We’ve been feeling the Walkman love from Sony Ericsson for what constitutes forever on a tech timeline. Oddly, Japan is only now getting their first taste of these little musicphones with the newly announced W42S. However, don’t feel sorry for our former tech overlords just yet, the W42S packs in a cool 1GB of internal memory which can be supplemented with up to 4GB of Memory Stick Pro DUO expansion and sports a power saving mode allowing up to 30 hours of music playback. This 3G (CDMA2000) slider also features a 1.3 megapixel cam, a 2.2-inch 262k color QVGA LCD, FM radio, an EPG to keep you hip to the TV schedule, and a feast of dedicated player controls including a new mechanical wheel unique to Walkman phone navigation. And by partnering with KDDI, owners can snag music over-the-air via the 5 million downloads per month strong LISMO music service. No price announced but “local media” is reporting that this musicphone will fetch $181 (with contract and telco rights to your vital organs we presume) when these drop in late June.

[Via Impress Watch]

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Sony Ericsson’s V630i is a Vodafone Group exclusive handset, featuring a 1.9-inch TFT display, a 2.0-megapixel camera, 256MB M2 card, Bluetooth, a music player, USB 2.0 connectivity, USB charging capabilities, and mobile TV through Vodafone Live. It goes on sale next month, no word yet on pricing.

[via Slashphone]
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Sony has updated its E-series flash Walkman, but if you’ve already picked up a first-gen unit and are happy with it, you probably don’t need to rush out and pick up a new one. Like its predecessor, the NW-E005 comes in versions from 512MB to 2GB, and comes in a range of colors. But Sony has added one key feature: the new model now supports the AAC file format, which Sony is in the process of adding to all new players. As previously mentioned, although AAC is the default format used by iTunes, these players won’t be able to play any DRM-protected iTunes downloads. However, if you’ve ripped CDs into AAC using iTunes, you will be able to play them back in the NW-E005 without having to convert them into another format first. Sony’s also rolled out a waterproof case for this player, though we’d still be a little wary of taking it into the shower or pool. (Note: Sony is currently offering a firmware upgrade to allow owners of the A-series Walkman to play AAC files, but we have yet to hear of an upgrade for this model.)

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If HTC has anything to say about it, most of the major Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition contenders these days are sporting QWERTY keyboards and a bit of bulk. ASUS is taking a different tact with their new P525 smartphone, and if you can stand the lack of text input, it might make a decent bid for your smartphone buck. The quad-band GSM phone has a 2.8-inch QVGA screen, 2 megapixel camera, 416MHz Intel XScale processor, 802.11b WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, miniSD, 128MB flash ROM and 64MB of SDRAM. Even better news is that all of this fits into a 5.6-ounce, 0.75-inch thick form factor. The P525 also sports push email, along with Skype, though without UMTS you’ll probably want to be doing most of that on a WiFi connection. No word on price or where exactly this is dropping for now, but we’ll keep an eye out.

[Via Geekzone]
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CNET’s staff just strapped on their bionic suits and hoisted Dell’s 20-pound XPS M2010 into the lab for a full, hands-on review. Calling this desktop/laptop hybrid a “striking feat of engineering” (that’s a compliment, we think), the reviewer fawns over the M2010′s premium components, bright 20-inch glossy display, and 8-speaker system with subwoofer which is said to deliver “rich, clear” audio and more low-end sound than any laptop he’s seen. The guy’s equally stoked by the magnetically held Bluetooth keyboard and gyroscopic Media Center remote which includes a small LCD screen for peeping music and video track details when not flittering the thing about to control the onscreen cursor. The M2010 also proved to be an “able gaming machine” though not the best. However, the M2010 is still “absurdly expensive” with a $3500 base config rocketing upwards to $8000 fully spec’d and the battery only lasted about 2-hours while the machine simply idled. Oh, and the pig is just too heavy to be truly portable thereby limiting its appeal. Still, if you’re a smarmy sales type, LAN party trust-funder, or Ivy league media troll looking for a single all-in-one desktop / laptop / home stereo / TV(via optional USB tuner) then this hulk of Dell-icousness might be calling you home.

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If you’ve been looking for a redundant iPod accessory that likely won’t fit into 9 out of 10 cigarette lighters, this new radJupiter nano dock from Radius should fit the bill nicely. The little unit comes in white and black, and also has a shuffle version with a USB port instead of dock connector. Along with charging your iPod, the radJupiter contains an FM transmitter to get tunes to your stereo, and houses a stereo mini jack to get audio from other devices. You can get your rad on for about $50, but we’re pretty sure that the rad-ness will be Japan only for the time being.

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Yeah ok, we missed the press release on the Acer Aspire Idea 500 last month but she’s still worth a quick double-back on this fully-spec’d, Viiv Windows Media Center PC. At just 2 3/4 inches thin, this low profile living room media center generates a mere 28 dBA under heavy load (23 dBA idling) yet packs in a Core Duo T2300 CPU, 250GB disk, 1GB DDR2 memory, a dual-layer DVD burner, 7-in-1 memory card reader, 4 x USB, Firewire, 802.11b/g WiFi, an RF keyboard and mouse, and not one, but two mini-PCI tuner cards for viewing and recording digital and analog television broadcasts. It also features a complete range of connectivity including HDMI, DVI-I, 2 x SCART (RGB?), 7.1 audio with S/PDIF digital out with support for High Definition audio, Dolby Digital Live, and DTC Connect. The Idea 500 should hit the cobbled streets of Europe any day now with an expected VAT-inclusive price of €1299/$1671. See, now aren’t you glad we told you?

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