14 DAY TRIAL // The PSP ain't doing too great these days, and some people might even say that the real PSP-killer is already out there, in the sexy and sleek form of the Nintendo DS. However, it would seem that there is a whole line of companies ready and willing to take a swing at Sony's portable gaming console (read flop), the latest being the Koreans from Qrio, who have launched the (rather impressive) G7, a portable media player that boasts, according to the company, 2D and even 3D gaming capabilities.
The first thing that really draws the attention to the G7 is the striking resemblance between its control system and that of the "classical" Nintendo controllers, which is not a bad choice for a portable gaming console, but not the best thing either to stick onto a PMP. Actually, the whole design of the G7 is a bit screwy, since it looks like the manufactures tried to combine the PSP with some of the DS and a lot of PMP. But enough with the acronyms, let's move on to what this baby can do.
The media player functions are pretty impressive, especially due to their high number. Thus, the G7 sports MP3 and movie playback capabilities (Avi/XviD and even Flash movies!), comes with its own AM/FM tuner, can be used for viewing pictures and reading e-books (or any other type of text files, for that matter), supports multitasking (reading a book or viewing some pictures while listening to music) and can even be used as a mass storage device.
It's not yet very clear what the "2D and 3D" gaming capabilities consist of (the company's website, otherwise poorly translatable, mentions something about a "downloadable simulator game/program function", but the device is up for the task, since it sports a 260.000 full colors 6.35 cm TFT display, capable of running AVI clips in QVGA at 320 x 240 resolution or in QCIF at 220 x 176. And since it measures just 100 x 50 x 11.5 mm and weighs just around 100 grams, this thing is perfect for the road.
The Qrio G7 will be available in 2 models, with either 2 GB or 4 GB of NAND flash memory, in pearl white or black, but there's no word on the pricing yet. However, if it isn't ridiculously expensive, this thing might really take off, if it makes out of Korea, that is.
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