Our Picks - News, articles and reviews

T-Mobile launch Android Samsung Behold 2

JB — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:19:29 +0000

Yet another Android unit hits the streets, this time from T-Mobile, who offer you the Samsung Behold II for $230 with their Even More plan. Here’s what the Behold offers

* 3.2 inch 320 x 480 res touch screen with on-screen keyboard
* Text messaging
* Video Messaging
* Instant messaging capable
* 5 Megapixel Camera
* Video capture/playback (MPEG4)
* Music Player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, MIDI)
* 4.6 x 2.2 x 0.5 inches
* 4.2 ounces
* Battery Li-ion (1000mAh)
* Talk time up to 6 hours
* Standby time up to 15 days
* 850 MHz;900 MHz;1800 MHz;1900 MHz;UMTS: Band IV (1700/2100)
* Real Web Browsing with Wi-Fi (802.11b/802.11g)
* E-mail
* Micro SD memory slot
* GPS built-in
* Photo caller ID
* micro USB
* Stereo Bluetooth 2.1
* 3.5 mm headphone jack

Pretty impressive set of specifications but for the $230 price tag and shackle, they should be. The Samsung Behold 2 does sport an AMOLED screen and their TouchWiz interface, but is this enough to persuade you to part with $230. If it is, like us know what you think of the Behold 2.

cellphone, samsung, t mobile

OCZ launch 3.5 inch SSD, the Colossus

JB — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:29:35 +0000

If you envious desktop owners have been eyeing up neat little laptop SSDs for a while now, OCZ have produced an answer to your dreams, the Colossus 3.5 inch SATA II SSD specifically for your machine. Unfortunately the Colossus range comes with a series of hefty price tags, but the specs may just sway you to ignore those large figures after the dollar sign

* Maximum Read Speed 260 MBps
* Sustained Write Speed 230 MBps
* Maximum Write Speed 260 MBps
* 128MB Cache
* 3.5-Inch Aluminum Casing
* Operating Temperature 0-70C
* Shock Resistance 1500G
* 4 x 1 x 5.8 inches
* 8 ounces

Still interested? Then check out these suckers over at Amazon in their various capacities

120 GB Colossus $609
250 GB Colossus $1123
500 GB Colossus $1770

OCZ, SSD

ioSafe increase capacity to 2TB of Solo external HDD

JB — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:53:05 +0000

ioSafe, the Californian HDD manufacturer, have added a 2TB unit to their Solo range of USB external HDDs. The Solo range are designed to be waterproof and fireproof, so even if your house burns down you know that your precious zeroes and ones are safe …. assuming you’ve backed them up recently. The 2TB big boy is available for $375 over at Amazon and here’s the technical data about the 1TB Solo HDD, we can only assume the 2TB will be similar in most aspects

* Fireproof up to 1550°F for 1/2 hour per ASTM E119
* Waterproof up to 10′ depth, 72 hours
* USB 2.0 Interface for PCs or Macs
* Warranty: 3 years warranty
* Interface: USB 2.0
* Rotational Speed: 7200
* 5 x 11 x 7.1 inches
* 15 pounds

We’d love to test the first of those stats but the flame-thrower is in for servicing at the moment, so we’ll assume ioSafe aren’t trying to pull the wool over our eyes and the Solo can withstand 1550°F. What we can do is tell you that a house fire reaches temperatures of 1400°F but probably not for a full 30 minutes so the ioSafe Solo should be OK.

So if you’re up for some fire and water proof data storage check out the ioSafe Solo at Amazon in the following capacities and prices.

* ioSafe Solo 500 GB - $142
* ioSafe Solo 1 TB - $216
* ioSafe Solo 1.5 TB - $300
* ioSafe Solo 2TB - $375

extenal hdd, iosafe

Troll Touch Touchscreens for the iMac

JB — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:14:40 +0000

Having told you recently about the new whizz-bang iMacs from Apple, we’ve now got hold of a neat bit of hardware to turn those fine iMacs into fully touchscreen play things. The guys over at Troll Touch have developed touch sensitive overlays called the SlipCOVER incorporating their PSR-1 (Pressure Sensitive Resistive) touchscreen technology. Slap one of these on your iMac monitor and you have a touchscreen iMac. Here’s a brief video demo from Troll Touch themselves

Pretty impressive eh? As an addon, it’ll set you back $900 for your new shiny 21.5 inch iMac or $1100 for its 27 inch big brother. Troll Touch also have prices for older iMacs too, check them all out on their product page.

