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Samsung IceTouch transparent MP3 with glorious new touchscreen

admin — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:13:12 +0000

MP3 players have certainly changed over the years if the Samsung IceTouch is anything to go by! For starters, it’s not just an MP3 player, even though that’s what Samsung are calling it. It can also play DVD-quality videos, display pictures, comes with 5.1 surround sound and has an FM receiver for listening to the radio.

In other words, it’s a DVD player, digitial photo frame, home cinema, radio and an MP3 player! Not like Samsung to be so modest with one of their new products!

None of this is what makes the IceTouch stand out, though. As you can see from the pics, the IceTouch’s screen is its unique feature – it’s transparent!

The reason for this is that it’s an AMOLED screen, which makes it super-sharp, crystal clear – and viewable from the front and the back, as you can see form the video below.

It’s also the world’s first touchscreen based on AMOLED technology (that’s more like it – this is Samsung, there had to be a “world’s first” there somewhere!). This makes accessing all your content extremely easy, particularly when the user interface is a variant of the same Touchwiz interface that Samsung uses in its mobile phones.

The IceTouch MP3 player supports tonnes of content formats, so you should be able to watch and listen to whatever yuo want. In particular, it supports the following formats:

Audio

MP3
WMA
OGG
FLAC
AAC
M4A
WAV
MP3 HD

Video

MPEG4
WMV
H.264
Xvid
Divx

With 8GB and 16GB variants, the glorious looking Samsung IceTouch MP3 player will be out sometime in the first half of 2010.

[Source: Engadget]

CES 2009: Samsung P3 – a touchscreen haptic MP4 player

Mike Evans — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:12:08 +0000

Samsung have announced the Samsung P3 at CES 2009, a brand new MP4 player that features a new touchscreen haptic user interface that’s designed to take on the iPod Touch at its own game.

The iPod Touch made existing MP3 players look as outdated as mobile phones when the iPhone came out, but this may not be the case much longer. The Samsung P3 is just one of a new generation of MP3 and MP4 players that offer a brand new touch-based user interface that brings them far closer to the iPod Touch than ever before.

Samsung P3 MP4 player in detail

So what does the Samsung P3 offer? Well, obviously an MP3 player, and a nice set of features for organizing your music. You can access your favourite tunes instantly, for example, through the use of a Music Hot Touch Key, while the touchscreen user interface lets you choose tunes by pushing virtual keys and swiping your finger across the screen. As its a haptic interface, the device vibrates whenever you push a virtual key, giving you instant feedback of your actions.

The screen itself is a 3″ widescreen 16:9 format, which is useful for watching videos on, which you can watch in MPEG4, WMV and SVI formats.

The P3 also sports integrated speakers with Samsung’s amusingly-named DNSe 3.0 sound enhancement technology, and comes with storage of up to 32GB.

As you can see form the pictures of the P3, it also offers a variety of other features, including FM radio, several games, address book, alarm, calculator – in fact, the types of thing you’d find in a mobile phone.

Indeed, the P3′s user interface is called the EmoTure touch interface, which by the looks of it, seems very similar to the Samsung Tocco touchscreen mobile phone. Looking at the P3, then, I can’t help but feel it’s a top-end Samsung phone that’s had its mobile phone internals ripped out – but then, that’s no bad thing!

The user interface certainly looks good, and the brushed aluminium of the device’s body makes it exude a cool and stylish look.

No pricing or release date has yet been announced, which is annoying, as the price will surely dictate how successful the Samsung P3 will be compared to the iPod Touch.

[Source: Electronista]

Samsung MBP200, the world's first pico projector PMP

Mike Evans — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:44:33 +0000

CES 2009 wasn’t only about HDTVs – a number of stunning new PMPs have also been shown off the by electronic giants. Take, for instance, the Samsung MBP200 Pico Projector. At first glance, it’s a rather boxy-looking Personal Media Player with a 2.2″ screen, but it comes with one rather special feature…

…a pico projector.

A pico projector, if you’ve not heard the term before, is a tiny video projector that can project an image from a device onto a wall or other flat surface. In the case of the MBP200, the 2.2″ image you see on the screen can be projected onto a wall with a viewing area of 50″

This is the perfect combination of technologies – the device itself is small enough to fit in your pocket, while the image it projects is large enough to actually see!

Pico projector technology has been around in prototype form for the past two years or so, but this year at CES we’re finally starting to see some real products being released. Several stand-alone pico projectors were on show, but Samsung scooped them all by including a PMP within theirs.

It was assumed that pico projectors would find their natural home within mobile phones, but I guess the electronics and power requirements of a mobile phone + projector are too great for one device at the moment. A PMP, in contrast, doesn’t need the energy-sapping demands of a wireless radio, so it makes perfect sense to use it as the first device to include a pico projector.

Once the technology is proven, it can then be refined and integrated into a mobile phone, probably in 2010.

Samsung MBP200 specifications

Back to the Samsung MBP200 pico projector PMP though. Here are it specs:

Features: File viewer, picture viewer, music player, video player
Projection Panel: HVGA (480*320)
LCD: 2.2

Spotlight: Archos Multimedia Machines

Mike Evans — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:02:10 +0000

Archos Multimedia – two words that are almost synonymous with each other, as when you think multimedia player, you instantly think of Archos (and if you don’t, you really should!).

We’ve put together a brief overview of the latest Archos players and recommend which Archos Multimedia player you should buy.

Archos Multimedia Players

Archos are probably best known for their Portable Media Players (PMP). There’s still lots of demand for their old 04 range of PMPs, but right now it’s their 05 range that’s making waves.

Archos 105

The baby of the bunch, the Archos 105 clearly competes with the iPod with Nano. With a tiny 1.8″ OLED screen and just 2GB of storage,the Archos 105 is best thought of as an MP3 player with a bit of video.

Fortunately, this is reflected in its price, as you can buy the Archos 105 for just