Gizmodo: a3

NEC Tiles E-Ink Displays Into Massive A3-Size Sheet

Kit Eaton — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:00:00 EDT

I've said it before and I'll say it again: e-ink and e-paper displays are getting pretty darn funky...especially when you look at NEC's nifty solution that actually tiles multiple units. In fact, NEC can now tile up to eight microcapsule electrophoresis e-ink displays into one large screen, up to a maximum A3 size (that's 11.7 x 16.5 in inches). Crazily, this huge screen has only a 1mm border to it too. That means if you're prepared to accept a tiny bit of deadspace, you could perhaps tile those into a truly monster screen. There's little more info than a 10:1 contrast ratio—definitely no pricing or timings—but at least it gets our imaginations ticking over. E-ink broadsheet newspapers or wallpaper anyone? [Techon via Engadget]

Cowon A3 and Q5W Media Players Get 80GB Storage Each

Jason Chen — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:10:00 EDT

We've reviewed both the Cowon A3 and the Q5W and found them to be fantastic media players with a pretty damn wide range of video and audio format support. Cowon's just bumped up both players to 80GB, which is great since you're probably going to be loading both with lots of video files. We're still waiting for it to go up to 160GB like the iPod classics though. [Cowon]

Lightning Review: Cowon A3 PMP With Incredible Audio/Video Format Support

Jason Chen — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:30:02 EST

The Gadget: Cowon's A3 portable music player, which supports about as many codecs as its bigger, beefier brother, the Q5W. The difference is the A3 can fit much easier into your pants.

The Price: $319 for 30GB, $349 for 60GB on Amazon

The Verdict: Just as great as the Q5W. The A3's got a 800x480 display which is fantastically watchable, and supports just about every codec anyone would imagine throwing at it: DivX 3.11/4/5/6, XviD, MPEG-4 SP/ASP, WMV 9/8/7, H.264 MP, M-JPEG, MPEG 1/2 for video, MPEG1 Layer 1/2/3, WMA, FLAC, OGG Vorbis, OGG FLAC, APPLELossless, AAC/AAC+, AC3, True Audio, Monkey Audio, MusePack, WavPack, G.726, PCM for audio.

The video player is smooth (load times are a second or two), but navigation is a little wonky with the 4-way stick taking the place of a directional pad. It's not too bad, but occasional down-clicks for selecting something didn't get registered, or got registered as an up click instead.

Photo viewing is also sweet on the bright and ample display, and the transition time between photos is negligible. The only problem comes from the navigation stick and trying to cleanly press down on it without moving the stick in another direction as well.

Music support: great. Document (text reader) support: great. What's even cooler about the A3, that only some of you will use, is its recording feature. You can record Mobile TV (if you're not in the US), FM radio, microphone audio, or audio/video from an external source, such as your analog TV. These all worked as advertised, but like Archos units with DVR recording, it's unlikely that most people will be using the A3 for recording and consuming media, but mostly the latter. In the end, we can't give this full points because of the navigation system and the slightly sluggish UI, but if you're a rabid consumer of downloaded video, the Cowon A3 is extremely portable and has format support that can't be beat. [Amazon]

New HD DVD Firmware 2.0 From Toshiba

matt buchanan — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:08:06 EST

Toshiba's still kicking, at least enough to drop some new firmware for a bunch of its HD DVD players: A3, D3, A30, A35 get bumped to 2.0, with the A30 and A35 picking up 1080p/24 video capabilities among the smattering of fixes. [Toshiba via Electronista]

Cowon A3 Portable Media Player is Powerful and Overpriced

Brian Lam — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:04:42 EST

The Rundown: The Cowon A3 PMP looks to be a full sized PMP (5 inches across its long side) competitive in nature with its 4-inch, 800 x 480 screen and industry standard features including generous DivX support among other formats, text file viewer, photo viewer with support for huge files and USB host mode, audio recorder with built in mic and MP3/OGG/AAC music support.
The Catch: At $350/$400 for 30/60GB, this much PMP doesn't come cheap. [Download Spec Sheet]