Topic: 8" Infocast Going Back
I bought both a 3.5" and an 8" infocast from BestBuy last weekend during their black Friday sales. I initially played with the 3.5", and have actually grown fond of it as a potential replacement for my current bedside clock radio. It has an excellent clock and alarm settings, and I like all the audio options - Pandora, Shoutcast, MyStreams, the night sounds, etc, etc. The other apps are interesting, and maybe I'll warm up to some of them, but they seem more of a novelty to me.
Anyways, I finally picked up an 8" that I had on hold, because it seemed like it was a worthwhile upgrade for only $30, right? Well, the large screen is great, and the touch was very responsive. However, its clock/alarm settings are not nearly as good as the 3.5", the music options are greatly reduced, and the expanded video options are nothing that great. The video/sound was always out of sync regardless of my choice of source, and there are only so many youtube videos or clips that one can watch - just not something I would do on this type of unit. And the video fullscreen is rather poor. Ultimately I think perhaps something along the lines of the Sony Dash and its Netflix and Hulu plus options make more sense. Also, the picture frame options are just okay - the transitions stutter, and its not as good as my Kodak Pulse fram (and it's panning option).
These devices are very unique / hard to define. I can see myself keeping the 3.5" next to my bed, using it as my new clock, and listen to the multitude of audio sources, and find those few apps I'm interested in. The 8" size is great, but it doesn't seem suited to do any one task good that would justify my keeping it (if it was a good clock, or a good video player, or had all the music streams, or was a good picture frame, maybe I'd keep it).
I wouldn't mind comparing it to the Sony Dash, but thankfully I missed the $129 sale this past weekend.