Marquee Media Center review

 

Winning gdgt's StartUp contest has its perks -- just ask recent winner Marquee, which is showcasing version 2.0 of its Media Center here on the showfloor. The imposing device, currently available on the outfit's site for $899, packs 2TB of storage, 4GB DDR3 RAM, DVD player and a 2.4GHz dual-core Intel processor into an aluminum-lidded box to let you stream a mix of online and locally-stored multimedia content. Seen from above, the unit is mostly unadorned, save for a quite sizable power button, three circular vents and two notification LEDs. Off to the right side hiding just beneath that generous metal hood, lies ports for audio I/O and standard USB, with HDMI-out on the back.
Naturally, you need a way to parse through the goods and that's where Plex XBMC -- running atop Ubuntu 12.04 -- and a custom wireless controller outfitted with a full QWERTY keyboard come in handy. According to Marquee's CEO, set-up out of the box is a no-brainer and requires nothing more than connecting to an external display and your home network (via ethernet or WiFi) to get things started. We had the opportunity to take the Media Center for a quick test spin and immediately noticed a calibration issue that, combined with the cluttered remote, made for some extremely unintuitive navigation. You can check out some pics of the startup's progeny below and, while you're at it, click past the break to view a video demo of this pricey kit in action.

Marquee Media Center hands-on

AT&T Sony Xperia ion drops June 24 for $100

Sony’s Xperia ion will hit AT&T on June 24, it has been confirmed, with the Android 2.3 smartphone priced at $99.99 with a new, two-year agreement. Announced back at CES in January, the Xperia ion is fronted by a 4.55-inch 1280 x 720 display and runs Gingerbread on a 1.5GHz Qualcomm dual-core Snapdragon S3 chipset.


There’s also a 12-megapixel camera with Full HD video recording support, and Sony has slotted in some of its mainstream camera expertise for things like super-fast app loading and the ability to fire off shots with less than a second in-between. Connectivity includes HDMI and USB, along with NFC, WiFi and Bluetooth.
Sony Xperia ion hands-on:

There’s also 4G LTE for AT&T’s network, of course, and Sony’s own Xperia UI modifications. An upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich is in the pipeline, though no date for its release has been confirmed.
We’ve more on the Xperia ion in our hands-on from CES (and in the video above). The question will be whether AT&T’s competitive sub-$100 price is enough to sway buyers to Sony and away from the Galaxy S III.

Verizon Wireless Jetpack 890L 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Review

Compared to the Jetpack MiFi 4620L mobile hotspot we just reviewed at the beginning of May, this 890L 4G LTE model isn’t all that unique. It connects to Verizon‘s 4G LTE network just as well as the 4620, has a similar lovely little display for you to monitor how many people are connected, your connection strength, and software updates – and you’re working with the same data plan costs as well. The 4620L is made by Novatel Wireless while the 890L is made by ZTE – beyond that, what differences are there?


The first big difference is the physical design of the unit. While there’s certainly nothing unattractive about the Novatel Wireless model, this ZTE hotspot has some style and flair to it. The 890L is a bit bulkier than the rest of the hotspots on Verizon, and you’ve got a slightly different set of controls that you’ll be using (if you find the need) to check your messages (these will be extremely rare) from Verizon and making sure you’ve got full bars wherever you’re utilizing the device.

Other than that, there are a couple of omissions from this model that do exist on the 4620L model: GPS and an external antennae port. Since we literally have not found a use for either of those elements since we first laid hands on the hotspot (or any hotspot, for that matter), there’s no reason to fret.

The small LCD screen you see front and center is controlled by an OK button (also an on/off button for the screen alone) and two control buttons, up and down. On the top of the device you’ll find a power switch, this making it extremely hard to turn this device on accidentally. The device is charged with a simple microUSB port, and inside you’ll find a 1700mAh battery which will last you approximately 6 hours if you’re using it fairly frequently.

