Navigation devices don't exactly come to mind when thinking of PMP's. Then again, most of them don't boast the features of this new product from Clarion. They're calling it a "Mobile Internet Navigation Device" or simply MiND. It has nearly everything I want in a PMP. A large 4.8" touchscreen display, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, and great codec support. Plus the interface looks pretty nice too:



Specs:

• Display: 4.8" WVGA Touchscreen display (800 x 400)
• Capacity: 4GB SSD memory plus microSD expansion
• Processor/OS: Intel Atom Processor (800MHz) and Linux OS
• Audio and Video: MP3, WMA, AAC, Ogg, H.264, WMV, MPEG-4, and Real video
• WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0
• Internet: Full internet browser (Firefox) w/ flash support, Youtube and Myspace tabs
• Apps: E-mail, Calculator, Wordpad, etc...
• GPS-Navigation
• Battery life: 2 hours from standard battery, 4 hours for extended battery (Yuck)

Looking at that list, there's one glaring downside to this device: battery life. Like many laptops and MID devices the battery life is horrendously low. They don't specify what that rated battery life is for, but I'm assuming it'll be a bit higher when used as a music player.

The ClarionMiND will make its debut in US and Canada in November at a price of $649 and it'll hit Europe January 2009 for 649 Euros. And if that is too cheap for you, there's also a "Premium" model planned for Spring 2009 that will utilize the 3G network.

LINK

via AV Watch