Troll Touch seem to know what they are doing too, with their touchscreens being used in museums, colleges and schools. So if you want to get all touchy, feely with your iMac then stroll on over to Troll.

apple, touchscreen, troll

T-Mobile launch Motorola’s CLIQ

JB — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:48:25 +0000

Yes we admit we like sliders and here’s Motorola’s CLIQ slider cellphone now available for T-Mobile customers for a mere $200 after rebate. The CLIQ features MotoBlur with which you can apparently

Stream your social networking feeds to your handset in real time, providing instant access to the latest happenings and messages from your friends.

A great bonus for all you social network fiends out there. The Motorola CLIQ also sports Wi-Fi connectivity and of course the oh so sexy slide out QWERTY keyboard. Here are a few more bits and pieces on the Motorola CLIQ

* 3.1 inch 320 x 480 res display
* 4.5 x 2.3 x 0.61 inches
* 4.9 ounces
* Talk time up to 6 hours
* Standby time up to 13.5 days
* 850 MHz;900 MHz;1800 MHz;1900 MHz
* 2GB SD Card
* Instant messaging
* Text messaging
* 5 Megapixel Camera
* Music player
* Video capture/playback
* 3G Network and Wi-Fi access
* GPS built-in
* Micro SD memory slot
* Real web browsing
* Bluetooth connectivity
* Visual Voicemail
* Android Market

We also tracked down this video from phonedog of a demo of the Motorola CLIQ

As we mentioned the CLIQ looks like a great unit for social networks fiends but for other mere mortals the $200 is probably unjustifiable.

Source: Motorola

cellphone, motorola, t mobile

Highpoint launch Rocket 600 SATA PCI Express cards

JB — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:25:34 +0000

Looking to unleash the speed of SSD drives without upgrading your motherboard and you have a PCI-Express slot available? Well Highpoint have a couple of PCI Express cards just for you, namely the Rocket 620 and Rocket 622. Both offer SATA 6 Gb/s connectivity to enable you to take advantage of SSDs with transfer speeds of 600 MB/s. The Rockets are also backward compatible with SATA I and II devices allowing you to hook up older, slower drives. Here’s the full list of features and specs on the Highpoint Rocket 620 and 622 SATA III PCI Express cards

* Interfaces SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s and 1.5Gb/s
* Connector Types SATA (620) and eSATA (622)
* Bus Types PCI-Express 2.0 x1
* 600MB/s per (SATA and eSATA) port
* AHCI Compliant
* Supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
* Out-of-the-Box Ready for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X 10.6 and above
* Compatible with SATA (III, II, I) Hard Drives and SSD
* Support up to 2TB Hard Drives

According to Electronista these units will be priced at $70 for the 620 and $80 for the 622. Not bad upgrade prices to enable your system to utilise those blistering SSD speeds.

highpoint, pci express, SSD

Sprint to launch Palm Pixi

JB — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:32:02 +0000

On November 15th Sprint will unleash the Palm Pixi on its customers for $100. The QWERTY Pixi runs on the Palm webOS platform and features such goodies as Palm Synergy, full web browsing and linked contacts for all you social network addicts. Here are a few more detail son the Palm Pixi

* Palm webOS platform
* Dual-band CDMA2000, 3G: EvDO Rev A
* 2.63-inch multi-touch screen, 320×400 resolution Sub-HVGA display
* Microsoft Exchange Direct Push Technology, POP3/IMAP (Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, etc.)
* Integrated IM, SMS, and MMS
* Built-in GPS
* 2 Mp camera
* Audio Formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV
* Video Formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264
* Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity
* 8 GB memory
* microUSB connector (USB 2.0)
* 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack
* 55.0 x 111.0 x 10.85 mm
* 92.5 g

Definitely aimed at the social network fiend on the go, the Palm Pixi seems pretty good value at $100 from Sprint. It sports all the bells and whistles you would expect from a smartphone, but of course it’s all about usablility. Here’s a quick Pixi video preview from the guys at MobileBurn

If you are the proud owner of a Palm Pixi, let us know what you think of it.

