Vodafone is giving away PSPs - if you buy one of the new Sony Ericsson X10i handsets.

The first 300 people who buy the Sony Ericsson X10i handset, sign up to a selected On Account plan and register their details will receive a free Playstation Portable.

The touchscreen X10i runs the Android OS and has an 8.1 megapixel camera.

The X10i costs $699 (RRP $1099) on a Smart 80 plan, register at www.vodafone.co.nz/freepsp to get your free PSP (RRP $329.95).

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Sick of buying batteries for wireless desktop devices? Me too. I even ditched them and went backed to the wired variety. Now, Logitech is promising us three-year battery life in the Wireless Desktop MK710.

It's going to be a while before we can report on the claim but get back to us in May 2013 to see if Logitech pulled it off. According to the company, "Battery life of Logitech keyboards is based on a calculation of an estimated two million keystrokes per year in an office environment; battery life for Logitech mice may vary based on user and computing conditions."
Anyway, you can buy it for $128 later this month.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Sony's refresh of the ultraportable Vaio P series is totally colourtastic. Mind your eyeballs if you make the jump.

If dayglo pink and orange don't rock your world, you can tone things down with white or basic black. But whatever colourway you go, you still get an 8-inch display and a 600g machine equipped with a built-in accelerometer so you can shake to ‘flick’ through pictures or the pages of a PDF document, or navigate back and forth through your web browsing history.

The sensor also recognises when VAIO P Series is turned on its side, automatically ‘flipping’ the screen for easy reading of documents or web pages in vertical mode.

The new P retails for $1899.95 and is available from May 21st.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

It wasn't the first to show us its technology, but Samsung is the first to get products to the shops. You can buy a Samsung 3D TV now, while Sony and Panasonic have scheduled June releases for their offerings.

The Samsung system has much in common with the other 3D tech we've seen, in that you wear a pair of active glasses that turn the left and right lenses off and on in synch with the image being portayed onscreen. Samsung is currently including two pairs of glasses with each TV sold.

Samsung also had one trick up its sleeve that its competitors had not shown at their demonstrations, although Sony says it does have the technology. It will convert 2D video to 3D on the fly. Just hit a button on the remote and the 2D source signal coming into your TV is processed by the TV's video chip to produce a 3D image. Interestingly, you can also vary the depth of the resulting image on a sliding scale from one to 10. If you love a full-on 3D effect you'll bump it to 10 but if that messes with your head too much you can back it off so the effect is much less pronounced. In demonstration I found this technology a little hard to come to terms with when watching a soccer game, but couldn't quite pinpoint why. It seemed to add some kind of lag to fast motion so that it appeared almost blurred.
The same 2D to 3D effect can be applied to your photographs too. And here it was rather nice. landscapes really popped with the added depth.

Vieiwng other 3D material delivered via a hard drive and Samsung's own 3D Blu-ray player ($699), I found it to be the usual mixed bag. The animated movie Monsters Vs Aliens looked superb (and Samsung will give you a copy of this movie if you buy one of their TVs). Crystal clear and some great in-your-face effects.
Live action was variable depending on the amount of lens zoom applied to the footage. A Black Eyed Peas concert looked brilliant except that the zoom compressed the image to create a sort of layered look. Elsewhere, where zoom was not applied as in some wildlife footage, the 3D effect was mesmerising.
It seems to me that the quality of 3Dviewing is going to come down to the quality of the source material. Live footage shot originally in 3Dlooks excellent, footage converted to 3D after the fact looks not so great. Animation and games look awesome.

Samsung is covering all bases with 3D, offering it on bog-standard LCD, LED backlit LCD and plasma.
The 7000 series LED backlit units are priced at $3,999 for 40-inch, $4,799 for 46-inch and $5,499 for 55-inch. Plasmas are available in 50 ($3,499), 58 ($4,499)and 63-inch ($5,499) versions. Ordinary LCDs come in 46 and 55-inches but pricing was not provided.
Glasses retail at $199 for the USB rechargeable version and $149 for the CR2025 lithium battery version . They also come in adult and child sizes.

Posted by Ted Gibbons at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Fans of heavy breathing and Star Wars can rejoice - Darth Vader's voice is now available for TomTom in-car GPS devices.

TomTom announced the availability of the Sith lord's voice today, saying it would add a "thrilling dimension" to GPS navigation. Vader's voice instructions include such lines as: "Bear left, to the dark side. Then in 200 yards you have reached your destination. The Force is with you, but you are not a Jedi yet."

His voice commands are priced at AU$17.50 and can be purchased from TomTom's website. They could also be coupled with a free startup screen wallpaper and a Darth Vader driving icon, TomTom said.

TomTom said it would release more Star Wars voices in New Zealand and Australia in the coming months. C-3PO voice commands would be released in June, followed by Yoda in July and Han Solo in August.

Posted by James Heffield at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )