Hi Folks. You may have noticed something strange with the look of the blog. We updated our servers and it looks like some of the images on the home page have gone walkabout.

We are looking into fixing this and get things back to normal as soon as possible. If, for some reason, we cannot get things back the way they were (which would suck big time) we may just opt for a whole new redisgn (necessity being the mother of invention and all that).

We’ll keep you posted…

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sony-dcr-dvd108-dvd-handycam-camcorder-2

 I’ve been getting into camcorders ever since we reviewed the Canon VIXIA HF100 and when the chance to review the Sony DCR-DVD108 DVD HandyCam came along we thought that we may as well (enthusiastic, aren’t we?).

As always we like to start our reviews with negatives and the stuff that SONY don’t want you to know about the DCR-DVD108. For a camcorder noon, the HandyCam can be surprisingly hard to use. Getting your video onto a PC for further editing can be somewhat tricky.

The quality of still images on the Sony DCR-DVD108 DVD Handycam Camcorder is laughable. In today’s age of 5 mega-pixel cellphones and mobiles, a camcorder that cannot even muster up a 1 mega-pixel still image is a definite disappointment.

Motion capturing is also very poor and if you move much (read ‘at all’) during recording, the DCR-DVD108 HandyCam gives you a quickly deteriorating picture. Not good.

I know I said we would start with the negatives and move onto the positives in this review but in truth, the positives are few and far in-between. Admittedly on the plus side you have a cheaper than average camcorder so if your on a budget then this is a winner.

If you’re also not too fussed about getting your recordings onto a PC or Mac for editing and just want to shot and show either directly on the camcorder or via a television than you’re good to go also. The biggest plus point about the Sony DCR-DVD108 DVD Handycam Camcorder is the 40x zoom so you can get real up close and personal.

In all, the Sony DCR-DVD108 DVD HandyCam is decent but not great and for a camera with a more stable zoom and greater image quality you should check out the Kodak KZi6 for a more friendly camcorder.

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sony-vdr_mc10

Have to give props to the design heads at SONY for this new autonomous DVD recorder. The SONY VDR-MC10 takes HD video recorded on your HandyCam or camcorder and records it onto DVD, without the need of a PC.

What makes it stand out from the rest is that the SONY VDR-MC10 is tailor made for the 1080i Sony HandyCam (well, any HandyCam in fact) and with its inbuilt HDMI out, you can plug it into your television set and watch all your HandyCam videos on the big screen easily.

The SONY VDR-MC10 looks pretty intuitive and is designed with a 2.7 inch LCD allowing you to easily set your options and control the device. No word as yet on price or availability.

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We announced a few weeks back that Napster had got back into the legal MP3 downloads game big time with the launch of the worlds biggest MP3 store (and without any copy or DRM protection to boot). Well it seems like they aren’t just stopping there, they have teamed up with SONY and more specifically the SONY NWZA-820 series, to bring mp3 users some free tracks.

Those who buy any one of the three players within the SONY NWZA-820 series will now get a FREE 14 day trial of ‘Napster to Go‘. The sad thing is that this is only for UK consumers, everybody else is straight outta luck. Customers can use the service on upto three different PC’s and can even keep upto 5 tracks after the trial period is over, DRM free for use on the SONY NWZA-820 series.

We have an indepth review of the SONY NWZA-820 series, have a gander and see if it’s up your street. The NWZA-820 series comes in 4GB, 8GB and 19GB flavours and it’s one of the best MP3 Players GadgetHeat has seen this year.

The good times for SONY NWZA-820 owners doesn’t end there though. SONY has also formed a partnership with media company 7 Digital in order to allow vouchers for free downloads to be packaged with the NWZA820 sold through Argos shops in the UK. Looks like SONY really wants to sell some MP3 players this quarter…

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Star Wars is always a winner and for the hard-core aficionado all things Star Wars and gadgets, R2D2 clones a must. You may remember a few weeks ago we revealed the R2D2 wireless webcam, well today we take a look at it’s bigger brother, the R2 D2 Digital DVD Projector and its amazing number of functions from DVD to PS3 to iPod. Could this be the gadget of the year?

This R2D2 stands at 80 inches and looks to be one of the ultimate gadgets of the year. It has a host of functions apart from being able to project images up to 260 inches (yes that 6.6 meters baby) onto any surface, wall or ceiling, it also acts as an iPod dock and you can even hook it up to your PS3, xBox 360 or Wii to it and have the R2D2 Digital DVD Projector enable you to play games in HD. We’re not going to list all the 101 functions, instead just watch this video and you’ll get why we’re drooling over this hot little gadget.

