Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

We had a chance to gaze through the wireframe of this 8.1 megapixel Casio W63CA Exilim cellphone back in August courtesy of the FCC’s finest. Now check it in high-gloss, plastic flesh. The latest Japanese super-phone squeezes 480 x 800 pixel into a 3.1-inch OLED display. Let that sink in for a second… the very same 384,000 pixels on a display smaller than the 3.8-inch LCD heralded by the Touch HD. The camera features a wide-angle lens, 9-point auto focus, face detection, anti-shake, and a YouTube video mode that records VGA video at 30fps to microSD. All this in a Japanese-only flip measuring 110 x 50 x 17.4 ~ 22-mm when it launches in early November.

[Via Impress]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Podcasts

We’re back, just as promised! This week, Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, and Nilay Patel discuss the finer points of new ASUS laptops, Casio digicams, and a score of other compelling, enthralling, and generally fascinating items that will tickle your braincells and delight your many respectable senses. Sit back, relax, kick off your shoes, crack open a can of Dr. Terrific’s Party Juice, and enjoy the soothing sounds and delightful pseudo-sights of the Engadget Podcast.

Update: It looks like the Podcast is back up in iTunes! Thanks to everyone who pinged them, but you can call off the dogs — and a big thanks to Scott at Apple for making it happen!

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, and Nilay Patel
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Professor Murder - Dutch Hex

Subscribe to the podcast

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).
[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator.
[Zune]Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace

Download the podcast

LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)
LISTEN (OGG)

Contact the podcast

1-888-ENGADGET or podcast (at) engadget (dot) com.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

No, literalists, we won’t be providing impressions of Casio’s latest high-speed shooter, the EX-FH20, in the English-language equivalent of bullet time — though feel free to sound out each word veerrryy slooowwwly if you’d like — but we did get to see how the camera performed shooting 1000 fps video and high-speed bursts of stills under very ideal circumstances, and came away quite impressed. Casio had members of the press lined up across the ice from some hockey players engaged in hockey activities, with lights the power of many suns at our backs to make the slow-motion video come out as more than a grainy mess. And it did. We found the interface very intuitive — more so than Casio’s first stab at slow-mo, the EX-F1 — and were shooting 1000 fps videos of the action within seconds. That top speed crops the top and the bottom of the shot, which turned out fine for the linear progression of a hockey shot, but 1000 fps is really overkill for anything more glacial than a flash of lightning, and we found 210 fps (which also provides more resolution and a better aspect ratio) to be a real sweet spot for sports action. The immediate effect of slow motion is the dimming of the scene, but it’s easy to adjust the f-stop and film speed to brighten things up a bit. Bursts of stills — up to 40, at 30 fps — are similarly easy to execute, and you can even set the camera to capture snaps for about a second before you fully click the shutter, in case you’re a little slow on the response time. Overall we’re very impressed with the build quality, size, image quality, manual controls and ease of use of this camera, especially in light of its $600 pricepoint, when big brother EX-F1 is retailing for a grand with very few differentiating perks.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

We were sort of hoping import pricing was skewing high when we first caught wind of Casio’s new EX-FH20 high-speed cam, but it looks like this 27 percent smaller version of the EX-F1 will still set you back — official US pricing is $600. Specs are still hot for the money, though: 9.1 megapixels, 20x optical zoom, 3-inch LCD, 40fps burst shooting (at 7.1 megapixels), 1000fps high-speed low-res movie mode, and a 30fps 720p movie mode. Should be in stores now — hopefully we’ll see that price drift downward soon.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays

To put Casio’s achievement into perspective, most 7-inch PMPs and UMPCs generally equipped with 800 x 480 LCDs can’t match the pixel density of Casio’s new 2-inch display. Using a proprietary Hyper Amorphous Silicon TFT (HAST) LCD, Casio achieves a 960 x 540 pixel resolution resulting in 546 pixels per inch supporting 16.8 million colors — hoozah! Although not announced, we’ll undoubtedly see these in future NTT DoCoMo superphones as soon as these displays hit mass production.

[Via Akihabara News]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Remember Casio’s wicked EX-F1? Yeah? Let us formally introduce you to someone else you may dig, the Exilim EX-FH20. Boasting a 9.1-megapixel CMOS sensor, a 20x optical zoom lens and a remarkable burst mode that enables up to 40 7.1-megapixel images to be recorded in burst of anywhere between 1 and 40fps. Better still, it can capture high-speed movies at up 1,000fps, and there’s also an anti-shake feature, high-speed night scene setting for those “after dark” moments and a standard movie mode that records at 720p (30fps). Those anxious to get their hands on such awesomeness will be politely asked to wait until next month when it goes on sale for £399 ($713).

