ziegler
Filed under: cellphones
What do you get when you cross LG’s Shine slider and Viewty full touchscreen candybar? If you guessed the “Vine” or the “Shewty,” well… no, you’d be wrong. If this ad posted over on Howard Forums turns out to be legit, you’d actually end up with the “Glimmer,” a phone that appears destined for Alltel (of all carriers) that combines a 2.8 inch capacitive touch display, numeric slider, 2 megapixel cam with flash, microSD slot, Bluetooth, and EV-DO. It’s unknown when the rather attractive metal-clad piece might launch, but the existence of prepared advertising leads us to believe it could be sooner rather than later, putting Alltel in the rare and enviable position of one-upping its larger counterparts with unique hardware. The Voyager proves that the touch / slide hybrid concept can work, so don’t be shy, Alltel, bring it on.

[Thanks, Bradley]

Posted Feb 26th 2008 2:38PM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Gaming
Nintendo couldn’t have been more obtuse in its announcement last week at GDC, but from the looks of it you won’t be enjoying that totally free Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection play forever. Nintendo is busting out a new Pay & Play service for certain games, which seems to refer to both downloadable content for some titles, and online multiplayer for others. It’s really hard to tell, but it doesn’t sound like Nintendo has any intention of going the Xbox Live route. There will be red stickers on games with Pay & Play features so you can spot them in the store, and if you do end up paying for online multiplayer, it looks like it’ll be on a per-title basis. Other than that Nintendo isn’t spilling much — we have no idea what titles will cost money to play, and how much it’ll be — but given the fact that Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart are just about to make online play on the Wii actually interesting, this isn’t exactly an encouraging sign.

[Via Register Hardware]

At the middle of Toshiba’s new LCD HDTV ranges comes the brand new Regza XV Series. The Toshiba XV series will replace the very popular X series from 2007, and will feature a full 1080p HD resolution at a very attractive price point. The XV’s will be avaliable in March 08 in three sizes, 32, 37 and 42-inches.

The sets look great with a black gloss finish, and smooth rounded corners. Some new features have been added such as “Luna Sens” which measures light levels in the room, and automatically adjusts the brightness of the image for optimum viewing, while also consuming less energy.

ActiveVision, Audio Deception, and Game Mode are all featured on this set. Game mode is a dedicated function designed for games consoles offering 1:1 pixel mapping, very fast response times and automatic brightness adjustment for the best viewing and playing experience.

The Toshiba VX series models will be available in March this year.

Posted Feb 26th 2008 10:45AM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming
Hailed as a rig that “gamers won’t outgrow,” the XPS 630 that we originally peeked at CES is finally official. As expected, the tower is ATI CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI-ready and will support Intel’s Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Extreme processors on the nForce 650i SLI chipset. You can beef things up with 4GB of DDR2 RAM, 1TB of HDD space or an optional Blu-ray drive and AGEIA PhysX accelerator, and you’ll have plenty of room for all those peripherals thanks to six total USB 2.0 ports, an optional 19-in-1 media card reader, gigabit Ethernet, audio in / out, FireWire and even PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors. Also of note, it’s the first pre-fab PC to support the Enthusiast System Architecture (ESA), and you can snag your own for as little as $1,249 right now. Click on through for more of the breakdown. Oh, and if you’re interested to see how this beast stacks up, you can check out reviews from PC Mag, Hot Hardware and Computer Shopper.

Gallery: Dell’s XPS 630 gaming desktop gets official

Under the hood:

• NVIDIA nForce650 SLI Chipset
• NVIDIA SLI Single/Dual Graphic options
• ATI Crossfire Single/Dual Graphic options
• Overclockable Intel Processors
• OverclockableCorsair® DOMINATOR® Memory
• 750-watt Power Supply
• 4 Internal HDD bays (Up to 3 Factory-Installed)
• 4 DIMM slots
• Two PCIe™ X16 Graphic slots
• Light FX 2.0 (4 lighting zones)
• AGEIA PhysX™ Accelerator option
• Blu-ray Disc™ Drive option
• Red and Black Bezel Color Choice