This device works nationally and internationally, supporting bands across CDMA (1xEV-DORev.A/Rev.0: 800/1900 MHz), Quad Band GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900MHz), Quad Band (HSPA+/UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 MHz), and of course 4G LTE (700 MHz). The places I checked data speeds were Minneapolis / Saint Paul, Minnesota and Brooklyn, New York. Similar to the 4620L, ping times were averaging at 45ms-50ms, with upload speeds ranging between 5.0Mbps and 10Mbps and download speeds ranging between 8Mbps and 13.5Mbps – in most cases the hotspot brought up faster speeds rather than slower.

This device does not work as a tethered modem while the 4620L does, the 4620L has an optional extended battery pack, and the 890L is cheaper. You’re certainly not going to be dissatisfied with either model if what you’re looking for is 4G LTE speeds for your devices on the go. That’s what they promise, and that’s what they’ve got! You can pick this device up at Verizon now with a 2-year data contract for $19.99 in Verizon’s online store today!
Have a peek at Verizon’s new Share Everything data plans to see your options for data plans as well!

Canon EOS-1D X

So you eBayed your Canon EOS 5D back in April, all in good faith, ready for the EOS-1D X that never came. Well, that gap in your photoblog should end next week -- according to updated info from the camera maker. The latest details suggest that the flagship shooter should be hitting stores on June 20th, along with a clutch of accessories. You'd better initiate that PayPal withdrawal now, though, as CNET reports that a US representative for the firm told them that, while stocks will be available, they'd initially be in limited supply. Full stocks, however, should be here in time for to shoot your own HD Olympics.

Orange San Diego review

The first generation of Intel-powered Android phones has arrived, and while the chip maker doesn't appear to be claiming that its initial efforts are world-beaters, we've been promised a chipset that prioritizes what people want most: capable web browsing, strong camera performance and robust battery life. Although we've sampled plenty of incremental versions of this Medfield tech, Orange UK's San Diego is the first finished device to land for review. Priced at £200 ($308) it joins a large spread of wallet-friendly, entry-level smartphones in Orange's lineup. With a (1024 x 600) 4-inch LCD, 8-megapixel camera with flash, micro-HDMI port and 1GB of RAM, it looks to be a respectable, if middle-of-the-road, Android device. But the focus here lays with the 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2460 CPU and whether it delivers on those performance and battery life promises. Does Intel have a handle on mobile processors? Is the San Diego, near-identical to Intel's own reference model, going to be attractive enough for buyers? You'll find our verdict after the break.

Orange San Diego review

Hardware

Since Mobile World Congress earlier this year, the Orange San Diego (previously known as the Santa Clara), has benefited from some slight revisions. The whole frame is now much more solid, and there's no longer any hint of a creak. The soft-touch backing, while a magnet for scratches and dings, helps to separate it from an army of glossy sub-$300 Android devices, but it's certainly not the most imaginatively designed phone. The shape lies somewhere between the Galaxy S II and iPhone 3GS, although the substantial bezel below the screen stops the phone from being quite as hand-friendly as the latter. It's simply not a pretty phone, and we lay the blame on the ho-hum build materials. The black body is ringed with a silver border, and while it didn't chip during our use, it's not a particularly fancy finish. The 10mm edge houses the volume rocker, micro-SIM slot and two-stage camera button on the right, micro-USB port at the bottom, and mini-HMDI output along the left side. A fiddly power switch resides along the top edge, but once you gain purchase on them, all of the physical buttons are responsive -- including the camera button, which will also quick-launch into the camera.

The San Diego is home to an 8-megapixel / 1.3-megapixel camera duo, both of which can be controlled using either the physical key or touchscreen. The primary, rear-facing shooter is also capable of recording 1080p video. The four capacitive buttons are clearly signposted in daylight, but will also light up if the environment dictates. Thankfully, despite the lightweight tinkering from Orange, both Android Gingerbread shortcuts remain intact, with a multitasking screen accessible by holding the home button. Storage space comes in at just under 11GB -- with no option for expansion. In fact, the whole phone is sealed up -- so there's no easy option to change the battery either. (It is possible to wrench off the back cover, but the battery still isn't the in-and-out kind.)

Display

The San Diego's 4-inch screen was a pleasant surprise. While there's no Super AMOLED Plus or Super LCD 2 fanfare, it's sharp and rich, although wider viewing angles introduce some gentle discoloration. But for a low-to-middle-ranger, the 1024 x 600 screen was plenty serviceable, and at full brightness was just about manageable in full daylight.