Source: Palm

cellphone, palm, sprint

HP launch L2105tm Multi-Touch LCD Monitor

JB — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:46:32 +0000

If single touch screens aren’t enough, we now have multi-touch screens available with HP’s latest monitor the L2105tm. The 21.5 inch LT2105tm sports multi-touch functionality enabling you to use a couple of digits or a digit/stylus combo to manipulate your multi-media documents. It’s also HP’s first Windows 7 Certified multi-touch monitor.

* 21.5 inch display 1920 x 1080 res
* 250 cd/m2 brightness
* 1000:1 contrast ratio
* 170/160 view angle (H/V)
* 6.4 kg
* 51.3 x 23.05 x 41.86 cm

The HP Compaq L2105tm multi-touch looks like a bargain too with a price tag of $300 and is available right now.

Source: HP Compaq

hp, monitor

Apple unleash new iMacs

JB — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:07:05 +0000

Apple have upgraded their iMac range with 16:9 ratio displays and Intel’s Nehalem processors. The all-in-one iMacs come in two display sizes, a 21.5 inch 1920 x 1080 res and a nice 27 inch 2560 x 1440 res. Here are some more details about the latest iMacs

* Perfect viewing from almost any angle with IPS technology
* LED backlighting remarkable brightness and efficiency.
* A seamless, precision-forged enclosure makes the back one continuous aluminum surface.
* Apple Wireless Keyboard and the new wireless Magic Mouse

Processor options

* 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB shared L2 cache
* 3.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB shared L2 cache
* 2.66GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache (27 inch only)
* 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache (27 inch only)

* 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; four SO-DIMM slots support up to 16GB

HDD options

* 500GB Serial ATA 7200 rpm (21.5 inch only)
* 1TB Serial ATA 7200 rpm

* Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive with 4x double-layer burning (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

Graphics options

* NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory3 (21.5 inch only)
* ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
* ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory (27 inch only)

* FireWire 800 port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, SD card slot
* Built-in stereo speakers with two internal 17-watt high-efficiency amplifiers, built-in microphone
* Optical digital audio output/headphone out, optical digital audio input/audio line in
* Ethernet Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit)
* AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking

These latest iMacs certainly look very sexy, but is that enough to persuade you to buy one? The price tags don’t look too bad as well, with the 21.5 inch model starting at $1,199 and the 27 inch version at $1,699. Needless to say the higher specced options mentioned above will increase that figure. Crave have started the ball rolling with a review of the 21.5 inch standard model iMac.

If you’re keen it’s worth checking the two models out over at Amazon (21.5 and 27) where they are available for pre-order.

apple, desktop

MSI Wind Box Unleashed

JB — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:01:16 +0000

MSI have just launched a couple of Wind Box mini desktops, namely the DC200 and DE200 for US$250 and US$300 respectively. The difference between the two units is an ATI Radeon HD 4350 Graphics card and HDMI output sported by the DE200 big brother of the duo. Otherwise the following details are common to the Wind Box siblings.

* 1.6GHz Intel Atom Processor
* 1GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM RAM
* 160GB Hard Drive, VESA Wall mount included (L-Shape)
* Wireless b/g, 4-in-1 Card Reader, 4 x USB Ports, 1 x D-sub, 1 x LAN
* Windows XP Home
* 11.14 x 1.18 inches x 7.01 inches
* 4.5 lbs

These specs were gleaned from the Amazon website where the DC200 and DE200 Wind Boxes are on pre-order right now, but over at the MSI press release Wireless 802.11n is touted as being available on these suckers. Best check that out before purchase if it’s important to you. So if you’re on the lookout for a small desktop as an entertainment unit the DC200 and DE200 may be the answer you’re looking for.

desktop, msi

Samsung LD190N secondary monitor for your laptop

JB — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:25:28 +0000

We can’t imagine the secondary display market being large, but it exists none-the-less and the LD190N is Samsung’s latest addition to it. A cool $150 will get you a monitor for your laptop with the following specifications

