Dan Chung´s Blog

Dpnow reviews Epson P-2000 multimedia storage album

Dpnow has a review of the new Epson P-2000 multimedia storage viewer.  Like a Ipod on steroids this 40gb hard disk storage device has a 3.8 inch hi res display.  It also sports CF and SD card slots and can copy Jpegs along with a variety of RAW formats direct to its hard drive.  It can also connect to your PC using USB2.0, display images on your TV, or print directly when connected to certain Epson printers.  Oh yeah, it plays MP3 and MPEG4 movies too! 

The only competition the Epson has is the lower specified Nikon Coolwalker which I am currently testing.  Expect a comparison when I get my hands on an Epson.  In theory a travelling photographer could work for days without a laptop using the combination of the P2000 and an Ipaq running Pocket Phojo.

Price is expected to be around £350.

Tom's hardware reviews the OQO

Toms Hardware have an excellent review of the new OQO pocket sized PC.  Essentially a fully fledged Windows PC in your pocket the OQO has a 1Ghz Transmeta Processor, 20Gb Hard drive, 256mb of RAM and a 800x480 colour display.  It also features Bluetooth, 802.11b wireless, USB and Firewire connections. 

The current favourite of many travelling photojournalists is a Pocket PC like a HP Ipaq , running Windows Pocket PC 2003 and Idruna's Pocket Phojo software.  The OQO makes an interesting alternative allowing the use of Photoshop and browsers like Fotostation or Photo Mechanic, while still being pocketable.

I know that various news organisations have already been testing these so expect to see an OQO on the belt of a photographer near you soon! 

You can order an OQO in the UK from Expansys.

Canon lauch XEED SX50 SXGA+ portable projector

Canon have launched a new portable digital projector that may be of interest to photographers making presentations and slide shows on the move.  It will hook up to your laptop and has a 2,500 lumens light output and 1000:1 contrast ratio.  More importantly to photographers it features LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) chip technology which simply put has smaller gaps between the pixels, so unlike other digital projectors using LCD, there is a much reduced "grid" effect.  The result should be much smoother more film like images, previously only available on bigger more expensive models.  Price is around £2900.
Oh, I forgot to mention, it will play movies too!!

The Register Reviews Sony U70

The Register has previewed the latest ultra-portable PC from Sony here, its kind of a cross between a PDA and a PC but running full blown Windows XP.  Sadly its Japanese language only and not available in Europe but it may be the shape of things to come, and if your really desperate to get one the you could import one from US specialists Dynamism for a mere $2399 (This includes a conversion from Japanese to English Windows).  It has a 1Ghz processor, 512mb of RAM, 5inch screen and 20gb hard drive, with optional dock and keyboard.  Importantly for digital photographers it also has a CF card slot and built in 802.11b wifi.  A newer version called the U71 is already in the pipeline with a larger 30gb disk drive.  Imagine how much easier it would be to carry one of these around on your belt instead of a normal laptop.