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Sungale’s Sub-par Portable Media Player
I have plenty of questions about the new Sungale Cyberus ID700WTA portable media player. Why does this device have so much trouble connecting to my wireless network? Why do my video clips continually skip and stutter when I’m playing them back? Why is the touchscreen so hard to use?
But most of all, why would anyone pay $279 for this device?
On paper, the Cyberus ID700WTA “Smart Info Engine” sounds great. It’s a portable media player/e-book reader with a big 7-inch color touchscreen. It plays back photos and videos, as well as audio tracks in a variety of formats such as AVI, MPEG4, DVIX, XVID, WMA, JPG, BMP, TIFF and PNG. It has wireless Internet access, and allows you to watch video from YouTube, listen to IP radio, check weather, get news updates and driving directions, check your Gmail, and look at photos from Picasa.
Vue: A Home Video Network That’s Too Simple
Have you ever wondered what goes on at your house when you’re not home? Thanks to Avaak’s Vue personal video network, it’s now easy to find out. This $299 kit features wireless video cameras that you can set up almost anywhere and view over the Internet. It’s incredibly easy to use, and the hardware is well-designed.
Avaak says the system is designed for a variety of uses, including keeping an eye on pets or elderly parents; monitoring vacation homes; checking in on latchkey kids; securing a small business; and more. And it’s so easy to set up that anyone can use it. Unfortunately, the web-based surveillance tools are too limited to be a truly useful remote security system; at this point you can only watch live video, though the company says it plans to add recording scheduling soon.
The kit includes two tiny wireless cameras and a wireless gateway that connects to your router. You just turn the battery-powered cameras on, press a button to pair them with the gateway, and you’re good to go. The four included magnetic mounts are so well-designed — they’re the shape of a ball, cut in half — they impressed me with their simplicity. They grab the camera and hold it securely; it really couldn’t be easier.
Windows 7: Microsoft’s Multimedia-Friendly OS
I’ve always believed in the separation of church and state: My desktop computer stays in my home office, and my TV and entertainment gear stay in the living room. Sure, sometimes there’s crossover between the two — I like to view Web-based streaming video or shows I’ve downloaded on my big-screen TV, for example. But I’ve never been tempted to make my desktop PC my home entertainment center.
Until now. Now, I have a shiny, new Windows 7 PC, and it’s almost ready to make the move to the living room. Microsoft’s latest operating system is earning raves for its enhanced stability and productivity features, but the enhanced video features are what have impressed me.
One of the most notable improvements is the file format support in the latest version of Windows Media Player, 12. I’ve never been a huge fan of Windows Media Player — I prefer VLC’s excellent media player for video playback. But with its new ability to play H.264 video and AAC audio files, Windows Media Player can now play unprotected content purchased from the iTunes Store. Slowly, Windows Media Player is winning me over.
I especially like how Windows 7’s new Jump List feature works with the app; Jump Lists allow you to access the application’s features just by right clicking on the app’s icon in your Taskbar. When I right click on the Windows Media Player icon, for example, I can start playing music or a video without having to go in and launch the app first.
Iomega’s New StorCenter: Storage Overkill?
If you have tons — and I do mean tons – of multimedia content bogging down your computers, Iomega’s new NAS drive could be your storage solution. The StorCenter ix2-200 is a high-capacity, high-powered network hard drive that’s easy to use. It’s aimed at the pro-sumer and small business markets, and for good reason: The average home user may be overwhelmed with all the StorCenter offers.
Iomega’s ix2-200 is available in three versions: 1TB ($269.99), 2TB ($369.99), and 4TB $699.99). All of these are double drive products, meaning they have two hard drives stored in one enclosure. As such, the ix2-200 is thicker than your average network hard drive, but not egregiously so.
Samsung’s Instinct HD: It’s Cool, But It’s No Flip
Can a cell phone take the place of your pocket camcorder? More and more phones are trying to serve as compact camcorders like the Flip models, as are MP3 players like the iPod nano. But few — if any — offer the same video quality and ease of use that you’ll find in a dedicated camcorder. One of the latest phones to attempt this feat is Samsung’s Instinct HD. And, though the Instinct HD does offer a very good camera and camcorder, I wouldn’t trade it for a Flip MinoHD…yet.