[Via Pocket-lint]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Casio, clearly not wanting to be left behind in the compact digicam market, has introduced what might be described as a treasure-trove of cameraifical excellence. Heading up this line of unstoppable goodness is the £229.99 ($429) EX-Z300, a 10-megapixel shooter that carries the company’s in-camera touch-up mode called “Make-up” which allows you to clone away “blemishes” or “people you hate to look at.” The electronics-maker is also introducing the £129.99 ($242), 9.3-megapixel EXILIM Card EX-Z19, the £149.99 ($280) 9.1MP EXILM Zoom EX-Z85, the £199.99 ($373) 9.1MP EXILM Zoom EX-Z250, and a slightly less robust version of the EX-Z300 simply called the Z300… also with a 9.1MP sensor. Exciting stuff, right? Right.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Peripherals

Photo printers don’t really do it for us, but Casio’s two newest models pack in enough bells and whistles to make us at least pay attention, if not actually print out photos — the PCP-1200 (pictured) and PCP-250 both feature fold-down keyboards for titling, print 2400 x 1200 dpi res on up to A6-size paper, take virtually every memory card format you can throw at them, and allow you to draw on the images using a stylus. The 1200 sports a 7-inch screen, while the 250 gets a portrait-oriented 3.5-inch display — yeah, we’d actually be totally into these if they were coming to the States and had pricing info. Oh well.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

For those still thinking that flexible displays are far from being widely accessible, think again. E Ink has just announced that its Vizplex Imaging Film-based displays will be used in handsets by Casio Hitachi Mobile Communications. For starters, the Hitachi W61H (already available) boasts a 2.7-inch E Ink display that can scroll through 96 different images whenever a call is received or the clamshell is cracked open; the Casio G’zOne (shown after the jump) will feature the same technology on its secondary “silhouette display.” Details beyond that are pretty scant, but the real news here is that these displays are finally making their way into reasonably affordable handsets. Open up the flood gates, we say.

[Via SlashPhone]

Continue reading E Ink fits Vizplex displays into Casio, Hitachi handsets

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Wearables

Automatic movement? Sweeping hands? Pish posh. Casio’s looking to impress a few watch aficionados itself with the all new Tough Movement. Designed to slip inside its Oceanus and G-Shock series of timepieces, the new movement “features a high shock resistance and a hand position correction function using LED.” During the 55th minute of each hour, the movement receives time calibration signals from six bases located throughout the world; if the hands are off at all, it automatically corrects things to ensure that you’re never a moment off. Reportedly, the first wristwatch to utilize the technology will be the GS-1200, which is currently slated to hit Japan this September for a stiff ¥42,000 ($390).

[Via OhGizmo]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

It wasn’t too long ago that you’d find a 3-inch LCD only on the backside of flagship, point-and-shoot cameras. Casio’s new EX-Z150 features that biggie LCD plus CCD-shift image stabilization, a 28-mm wide angle lens, 4x optical zoom, an 8.1 megapixel 1/2.5-inch CCD, and face detection all from a camera that sits somewhere well south of the top of the EXILIM Zoom-series. And since this is the age of self-immolation by video humiliation, the EX-Z150 also features a YouTube capture mode — branded marketing-speak for saying that it shoots 640 x 480 at 30fps for up to 10 minutes at a time. All this in a slim, 20.1-mm package tapering down to 18.9-mm. No date, price, or availability announced yet but we expect to hear more shortly.

[Via Fareastgizmos]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

It wasn’t too long ago that you’d find a 3-inch LCD only on the backside of flagship, point-and-shoot cameras. Casio’s new EX-Z150 features that biggie LCD plus CCD-shift image stabilization, a 28-mm wide angle lens, 4x optical zoom, an 8.1 megapixel 1/2.5-inch CCD, and face detection all from a camera that sits somewhere well south of the top of the EXILIM Zoom-series. And since this is the age of self-immolation by video humiliation, the EX-Z150 also features a YouTube capture mode — branded marketing-speak for saying that it shoots 640 x 480 at 30fps for up to 10 minutes at a time. All this in a slim, 20.1-mm package tapering down to 18.9-mm. No date, price, or availability announced yet but we expect to hear more shortly.