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You can pick up the R2D2 Digital DVD Projector for between £1850 and £2100 from the suppliers below – did we mention that it is fully motorized and can zoom around your pad like the real R2D2 and comes with a Millennium Falcon remote control? Enough said.
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The R2D2 Digital DVD Projector looks to be available in limited stock so it’s a first come first serve basis. If it’s out of stock try one of the other suppliers on the list.

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Surround sound is old hat- Sony have officially conformed the release date (20th June) of their non directional speaker, the Sountina NSA-PF1. This thing looks like a ready to go light-sabre but is in fact a self-contained speaker system ready to fill your room with bass line no matter where you put it.

The Sountina NSA PF1 (catchy name) is a six foot tall omni-directional speaker mainly built from organic glass with a vibration range of 50 to 20,000Hz. The tweeter is also made of organic glass unlike the 13cm – Sub Woofer and the 7cm Mid (If you have small children who like to touch stuff then I’m guessing that the Sountina was not built with you in mind).

The standard range of digital and analogue inputs are included including RCA, digital coax and optical TOS. You can also input up to 24bit/96kHz stereo linear PCM. As an added sweetener for those of us who like shiny-shiny gadgets the Sountina NSA PF1 comes with a super slick aluminium remote control which is customisable to your environment via the colour LCD’s and comes in black or silver.

If you have $10,200 burning a hole in your pocket and don’t mind picking up your goods from Japan give SONY a call and they’ll hook you up.

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sony-rolly-01

As far gadget innovation goes, Apple are seen as ahead of the pack and not afraid to be different when it comes to design. Well SONY have decided to jump on the bandwagon and bring out the SONY Rolly to US markets.

Already available in out territories worldwide, the SONY Rolly is a portable MP3/ Music player. It is definitely different to look at and when you see it moving, you can see that SONY really wanted to show their moves on the dance floor.

This is billed as a portable ‘music entertainment player’ by SONY in other words, a multi-format MP3 player. This is all set to be a cult classic with SONY Rolly forums discussing how best to program your Rolly to do the moves you want and showcasing choreography.

Each Rolly unit comes preloaded with three songs and combined coreography for each song so that when played, the Rolly’s arms and shoulders start moving to the beat as it gets down. It also gets funky colour wise with upto 700 colour combinations as the music plays.

From the Press release:

Made for producing superb audio quality, Rolly features 180-degree,
horizontally opposed stereo speakers. As a result, listeners can enjoy high
quality sound from nearly anywhere in the room.

    Sound reverberates from the surface the device is placed on, whether on
a desk or on the floor. With a digital amp for high sound quality and
speakers with neodymium magnets, powerful audio performance is delivered
from the compact unit.

    Rolly Brings Music to Life

    With built-in robotic technologies, the device is designed to move its
small arms, shoulders and wheels-six moving parts-to the beat of the music.
With about 700 colors in its repertoire, lighting adds to the impact of the
motion.

The SONY Rolly Retails for about $400

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SONY have realised that the rest of the world do count for something so have decided to release this special edition Meta Gear Solid 4 – Guns of the Patriots PS3 to the Americans as well as the Japanese (they had only planned on giving it to the Japanese initially).

The 80gb PS3 is will be gun-metal grey in colour and have ‘Metal Gear Solid Limited Edition’ etched into the top of the console. No mention of a UK or Europe release yet but keep watching GadgetHeat for the latest news and we’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.

The box art looks amazing and this is no doubt a collectors edition but in truth, there is already a 40gb gun-metal grey PS3 on sale in Japan already so it’s not really that special. There are also no special features added to the MGS4 PS3 so apart from colour, it’s no different to a standard 80GB PS3 which means that the 60GB PS3 with backwards compatibility still kicks the most arse.

You can pre-order Metal Gear Solid 4 – Guns of the Patriots from Amazon now and from the way GTA IV went i would get in there early if I were you….

Buy from Amazon.com

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

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SONY nwza829 Walkman

A long long time ago we wrote an article on the SONY NWZA818 video Mp3 player and hailed it as the most likely to succeed out of those rivals to Apples Nano.

In truth, no other video Mp3 player has made great strides against Apple but the NWZA810 series is still amongst the more popular of the alternatives out there and now it’s got some heavyweight backup in the form of the SONY NWZA829 Walkman.

Withiut saying too much, the NWZA829 is probably the best Mp3 player you will see this year along with its siblings the NWZA828 and the NWZA826 SONY video MP3 Players.

