Moto surprises with Android 2.0 MID devices

Feeling a little love for Android 2.0 but aren’t necessarily looking for a phone? While the general consensus is that Android 2.0 is going to be a VZW/Moto exclusive for a little bit longer, 2.0 is no longer limited to the DROID. Now hold up a sec because you’re not going to be able to stroll down to your local Best Buy and pick up Android 2.0 on some wonder device. Motorola is also using DROID day to launch the first in a series of devices under their Android Media Platform (AMP). These devices will come in 3.5″, 5″, and 10″ sizes with the mid-sized five incher enjoying the open sunlight today. Mind you, developers are the only ones that get to touch and prod these devices early on. As for the internal goods, the screen itself is negotiable — coming in either OLED or LCD form. The processing power resides in the Texas Instruments OMAP3430 CPU ensuring you have plenty of muscle to tickle your fancy. Cutting the cord thanks to the onboard 802.11b/g/n WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and optional 3G means my eyebrows are already heading north.

Since this isn’t a phone, size isn’t as important or limited. Seeing this grand opportunity, Moto has gone ahead and stuffed a 3,000mAh battery underneath the hood. This should power the smaller two devices for quite some time with the larger 10″ model getting at least decent cordless runtime. Unfortunately we don’t have anything in the way of price. I guess we’ll just have to sit back and yearn for more.

Can you believe how quickly Motorola is turning around? A year ago they were considered for all intents and purposes, dead. Now they have the DROID which is lined up to be a big comeback. Following up with this MID device series, which if properly marketed and developed appears to be a worthy contender as well, will be another big hit for Moto (and Android). Moto, welcome back.

Engadget > OLED-Info

iRiver eschews market trends, treads on with iRiver B30 multimedia player

I know we’ve said it multiple times, but we’ll say it once more for those who may have missed it: Smartphones are hot. Because of that, dedicated media players such as iRiver, iPods, Zunes etc. are seeing decreased sales as people look to consolidate all of their needs to one gadget. iRiver pushes on however with their latest media player, the iRiver B30. By now, you can expect fairly average specs from a player in this category — 2.8″ 280 x 320 display, WOW earphones, and an integrated DMB Tuner. As far as supported formats go, back in the day of my iRiver iHP-120, practically any and every format including OGG (and FLAC if Rockbox’d) were officially supported. As media players have proliferated, with the masses only using a few popular formats such as MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV, support for many of those more obscure, niche formats has unfortunately been dropped. Supported video formats include MP4, DivX, XviD and H.264.

Storing all of your digital collection can be done with either an 8GB model or higher capacity 16GB version. Thankfully iRiver allows end users to further expand their libraries via microSD card as 8GB and 16GB just isn’t what it used to be. Rolling back to that DMB tuner, if you happen to live in a country that supports the technology, take comfort in knowing that mobile TV is but a few button presses away. Sadly here in the states the technology just hasn’t quite caught on.

To rehash, since smartphones are gaining ground so quickly these days, do dedicated media players such as the iRiver B30 have much draw for you? Or are you looking on to bigger and better things?

• [Product Page] — (flash heavy)

Red Rerret

Zune browser finally gets some screentime

The Microsoft Zune may be the ugly, finally getting prettier step child that many love to hate and few actually love. But I can say that it has finally started turning into a device I would actually want to own. With the latest updates to the physical design as well as internal features, Microsoft’s Zune is becoming quite the little media player/mobile web browser…even if it is a year or two late to the game. CNet whom gave the new Zune glowing initial reviews and opinions has finally posted some pics of the much sought after browser based on IE and designed by the IE team. Pics of said browser can be found right after the click.

HD Vids coming to media players…brought to you by Creative

Creative is one of those electronics companies that doesn’t necessarily stay in the here and now consistently. Instead, they have one really good product ever few years that really wows us or at least gets our attention with the years in between more like “beta years” if you will. An FCC filing fresh of the desk of the big guy himself shows the outline of Creative’s next move in the PMP market. The filing shows an HD camcorder on the back as well as support for WiFi, touchscreens, and a unit titled “developer edition”. So what does it all mean? Only that Creative is getting ready to unleash a bomb shell if they can manage to get hardware and software to co-exist happily. Keyword: Happily. If they want the element of surprise and to enjoy the limelight for any more than just a few days, they may want to hurry up as Apple is rumored to be bringing camera modules to the entire iPod line as various leaked cases have shown. Suddenly in a world full of Android phones, iPhones, and Palm Pre’s, the PMP market just get hot and relevant again.

Source: Engadget, FCC