When it comes to affordable, big picture widescreen movies and gaming the route to take is a projector. With a projector, you can get HD images as large as traditional HDTVs for a fraction of the cost. To get a 100-inch image on a plasma or LCD TV would run tens of thousands of dollars where a projector can easily do it for a few thousand dollars.

ViewSonic has introduced a new projector aimed at used looking for widescreen resolution and full 1080p image quality. The projector is called the PJ359w and offers 2000 lumens of brightness and a 1280 x 800 WXGA resolution.

Many of us remember when projectors were bulky things the size of a suitcase. Not anymore. Now they are phone sized. NTT Docomo is getting into the act too. They unveiled a prototype cell phone that doubles as a video projector and demonstrated it at CEATEC JAPAN 2008. The projector would give you a 20-inch image from a distance of about 80 centimeters and roughly 100 minutes of viewing time, which is enough to watch TV shows, podcasts and short films, if not 2 hour movies.

Red, green and blue LEDs are used as the light source. Pixel count is 480 × 320 (HVGA), and its luminance is 7.5lm. The power consumption is about 3W. The company plans to have a working version of the device ready for market in about three years. The way the tech in these projector phones is shaping up, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took half that time.

One of the newest Viewsonic displays to market is a combo unit which is friendly with PCs and DVDs. It is called the N2201w and you’ll find it listing at retail around $430.

The Viewsonic N2201w is a 22-inch display which pulls triple duty as a computer display, HDTV and DVD player. It has a HD resolution of 1680×1050, 5ms response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio and wide viewing angles. It also sports multiple inputs, including for ATSC/NTSC/QAM digital TV tuner and HDMI as well as PC.

If you want a really big picture for your home theater, there are several ways to go about it. You can spend tens of thousands on a really big LCD of plasma TV screen. That’s far outside the capability of most of us. Or you can opt for a projector and get about 100-inches or more of home theater goodness.

Sanyo has announced a new projector called the PLV-Z3000 that would make for a great home theater. The Z3000 can throw an image 100-inches from 10 to 20 feet away from the screen. The projector also features the first utilization of 5:5 pull down that allows users to watch broadcast TV and more in movie theater quality.

Samsung has been kicking out new TVs and monitors left and right recently. Yesterday Samsung introduced a new high-end line of Series 9 LED HDTVs. In addition to new TVs Samsung is also announced new monitors as well.

Samsung has introduced a new series of HDTV monitors for its “touch of color” line that are aimed at desktop use with both computers and entertainment components like DVD players. The line includes the T220HD, T240HD, and the T260HD. The three monitors share some of the same features including 10000:1 dynamic contrast ratios, dual HDMI inputs, and built-in ATSC/QAM tuners.

Sharp has now announced a wireless option to its super-thin X-series LCD displays today. Sharp will incorporate Amimon WHDI (Wireless High Definition Interface) 1080p wireless tech into their thinnest flat panels. This means that you won’t have to connect any cables to your TV, aside from the power cord. All the connectors and tuning paraphernaila are in the set-top box you see in the pic. Wires will be officially out of a job, making your life easier, but making them sad like little emo children.

It’s hitting Japan first and will follow in the U.S. It works at distances of up to 100 feet and can even go through several walls. The only bad part is the cost. The wireless capability will add about $800 to an already-expensive $4,000+ 46-inch Sharp X-Series HDTV. But if you are already dishing out that kind of money, I don’t think it will be a problem.

If the Samsung 2263DX 22-inch LCD is Dr. Evil, the small 7-inch LCD grafted onto it would definitely be Mini Me. The idea is that the main 22-inch screen can be used for normal work and the secondary 7-inch screen can be used to extend your desktop to keep other stuff visible.

I guess you could use the little screen for IM applications, RSS feeds, and TV watching or other things. The 7-inch screen attaches to the main display via an arm that allows it to be mounted to either side of the main display or above it. The small display connects to the main display via a mini USB cable so you don’t need to directly connect the small screen to your computer.

Sony has just let loose two new and colorful Bravia LCDs towards the lower-end of the Bravia line. The new M1 series sports an array of different colorful frames availble bringing some light fun to the lineup of LCD HDTVs.

The two new models include the 20-inch KDL-20M1 and the 16-inch KDL-16M1 which both have just shy of 180 degree viewing angles at 178 and 1366 x 768 pixel displays. They also both contain 1080p HDMI inputs and the Bravia 2 video engine. The larger of the two houses two 5W speakers and has a 1,200:1 contrast ration while the smaller 16-inch model has a 1,800:1 contrast ratio and two 3W speakers.

