Serious Compacts took a bunch of photos comparing these mirrorless cameras: Sony NEX-5, Samsung NX10, Olympus E-P2 and E-PL1, and Panasonic GF1 and G2. I was quite impressed with the size of the Sony NEX-5 as well as the quality-looking lenses: no plastic except for the cap.

Viddler: There’s a simple way to figure out if something is cool or not. If everyone has it, it isn’t cool. If your grandfather is using it then it might be time you should consider using something else. The iPhone is definitely one of the very best smartphones to get but I see it being used by everyone, everywhere. The iPhone’s cool factor might soon decline. Or will it.

While I was writing the previous paragraph I thought, “Does that grandmother FaceTiming on her iPhone 4 make mine less cool? Or do I feel even better for owning this so-dang-cool uber-high-tech smartphone that even a grandmother can use?” I think it’s the later.

Sony’s new jab at the iPhone prompted this thought. In the PSP ad is Josh Rose, an iPhone-toting guy who plays Lame Castle and he doesn’t text his grandma. Sony seems to think that iPhone gamers would be surprised to find out that games on the PSP can be had for US$9.99. Unfortunately this doesn’t work since most games on the iPhone/iPod touch look even better and cost much less. Can you really compare games developed for a 960×640 display to one with just 480×272 pixels? I do like the feel of mechanical buttons, but there is a downside: I’ve had experienced serious finger pain after a couple of hours of vigorous button mashing on the PSP.

Marcus Rivers is the cool kid in the ad caring a regular phone for making calls (texting must be painful on that thing) and the PSP for playing games. I wonder how he would feel if his grandma was texting back at him on her iPhone 4…

Nikon has updated its Coolpix S1000pj. The old version could project only the content stored inside the digital camera and cost US$430. The new one can be connected to a computer and used to project anything you want and is just $350.

The projector is a single LED lamp, single LCD panel design sporting a 0.4-inch 4:3 aspect ratio reflective LCD panel. The spec states the LCD to have approximately 921,000 dots. What we should remember is that those dots are really sub-pixels. After going through some known 4:3 pixel formats, it seems the LCD used in the S1000pj features a 640×480 pixel format or VGA.

Brightness has been enhanced from 10 to 14 lumens and contrast ratio is 30:1. The touch-enabled LCD grew in size from 2.7 inches to 3 inches and with your finger you can draw stuff, which gets overlaid on the projected image. Kind of cool; I think kids will really enjoy that. They’ll be limited to just one hour but that’s one more hour than any other digital camera. The S1000pj is quite unique as it combines a 14.1 megapixel camera with a VGA pico-projector. It will be available in September. Source: Nikon

Keith Peters took a Veho VMS004 DELUXE USB-powered microscope and took a close look at the displays found in the Kindle (E Ink) and the iPad (IPS TFT LCD). The Kindle’s E Ink display at 400x magnification looks almost organic as if made of small minerals or rocks. Source: BIT-101

In some iPads shipped in North America the SIM-card ejector-tool is made of Liquidmetal. This is according to Leander Kahney, Cult of Mac. Apple wanted to test out Liquidmetal, on a non-essential part, since there is only one source of the ultra-hard, light, stiff, almost impossible to bend material. Now only if Liquidmetal was transparent. Read about my thoughts on the possibility of a Liquidmetal iPhone. Source: Cult of Mac via Wired

Amazon is offering the new BlackBerry Torch for just $99.99 with a new two-year contract. Get it direct from AT&T and you’re looking at double Amazon’s price. Read my initial reaction regarding the display on the Torch.

The MSI WindPad is a Windows 7-based 10.2-inch tablet priced at $500 and comes with a dock that has many ports including an HDMI, two USB 2.0, Ethernet, VGA and audio (microphone, headphone). The WindPad is powered by the Intel Atom Z530 CPU that consumes just 2W of power. Other specs include 32GB SSD and 2GB RAM. Priced at $500 the MSI WindPad will be available in September. Source: netbooknews.com

ASUS is going with Android (ditching Windows Embedded Compact 7) for its 10-inch Eee Pad EP101TC. It will be available in March for under $399. That’s still a long time away and if Apple decides to bring down the price of the iPad by that time… Source: PC World via Engadget

Engadget’s Chris Ziegler reviews the Sprint Epic 4G, a Samsung Galaxy S phone. Here’s the bottom line regarding the 4-inch 800×480 Super AMOLED:

The Epic’s 4-inch Super AMOLED display at WVGA resolution is exactly the same as the one you find on the Captivate and Vibrant — and as you can probably guess, it’s absolutely glorious. If you’re not accustomed to these displays (even if you’re already familiar with standard AMOLED), you’ll be pretty shocked by the insane black level and the rich, dazzling color saturation that you get from these. Despite what you may have heard to the contrary, we’ll echo what we said in our look at the AT&T and T-Mobile models that it still doesn’t perform as well as a traditional LCD in direct sunlight, though it isn’t completely washed out; in our experience, we could always make out the contents of the screen if we squinted hard enough.

Guest author Rich Svinkin reviews the Leica M9 on CrunchGear:

The Leica M9 is deserving of its accolades and undoubtedly will earn its place in history. But be careful, if you’ve got seven or so thousand dollars to spend understand that you are getting a great camera for shooting portraits and scenes, a unique aesthetic quality in the visual imagery that only comes with a Leica lens, and a great conversation starter.

MSRP is US$8000…

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