Powerpoint Books for Dummies

The Grace ITC-IR1000B Wi-Fi radio wound up being one of our favorite surprise products on the year. We weren’t familiar with Grace before testing this radio, but its solid mix of design, features, and sound quality made us fans, and it stacked up well in our Wi-Fi radio roundup.

The company has announced five new Wi-Fi radios coming out this winter, ranging from a second-generation version of the ITC-IR1000B to new products like the portable GDI-IRP600. Here’s the full rundown.

Grace GDI-IR1000

Key features of the Grace GDI-IR1000:

• Wi-Fi radio capable of tuning to thousands of free Internet radio stations

• Manage stations with the Reciva Radio Portal
• 802.11g wireless
• Supports WPA and WPA2
• No PC required
• Alarm functionality
• Supports Pandora, Sirius, and MP3tunes
• Streams MP3s, WMA, AAC and WAV files from a PC
• Available February 1, with a $180 MSRP

Grace GDI-IR3020

Key step-up features of the Grace GDI-IR2000:

• Remote control
• Auxiliary audio input
• Available February 1, with a $200 MSRP

Key step-up features of the Grace GDI-IR3000:

• Alarm clock-style form factor
• Available March 15, with a $200 MSRP

…

The Acoustic Research ARIR600i internet radio

While internet radios have been popular in Europe for a while, 2008 was the first year the products really gained some traction in the US market. Acoustic Research showed off two new internet radios, the ARIR200 and the ARIR600i, which offer some unique features …

Originally posted at CES 2009

Blu-ray ran into plenty of consumer confusion regarding the differing Blu-ray profiles, but the good news is that almost all (excluding a few Philips players) of the new players we saw announced at CES 2009 are Profile 2.0 compatible. Memorex’s new MVBD-2520 doesn’t have any of the …

Originally posted at CES 2009

As we mentioned it in our CES 2009 home audio preview, the trend in home audio over the last few years has been toward simplicity, and sound bars have promised to deliver the full surround experience from a single speaker. In reality, it never quite sounds that good, but the …

Originally posted at CES 2009

Samsung is clearly intending to make a big push with its LED-backlit LCDs, but the company did announce one new line of LCDs without LED. The Samsung LN-B750 series uses standard CFL backlighting, but includes other cutting-edge features such as 240Hz refresh rate, a slim inch-thick design, and access to …

Originally posted at CES 2009

Panasonic released a bundle of home theater systems at CES 2009, but the SC-TZ1 is easily the best of the bunch. The SC-TZ1 is a wireless home theater system that uses the 2.4GHz band to send uncompressed audio to all four speakers. Like all wireless systems, you’ll need …

Originally posted at CES 2009

For most people, the Panasonic DMP-BD35 will offer the best combination of features, performance and value.

According to the early reports, Blu-ray is faring well this holiday season and it’s not hard to see why. With standalone player prices finally slipping below $250, more popular movies available, and reliable …