The new SONY NWZA820 series is the bigger brother of the NWZA810 series and it certainly looks like a nice upgrade from it’s predessecor. As usual with the NWZA Walkman it comes in 3 flavours (click the links below for pictures)

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Sony NWZA826 – 4GB
Sony NWZA828 – 8GB
Sony NWZA829 – 16GB

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(We will use the versions interchangeably in this review as all aspects are generic of the NWZA820 series) Personally, I think that the NWZA810 series was prettier to look at but then again, the Sony NWZA828 is no ugly duckling. If you watched the featured video on the home page (and why didn’t you??) you would have seen SONY’s latest advert for the Sony NWZA826 and we have to admit it looks pretty slick.

Sony NWZA826, Sony NWZA828 and Sony NWZA829

The interface of the player has not changed much and the 2.4inch screen should be large enough to veiw movies and videos without discomfort (once you manage to get them on there – more on that later..). The screen is also multi-oriented and can dispaly your images, videos or slideshows no matter which what you turn it.

The Killer feature of the NWZA20 series is it’s ability to stream audio via bluetooth. That’s right, this opens up a whole new realm of Mp3 sharing. You can exchange files easily with others simply by having your bluetooth switched on and sending to or recieving from their player.

The other aspect of this is that you can use wireless headphones when you’re out and about which, if you’re anything like me, is an absolute godsend. I hate having to fiddle with the headphone wires to get it ‘just-so’ and then remain in position to ensure the lead does not come out of the player when I make a swift move. The cherry on top of this feature is that both 4GB and 8GB (Sony NWZA826 and Sony NWZA828 respectivley) come with SONY DR-BT21G bluetooth headphones which is a nice addition.

The Bluetooth love doesn’t stop there, you can stream audio to virtually any device that is bluetooth enabled. this includes, speakers, hifi’s and car stereos. This is one of the best features we’ve seen in a long time.

In the past, SONY has had issues with its proprietary transfer software on its video Mp3 players but carrying on from the leap forward made by the NWZA810 series you can now just drag and drop your files from and to the Mp3 player without hassle. (you can also use the supplied Media Manager software and add the cover art and additional information to each file). The SONY NWZA820 series is also in cahoots with Microsoft in the it carries the ‘PlaysFor Sure’ logo meaning that it can interact seamlessley with many third party online content providers.

However, this leads us nicely into one of the major gripes. Whilst the audio features and support are abundent, the same cannot be said for the video features. The video interface is not intuitive and can take a while to get comfortable with all the necessary requirements and parameters need for video to work properly. Video playback itself is crisp and smooth once it’s on there but you’ll probably be hunting around online for a guide to tell youhow to do it more easily.

The SONY NWZA829 is the kind of video mp3 player for those who want something cutting edge without having to follow the iPhone crowd. Audio wise It’s packed with all the right features, video wise it could do better but at least it does not make you feel like a sheep for falling for Apple’s marketing genius (who would of thought we would be saying that about a SONY?).

GadgetHeat gives the Sony NWZA826, Sony NWZA828 and Sony NWZA829 – 8/10

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Everybody likes a list so we at HDTV Reviews came up with one. A few years ago if I told you HDTV‘s would be under £500 you would have laughed in my face and asked me what I was smoking (ahem) but these days you can get some pretty nifty deals without blowing a hole in your pocket. If you’re looking for a second television or a HDTV dedicated to your games console, spending more than £500 is a bit excessive unless you really have money to spare.

We’ve put together a list of the top 5 HDTV’s for around the £400 – £500 that are definitely worth checking out.

1. Sony KDL32S3000

No surprises as to our number 1 the Sony KDL32S3000. This is a decent sized 32 incher and the SONY quality runs through this like a river. You get 3 HDMI ports plus the Bravia engine technology, what more could you want?

2. Samsung LE32R87BD

This could have easily been a SONY dominated list but we couldn’t over look the Samsung LE32R87BD. The winning feature of this set is the ‘game mode’ which makes all us Ps3 and Xbox 360 addicts extremely grateful

3. Toshiba 32C3035

This was the amongst the first Toshiba we reviewed and so far it has proved to be the best. Easy setup straight out the box, great picture and it also has a slick design that makes it stand out from the normal HDTV crowd.

4. Sony KDL32D3000

This is the bigger brother of the S series. More ounce to the bounce but slightly more expensive. If you’re not happy with the S series for any reason (and you got to be one tough customer not to be) the Sony KDL32D3000 would be a step up in the right direction.

5. Philips 26PFL5522D

We haven’t yet reviewed a Phillips at HDTV Reviews but this is definitely on our list. At 26 inches it is smaller than the other televisions on this list but it’s great value for money and looks fantastic both picture wise and aesthetically. It could do with a few more settings and options in terms of getting the picture just right so it won’t be making it any further up this list.

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