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The former OEM manufacturing arm of Asus (before they split), Pegatron, has showed up at ARM’s “Connected Community Technical Symposium 2009.” The Pegatron AQUIC (Always on Quick on User Interface Cost) Smartbook is an ARM-based notebook that, at least in the event, was running UBUNTU. It should have all the features and furnishings of the average netbook with a 10-inch screen. It’s a little more polished laptop compared to what Pegatron and Freescale showed earlier this year. Pegatron could officialize the AQUIC (is that the netbook model’s final name?) soon with, hopegully, the ultra-cheap price it’s promised.

[via shanzai]

The 8.9-inch in-car Digital Cinema from Bmorn should probably never be taken out of the car, like the dude above did. Dubbed the BM-870, we hope the big screen has enough pixels to support 1920 × 1080 videos. Yes, it’s a full HD PMP with no mention of GPS or FM transmitter. Just your professional-calibre basic PMP to keep your woman happy (while she rides shotgun). Not that Bmorn hasn’t caught our attention. We’re certainly hoping there’s more than just 1080p video playback.

[via imp3]

After Rodimus Prime and Alphatrion PMPs, Ainol frinally announced the V9000HDX Megatron. The 4.8-inch PMP is simply seething with villainy with a capacitive touchscreen and supporting full 1080p HD videos and comes with an adequate 16GB built-in. I’m also like the 800 x 480-pixel resolution LCD and the 2450mAh battery. No pricing yet, but then again we haven’t exactly come across Ainol in any of the online MP4 player stores. Also, the touchscreen and 1080p combination makes this sound like a PMP you have to save up for.

[via engadget]

Now why do I think that the Kenwood MG-F516, MG-F508 and MG-F504 MP3 players should be sold at under $100 for the highest capacity version? For one thing, there are a good number of fancier-looking DAP (digital audio players) out there and most of them in slimmer hardware. Kenwood, of course, is a well-known audio brand, but come on it doesn’t even support FLAC or APE. OK, so you can drag & drop the MP3, WMA, AAC and WAV files but the 6 EQ presets cannot compare with JetEffect, BBE audio or even Microsoft’s PlayFX. Anyone out there things the MG-F500 will sell above $100?

[via akihabaranews]

[via engadgetmobile]

This is in respect to the prevailing prices of the LG OLED touchscreen panels which now stands at $500 and will be used in these Apple tablet computers. Since this will account for roughly 30% of the overall price of the unit, if Apple pushes through with the original date, the production cost of the Apple iTablet could range somewhere between $1500 to 1700 which is quite steep. So, as a compromise, since prices of touchscreen displays are expected to considerably drop heading towards 2011, a delayed release will have a significant effect in lowering the over-all price of these tablet Mac computers.

Two models were mentioned in the report: a 9.7-inch OLED equipped tablet, and a larger 10.6-inch LCD variant. Of course, being that this is from Digitimes, we’re taking this bit of news with a grain of salt and classifying this under the rumor category unless we hear otherwise.

[digitimes via giz]

It doesn’t come with a 12-megapixel camera but surely won’t disappoint with its 8.1-megapixel camera, 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen, and 720p video recording and playback. The Kurara also features a Cortex A8 processor (yup, that’s the same type of processor that can be found on the Nokia N900, Zune HD, Motorola Droid, and the iPhone 3G S) complemented by 256MB RAM and a PowerVR graphics chip. We’re not too sure though how well the PowerVR stacks up against the Nvidia Tegra, but as far as the S60 interface is concerned, its pretty speedy on this baby.

It’s expected to hit Europe in the latter part of February for €500 or $745 in US currency excluding tax and carrier subsidies. It’s pricey alright, but hey, if it lives up to expectation, I’m sure people wouldn’t mind paying that amount for the Kurara.

[via engadget]

The touchscreen Samsung YP-R0 has now made it to Korean retail stores. As we noticed before, this PMP doesn’t really stand out. Samsung has had some nice Yepp PMPs, and for a time we have even put them side by side with the iPod Touch for comparison. Not anymore. I’m sure the UI is pretty solid on this one, too–this is Samsung. The construction can be trusted as well, but  compared to advances made by rivals Archos and COWON, Samsung has allowed itself to stagnate, as far as their PMPs are concerned. It’s $120 in Korea for the 4GB and $155 for the 8GB.

[via engadget]

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