Photos: Hands-on with the Toshiba Gigashot A to the K
High above the Nevada desert, we got our hands on the new Toshiba Gigashot A Series and K Series, hi-def hard drive camcorders
If the hustle and bustle of CES gets too much, it's nice to have a chance to get away, perhaps to the countryside. At least that's what Toshiba thought, and the show hasn't even started! So that's why your intrepid, and in truth, slightly terrified, camcorder Craver found himself in a helicopter headed for the Grand Canyon and the launch of the Toshiba Gigashot A Series and Gigashot K Series.
Pictured is the A100F. The 100 stands for its 100GB hard disk drive, so no prizes for guessing the capacity of the A40F model. You can probably also guess that the K80H and K40H store 80GB and 40GB, respectively. Each pack a 1/3-inch CMOS Sensor and 10x optical zoom.
The new camcorders record MPEG-4 and AVC/H.264 video at up to 60 frames per second. Hi-def footage shot on the A series is 1920x1080i or 1400x1080i, while the K Series is 1280x720.
The A Series cams boast pleasingly wide angle 35mm lenses -- equivalent to a 35mm film camera -- which is perfect for the grandeur of the Nevada and Arizona desert. The K Series lenses clock in at 46.2mm wide.
Click through to the next page for more on the new Toshiba Gigashots in action high above the American west.
Update: A full review of the Gigashot A100F is now available on the site. -Rich Trenholm
Here we see the Gigashots' swivelling 76mm (3-inch) 16:9 TFT Colour LCD, packing about 230,000 pixels (a 959x240 pixel resolution). Opening and closing the screen turns the camcorder on and off. Functions are controlled by a mini-joystick to the bottom left of the screen, and a zippy scroll wheel set into the side of the monitor housing.
A dedicated stills shutter button set next to the very responsive zoom rocker allows you to capture still images while recording, which is a big plus. Stills are recorded to an SD or SDHC card up to 8GB.
Tucked away underneath the monitor is a row of connection sockets, including USB, AV out, component terminal and the all-important HDMI slot.
The Toshiba Gigashot A100F and Gigashot A40F are available any minute now, priced at €1,399 (£1,042) and €1,199 (£893), respectively. The Toshiba Gigashot K80H and Gigashot K40H will cost €799 (£595) and €699 (£520). A review of the A100F will be coming very soon.