Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

This is where we call out the tech moves that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin’ crack.  This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity.  Can you hear the drum beating for Black Friday?  It is getting nuts in here! Here is what caught my eye this week:

Join me as I call out these guys for totally suspicious acts:

• Gadget makers
• Classmates.com
• Bloggers that leak good stuff
• Korean dictionaries.  Yes, I am serious about that one.

Follow the link to hear more.  It is almost guaranteed to brighten your Friday.  Almost.

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The latest Mobile Internet Device (MID) coming from UMID, at first glance looks like any other netbook on the market, except this one is much smaller and much more equipped than many.

As for features, the MID will have a 4.8-inch touchscreen display with a 1024 x 600 resolution, either a 1.1GHz or 1.3GHz Intel Atom processor, a max of 1GB RAM, up to 32GB of SSD storage, a 1.3-megapixel webcam and a microSD card slot. 

Sadly, it has just one USB 2.0 port.  Other features include the standard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well as WiMax, WiBro, HSDPA and both DMB-T and DVB-T digital TV tuners.  Still unstated was a release date, or any pricing information.

Plenty of pics after the break.

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PMP (personal media players) are becoming increasingly popular for their versatility and array of features, but less so for their often over exuberant price tag.  So when the new Mintpad from mintpass was unveiled (after a long enough delay for us to wonder where it had gone) for a reported price of around $160 people were instantly interested.

Not only does the price tag attract attention, but the interesting shape and design also draws eyes. Looking like a modern electronic version of a Post-it, it it operated by stylus which instantly creates attractions and problems.  But beside that, on the physical side it is incredibly competitive, with a small sleek design that looks suspiciously like a blend between the Nintendo DS and a square Apple iPod Touch.

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Samsung is treating our friends from Korea with the release of a new version of the Samsung OMNIA called the Samsung T*OMNIA.  But aside from modifying the name of the phone, Samsung is also introducing three new features which we didn’t see with the internationally released Samsung OMNIA.

These new features include a larger 3.3-inch screen, a higher screen resolution up from 240x400 of the OMNIA to 480x800 and a DMB TV Tuner or what is more commonly known as a digital TV Tuner.  The last feature will allow our Korean friends to have mobile TV and quick Internet access on the T*OMNIA phone.  More details after the break.

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Remember the SPINN that iriver has been teasing us with since CES?  Well, iriver has finally released some information about the Spinn, most notably that it will be available in the United States by October 3rd for under $300.

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Many of the Asian based GPS companies come out with many interesting GPS units that come loaded with many nice features. This new GPS, the iNavi K7 from Thinkware, is no exception. One of the K7’s main features is its 7-inch touch screen, that coupled with its ability to display 3D map images the screen will display beautiful and easy to understand images. In addition, it comes with an 8GB SDHC memory card, 256MB of RAM, and it uses geomagnetic sensor to always display maps even when there isn’t a very strong satellite signal. It also comes with LED lights, DMB receiver, and plays videos and MP3’s. One of the main features is the aforementioned display of GPS maps in 3D and if you take a look at the above picture, you can see how 3D images look. If you think about normal 2D images, you can see the difference. It should be available soon, however, only in the Korean market. It is expected to retail for 549,000 KRW, or around $502 US.

Via [NaviGadget]

• The disruptive spectre of a $99 Wal-Mart iPhone
• “Put down the Wise Man and slowly back away with your hands up” - GPS tracking devices now free
• Cyber Monday deals on tech from 6ave.com

It seems Samsung has decided to try and cash in on the current netbook craze, of course it seems they have a fairly standard offering and sadly it does not seem to be offering anything original other than the Samsung branding. While we are still waiting a final announcement on the specs, it was mentioned that it will feature an 8.9-inch display and Intel processor. Based on that we can assume that it will be the current favorite; a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor. Otherwise from the images we can see that it will have three USB ports, Ethernet, VGA and a built-in webcam. One item that seems to be missing is the built-in card reader. Still unannounced is any pricing. The netbook is expected to be available sometime this October although it looks to be (at least initially) heading to the Korean market only .

Read [AVING] Via [jkOnTheRun]

• Verizon lowers Samsung Omnia pricing, now at $199.99
• Asus Eee PC 1002HA now available with US retailers
• Sony preparing a WWAN-equiped VAIO? The FCC says yes

Korean company Daewoo has announced they will be launching their own netbook, or more accurately a re-badged version of the Classmate PC. And in similar fashion it will be aimed at school age children. The new netbook will be dubbed the Lukid and feature similar specs as other low-cost notebooks.

The Lukid will feature an Intel 900MHz Celeron processor, a 9-inch 800 x 480 display,  512MB of RAM, a 30GB hard drive, W-Fi, a built-in SD card reader and a single USB port. It looks like this one will remain overseas as it has been announced only for the Korean market and is expected to retail for KRW 549,000, which is around $530 US. As of now a release date has not been announced.

Via [Register Hardware]

• Sony preparing a WWAN-equiped VAIO? The FCC says yes
• 10-inch Acer Aspire One on track for Q1 2009 release
• Asus Eee PC 1002HA now available with US retailers

Its name says Picto, DigiArt, and i90. The company used three different terms to identify this new gadget, and yet none of these is camera, digicam, or videocam. That’s because this new do-it-all can’t really fit into any one of those categories, seeing as how many different features it packs under the hood. It’s got an MP3 player, a voice recorder, a 30fps MPEG-4 video recorder, a 1GB SD memory card included in the retail package, and it’s a 9-megapixel camera with face detection and anti-shake technology. Currently selling for ₩179,000 (or about $185) in Korea, this is about as all-encompassing as a point-and-shoot digital camera can get. Although there haven’t been any details about when, or if ever it will be available in the US, we know one thing’s for sure: if the makers of this gadget were taught only three things during their childhood, these are the following: convergence, convergence, and convergence! Of course while it seems to do just about everything, we are not sure how well it will actually handle each of those tasks.

Via [Akihabara News]

• Asus gets official with the Eee Top all-in-one PC
• Asus rumored to launch Eee Top all-in-one PC tomorrow, beginning at $499
• Who’s On Crack in tech: 11.14.08 edition

The Koreans often produce many, many nice portable media players and other electronics that, unfortunately, never wash up on American shores. This new PMP is no exception, its very nice and sure to impress many. One of the more notable things about it is the size, it’s only about a half an inch thick, and measures out at 4.4-inches x 3.14-inches x 0.49-inches. Also, it weighs only 3.21 ounces.

Otherwise, it comes with a nice 4.3-inch TFT screen, boasts 16 million colors, has a resolution of 480 x 272 pixels, plays video at a 2 Mbps bitrate for AVI format. Additionally, 30fps rate players, audio format of MP3, SDHC memory expansion. Some of the other interesting features are a camera and dictionary functionality. The only negative thing about this PMP is the memory - either 4GB or 8GB depending on model choice. At least, it can be expanded via SDHC.

At this time no word on pricing or availability, but again this most likely will not leave the Korean market.

Via [The Gadget Site]

• Who’s On Crack in tech: 11.14.08 edition
• UMID shows off their latest “dictionary-sized” Mobile Internet Device
• Mintpad slips under PMP radar