Camera

While Intel seemed to pride itself on the camera skills of its reference design, we can't agree. If ever there was a phone to demonstrate that a camera's performance can't be measured by megapixels alone, then the San Diego is it. While some effort was made on the software side to ensure the phone is capable of burst capture, we were left underwhelmed by the blurry results. Perhaps we've been spoiled recently, but the image quality certainly doesn't measure up to the standards of other earnestly-priced phones. Colors were often washed out with subjects appearing dull, while less-than-favorable lighting resulted in hefty doses of noise. This time, we won't blame it on the often cloudier climes of the UK as color reproduction indoors was also meager, and a good deal of detail often got lost in translation. Having said that, there were flashes of decent imaging, but these moments were rarer than we'd liked. Performance in macro mode was generally better than other settings.

Orange San Diego sample shots

Intel has added a raft of control options for the camera, and while there isn't an HDR mode, per se, you do have the option of capturing a selection of photos at differing exposures to craft your own HDR images on separate hardware. The camera app doesn't cut corners at all on options, with several auto exposure modes (including aperture and shutter priority), shutter-speed adjustment, anti-banding options, RAW mode, ISO settings (800 maximum) and a burst-mode capable of 15 frames per second for up to 10 shots. Unfortunately, the results from the get-go didn't really warrant extensive use of all those options. Video performance matched what we found with stills, with results often noisy and a little rough around the edges. White balance largely did the trick, but it did end up washing out the swan you'll see in our sample. Autofocus kept up with us, although it's not the speediest.

Software

The San Diego runs on Android Gingerbread. We've been told that Ice Cream Sandwich can already run on this hardware, but it still won't be seen on these devices until Q4. It's difficult to describe what's been done to stock Android. For every change Orange made, some parts were left completely unaffected -- like an increasingly rare stock version of the app drawer. We were able to scrape back most of what Orange had wrought -- aside from the dated orange app icons. The carrier did add gesture features, which are largely unobtrusive and occasionally useful. By slowly tracing across the screen (on any app or the home screen) you can draw out a symbol that acts as a shortcut, catapulting you to whatever's assigned to it. We give it a run in the video review -- check that out if you'd like to see how it all works. Up to 27 shortcuts can be assigned to apps, contacts, playlists and even FourSquare places. Popular carrier apps, like Orange Wednesday, are pre-installed and are unfortunately flanked by less useful additions like the Orange Assistant helper app, an additional user guide and an NFC tags app that went largely untouched. While the phone is NFC-capable, there's no "taggable" cards packaged with the phone and the San Diego doesn't hook up to Orange's existing contactless payment service.

Orange San Diego review screenshots

The stock Android keyboard felt very, very responsive -- more so than on various other Android devices we've reviewed this year, and Swype is offered as well if that's more your style. As we'll cover more closely in the performance section, the web browser copes well with denser sites -- there's a little stutter but it's on par with existing dual-core Android phones, if not quite on the same level as a flagship. App compatibility on the new chipset was a concern that we almost completely forgot about during our review. We came across only two apps that didn't work during our review and we use a lot of apps -- it simply wasn't a problem.

Performance and battery life

	Orange San Diego	Samsung Galaxy S III	Motorola Droid RAZR
Quadrant	3,648	4,454	2,357
Vellamo	1,279	1,751	1,021
AnTuTu	5,712	11,960	6,027
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms)	1,387	1,460	2,140
GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps)	28	99	28
CF-Bench	2,437	13,110	6,191

For Intel, a lot boils down to this section. Our benchmark figures have barely moved since we tested the device at its launch event, and the numbers paint an interesting, largely positive picture. In short, the single-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2460 is capable of sparring with the dual-core masses. Sure, it's not a leader -- it's not even close to the quad-cores and Snapdragon S4s of 2012, but look at that SunSpider score. We've run several rounds just to check, but yes, it slides in just underneath the Galaxy S III -- and less is better here. It demonstrates that Intel was serious when it promised to focus on web browsing. And while the phone was clearly unable to scale 3D environments on the likes of GTA 3 as well as pricier handsets, it still manages to juggle this and other low-intensity tasks without a problem.

