If the Boy Genius’ soiled-trow, hands-on of the HTC Excalibur had you gasping for more, then peep the full review of the O2 Xda Cosmo just posted at the::unwired. Their unit from O2 Germany came ready to go with Windows Mobile 5.0 and AKU3 which, besides some low-level tweaks, brought a new Internet Sharing application in replacement of HTCs Wireless Modem app. The reviewer who admittedly comes from a more traditional GSM phone background (read: no real experience with a QWERTY/Z Smartphones or BlackBerrys) found the keyboard confusing for “regular phone stuff” like entering a phone number or searching for contacts — apparently preferring T9-style input instead. Still, he was stoked by this quad-band GSM phones WiFi, GPRS, and EDGE data connectivity options and “satisfied” by performance under normal usage or while watching live, Slingboxed TV. However, the reviewer then goes on to worry unnecessarily about the OMAP 850 processor getting overloaded if say, using it for GPS, watching live TV, and listening to audio over Bluetooth all at the same time. Hell, why not agonize over the risk posed by it getting lodged in your skull when used near certain supermodels? Geesh. Bottom line: if you’re looking for a WinMo device with keyboard and “all the latest and greatest technologies” (well, almost all) then the Cosmo is a “great device.”

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If you’ve been craving that hot, 3-inches of touchtastic screen riding atop double-digit megapixels then check it pixel junkies, ’cause Sony’s here to sate that need. The CyberShot DSC-N2 is just what we expected following those leaked images and specs: 10.1 megapixels from a tiny 1/1.7-inch CCD, 52MB of on-board memory, a massive 3-inch touch-screen LCD, and an all-too-familiar image-stabilized 3x optical zoom lens in a 6.6-ounce followup to the DSC-N1. The DSC-T30 also got a bump with the announcement of a new top-end T, the 7.2 megapixel DSC-T50 which ditches some of the mechanical buttons ’round back by introducing touch-sensitive control to the existing 3-inch LCD. This 4.6-ounce cam still maintains the same Carl Zeiss Vario Tessar 3x optical lens with image stabilization but drops the built-in flash memory by 2MB to 56MB. Get your Sony Style, pre-oder on starting tomorrow or wait for these to go retail in October at $450 for the champagne gold DSC-N2 and $500 for the DSC-T50 in your choice of silver, red, or black. DSC-N2 at the bottom.

[Via Digital Camera Review]
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SIM2 dropped additional product for home theater buffs today with the introduction of their HT5000 projector and Home Cinema Scope System. The HT5000 is yet another 1080p projector targeting home cinemas which, just like the DPI’s TITAN 1080p, features three of TI’s 0.95-inch 1080p DarkChip3 DMD chips albeit dolled-up in a prettier dress. While we know the DLP sports a 300-watt lamp and 5000:1 (full on / full off) contrast ratio, SIM2 fails to mention any inputs. Nevertheless, we’re hoping to find at least a couple of HDMIs like those found in their HT3000 when more details (and pricing) are released in Q4. Also announced at the CEDIA Expo in Denver is the SIM2 Scope System which combines a new lens with enough processing power to convert the typical 16:9 widescreen output from your projector to a theater-like 2.35:1 aspect ratio sans letterboxing. Just prepare to drop an additional $12k for such excessive luxury, mkay? Check the Scope System snuggled up to a SIM2 C3X projector after the break.

Read — HD5000
Read — Scope
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It may look a lot like a UMPC, what with its tablet-style form factor and seven-inch LCD touch screen and all that, but the new UREN V1 is what they’re calling a “Mobile Auto PC”. So what’s the difference? Mainly that it comes with integrated GPS and is supposed to be mounted on the dashboard of your car (though when you think about it, all UMPCs should probably have GPS, it’d make them much more useful). The UREN V1, which runs Windows XP, also sports a 30GB hard drive, a DMB TV tuner, a memory card slot, and a three megapixel digital camera on back for, uh, taking pictures of the road while you’re driving. This one looks like it’s currently for the Korean market only.

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It wasn’t but several weeks ago that we first posted about the new Panasonic DMC-LX2 and we told you then that they’d be arriving in September. Well, here we are after Labor Day, so behold what the stork brought us today. As you probably know, this DMC-LX2, the upgrade to the LX1 sports 10.2 megapixels, ISO 3200 and a 4x optical zoom. Click ahead for more snaps.

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Just when we were getting excited about the Core 2 Duo chips that have become standard in everything from the 24-inch iMac to new Dell laptops, we’ve now got quad-core fever. Yes, Intel already has the shown them off before, but Tom’s Hardware has a very thorough investigation into the nature of these four-headed beasts — what Tom’s is dubbing the Core 2 Quadro. (Of course if this really is the name, Intel may have to chat with NVIDIA first, as it already uses the name Quadro in a set of graphics cards.) So how’d it turn out? Not surprisingly, video editing and rendering are everyday tasks that took advantage of all four cores: “Test results with the software packages Main Concept with H.264 encoding and the WMV-HD conversion make this very clear. We noticed performance jumps of up to 80% when compared to the Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed (2.66 GHz). A Core 2 Quadro at 2.66 GHz and higher is the answer for HD video (editing and rendering) at full HD resolution (1920×1080).” However, Tom’s also noted also that the Core 2 Quadro requires 167 W of power in idle mode, which is the same amount that a Core 2 Extreme demands at full capacity, and attributes this to an “incomplete implementation of Intel’s SpeedStep technology at this stage.” That said, maybe once Intel reaches 32 cores (as it’s said previously would be possible), the new chip name will be Core 2^5 Insanely Awesome.

[Thanks, Mack S.]
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Classic Mac users might be familiar with the phrase: “did you zap the PRAM?” The commonly used fix-all seemed to smooth over a wide variety of troubles, but Samsung’s new Phase-Change Random Access Memory has nothing to do with the Parameter RAM of yore. Instead, the new type of memory breathes fresh life into the world of non-volatile storage, with 30x the speed and 10x the lifetime of conventional NAND or NOR flash chips. Samsung just unveiled their first 512MB PRAM prototype PRAM chip, and plan to begin selling the memory in 2008. The chips cite spiffy tech specs like “vertical diodes” and “three-dimensional transistor structure” to keep size down, and the memory doesn’t require old data to be erased before being written over. Supposedly the tech should be cheaper and smaller than NAND in the long-run — which is considerable given the fact that Samsung also introduced a 32GB NAND chip today made with a 40nm process.

[Via textually.org]
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