Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

With all these mega expensive PMPs out there and times of financial ruin upon us, the iPod shuffle is the logical answer to those on a budget or those who want the simplicity of one. Those lovely French people at Archos have opened the options with a 2GB mp3 player which will cost us penny counters a measly £18………yes £18.

It doesn’t boast much in the way of specs but neither does the iPod shuffle but the Clipper certainly is a damn sight cheaper. The usual playback and volume controls, all you need to listen to your mp3s on the go.

Source : Electricpig

LG’s 'New Chocolate', otherwise known as the LG BL40 has now officially been revealed to the press after countless teaser shots and videos.

With a 21:9 ratio 4-inch tempered glass, scratchproof, LCD screen(the major selling point) and sleek black finish, this is hopefully going to be the fashionable smartphone LG is after to break into the market. The screen should allow the user to multitask ie. see your entire inbox whilst reading a message.

The full specs aren’t quite available yet but we’re looking at HSDPA, Wi-Fi, GPS and a 5MP camera. LG says it will be released in the 3rd Quarter of this year which basically means anytime soon.

For those wanting something different from your regular Hi-Fi system or iPod dock, comes the Olive Opus 4. This high end, high quality digital music player offers a mindblowing 2TB in its flagship model which can store thousands of your cd’s and play them back in full cd quality, without the mess and constant changing of records. All controlled with an intuitive touchscreen.

Prices in America start at $1599 for 500GB , $1699 for 1TB and $1799 for 2TB

Full Specs for Opus 4  :-

• Music is stored using lossless compression (FLAC) for the best possible reproduction of the original recording, including every tone in the artists voices and individual instruments in vivid clarity
• Sound quality is further enhanced by a high resolution digital-to-analog converter (DAC), optimized circuit design and precision power supply
• Holds almost 6000 CDs so even the largest music collection is all instantly accessible
• Navigation is fast and intuitive through a color-coded touchscreen menu or familiar CD player buttons
• Digitizing music in high fidelity is incredibly easy - either insert CDs into the built-in CD drive and the music is imported and automatically categorized…or allow Olive to do the work for you with its CD digitizing service
• Playback can be expanded throughout the home using the Melody Hi-Fi Multi-Room Player, which connects to the Opus through a wireless or wired network and allows music to be played in up to 10 rooms simultaneously
• Thoughtful design, craftsmanship and high-quality materials - fine grade aluminum exterior etched with distinctive musical genre pattern is stylish, functional (cooling without a noisy fan) and recyclable
• Maestro browser-based software makes music management easy to do - drag & drop playlist creation, metadata personalization and album artwork customization
• Thousands of pre-set internet radio stations are available and adding other personal favorites is easy
• Metadata library is extensive and regularly bolstered by proprietary additions, e.g. only Olive includes such detailed genre-specific information for Classical as Composer, Work, Orchestra, Conductor, Instrument/Voice, Choir, Soloist and for Jazz as Artist, Album, Sidemen, Release Date, Music Label, Instrument/Voice, Original Recording Date
• Opus is not a computer peripheral, so it frees the music experience from PCs or network storage devices and related security/virus concerns
• Set-up is simple, no home installers are required

Source : Coolest-Gadgets

After we told you all about LG’s plans for a watch phone, it’s Samsung’s turn now only this one is going to be a lot cheaper apparently.

11.98mm thick it's and has what has been said to be the world's thinnest touchscreen. Full specs on the S9110 aren’t out in full detail has such although it’s said to have a stainless steel outer shell like most watches, scratch-proof glass, Bluetooth 2.1, an MP3 player, speakerphone, voice recognition and Outlook email syncing.

This information has come out of Korea saying that the S9110 will be out in France next month for around 450 Euros. So hopefully it shouldn’t be too long before it hops over the channel.

Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W1 camera has now officially been revealed. The twin lens camera is due in September and can take pictures and video with more depth giving the perception of a 3D image.

'Real 3D Lens System' is what Fuji is calling it. Sat in a protective aluminium die cast frame are two Fujinon lenses and two CCD sensors. The RP 3D processor mixes the images together and out pops your 3D image.

The camera has a 3x optical zoom and the screen can play back the video or stills in 3D on a glorious 2.8-inch, 800x600 screen and there’s no need for silly glasses. It is also packed with features like interval shooting, manual editing and parallax control so you can muck about with your pictures and videos on the go.

Next you’ll need a FinePix Real 3D V1 picture viewer, an 8-inch screen that you can then use to show off you’re new photography skills. Fuji is also planning some way of printing off the images too, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

No date or price yet but hopefully before Christmas and an educated guess (by Stuff) says it’ll be about £500

After Toshiba’s HD-DVD lost the HD format war to Sony’s Blu-Ray, it has finally decided to release a Blu-Ray player. It has been 18 months since the major movie studios decided to stop producing films onto HD-DVD opting for the Sony format.

Toshiba have since been working on upscaling regular outputs to HD quality. Daily Yomiuri a Japanese newspaper, has reported that the electronics giant will be releasing a standalone Blu-Ray player by the end of the year aswell as a Blu-Ray recorder.

Despite the UK CEO claiming that the Blu-Ray format would soon be outdated, blu-ray sales are up 91% in the first half of 2009 alone so they might aswell get into it while the moneys there.

If you’re looking for a top quality feature packed Blu-Ray player that isn’t a PS3, but don’t want to pay a PS3 price, this could be for you.

On the outside the player is relatively thin and aesthetically pleasing, the inside packs power to load up your blu-rays quickly and in full HD. The player has profile 2.0, and can upscale DVD’s has USB connections and has the ability to pluck your favourite YouTube videos from the net and play them on your telly in SD.

Full Specs :

• Full HD 1080p Output via HDMI
• 1080p Up-scaling of Standard DVDs
• Wide Audio Format Support(Dolby True HD, DTS-HD)
• BD Live : Enjoy additional movie content via internet
• YouTube : Free access to YouTube where 15 hours of content is updated every minute
• LG SIMPLINK Multi-device Control
• USB 2.0
• Strong Circle & LED Indicator
• HD Movie Playback (H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC codec)
• Compatible Container Format : *.mkv, *.mp4, *.avi
• DVD, Audio CD, CD-RW/R
• JPEG, MP3, WMA
• DivX Playback
• Quick Start up & Disc Loading
• Instant Tray Open
• Bonus View

China’s InfoTimes is reporting via Foxconn(the makers of the iPhone) that Apple will be releasing a Netbook. Its reported to have a 9.7” touchscreen and you should be able to pick one up for $800 in the U.S. What price that would mean for the UK remains to be seen but personally, I can’t see it being more than £800.

This is a surprise really after Steve Jobs slated netbooks and said "As best as we can tell, there's not a lot of them being sold." So why the turn round especially when we also said "one of our entrants into that category if you will is the iPhone, for browsing the internet, and doing email and all the other things that a netbook lets you do".

All this is just strong rumours at the moment so we wont know the full details unless its announced. The main questions whats powerin it and what OS is it running. Will it be good enough for Snow Leopard or will it run an iPhone 3.0 style OS? Who knows?