Alas, real-world battery life didn't hold up to those heady promises of 14 days' standby. Many people might want a smartphone that can simply exist in their bag for a few days -- but we've reviewed enough devices and tested enough batteries to tell you it's the screen that will burn through your charged-up phone. On our video rundown test, which involves looping a video with the screen fixed at 50 percent brightness, the phone managed to wind down in around seven hours and 20 minutes. That time is no better than current Android devices, but it's still pretty good for a 4-inch smartphone. In day-to-day use, we found the battery fared better, managing closer to two or three days between charges -- substantially better than many other smartphones we've used this year. Unsurprisingly, its runtime is directly related to how much you use it, but if you're not going to use those smartphone features, it will doggedly hold onto its initial charge very well -- close to that posited two-week mark. Call quality was strong -- Orange offers HD voice calling between the San Diego and other compatible devices. It also has the same earSmart voice-cancellation processing found in the likes of the Galaxy S III and, er, Dell Streak, keeping our test calls sharp and clear.

Wrap-up

Intel's first Android smartphone proves that the company is more than happy to bring the fight to existing processors. Despite the low price, the admirable performance of the San Diego's Medfield processor is the take-home message here -- which is great news for a manufacturer looking to dip its toes into mobile devices. What we're interested in seeing now is what Intel can make if it really pushes the envelope. How would an Intel-powered, 1080p, flagship smartphone with a more capable camera compare to Samsung's and HTC's best and brightest? In comparison, the San Diego looks plain cheap, lacks Ice Cream Sandwich and has often disappointing camera. If we think globally, the Galaxy Nexus is just $100 more expensive, and represents competition that the San Diego (and its duplicates) would lose out to. However, for this price -- and as Intel's entry-level smartphone gambit -- we were left impressed by both the display and battery. The first Medfield phones may not register on the radar for those looking for the best Android has to offer, but it remains a strong start for Intel to build upon.

Sony Xperia Ion hits AT&T June 24th for $99 on contract

In the tech industry, time (and the fleeting interests of geekdom) waits for no one product. So, it's understandable if you've already forgotten about Sony Mobile's US flagship: a sleekly designed, mid-range contender known as the Xperia Ion. It's been nearly six months since the electronics giant officially unveiled the device at CES and, for brand loyalists still clinging to the edge of their seats, the wait's nearly over. Starting June 24th, AT&T will be offering the LTE handset -- a first for the newly unified wireless outfit stateside -- for $99 with a new two-year agreement (insert applause for Nokia and its precedent setting Lumia 900 here).
So, what do you get for that compelling price tag? For starters, there's that gorgeous 4.6-inch 720p HD Reality display, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S3 CPU, 16GB of inbuilt storage (expandable up to an additional 32GB via SD card), 12-megapixel rear camera with Exmor R sensor, PlayStation Certification and a healthy 1,900mAh battery. Whether that spec list and associated on-contract pricing will pack enough of a power punch to win over Android elitists remains to be seen -- for now, this mid-2012 phone'll be shipping with Gingerbread 2.3.7 on board. That's not to say it won't ever see a much needed upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich; it's certainly on the way, there's just no telling precisely when it'll arrive. If the company's recent track record is any indication, however, the Ion stands a very good chance of joining the Xperia upgrade brigade sometime soon. Hit up the break to peruse the official presser in all its hyperbolic glory.

Nikon D600 review

The first images of what's purported to be the new Nikon D600 have appeared online. The budget (for photographers, at least) full-frame camera is expected to come with a 24.7-megapixel sensor, a 3.2-inch LCD display and a built-in autofocus motor. What makes us hopeful of its rapid arrival is today's earlier announcement concerning the FX-compatible Nikkor 24-85mm lens -- the pair combined would make a devastating duo if the company hits the mark on pricing. Those in the market for a gentle introduction to DSLRs can take a peak at another picture after the break.

Samsung Galaxy S III owners to get free Olympics livestream from Eurosport

New owners of the Olympic's official smartphone that missed out on Samsung's initial ticket giveaway still have a chance to catch plenty of the action live. Eurosport has announced that it'll be offering a free month of access to its streaming app for Galaxy S III owners -- as long as you're a resident in one of the participating European countries. (Hint: it's most of 'em, aside from Italy). Free access can be activated from July 14th and will last through August 12th. You can, however, grab the Eurosport app before the Olympics kick off by hitting the source below.

HTC Media Link HD review

More Info

• HTC reveals Media Link HD at MWC 2012
• HTC videos show off Media Link HD
• Media Link HD approved by the FCC

As wireless technology becomes more advanced, the demand for more sophisticated options to stream media from your mobile device to your HDTV steadily increases. It's hard to keep track of the various solutions companies are using to deliver this feature to their customers. DLNA, the most popular standard, is compatible with an army of dozens -- if not hundreds -- of products, while giants like Apple and Samsung have chosen different routes. After an arguably unsuccessful attempt at offering the DLNA standard via the original Media Link, HTC has decided to fly solo with the Media Link HD in the hopes that the accessory will add value to the company's high-end One handsets.
We have little doubt that HTC is trying to keep the Media Link HD small and simple: it's a credit-card-sized dongle that easily fits in the palm of your hand, and only takes a smooth, three-finger gesture to pair it up with your One X or One S. Once connected, it gives you the opportunity to stream movies to your television and perform other tasks on your phone at the same time. A solid concept, to be sure, but is it worth shelling out at least $90 for this little darling? Tune in below to find out.

Hardware

The Media Link HD is a tiny black box that isn't going to win any design awards or beauty contests (sorry, we mean "scholarship pageants"). We don't mean to say it's an eyesore -- far from it, in fact -- it's just not a product that the folks in Taiwan felt the need to put extra thought into, at least in the looks department. Measuring 84 x 52 x 12.2mm (3.31 x 2.05 x 0.48 inches), it's smaller than a credit card and a bit thicker than the One X. It also has a similar body and style as its predecessor, the DLNA-streaming Media Link.

As for cosmetic differences, HTC opted for glossy, black on the top, while the bottom is constructed from a grainy, dark grey plastic. The back even has a cute little dimple smack-dab in the middle; if there's a reason for it to be there (aside from hopes that a chorus of awws will magically ensue) we're not sure what it is. Perhaps it makes the thing easier to grip when your thumb is there. Regardless, much like the rest of the Media Link HD's design, this isn't going to be a factor in your decision to purchase it. The new device keeps things simple on the outside, offering a single reset button on one end and a full HDMI port and Micro-USB charging port on the other.

Features

The concept of pushing media from your mobile device to your home entertainment network or a board room projection screen is certainly nothing new. In fact, it's blossomed into an incredibly crowded market heavily saturated by thousands of DLNA-certified devices (one of which being the original Media Link) and services like Apple's AirPlay. Samsung also announced a similar product in association with the Galaxy S III last month which takes advantage of WiFi Direct. Plenty of companies have even tried to put a unique spin on the idea -- Motorola's Webtop dock comes to mind -- but that didn't stop HTC from introducing the Media Link HD, an accessory embedded with proprietary technology that can, at present, only be supported by the prized One X, One S and EVO 4G LTE (sorry, One V owners).

We're concerned that the proprietary technology may not be a convincing draw for developers.

First and foremost, the new Media Link offers HDMI mirroring, which means everything you see on your mobile device can be displayed on your HDTV, computer monitor or other HD-compatible screen. But there's a twist: when you're watching a movie stored directly on your One X or One S (read: not on a third-party app, at least not yet), it won't actually play on the phone simultaneously. Why? For the dual-screen effect. After all, it's not like you're going to be watching the latest Ryan Gosling flick on your TV and your phone at the same time, so why not use the smaller screen to check emails, post on Facebook or anything else?

As it currently stands, all third-party apps are simply mirrored to the TV, which means you see the same thing on both displays, with one image just being much larger than the other. That should change soon enough, however, because HTC has already pledged to soon release an API for the Media Link HD. Once released, it will allow developers to take advantage of the dual-screen functionality in much the same way as we just described when watching natively stored videos. Think of the possibilities: you could watch streaming Netflix movies on the big screen while performing other tasks on the phone, or show off your presentation on the TV while glancing at your notes at the same time. The API will also allow devs to control the streaming on / off switch -- for instance, apps could completely replace the three-finger swipe gesture with a button that says "Stream to TV."

