Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

As digital photo frames become larger, at what point do you draw the line between a dedicated photo viewer and an LCD TV/monitor? I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure there’s a technical standard somewhere that says once you put a tacky faux-wood frame around the outside edge, the LCD has to be sold as a digital photo frame. And that’s how you end up with this huge 32-inch model from Smartparts (which I’ve typed as Smartpants at least 10 times now.)

Besides the size, there’s unfortunately not much else to be impressed with. It has a resolution of 1366×768, which is perfect for displaying your 1 megapixel photos, and includes just 256MB of internal memory. As for file support, it can load JPG files off of an MS, SD or CF card, and also supports various video formats like MPEG, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, WMA and AVIs. I will give it credit for also supporting PDF and PowerPoint files, making the display a bit more useful for office environments.

I’m not sure when the SP3200 will be available (it could be already) but it will supposedly come with an $899 price tag.

[ Smartparts SP3200 ] VIA [ I4U News ]

By Andrew Liszewski

For serious home theater enthusiasts who are seriously lacking in space comes the AN-ACD2 from Sharp. Designed to be used with a 37 inch or 42 inch Sharp Aquos display (I’m sure a 32 inch would work just as well) the stand includes built in speakers and a sub woofer that when combined produce 150W of audio enjoyment. There are also two bays for adding your hi-def DVD player of choice, or a gaming console if you prefer not to dive into that mess just yet.

It should be available next month in Japan at least, for about $866.

[ Sharp presents the Aquos audio AN-ACD2! ] VIA [ Bornrich ]

By Luke Anderson

I’m hard on a lot of my gadgets. My phones get scuffed up, flash drives get broken, washed or lost and even my poor mouse gets knocked onto the floor on a regular basis. You’ll have that when you’re as clumsy as I tend to be. One component of my PC that I’m never hard on is my monitor. Of course the biggest reason for this is that they are safely mounted to the wall, out of harm’s way. However, for those working under hazardous conditions, the monitor can be roughed up quite often. It’s in these places that a TuffTouch LCD screen would come in handy.

This rugged 17-inch LCD monitor from Stealth Computer Corporation will resist water, dirt, dust and the all-important dings and smacks. The screen is encased in a high precision metal casing, which is responsible for most of the protection. While it might not pack the best features, it will still perform great in most situations. You’ll get a max resolution of 1024 x 768, a contrast ratio of 500:1 and an 8ms response time. The 17-inch screens start at around a $1,000 and go up as high as $3,400.

[ Stealth ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]

By Evan Ackerman

Once you’ve played a game or watched a movie on a 6 foot screen courtesy of a LCD projector, it’s hard to go back to a little monitor that’s only measured in inches. I Want One Of Those is selling an Alien Tech LCD Video Projector that’ll project a 6′ picture from 80″ away on either a wall or ceiling. It’s pretty meh, though, so here’s the nutshell… The downsides: Composite input, brightness/contrast/resolution all probably suck since they’re not specified, and it’s ugly. The upsides: built-in headphone jack and speakers, vertical stand, weighs 1.5 kg, it could be uglier, and it’s $268.20. Do the upsides outweigh the downsides? Eh, I dunno, but $270 is damn cheap if you ask me.

[ Film Projector (?) ] VIA [ Uber-Review ]

By Shane McGlaun

Gateway has jumped into the high-end 30-inch LCD market with its new XHD3000. The display has the same 2560 x 1600 screen resolution that you will find on all 30-inch LCD displays on the market. However, Gateway does offer some unique features on the XHD3000.

The first unique feature is the ability to upscale 1080p video from your Blu-ray or HD DVD player to what Gateway calls 1600p resolution. The XHD300 also has HD picture-in-picture capability. Connectivity options are fantastic on the XHD3000 with the ability to connect to six different devices simultaneously.

The display has one HDMI, one analog VGA, one DVI-D, two component, one composite and one S-video input. Also included are six USB ports. Built-in speakers are included and the display has an S/PDIF coax and Toslink out. The response time for the panel is 5ms, contrast is 1000:1, and the brightness is 400 cd/m2. You can buy the XHD3000 now at Gateway for $1699.99.

VIA [ Gateway ]