* 18.5 inch 1360 x 768 res display
* 50,000:1 (1,000:1 typical) contrast ratio
* 5 ms reponse time
* 170/160 degree viewing angle
* 15 pin D-SUB connector
* 22 W power consumption
* 17.72″ x 11.65″ x 2.83″ with stand
* 7.93 lbs

We can’t really think of much use for a secondary monitor on a laptop at home, apart from the occasional showing off of holiday photos and videos but then most people would hook up the laptop to their HDTV, right? So the Samsung LD190N is probably primarily aimed at the business market, if you’re still interested then pop over to Amazon to check out the Samsung LD190N.

Source: Samsung

monitor, samsung

Western Digital’s TV Live at Best Buy

JB — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:45:22 +0000

Western Digital have a media player out there called the WD TV Live and is only $120 at Best Buy. The TV Live sits between your PC and HDTV and enables you to view various media from the internet on the HDTV whilst providing an ethernet connection to enable media on other PCs in your home to be viewed too. Western Digital’s TV Live simply hooks up to the PC via a USB 2.0 connection and provides a 1080p display. Other specifications as follows:

* Supports AAC, MP3 and JPEG. H.264/AVCHD formats
* Dolby Digital and DTS decoders
* High quality progressive-scan picture
* HDMI port
* Ethernet connection
* 1.6 x 4.9 x 3.9 inches
* 10.7 oz

And over at Best Buy it’s a mere $120. We must admit we can’t see why you wouldn’t just hook up your PC directly to the HDTV but that’s just us. If someone out there has a TV Live please let us know why we should have one too!

western digital

Panasonic PT-AE4000U projector announced

JB — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:05:21 +0000

Available later this month, the PT-AE4000U will be the latest projector offering from Panasonic. Amongst other things, the PT-AE4000U will handle 1:2.35 ratio displays enabling you to enjoy your movie collection in full widescreen. Other features include a Red-Rich Lamp for luminence efficiency, a Full-HD Optimized Optical Sytem for maximum clarity and sharpness, along with a Pure Color Filter to produce deeper blacks and improve purity levels in the three primaries, red, green and blue. Here are some numbers on the Panasonic PT-AE4000U

* Lens F 1.9 - 3.2, f 22.4 mm - 44.8 mm
* 170 W UHM lamp
* 1,600 lumens
* 100,000:1 contrast
* Projection size 40-300 inches
* Throw distance 1.2 m -18.0 m
* 1,920 x 1,080 resolution
* Frame rates of 24, 50 and 60
* Inputs - HDMI, PC, Component, S-Video
* 460 x 130 x 300 mm
* 7.3 kg

There’s no price tag on Panasonic’s site for the PT-AE4000U but according to electronista it’ll be $2,499 which may be a lot but those specs are very impressive so if you haven’t yet invested in a decent projector the Panasonic PT-AE4000U may be what you’ve been looking for.

Source: Panasonic

panasonic, projector

AT&T showoff HTC Pure

JB — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:34:12 +0000

A new addition to the AT&T smartphone range this week, is the HTC Pure, a 3.2 inch touchscreen device powered by Windows Mobile 6.5. The HTC Pure is currently available for a snip at $149.99 after rebates and comes with the usual two year contract. The unit sports the following bits and pieces

* 3.2 inch 480 x 800 res display
* Touchscreen keyboard
* microSD expandable memory (up to 32 GB)
* 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS
* UMTS/HSDPA (850/900/1900/21000 MHz) 3G
* EDGE data network connectivity
* Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
* HTML browser
* Access to personal email including AOL®, Yahoo!(TM), Windows Live(TM)
* 5.0 Mp camera with 4x zoom
* Mp3 player with built-in FM radio

The HTC Pure is one of AT&T’s first cellphones to feature Microsoft’s latest mobile OS WinMo 6.5 so it’ll be interesting to see the reaction to the new OS as these units get pushed out. Certainly the Pure’s specs look impressive with the $150 price tag so AT&T will be hoping WinMo 6.5 won’t drag this new offering down.

Source: AT&T

at&t, cellphone, htc

Nokia E72 NAM Unlocked at Amazon

JB — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:23:38 +0000

We’ve just spotted an unlocked version of the QWERTY keypad Nokia E72 NAM at Amazon for US$470. Unfortunately it’s not available yet but Amazon are taking pre-orders and that means it can’t be far away from hitting their electronic shelves. Here’s the lowdown on what your $470 will get you.

* 2.36 inch 320 x 240 res display
* Full QWERTY keyboard
* 3.5 mm audio jack
* Internal memory 250 MB storage, 128 MB RAM
* Up to 16GB microSD expandable memory
* 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, autofocus, LED flash still and video camera
* Symbian OS 9.3, Series 60 v3.2 UI
* ARM 11 600 MHz processor
* WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML browser
* WMV/RV/MP4/3GP video player
* MP3/WMA/WAV/RA/AAC/M4A audio player
* Up to 480 hours on standby
* Up to 6 hours of talktime
* GPRS and EDGE connectivity
* HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA 2 Mbps
* Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
* Bluetooth and micro USB connectivity
* 114 x 58 x 10 mm
* 128 g

Pretty impressive specs, just about everything but the kitchen sink is in the Nokia E72. And just to back up the specs there’s a glowing review over at Best Mobile Contracts plus a good side-by-side comparison over at Nokia Symbian Themes. And on youtube is a quick video review from Mobile Burn.

amazon, cellphone, nokia

Garmin Asus nuvifone G60 available at AT&T

JB — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:05:28 +0000

In the spirit of gadget combination, Garmin and Asus bring us the hybrid cellphone/GPS unit, the nuvifone G60 available at AT&T. In the AT&T press release there’s no mention of Asus, but plenty of marketing hype about the nuvifone G60

“Personal navigation devices are already all about mobility and taking the Garmin experience everywhere as your mobile phone is truly compelling for customers who travel often,” said Michael Woodward, vice president, Mobile Phone Portfolio, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “We expect the nüvifone to be the guide for local restaurants, the least-expensive gas and the nearest coffee shop for many customers.”

Here are some hard facts we managed to extract from the release

* Same core features as the Garmin nuvi
* Preloaded with maps of North America
* Turn-by-turn voice-prompted directions
* full HTML browser
* Wi-Fi connectivity
* touch-screen virtual keyboard with either QWERTY layout or A to Z
* three megapixel camera with auto-focus which automatically geotags images
* free access to AT&T’s Yellow Pages, flight status and converter
* Premium Connected Services gives customers subscription access to real-time traffic information, fuel prices, White Pages, weather and more for $5.99/month after a 30-day trial

If that all sounds great to you, then AT&T still require US$300 from you (after rebates) before you can get your mits on one of these suckers. Whilst we can see a demand for the nuvifone G60 for people who are on the move a lot, that’ll be about it really, it’ll probably pass the average Joe by. If, of course, you’re not the average Joe the nuvifone is available on October 4th.

Source: AT&T

at&t, cellphone, garmin, gps

HP Mini 311 series available for $400

JB — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:04:52 +0000

HP have just launched the Mini 311 series with a starting price of US$400. The Mini 311 comes with a 11.6 inch HD display which can handle 1080p video and runs under Windows XP SP3. Here’s the full list of specs you can find on the US$400 HP Mini 311

* Windows XP Home SP3
* Intel Atom Processor N270 (1.60GHz, 512KB L2, 533Mhz FSB)
* 1GB DDR3 System Memory
* 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* NVIDIA ION LE with a 5-in-1 Digital Media slot
* 11.6 inch HD LED BrightView Display (1366 x 768 res)
* HP Mini Webcam
* Wireless-G Card
* 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery for up to 6.25 hours of use
* 3 USB Ports, RJ-45, VGA, HDMI
* 11.4 x 8.03 x 0.78-1.20 inches
* 3.22 lbs
* Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)

An external Lightscribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer will set you back an additional $125, and with HP Mobile Broadband you can sign up to a Verizon, AT&T or Sprint plan and get connected where ever coverage exists. At US$400 the unit seems a bit on the pricey side especially when compared to the similar Hannspree HannsNote which is now available at Amazon for $300 - the Hannspree unit sports a smaller screen, less weight, less battery time and 802.11n connectivity. But of course other outlets may be discounting the Mini 311.