These are great features, but we're concerned that the proprietary nature of the Media Link HD may not be a convincing draw for developers. We expect HTC will release a handful of devices that are compatible, but ultimately, the success of the accessory largely depends on how well the One series sells in the next few months. If few customers are buying these phones, even fewer will shell out the dollars for something that can't be used in concert with other devices. And if nobody's buying it, no developer will want to waste their time coding for it.

Setup

HTC wanted to make the Media Link HD as portable (and simple to use) as possible, so it's kept the setup process limited to just a few steps that, in all, shouldn't take you more than a few minutes. After all, tethering the device to a computer or adding other complications just to get the thing to work would turn into a disastrous and incredibly frustrating experience for most.

Your phone can connect wirelessly to the Media Link HD in two ways: they can latch onto the same WiFi hotspot, or you can establish your own peer-to-peer network if there's too much WiFi interference or there simply isn't an access point available. The setup process remains essentially the same for both methods of connection, though you'll need to tell your phone to disconnect from and forget your current WiFi connection if you choose the P2P method.

When you turn the Media Link on, you'll be greeted with a message on your TV to slide three fingers up on your phone. Doing so for the first time will prompt the two devices to connect, and after roughly 30 seconds or so, you're ready to go. In a quick moment, your phone will automatically convert to landscape mode and your TV will be showing the same screen.

Now that you've configured one phone to the dongle, how does it work if you have a house full of Ones? No sweat -- just slide three fingers down to disconnect yours, allowing your EVO-toting roommate to hook theirs up. No extra setup is necessary: the only time you'd need to reconfigure is if you choose to switch from WiFi to P2P within the same area. Doing so causes the dongle to forget the earlier connection. Since it's quick and easy enough to pair up your devices again, this isn't really that serious an issue.

In case things don't work out so smoothly, there's another method you can attempt before throwing the Media Link at the wall in frustration. Within the Wireless & Networks section of the settings menu, you'll see an option for the Media Link HD. This is where you'll find a list of available devices; click on the one you're currently trying to connect to and a setup screen will pop up. Three choices are available: Connect, Start Device Setup and Advanced Settings. The Connect option essentially performs the same function as your usual three-finger gesture. Start Device Setup prompts you to press the single button on the Media Link to restart the pairing process. The Advanced Settings option allows you to check for firmware updates, change language settings and change the P2P name and password. We found that Start Device Setup came in handy when we were attempting to switch from one WiFi network to another, but ideally you'll rarely -- if ever -- need to give this a shot. You can also perform a hard reset by holding down the Media Link button for 10 seconds or so until a steady red light starts to glow.

Performance

Your mileage may vary when it comes to latency.

Now that we've teased you by discussing hardware and setup first, let's tackle the important question: how well does it actually work? We had the opportunity to test a bug-riddled pre-production unit last month, and received a final production-grade model more recently. It's still not perfect by any stretch, but the improvement we saw in the latest hardware and firmware was significant. We won't go into many details on how the pre-production unit performed, since it's not the final product and doesn't reflect the changes made during that time -- let's just say that we could have chucked it out the window on several occasions. Instead, we'll discuss the version that consumers would receive if they were to buy one today.
As mentioned earlier, the configuration process took 20 to 30 seconds to complete. Once we were hooked into the unit, the mirroring was smooth. We were able to flip through menus, screens and apps with ease. We observed some slight lag from time to time, but the few delays we encountered typically lasted just a second or two. All told, it had little effect on our overall enjoyment of the product.

But mirroring is only one small part of the equation, Rather, the company's main selling point is in the split-screen functionality -- your ability to watch movies and home videos on the TV while simultaneously checking emails on your phone, for instance. We picked out a full-length motion picture in the Sense gallery and in no less than 10 seconds, the content had been pushed to the TV and all buffering was complete. Very seldom, if ever, did the movie have to pause for additional buffering. Latency was never an issue on the final product. Likewise, viewing photos was a snap, with each image only taking a second or so to be pushed over to the bigger screen.
As a disclaimer, your mileage may vary when it comes to latency: slow internet speeds won't adversely affect your experience, but since the Media Link relies on your router as a proxy, having a clean WiFi environment may be a make-or-break scenario. If you live in an area with a heavy concentration of wireless access points, interference can potentially slow down your dongle's performance (if you're using it in middle of the city, you'll probably be better off using the Media Link's P2P option). The same thing can happen if you have multiple devices using the same network -- each one stealing a chunk of your precious bandwidth -- or if your WiFi signal is weak.