Samsung and Sprint, which is offering the Instinct HD for $250, are highlighting the HD features of the phone. And it can capture HD video; in fact, you’re reminded of this every time you fire it up. Before you can capture any video, you have to select your desired resolution: HD (1280×720), VGA (640×480) or QVGA (320×240). I found this constant reminder a bit annoying; I’d rather pick a default resolution and just change it via a settings menu.
The WD TV Mini Is Just Not Mighty
When I first saw the teensy-tiny WD TV Mini, I thought I was in love. This small multimedia player — slightly bigger than a man’s wallet — was the set-top box for me, I thought. I pictured it sitting, almost unnoticed, next to my TV, playing my video, music and photos back on my big screen. But once I actually started using the product, that dream came to a crashing halt.
Let’s start with what’s good about Western Digital’s TV Mini: It’s cheap (only $99.99) and easy to use. You plug it into a power outlet and then connect it to your TV using one of the included cords (composite A/V or component Y Pb Pr; no HDMI connection is offered). It has no built-in storage and does not connect to your home network to transmit content; instead, it has a USB port on the back for connecting your own drive. You can connect a USB-based hard drive, a small thumb drive, or even a camcorder with a USB connection.
LaCie’s Rugged HD: It’s a Shame About That Remote
I like the idea of viewing my PC-based content on my TV, but hate the idea of the complex set-up that’s so often required by the devices aimed at letting me embrace my inner couch potato. Which is why I like LaCie’s LaCinema Rugged HD, a portable hard drive that l can load up with my favorite content, then plug into my TV for easy viewing.
LaCie calls the LaCinema Rugged HD a “multimedia hard drive” — and, honestly, that’s the best way to describe it. It’s part storage device, as it’s a 500GB USB-powered hard drive that I can connect to my computer to back up my content. But it’s also part set-top box, as it connects to any HDTV (via HDMI or composite A/V) to play back audio and video files and display photos. In fact, the LaCinema Rugged HD is a lot like Iogear’s Portable Media Player, which I reviewed — and liked — earlier this year. But LaCie’s product features two very important upgrades: It supports HD content up to 1080p (the Iogear topped out at 720p), and it includes 500GB of storage (the Iogear drive was limited to 120GB).
HAVA iPhone App Proves Difficult to Control
Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA products have long been a lesser-known competitor to the Slingbox line of place-shifting devices. I’ve always been impressed with the HAVAs I tested, which were functionally better then most Slingboxes, though a little less refined. The same is not true of the newly released HAVA Mobile Player for iPhone app, which doesn’t quite live up to the standard set by the SlingPlayer for iPhone app.
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The HAVA Mobile Player lets you view the contents of your HAVA-connected TV over your iPhone’s Wi-Fi connection; like the SlingPlayer app, it does not work over 3G connections. It’s available for $9.99 in the App Store. That’s a bargain compared with the $29.99 that the SlingPlayer app will set you back, but it still seems high to me. To use it, you need a HAVA set-top box, the cheapest of which costs $150. I’d love to see the mobile app come with the device.
3M Projector Sacrifices Power for Portability
How much you’ll like 3M’s M120Pro Pico Projector largely depends on your expectations. If you’re looking for a full-scale, high-powered home entertainment projector, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. But if you’re looking for a fun, easy-to-use gadget that will provide a midsized screen in a pinch, 3M’s petite projector will be right up your alley — as long as you can live with some of its limitations.
The M120Pro is 3M’s second pico projector, after last year’s M110Pro, and offers several improvements over its predecessor, including better battery life and a (slightly) brighter lamp, for the same price: $350. Still, despite these upgrades, the second generation of pico projectors isn’t a drastic improvement over the first.
Verizon’s NFL Widget Scores
If you’re a casual football fan like me — meaning you follow one team, you don’t have a fantasy league, and you don’t have any, ahem, money riding on the games — then the NFL’s RedZone football channel and Verizon FiOS’s NFL RedZone widget will likely be overkill. But if you’re a die-hard football fanatic or one of the millions (and millions) of fantasy football players, the combination of these two services will likely have you in pigskin heaven.
NFL RedZone is a new subscription-only channel (available in HD and SD) that’s produced by the NFL Network. It “takes viewers around the league every Sunday afternoon…for live coverage of critical plays when any team is inside its opponent’s 20-yard line,” Verizon says. If you ask my husband, it means it tells you everything you need to know about your fantasy team: You jump from game to game whenever a team is about to score. You can see the key plays that affect all of your fantasy players without having to change the channel.
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