Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Netflix seems to be doing things right when it comes to the streaming game, partnering with several hardware companies in an attempt to make its service more or less ubiquitous -- a pretty sharp break from the proprietary hardware approach taken by most of its competitors. That means Netflix subscribers have quite a few choices when it comes to streaming, and we thought we'd put the ones available now head-to-head and try to crown a winner. The good news? There isn't a mediocre choice out there. The bad? Well, read on."

I've been using the Roku box for a while now and find it pretty impressive and should be wrapping up my review soon. Sounds like they are all pretty good and the decision as to which is best really comes down to personal preference and how you plan to use it.

"The X360 will feature 128GB of SSD storage in a system sized much like the MacBook Air at $2,499. The MacBook Air with the 64GB SSD option retails for $2,598. Samsung's X360 weighs 2.8 pounds and achieves the lightweight by using a magnesium chassis and aluminum. To compete with the cheaper MacBook Air with an 80GB HDD at $1,799, Samsung will be releasing the 160GB X460. The X460 will retail for $1,899 providing twice the storage for $100 more. Samsung is also going to be launching a line of larger desktop replacement notebooks for business users. In addition to full notebooks, Samsung will also be unveiling its NC10 netbook in America. The NC10 will retail for $499 and features a 10.2-inch LCD and 160GB of storage. Samsung's NC10 will slot right between the higher-end Asus Eee netbooks and smaller full-scale notebook computers."

I know there are quite a few fans of Samsung products out there, so I'm sure you will be happy to know you can now get them in the US without having to resort to import companies. I'll be especially interested in the specs and design/build of their netbook.

"Samsung will roll out its HZ1 digital camera that touts to be the first 10x zoom and Ultra Wide 24mm compact in the world. With such capabilities, it is able to shoot sharper and wider images from a distance, marking Samsung's entry into the Compact High-Zoom market."
I've got to hand it to Samsung: they keep trying and trying, but I've never read a review of any of their cameras that amounted to more than "Ho-hum, there are better cameras out there". This one looks like it might break that trend though: a 10.2 megapixel CCD sensor, 10x optical zoom, 720p movie recording (no mention of format), dual image stabilzation (optical and digital - interesting!), face detection, and a "digital content management system". I wonder what that last bit is? And dual image stabilization? If that works really well, it could be a serious competative advantage for Samsung. Of course, what really matters is the pictures - the quality of the image sensor - and that tends to be where Samsung has fallen down. Time will tell...