Plenty of multimedia formats are supported on the Media Link. For video, these include H.264, MPEG-4, .MOV, .3GP, .MKV, XVID and .AVI; for audio, MP3, WMA, AAC, HE-AAC v1 / v2, AAC-LC, WAV, AC3, Dolby Digital EX and DTS pass-through. If you want to play slideshows or simply look at individual pictures through the Media Link, JPEGs are the only files supported at the moment (a step down from the original, sadly). However, a firmware update coming in the near future will add OGG and FLAC to the list of compatible formats.
We did notice a few quirks worth discussing. Even though all of our home videos and most of our movies ran smoothly, and even though we didn't experience any loss in audio or video quality (on a 1080p HDTV at least), we encountered a few issues with movies that we'd ripped from a DVD and converted into MP4 format. While they looked and sounded perfect on a PC, they didn't translate as well to the Media Link. There were a few instances in which video came through just fine, but the audio track was four-tenths of a second behind. Other times, the audio track was interrupted by an audible thump every second or so. After trying several different file types and sourcing methods (i.e., DVD ripping software, downloading, digital copies and video recorded directly on the One X), the only ones we had problems with were movies ripped from DVDs.

After discussing the matter with HTC engineers, the company concluded there are some lingering issues with how the software encodes these movies, and the Media Link hardware has a difficult time properly decoding the audio. They're looking into the matter and hopefully we'll see this scenario resolved in a future update, but we bring this up in the meantime because many consumers may experience similar problems depending on where their files were sourced. If it's happening to you, we recommend trying out different videos that originated using various methods to see if you can find a correlation with the issues you're experiencing.

Gaming is also a hit-and-miss experience: it all depends on which titles you're trying to play. As much as we'd like our smartphones to become the next-gen gaming consoles, we haven't arrived at that point just yet. The Media Link's mirroring functionality isn't going to give you reason to toss that Xbox or PlayStation in the garbage. Casual games -- you know, anything in the Angry Birds / Temple Run echelon -- will appear fine on the bigger screen, but graphics-intensive titles aren't going to fare as well.

The biggest limitation is the amount of storage you have on your phone.

Aside from gaming the biggest limitation here is the amount of storage you have on your phone -- not to mention the time and effort it takes to sideload movies onto your device. This may be a deal-breaker for DLNA fans. As we mentioned earlier, Netflix and other similar apps can still be mirrored onto your television, but no split-screen capability is available for them yet. Hopefully developers will find a way to get around this little niggle once the API is released; we'd love to see compatible apps remotely access and stream movies from our PCs.

Wrap-up

The Media Link HD is a tremendous improvement over its predecessor, and in most scenarios it works as advertised. The ability to push video content to your HDTV and perform routine tasks on your phone at the same time is a glorious feature. It's a glimpse at the direction wireless media streaming is going -- think seamless mobile gaming on your TV with the phone as the controller. Still, HTC needs to attract more developer interest to make the venture worthwhile. This is one of our biggest qualms about the company's proprietary technology: the success of this tiny dongle is highly reliant upon how well the One X and One S are received. (Remember the Kyocera Echo, which offered an API for its dual-screen functionality? Yeah, we barely do either.)
The inability to use the Media Link as a vehicle to connect your PC to your TV may disappoint anyone with a huge library of flicks to choose from -- especially anyone that already has DLNA functionality. The $90 price point won't attract impulse buyers casually wandering through the store either. With all that in mind, it does exactly what we've seen it do in the professionally-made videos and trade show demonstrations -- and with some minor exceptions, it's seamless. It isn't the perfect solution for everyone, but One owners are left with few other media streaming options to choose from. With HTC's homegrown selection, at least, you likely won't find yourself desperately searching for alternatives.