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November 9, 2004 |
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In the buzz this week, a seemingly amazing camera deal had you all looking for information. Here's the information: It's not such a deal. In other news, is a video iPod inevitable? Interest in portable video players is growing, as evidenced by your searches for the Archos Gmini400. Time, and the Weekly Buzz, will tell.
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VuPoint and holiday sales prices
We had a ton of searches for VuPoint over the past week, and finally, Google let us in on the secret. Apparently, Overstock.com is selling what it calls an 8-megapixel VuPoint camera for $239. Yahoo Stores has it for $199, Beach Audio has it for $178, and so on. It's safe to say that price would generate some, ahem, buzz, since 8-megapixel cameras normally start at about $700. But here's the real deal, and it's not such a deal. Our digital doyennes, Aimee Baldridge and Lori Grunin, tell us that the camera's model number, DC-MSX400-VP, indicates that it's probably a 4-megapixel camera that is interpolated to 8 megapixels, meaning that software inside the camera fills in the missing image information, pixels, and so forth to create 8-megapixel-size files. More importantly, Aimee says she wouldn't spend any amount of money on it. Let's just put it this way: Shop carefully, OK?
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Archos Gmini400
Interestingly, it wasn't until Apple came out with a photo-viewing iPod that searches increased for the highly rated, extremely forward-thinking, tiny, video-playing wonder that is the Archos Gmini400. Why do we think these things are related? Well, when Apple debuted the iPod Photo ($600 for a 60GB model), folks started wondering why it didn't also play back video. During the iPod Photo announcement, Steve Jobs pretty clearly said he didn't think the market was ready for video on tiny devices. But then, this week, an iRiver firmware upgrade apparently adds video to the $300 H320 MP3 player. The 20GB Gmini400 goes for about $330, so, heck, maybe people could get into watching video on their MP3 players.
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Sony KDF-50WE655
We've been hearing a lot about how HDTVs will be the biggest technology buy of the season, and it looks like you're finally catching up to the industry analysis. Frankly, we think the only reason they haven't shown up big in search results is that all the names are about-10-character alphanumeric nightmares. In any case, the Sony KDF-50WE655 (see what we mean?) hit big last week--and we mean big. It's a 50-inch LCD high-definition TV. It is, shall we say, large. Our editors thought it was somewhat bland-looking, but it's actually fairly cheap for such a large HDTV--about $3,000, and you can find it for a little more than $2,700. Don't even ask about shipping.
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LG VX6100
Verizon has announced its newest camera phone, the LG VX6100. It's an update to the very popular, CNET Editors' Choice-winning LG VX6000, and it's, you know, your basic clamshell-design camera phone. But it does include a flash, and it lets you actually adjust images on the phone, making it slightly more like a digital camera than other camera phones. It's currently $99.99 from Verizon with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate. (We are currently awaiting a review unit, so look for our take soon.) Much as it pains us to say this, Gizmodo had the best line on this one: "Meanwhile in Asia, someone's phone just cooked them a delicious breakfast." Zing!
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Sony Cyber Shot DSC-T1
In other camera news, we had lots of searches for this 5-megapixel camera from Sony, which is ultracompact (about 2.5 inches tall and quite slim), takes short videos, and has a nice, long battery life. Picture quality is only OK, but it looks like a good stocking stuffer and can be had for about $315. We should point out, however, that the equally pocket-size Konica Minolta Dimage Xg is rated slightly higher and comes slightly cheaper. Just trying to give you all the options.
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