Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Universal Remote Control (yes that is both the name of the company and their product), released the FX1 today at CES. The FX1 controls up to five audio/video components, including TVs, DVD players, VCRs, satellite receivers, music servers and cable set-top boxes as well as lighting controls and more. It comes with a database of thousands of pre-programmed codes, so you don’t need to go back to school and get a programming degree. It also includes two new functions — MacroPower and SimpleSound. MacroPower lets you turn several A/V components on or off at the same time. SimpleSound provides you with ‘one-touch’ control over the volume functions on all their components, including on devices such as TiVo, DVD players and VCRs that do not have built-in volume controls.

There are 44 soft-touch buttons that light up for viewing in dark environments, and an ergonomic design. The FX1 is available now for $19.95.

Read [Universal Remote]

When you think of miniature flying gadgets, the first thing that comes to mind might be a gizmo out of a James Bond movie. Well think again. The Picco Z is the world’s lightest and smallest remote control helicopter. Weighing a miniscule 10 grams and measuring just over seven inches long, the Picco Z fits in the palm of your hand. With the two-channel infrared controller and a little practice, you’ll have it flying around your home or office in no time. It is available for $39.00.

Read [HobbyTron]

iLuv first offered love to your iPod via an extended battery pack. Now the company is back with an entire line of pod products. Some of the accessories available now from Incipio Technologies include:

• iLuv i1055 DVD Player for iPod with Video LCD Screen
  This feature packed device allows you to play the pre-recorded content on a bright 7” wide-screen display.


• iLuv Audio & Speaker System for Apple iPod i552DBLK
  The speaker system out performs everything in its class not just in looks and features but also in right deep sound quality with jAura acoustic technology. In this beautiful Completely self-contained for portable operation.


• iLuv i177DBLK Audio & Speaker System
  This alarm clock unit will allow you to wake to your favorite tunes on your iPod or your local FM station. Also features a very nice ultra sleek remote control.

Product: Dell 23” Wide Screen High-Definition LCD TV
Price: $749.00
Rating: Very Good 7.6/10.0
Pros: Sleek design, easy to use remote control, integrated TV tuner and speakers, HD ready, multiple inputs.
Cons: Screen resolution does not support all monitors,
Overall:The Dell W2306C 23” Wide Screen High Definition LCD TV is a sharp looking, affordable dual-purpose LCD that will please those who want a large display and a budget HDTV.

Design - 8.5 - Upon opening the box this dell display looked great. It is heavier than expected but the weight is necessary to make you feel comfortable letting the unit sit on a mantel or other ‘risky’ but attractive location (this is something you will want to show off). The Dell W2306C is a 23 inch widescreen (measured diagonally) HD-capable TV/monitor with built in stereo speakers (14 watts total). You can tilt the display 85° on both the vertical and horizontal axis for easy viewing. The screen is has a matt coating so bright light reflections are no more a problem than your standard computer monitor. The native resolution is 1366x768. It has a well designed remote control as well as direct (standard TV) buttons on the right hand side (remote IR sensor as well as power, channel, and volume buttons).

Continue reading our review, including features and performance.

Features - 7.5 - The set can handle multiple inputs at once and has a built in second TV tuner for PIP (picture-in-picture). All together the monitor has 10 video inputs, 3 PC inputs, and 2 outputs (Input: 2 x HDTV / 1 x Tuner - Coax / 1 x Composite / 1 x S-Video / 1 x DVI / 4 x RCA Audio; Output: 1 x RCA Audio / 1 x Composite; PC Input: 1 x 15-pin D-sub VGA / 1 x DVI / 1 x Audio). The inputs are placed on the back of the set, parallel to the table surface. This results in wires running down behind the set (with no built in wire tracks) and depending on placement, hard to access inputs and outputs.  The set has auto input scan so the set determines which inputs have a single easing your decision of which input to switch to. The set often went into hibernation mode when being used with my laptop and then took 5-10 seconds to ‘wake up’ and start running. Though it was easy to switch between inputs (the auto input selection was very useful) we would have liked to be able to do a PIP with our laptop and TV and then select which audio we wanted to hear.