[Via Fareastgizmos]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Casio’s Exilim EX-Z200, which broke cover at CES earlier this year, has been taken in to review by the shutterbugs over at PhotographyBLOG. Sporting a 10-megapixel sensor, 4x optical zoom and a 28-millimeter wide-angle lens, this pocket-friendly point-and-shoot proved to be a love / hate affair in its finest form. Despite being loaded with features and relatively easy to operate, the Z200 still delivered subpar image quality; more specifically, noise and smearing of fine details were quite evident even at ISO 200, purple fringing was obvious in high-contrast scenes and the painfully slow shutter speed left critics woefully underwhelmed. Overall, the digicam seemed to stumble in the areas that matter most, and with the plethora of alternatives out there, it sounds as if your hard-earned dollars could be better used elsewhere.

[Thanks, Mark]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Casio’s EX-F1 has been out for a few days in Japan and to our delight, super happy tech site Impress had the chance to review the new ultra-quick, 6 megapixel shooter. How quick? Try 60fps burst or up to 1,200fps video. We’re not going to try and make sense of all the machine translated text. Instead, we’ll wait for a full-on English review to make sure we capture all the nuance. Until then, check the trio of videos they shot after the break in 300fps (512 x 384), 600fps (432 x 192), and 1,200fps (336 x 96). Right, as the frame rate goes up (and playback slows down) you’re left with some teeny weeny video. Still, the effect is amazing. $1,000-MSRP amazing is the question we’re still asking ourselves. Hit up that read link if you want to read Impress’ full review.

Continue reading Video: Casio EX-F1 SuperSloMo is astounding…ly small

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

Well lookie here, LG just announced a followup to its LH2300 Touch Web phone. This one’s for the twisty-fold clamshell fans — a design which makes it look positively Japanese superphone-like. In fact, we’re pretty sure it’s just the Casio W53CA with LG branding and new Hello UI for Korean consumption. Interesting given that Korea certainly isn’t lacking in mega-spec’d phones. Anyway, given the Exilim underpinnings it’s no surprise to find a 5.1 megapixel CMOS sensor, 28-mm lens, color correction, 9-point auto focus, and built-in anti-shake technology bunged into the backside. The LCD measures 2.8-inches (down from the LH2300’s 3-inch LCD) yet still manages the same 800 x 480 pixel resolution for DMB television and landscape or portrait web browsing. Inside the little 18.9-mm thin handset you’ll find 4GB NAND / 1GB SDRAM and microSD expansion for all your snaps and VGA / 30fps video. Coming to a 3G, CDMA network near you in April… just long as you live in South Korea or Japan.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Oh great lorf of frames per second shooters. Casio’s Exilim Pro EX-F1 just snagged a ship date. It’ll cost you ¥130,000 (tax inclusive) when it hits on March 28th in Japan. Still, we expect many people will be swayed by this 6 megapixel novelty with the ability to burst at 60fps while shooting up to 1200fps video. Still no US or European release where it’s expected to pop for $999 (pre tax), but it can’t be long now.

[Via I4U]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

digg_url = ‘http://www.digg.com/gadgets/Video_Casio_EX_F1_shoots_in_Super_Slo_Mo’; Ever wished you could reproduce those super-slow-motion shots taken by the pros. Now you can, with a catch. Casio’s new EX-F1 can record full motion video at 1200fps. That’s enough frames to catch water droplets fall in unbelievably detailed flight. Unfortunately, the EX-F1 scales things back to a tiny 336×96 resolution at that full 1200fps. Still, the results are startling even when set at 300fps (with the bonus of a much higher resolution) when compared to a typical camera’s 30fps recordings. See for yourself after the break.

Continue reading Video: Casio EX-F1 shoots in SuperSlowMo

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Steve’s Digicams has a review up of Casio’s Exilim V8, a slim 8.1 megapixel point-and-shoot featuring a 7x optical zoom, and a YouTube optimized H.264 video output. Key points of the review highlight the large 2.5-inch LCD on the back, decent movie recording quality — it goes up to 848×480 at 30fps — and some excellent camera shake / blur technologies, all crammed into an ultra compact case. On top of that it shoots some good photos, and has a relatively decent response time: in fact the only niggle Steve found was the fiddly controls. At only $299, sounds like a steal.

[Via Photography Blog]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!