Quite some time ago we reviewed the Pico pocket projector which I believe was the first of its kind. Since then we’ve been hearing about how projectors are getting smaller and smaller and that they are even finding their way in to mobile phones and digital cameras now.
3M recently launched their MPro series of pocket projectors and we have the MPro150 here to review. It’s a little bigger than the Pico that we had all that time ago but it’s much more feature rich, has a larger native resolution and greater brightness.
One of the really cool features of the MPro is that it has 1GB of built in memory or can accept a MicroSDHC memory card from which it can read and display content for stand-alone PC-free presentations! It supports not only Powerpoint files but also Word, Excel, plain text, MP3 and MP4 video files. So you can in fact watch a movie from this little thing if you wanted to!
I’ll be using the 3M MPro150 Pocket Projector over the next few weeks as I do have some presentations to give. I’ll come back and let you know how it fairs against the not-so-portable projectors available too. Have a look at the unboxing video below for a tour of the unit and a quick demo of the user interface and playback of stored files.
I came across this piece of news late last night and thought I would share it with you all as I know that quite a large number of our visitors use Google Chrome web browser to view the site.
Now that Chrome more popular it would seem that it’s becoming a larger target for malware and trojan exploits. More details have emerged of a particular threat the details of which you can find below from BitDefender.
Yes I know a physical phone is three dimensional, and they have been this way over a few years and I would imagine will continue to be for a little while yet, however in a recent patent Motorola have described something interesting:
“A cover is mechanically coupled to the housing and may be moved to overlie the display. The cover includes an optical element, such as a transparent lenticular material, through which the display may be viewed. The display presents images in two dimensions, and when the cover is “open“, the operator sees the displayed images, for example, diagrams and text, in two dimensions. However, when the cover is “closed“, the operator perceives the images presented through the optical element as three dimensional.”
A rather astonishing technological revelation that could very well change the way we do things, I’d even go as far to say, on all electronical device. If implemented well then all will jump on the band wagon to have it pretty quick.
So the super secret Apple infrastructure looks like it has been blown apart this year after a guy managed to leave an iPhone 4G or G4 in a bar in Redwood City.
Sure we have seen fakes come and go but the evidence that Gizmodo have dug up after getting their hands on this points to it being the real deal.
What’s new
• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. It’s unclear if it’s the 960×460 display thrown around before—it certainly looks like it, with the "Connect to iTunes" screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic
What’s changed
• The back is entirely flat, made of either glass (more likely) or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through. Tapping on the back makes a more hollow and higher pitched sound compared to tapping on the glass on the front/screen, but that could just be the orientation of components inside making for a different sound
• An aluminum border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% Larger battery
• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery
via Gizmodo
Last week we mentioned the announcement of the HTC Droid Incredible. If you remember, this device is only available in the USA on the Verizon network but does have a lot of similarities with our HTC Desire. Some of the specs are slightly better that the Desire but overall they are pretty much one in the same. The great thing for the American users is that they can now have HTCs Sense UI on there flagship HTC device as the Google Nexus one was missing it.
Phil Nickinson from Android Central has spent some time with the device now and has posted his review. If you fancy reading what we are missing out on (or maybe what’s to come in the future?) then head on over to androidcentral.com and see what Phil thought of the device. I know that Phil has been using a Nexus One for some time now and even flashed Sense UI onto it so it will be interesting to see if the Droid Incredible will make him switch devices again.
Posted by: James
I’m pretty sure that 2010 will go down as they year of the tablet computer. Since well before Apple made the iPad official we know that something tablet-like was on the way and may speculated over the eventual name and format of Apple’s tablet.
So we’re already starting to see several other manufacturers coming up with their own tablet computers and the likes of HP have their tablet out there.
SO this week I have a tablet PC from a little-known company called iiView. We have their Vpad tablet here at the moment and we’re going to be testing it out. The Vpad is more like a full-blown PC in that it runs Windows 7 and has a 320GB hard drive, Atom CPU and a 10.2″ 1024×600 display.
So if the iPad isn’t what you are looking for and you are after something with perhaps a little more power and flexibility to run anything you want under a ‘real’ operating system then perhaps the Vpad or other tablet might be worth considering. In the video below I’ll show you around the Vpad in terms of the connectivity and what’s in the box. Not too much of the OS itself as it’s a pretty standard implementation of Windows 7.
We have here the latest instalment of Sony’s Walkman media players the NWZ-A845. The first thing that comes to mind for me is “Is the device as good as it looks? And will it be an IPod Nano beater?” To find out if the answers to these questions are yes; I have prepared a full review of the device for you to make your own judgement and maybe for you to answer them for yourselves.
Introduction
Sony as a company have been making walkman MP3 and media players for many years always improving on what they previously released to the point where people say ‘wow’. Here at tracyandmatt we have had quite a few of Sony’s MP3 and media players to have a play around with and to also review and we have always been very impressed with the sheer quality of the devices so when I received this one I definitely expected it to give the same impression. We first heard about the product early in January of this year so we have been really anxious to get hold of one to review so when we finally received it I jumped at the chance to do the review.
I hope that by now most of you have had the chance to take a look at our recent review of the HTC HD mini.
As I mentioned in the review there are a few differences between the HTC HD mini and the HTC HD2 both in terms of hardware and software.
I thought I would follow up Matt’s earlier unboxing and demo video with another just showing you some of the differences between the HD mini and HD2 so you can see for yourselves and hopefully if you are considering buying either device this video may help a little.
As you may or may no know, our US friends are able to enjoy all sorts of free streaming video and audio services that we just don’t have access to here in the UK. There was a time when I used to listen to Pandora radio all day long as it allowed me to choose the type of music I like to listen to and it customised the station for me. There are also services like ABC Player, similar to the BBC iplayer, that allows them to watch many of ABC’s TV shows on-demand.
You may be wondering why we cant simply use these services here in the UK? Well the fact is that when you attempt to connect in to these services either from your computer or iPhone you’ll be stopped at the outset by a message warning you that you the service is not available in this country. They know by the IP address of the connection which country you are coming in from and were not allowed to connect from the UK.
The HTC Droid Incredible is another one of those devices that will be available in the USA only. The handset will be launched on the the Verizon network at the end of the month and joins the ‘Droid’ family, coming after the Motorola Droid and HTC Droid Eris.
You may think how lucky our American friends are to get this nice new device but check out the below specs and you will see that is extremely similar to the Google Nexus One but without the Sense UI. That means its just like our HTC Desire with a few tweaks!
- 3.7" 480×800 WVGA OLED Touch screen
- Virtual QWERTY Keyboard
- Camera: 8MP camera w/auto-focus and video capture
- OS: Android 2.1, Google Experience Device
- Integrated Google, Exchange & Facebook contacts
- User Interface -next generation Sense UI
- Push Gmail and Exchange
- 8GB internal memory
- 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor
It would have been nice if we too could have had the 8GB of internal memory and 8MP camera on the Desire but that’s life. Maybe next time.
Posted by: James
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