Samsung's Holiday In July 2008 Event

Hey folks, Valkor here. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… in July. The folks at Samsung spread a little holiday cheer in the form of “Holiday in July”, a little soiree that features some of their top products either out on the market now or soon to be. The event was very laid back, with lots of decoration, and ice sculpture (which had encased inside of them, some of Samsung’s products; even an ice dream decorated with the Pebble). There wasn’t too much I haven’t seen already, but since it hasn’t been featured here on TOV, I thought I’d take you guys inside with a peek at some of the goods that will grace the shelves this holiday season.

Let’s start off with the Toc LCD Monitor with TV Tuner. They come in three flavors: The T260 and T240, which offer a full 1080P HD experience, then you have the T220, all have 10,000:1 contrast ratio, 16:10 aspect ration, and internal speakers. The price is definitely right and it makes the monitors affordable for students who are heading back to college, looking for that perfect space saver. The T260 retails at $599, the T240 is $549 and the T220 goes for $429 and are available now at your local Best Buy or other retail outlets.

Keeping it in the television area, we have an amazing little device that piqued my interest, the Samsung MediaLive Extender. I don’t have too much info on the device but what I do know, this device connects to your PC or laptop and streams your media collection for viewing and listening on your Samsung television (not sure about other TV’s, but I believe it can only do Samsung’s). The device has quite a few tricks up its sleeve, such as its own program guide, when searching for movies will show the movie poster (much like music and the CD jackets), has PiP, and more! The Live Extender will go “live” this Aug, and the Val-man will try to get a hold of one for Val-cave testing and this could be the most interesting gadget I’ve seen to date.

Samsung has always shown that they are tops when it comes to digital cameras, and their NV line is always tops. But coming soon the NV will get a boost in the form of NV-100HD 14MP digicams (TL34HD) and it shows much, MUCH promise. First it does video at 720p at 30 fps, has a large 3” LCD display, but the most prominent feature is the Smart Touch interface, which acts much like the IPhone, where you slide your finger across the face to control the many functions of the cam. It definitely looks to be an improvement on the NV24HD cam, especially with the Smart Touch; look for the NV100 to hit the shelves this Sept.

Next in the cam area, is the SC-MX20 aka the “YouTube” cam. It’s small, lightweight and meant to catch those harrowing, most embarrassing, or zany situations, which can then be uploaded directly to YouTube. It has a swivel handheld strap so you can really get some crazy angles, can use an SD card up to 32 gigs and has 3 hours battery life. The MX20 will also come bundled with CyberLink software (I’m assuming PowerDirector will be the software of choice for video editing), you’ll get three different colors (red, blue, white) and the MX20 will retail for 279. Not too shabby if you ask me.

In the cellphone area there wasn’t too much of interest, but those press releases I will post in MobiView, but they did have a white BlackJack with two different kids of backs (one red and blue back piece.

The holiday season will soon be upon us, and its always good to start, at least, keeping an eye out for potential gifts for those someones in your lives and Samsung has just the lineup your looking for. We’re gonna try to get a few of these items in-house for full on features, until then I’m in a Holiday State of Mind thanks to the folks at Samsung, Kudos.