Street Tech

At 9″ x 6″ x 0.67″ and just 1.6 lbs, the Convergent MiniNote is fills a unique niche in the computing world, somewhere between a PDA and a TabletPC. It has an 8.4″ TFT screen with 800×600 resolution in either portrait or landscape mode. Running WinCE .NET on a StrongARM 206 MHz chip (like original iPaqs) and 64-128 megs of RAM, the MiniNote won’t run full Windows programs, but can certainly run all the latest PDA software. It has PCMCIA and USB Host expansion options for WiFi, keyboard, external hard-drive or optical drive (with appropriate drivers). Price is a very reasonable $750 – more expensive than most PDAs but loads cheaper (and probably more functional) than a Tablet PC running Windows XP.

The SmartDisk FlashTrax is another everything media device — it plays MP3, MPEG, JPEG and even text files. With 30 gigs of on-board storage, it’ll hold just about everything you want (7000 hi-fi MP3s, for instance), and play it all back on the 3.5″ color TFT flip-up screen. It also has a Compact Flash slot for uploading or downloading media to other devices, such as digital cameras. With the integrated composite-out port, it can be hooked up to a TV for displaying images or movies. For high-speed file transfer to and from the computer, the FlahsTrax uses USB 2.0, and like all the best of these HD MP3 players, it shows up as a standard external harddrive for easy use. At 5.6″ x 3.6″ x 1.3″, and 12 oz. it’s a fairly large device, but given its capabilities, it could be just the thing for those with an itch for mobile media. Price is $500, which is competitive with the similarly outfitted Archos Multimedia Jukebox AV320.

RCA has a new LCD universal remote, capable of controlling up to nine devices. Using the large touchscreen LCD for navigation, the interface can be customized per the users preferences. The remote is also a “learning” remote with the ability to mimic the functions of even obscure brands of other remotes, and supports macros and timed events (i.e. automatically start the home theater system, turn on the TV, dim the IR equipped lights, and turn to TLC every Wednesday at 9:00 for Junkyard Wars). With the backlit LCD screen, the remote can be used in the dark as well. Price is expected around $120. A model capable of controlling 8 devices will be available without the touchscreen LCD, using traditional buttons and a small LCD for set-up, costing only $50-$70.

With all the new HD-Mp3 players coming out, the older versions, such as the Archos Jukebox 5000, are coming down in price quite a bit. The Archos 5000 can now be had for around $120, and stores 5 gigs worth of MP3s. That may not seem like much, but it’s great for someone just starting out with the MP3 scene, and it can be upgraded when the users collection exceeds these small digital confines.