Doubling as a hacky-sack, the MovieWedge is a convenient way to view media horizontally on your iPhone or iPod touch. The MovieWedge is lightweight and portable beanbag-esque cushion that supports your iPhone for prime viewing.
Embracing a brutally simple design aesthetic, the MovieWedge can effectively adapt to most any surrounding. Capable of changing shape to a small degree, the MovieWedge can easily fit in where ever you need it. From a stiff but moving airplane tray table, to your bed or your grassy backyard, the MovieWedge is unlike any iPhone stand you have used before. …Continue reading: MovieWedge Review
September 2nd, 2009 2:17 PM | by Christen da Costa
Creative announced the availability of their ZEN X-Fi2 today. It’s a 3-inch touchscreen PMP that is compatible with a variety of video and audio codecs including iTunes Plus and FLAC (lossless) files. And for those that like to show off their photos or videos they’ve added a video out port for attaching the ZEN X-Fi to your large screen TV. Other than that, the 11.6mm thick (iPhone sized) PMP boasts a similar feature set as the original, which includes a FM radio, microphone, microSD card slot and 3 storage capacities (8GB, 16GB, and 32GB). Amazon has the ZEN X-Fi2 up for pre-order for $129.99, $179.99 and $229.99 respectively, but makes no mention of a ship date.
Despite looking like Sony has struck a deal with Disney (the button configuration looks like Mickey Mouse) the Walkman S540 appears to be a relatively formidable PMP. Launching next month, the 10.2mm thick body sports a pair of speakers and a battery life that Sony claims is good for 42 hours of music or 6.5 hours of video on a single charge (less if the speakers are used). It remains to be seen if the speakers will sound like something made out of a tin can, but its 2.4-inch 320×240 screen surely can’t hurt. Expect the 8GB model to retail for $110 and the 16GB for $130; reasonable considering the competition.
Although it still won’t have the masses flocking to retail stores to pick one up, Leyio, which we saw a few months ago, will receive a firmware update next month that will enable the player to pull DRM free tracks directly off the iPod’s stored, playable contents. Note, I said ‘playable’, which in the past has meant that the content can’t be transferred from the iPod to any other machine regardless of DRM.
There’s a quick demo video after the ‘leap’, but in short you’ll be able to plug your iPod into your Leyio and transfer the tunes to its 16GB of flash memory. Again, it’s nothing ground breaking but it’s the first time I’ve seen music transfered from an iPod’s playable material to another device without the intervention of a computer or a hack.
Microsoft got official today and says that the Zune HD will ship on September 15th. Actually, the news is no surprise since we saw a leaked display stand yesterday and Amazon, which now has the product page back up, leaked the price a few days prior. So if you want a brand new shiny PMP you’re gonna need to plunk down $219.99 for the 16GB or $289.99 for the 32GB. There’s still no word on a 64GB version, but I guess you never know.
Read – 16GB Zune HD Read – 32GB Zune HD Read – Zune Website
Yesterday, Gizmodo received a photo from a Best Buy employee depicting the launch date of Microsoft’s Zune HD to be September 15th (that’s just 1 week after the rumored launch date). And before that, Amazon leaked a pre-order page to the blogosphere showing the pricing for the 16GB and 32GB Zune HD to be $219.99 and $289.99 respectively. So there you go, the Zune HD will launch in just over a month and cost less than an iPod. I can’t say that I’m excited, but if Apple doesn’t come back with something jaw dropping I think the Redmond based company might have a winning chance in the PMP market.
iRiver, which keeps plugging along and releasing new products despite the domineering iPod and iPhone, has officially announced their E200 PMP. It features a 2.8-inch 320×240 LCD, USB input, 3.5mm headphone jack and support for a variety of audio and video codecs. iRiver says a single charge will get 17 hours of music playback or 5 hours of video. And while it comes in capacities 4GB, 8GB and 16GB its memory can be expanded via the microSD card slot.
We first saw Creative’s Zii PMP when it hit the FCC. Now the company has made the EGG, it’s developer edition available for $400. Packed inside is a 3.5-inch 320×480 capacitive 10-point multi-gesture touchscreen, WiFi, full sized SD card slot, GPS, 3x accelerometer, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 32GB of flash memory, Creative’s ZMS-05 chip, an HD camera, a front facing low rez camera and support for OpenGL ES, h.264 video playback and 1080p video output. The demo video shows off an Android OS but Creative is also touting some sort of Plaszma OS which is either complimentary to Google’s or just a stand alone system all together.
In what I believe to be a surprise move, Creative seems to have no plans to sell the device under their brand and is looking for OEMs to license and sell the device. By now you’ve probably noticed its iPhone like form factor, so maybe T-Mobile or Sprint will pick it up and shove a cellular chip inside the touchscreen handheld and turn their noses at Apple.
It looks like Creative has been hard at work to develop a new PMP that incorporates an HD camcorder into its design. Called the Zii, it sports WiFi, a touchscreen and of course the aforementioned HD camcorder. All this info comes by way of the FCC, so there really aren’t any significant pics to oggle at, although a sketch shows that there is also a developer edition called the Zii EGG. Throw in the fact that this thing might run on top of the Android OS and you might have a formidable competitor to the iPod Touch.
Me? If it doesn’t make phone calls then I’m not interested.
Amazon has the Archos 7 160 GB Internet Media Tablet for 