Source: HP

hp, laptop

Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB HDD

JB — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:06:58 +0000

Seagate have just added a new internal HDD to their Barracuda range, the Barracuda XT with a capacity of 2TB and a 6 Gb/s SATA interface - take that SSDs! The unit is backward compatible with legacy SATA systems and a 64 MB cache optimises burst transfer rates.

* Capacity 2 TB
* Model ST32000641AS
* SATA 6Gb/s NCQ Interface
* Transfer Rate Max 600 MB/s
* Sustained Data Rate 138 MB/s
* 64 MB Cache
* 7200 RPM
* 8 Heads 4 Disks
* 512 Bytes per Sector
* 26.1 x 101.6 x 146.99 mm
* 700 g

Seagate also try to do their bit for the planet with the Barracuda XT

Up to 50 percent of the materials used in the manufacture of Barracuda XT drives come from recycled sources.

The burst speeds are impressive at 600 MBps but of course you’ll probably actually get something closer to the 138 MBps sustained rate. Whilst this is slower than the OCZ SSDs we looked at in July, obviously the 2 TB capacity outweighs any of the OCZ offerings. The price on the Barracuda is set to be US$300 which isn’t cheap but then you do get that 2 TBs worth of zeroes and ones for your hard-earned cash.

Source: Seagate

hdd, internal hdd, seagate

LG VX8360 phone video review

JB — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:47:46 +0000

It appears as if the Verizon LG VX8360 has become quite a popular phone and just to encourage a few more of you to invest in the VX8360 clam unit here’s a video review from phoneArena.

Whilst the LG VX8360 is not exactly ground breaking in the cellphone world, it has to be a bargain at US$40 with the usual Verizon two year plan. If anyone has a VX8360, please let us know what you think.

Source: Verizon

cellphone, lg, verizon

JVC 4.1 Soundbar Home Theatre System

JB — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:06:36 +0000

JVC have just announced their latest soundbar systems, the TH-BA1 and TH-SB100. Whilst both units are a 4.1 sound system with wireless woofer, the SB100 sports a freestanding JVC Blu-Ray player too. The TH-BA1 rocks in at US$400 and the Blu-Ray player enhanced TH-SB100 sports a price tag of US$700.

* Power output 30W x 4
* Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic, Dolby Pro Logic, DTS decoders
* 35-3/8 x 4-9/16 x 3/3/16 inches (900 x 115 x 80mm)
* 11.46 lbs. (5.2kg.)

Wireless Powered Subwoofer

* 6-5/16 (16cm) Cone
* 100W
* 8-1/2 x 13-7/8 x 10 inches (215 x 352 x 254mm)
* 12.7 lbs. (5.8kg.)

XV-BP1 Blu-ray Player (included only with TH-SB100)

* BD Live™
* Plays BD-ROM/BD-RE/BD-R, DVD-Video/DVD-R/-RW, DVD +R/+RW, BD-ROM, BD-RE, BD-R, DVD-Video, DVD-R, DVD-RW (Video/VR), +RW/+R, CD/CD-R/-RW video
* MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), VC-1, AVCHD, JPEG Digital Still formats
* Handles LPCM, Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital+, Dolby TrueHD, DTS, DTS HD, MPEG-1/-2 L2, MP3, WMA ausio formats
* NTSC - PAL Conversion
* 1080p Upscaling
* Inputs/Outputs HDMI Digital Out (Audio/Video), Component, Composite, Audio Out, Analog 2ch, Coaxial Digital, Optical digital, USB Host (2), Network (Ethernet)
* 16-15/16 x 2-5/16 x 10 inches (430 x 58 x 253mm)
* 6.2 lbs (2.8 kg.)

The $400 and $700 price tags seem a touch high with the Yamaha YAS-70 still available at Amazon for US$280 and it has a bit more oomph too at 310W compared to these JVCs at 220W.

But of course beauty is in the ear of the listener, so if you’ve got one of these JVC soundbars please let us know what you think.

Source: JVC

blu ray player, jvc, soundbar