Performance - 7 - The set’s picture looked great when viewing PBS landscape shows via Insight Cable’s HD PBS channel. HD sports were not as clear, the set blurred with high speed sports such as the NBA and NHL. As a computer monitor the screen looked very nice. Much better for background images than text as compared to my dell 17 inch ultra-sharp monitor (as judged by my eyes). We want to note that not all video cards support the Dell native resolution. Though 1366x768 is now a standard resolution, there are lots of older video cards that do not support it (1280x800 seems to be more standard), so please check your resolution capabilities before you purchase the set.

Editors note - The overall rating was calculated by weighting design as 30%, features as 30%, and performance as 40%.

HDTV UK had the opportunity to play with the new Sky+ TV HD box (in case you don’t know...Europe is getting HD as we speak, in conjunction with the 2006 World Cup). Those luck !@#$%^&* better hold that box tight because only 40,000 are being installed before the big soccer football tourney and they all are already accounted for. Overall they were pleased with the box. The storage could increase (it’s at 160 GB) but the current programming is overall good (besides the lacking BBC) and clearly labeled HD. We obviously could not test this out so continue reading for their full review of the new box.

The box Well Sky has done a good job redesigning the Sky+ unit. It looks a lot more stylish than its predecessor. You can check out the specs here, but the key part is that it has 160 Gigabytes of storage for your HD and standard definition recordings as well as a further chunk for Sky’s Push HD plans. Incidentally there’s still no word from Sky on this yet.

The remote control / interface Sky sensibly hasn’t messed with the remote control. It is almost identical to the current Sky+ remote. The interface is marginally different in that there is a red button which gives instant access to the HD programming. You still access the planner/hard drive through the green button. There are also a few tweaks to the system set up menu including an option of recording in 576 lines as well as 720 and 1080.

Finding HD Sky has been fairly upfront about what content is HD originated and what is upscaled from SD. If the content has been shot in HD then the letters ‘HD’ appear in the info box. Almost all the content that Sky screened today was shot in HD.

Cricket in HD Cricket has been billed as a killer app for HD and Sky hasn’t disappointed us. Those greens certainly look green and you could see tremendous detail when the cameras tracked the crowds at the England Vs Sri Lanka game today. You could also see the marks the ball had made in the batsman’s crease and the graphics were amazing too, really vibrant. The difference between the pictures in SD and 720p was phenomenal. I can’t wait to see the Premiership in HD.

Documentaries The trailer for Discovery’s HD channel also looked superb. The clip focuses on exotic locations and the viewer gets to see beautifully rich colours. The level of details of some of the animals was pretty stunning too.

Movies Movies also looks great in HD. Even a throwaway movie like Deuce Bigalow European Gigolo became very watchable. Venice looked gorgeous. I think certain recent movies will make the best of the format. It’ll be very interesting see Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, which is Sky’s big movie for opening night. The pay per view movies go for £3.75 a shot which is the same as standard definition films.

BBC HD The BBC’s debut day line up of HD programming looks pretty unappealing. Fortunately in the afternoon they were showing an extended trailer which had pictures from Later with Jools Holland. I tried in vain to catch the lines on Elton John’s face which says to me that either he’s either weathered very well, or more likely been on the receiving end of some serious make up. The BBC footage had a pristine quality that some of the Sky footage lacked, which is probably because it was shot in a studio, whereas most Sky footage was either an outside broadcast or documentary based video. I can’t say for certain whether the Later footage was true HD, but even if it was upscaled it still looked really good.

Sky One/24 For me this was the weak link in the Sky HD package. The footage from 24 looked more like upscaled HD than it did true HD. To be fair I only watched a couple of minutes of the programme and the shot were fairly dark, but then the dark shots on Sin City looked amazing.

Overall Well there is a clear leap on from standard definition through to HD. I would say that sport and movies are going to be very striking in high def and the documentaries really do take you closer to the subject than before. I am going to reserve judgement about the Sky One stuff, the price and the capabilities of the box until I get to take one home next week. Suffice to say that I can’t wait to get my hands on that box.