Cube3 is a 7 Inch DVD/TV Entertainment Center combo. Super nice looking and flexible. It will play your DVDs and even has one of those clever USB slots in front so you can hook up your MP3 player. It will even rip your CDs to the USB stick which is a nice feature. It can get quite loud for it’s size as well with the 60W RMS speakers.

The cube3 integrates those other features together with a digital TV. But it doesn’t have to be all about movies. Use it to view your photos and pictures on-screen like a digital photo frame. Playback compressed DivX or MPG4 videos from an external hard drive or USB flash drive. For it’s size that’s several great features that you want in a Hi-Fi system.

It’s tough to give a good one-line summary of this new mobile handset from Nokia because as the younger sibling to the N95, this multimedia computer has a lot to live up to. Fortunately for us it appears to be handling it quite well.

For starters the N96 doubles the internal storage capacity providing a 16GB capacity that can be expanded further with MicroSD cards. It also packs in a 5 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens allowing quality photos and video to be shot at 30 frames per second. Video and DVB-H TV (if you are near it) can then be displayed on a generously sized 2.8 inch QVGA display. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and A-GPS round out the connectivity of this HSDPA 900/2100 MHz phone.

JVC offered up earlier this week for consumer consumption some new high definition hard disk camcorders which deliver 1920×1080 recording. These are the JVC GZ-HD6 and GZ-HD5, priced at around $1,400 and $1,200 respectively.

The JVC GZ-HD6 and GZ-HD5 can record up to 10 hours or 5 hours respectively of “full HD 1920 x 1080 MPEG2 Transport Stream video with MPEG 1 Layer 2 audio.” They use three 1/5-inch CCDs to accomplish this, also featuring an F1.8-F1.9 10x zoom lens and 1080 progressive 60fps HDMI output.

JVC said both camcorders will be available in March. You can get the full details after the jump.

Panasonic announced the DMC-TZ5 as another Lumix camera heading for shelves soon with very similar features to the DMC-FX35 model including a wide-angle lens and high-def video recording. The TZ5 loses a little in megapixels compared the FX35 with 9.1, but gains in just about everything else.

The DMC TZ5 Lumix has a 10x optical zoom, generous 3-inch LCD display and a 28mm wide-angle lens that can get almost twice as much panorama compared to typical lens. It also features Panasonic’s big 5 Intellegent Auto features for automatic adjustments for exposure, scene selection, image stabilization, facial detection of as many as 15 faces and ISO Control to adjust shutter speed for moving images. This model can also record video with 1280 x 720 HD resolution at 30 frames per second with an HD out component cable port.

Panasonic is expecting to have the TZ5 available by the end of March with a retail price of just under $350. More detailed release information below:

Sharp towed to CES this week its usual interesting line up of cutting edge consumer electronics. A shining example of this is its AQUOS SE94 series flat panels which, among other features, are Internet-enabled. This particular family of Sharp televisions ranges in size from 46 to 65 inches and is priced between around $3,200 and $11,000.

The Sharp AQUOS SE94 series can, when connected to an Ethernet port, let you access a Sharp service which provides “customized Web-based content as well as real-time customer support directly on the AQUOS television.” The company, working with Web based content providers, says you’ll be able to configure widgets which let you get information like the local weather forecast as well as enjoy your favorite comic strip via your remote control.

For more details on these new Sharp televisions, check out the full press release after the jump.

This PMP player from Kinwei appears to have a very nice, clean design but how it’s used we’re just not sure. It sports a 2.4-inch TFT display and allows you to view E-books, JPG, GIF and BMP images, MP1, MP2, MP3 and WMA music files and the ever-obscure TV/AWV video formats. It also has a built-in FM tuner, seven preset EQ modes, a rechargeable battery and a capacity of 2GB. The product details list a touch pad for interaction but aside from that the player appears to have no buttons, dials, switches, cool blue lights and not even any branding. We still think it looks pretty cool, however. No price was readily available and it comes in the shown color of black or white.

Sony has recently announced the release of a new Walkman for portable media loving folks in Japan which takes advantage of the area’s 1seg live television broadcast. The Walkman NW-A910 can not only pick up the 1seg signal but it can record video content directly to the player and you can schedule as many as 10 programs up to a month in advance for a total of 100 hours of recorded TV. Now that’s cool.

The new Walkman also sports an FM tuner, has the ability to record and encode your CD’s all inside the player and comes with some noise canceling headphones. All this in three different models with capacities of 4GB, 8GB or 16GB. It’s just hard not to like this little PMP.