Lightning Review: Olympus E-420, the World’s Smallest, Lightest, Cheapest DSLR [Digital Cameras]

The Gadget: Olympus E-420, billed as the world’s smallest and lightest DSLR

The Price: $500 for the body, $600 if you want the 14mm to 42mm starter lens too

The Verdict:

There’s a lot packed into this tiny package. People who don’t know much about photography but are dying to learn will love certain features, such as the “Perfect Shot” preview, which shows you four white balance alternatives at the same time, so you can pick the most realistic option; it does the same live previewing for exposure settings too. Olympus added face detection to the camera this time around, a popular point-and-shoot option making its way into the DSLRs. People who are afraid of too much data might shirk at all the live shooting options, but the substitute on some DSLRs, including the otherwise awesome new Nikon D60, is no live preview at all. The E-420 has a hell of a lot of tech packed into its relatively small package.

Live Preview options:I say “relatively small” because saying “world’s smallest DSLR” is like saying “world’s lightest heavyweight.” Truth is, this camera runs the risk of being confused as a point-and-shoot, in both good and bad ways. Fortunately, many photos turn out great. High ISO shots, up to 1600, look fantastic, without any noticeable noise. In the stillest settings, I could take the same shots with a Nikon D60 that I could with the E-420:But in the end, the E-420 is not going to cut the mustard when facing off against the other DSLRs, even though they do tend to list for $200 more. Its biggest weaknesses are focus speed and low-light shooting. In the standard Sensor AF mode, the lens has to back up and focus in each time; the Nikon D60, faster to start with, doesn’t work as hard refocusing on the same object a second time. In decent medium indoor light, the automatic shutter settings are just too slow. On top of that, there’s no optical image stabilizer or vibration reduction, so you end up with a lot of frustrating shots like this one:Or this one:It may be the smallest, the lightest, the cheapest and even the highest-tech, but it’s not the fastest, and in this competition, speed matters one hell of a lot. [Olympus America]

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The Tape Project Gets Real With Reel To Reel
You won’t see anybody at The Tape Project using anything as vulgar as an iPod. For those guys, even CDs and vinyl aren’t good enough, so they’ve started selling music on reel-to-reel tape. The original studio master tapes are dubbed…

You won’t see anybody at The Tape Project using anything as vulgar as an iPod. For those guys, even CDs and vinyl aren’t good enough, so they’ve started selling music on reel-to-reel tape.

The original studio master tapes are dubbed to a 1″ duplicate master and then copied to quarter inch tape for the ultimate in audiophile bragging rights. According to Dan and Paul of The Tape Project, “You just aren’t going to get any closer to the original master, short of buying a record label or two.”

You also aren’t going to get many titles. Currently the line-up number just ten, mostly classical and jazz. Sonny Rollins is in there, as is Robert Cray (no relation to Seymour Cray). If you purchase the lot in one go, it’ll cost you $2000. And you’ll need to purchase a player, too.

Product page [The Tape Project via Retro Thing]

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After being totally wrong wrong wrong (WRONG) about the first iPhone, Digg’s Kevin Rose has now settled down for the obvious: he states that the 3G version of the JesusPhone will have a camera on the front for video-conferencing with other 3G iPhone and Macintosh iChat users. Most probably, he is right about this, but not about the rest of his predictions:

Kevin also said that Apple has restricted background-running applications because they don’t want competition to iChat from third-party applications made using the SDK. The fact is that, if they wanted to ban any direct competition to their own applications, they will simply not approve them for publication and get done with it, without affecting any other developer.

The truth, however, is much simpler than that: Apple hasn’t hidden the fact that they are setting this limit to guarantee a flawless user experience, so the core functions of the iPhone are never affected by applications stealing CPU cycles in the background. And that’s the whole story, really. Installer.app applications will still be able to run in the background, like many do right now (like Apollo.)

But regarding the video conference, yes, he’s probably right. It’s logical to anticipate this from Apple. In fact, most probably the 3G iPhone will have videoconferencing with any other 3G-based video-conferencing cellphone out there, because they use the same h.264 encoding that iChat uses.

In other news, completely drunk sources report that Drew Curtis was heard saying that the next iPhone will be “really shiny.” [Diggnation]

Via [gizmodo]

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Dream On, Google
Google’s dream is of an open cellular sandbox built on frameworks emerging from its Android project, and the HTC Dream will be the handset in its avant garde. It’s a curious choice of name, evoking a vague, surreal world of…

Google’s dream is of an open cellular sandbox built on frameworks emerging from its Android project, and the HTC Dream will be the handset in its avant garde.

It’s a curious choice of name, evoking a vague, surreal world of imagined wonders, not the cutting edge of a project aimed at hacking up market crowded with entrenched powers-that-be and Apple’s surging iPhone. But dreams do come true, and HTC’s likely going to begin us out not with a bomb, but simply a better mousetrap.

Look, for example, at Sony Ericsson’s Xperia. The last large HTC-sourced phone, it sports a combination of traditional features (like a physical keyboard) with a furiously slick appearance. If nothing else, it shows that for huge partners, HTC is happy to go beyond its safe harbor of boring, workaday smartphones.

The prototype vision of the Dream, for example, isn’t something they’d pitch against Apple’s little wonder. When the blurry, leaked shots emerge, they thing must look good. God help them if it looks like the mockup that Engadget’s posted.

But for now, we still don’t know a lot. It’s 5 inches long and 3 inches wide, according to Infoworld, and has a keypad “underneath the screen that either slides out or swivels out.” According to its source, we’re looking at a late 2008 release date.

Of course, it’s worth remembering that the dream is just one of many planned Googlephones — Android is a project, not a product.

Enough speak. Back to fantasy. How to you think it’s going to turn out?

HTC names Google phone, ‘Dream’ [Infoworld]

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Looks like Sony’s living up to their promise to bring its odd little egg of an MP3 player stateside this year. It’s in the middle of its required FCC tour of duty, which means it should be hitting retail here before too long. If the wait’s unbearable, the FCC has plenty to tide you over: pictures (including some naughty ones under the shell), manual, a request for confidentiality and ooo, test reports. [FCC, Thanks Mitch!]

Via [gizmodo]

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Ideal Purchase has always earned my disdain with their retail price mentality. But now, the NYT is reporting that the mega chain and Circuit City have both told sales associates that a tiny haggling to get the sale done is fine. People in the company are saying this is not new. But I’m sure many don’t know about it, so it is to consumers. Translation: Before you purchase, bitch about the prices, Chinatown style.

Some chains, esp in the NY area, have always embraced such methods. But with internet shopping making price comparisons and deal finding easier than ever, the retail brick and mortars are making back room policies like this one to stay competitive. [NYT]

From a tipster who presumably works at a megachain:

This isn’t new. The discount ability has been in the POS system for years. Associates have always been encouraged to shut a sale, even if that means marking down the price a tiny. People just need to learn not to take no as an answer.

Via [gizmodo]

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