Chumby8 Officially Announced, Will Be Available April 5th With Pre-Orders Beginning Today [Chumby Announces The "Bigger and Better" Chumby8, Will Feature 8" Display, Revamped User Interface & $199 Price Tag]

Posted on TFTS by Robert Nelson on Wednesday, 23. March 2011 under: Devices

We have seen the original Chumby, which is now affectionately known as the Chumby Classic as well as the Chumby One. And for those who may not have kept up in terms of the Chumby, the One was the follow up device and seemed to make sense name wise. Well, flash forward till today and we now have the Chumby8.

And before anyone thinks they must have missed two through seven, rest assured as the Chumby8 is the third in the lineup and was named after the size of the display.

“The chumby8 truly marks an evolution of the chumby device and software platform, creating a more personalized and user-friendly Internet streaming device that will complete any connected home or office,” said Derrick Oien, CEO of chumby industries.

In terms of features of the Chumby8, those include;

New, modern industrial design available in black and red. Customized skins available from Skinit
8-inch 800×600 touchscreen LCD
Two USB ports, CF and SD slots make it possible to upload pictures, music and other personal media of your choosing turning your chumby8 into a personalized digital photo frame and music player
New web browser support, allows you to access links within apps
Revamped UI and streamlined navigation allows you to manage apps and channels directly from the device. The chumby8 comes preloaded with ready-to-play themed channels showcasing the best chumby apps in entertainment, news, humor, games, kids, sports and more
Updates to share features make it easier to send photos, videos and apps to friends and family
Robust Internet radio offers over 10,000 internet radio and podcast stations, including Napster, Pandora, SHOUTcast, iheartradio, Mediafly, New York Times and CBS, with more to come
Full alarm system allows you to wake up to your favorite music stations and apps
Task scheduler allows you to perform a routine task on your device like entering night mode at a certain time or playing music.
Flash Lite 4 update to support AS3 coming soon

And lastly, the Chumby8 is available for pre-order as of today and will begin shipping on April 8th. In terms of pricing, expect to pay $199. And with that, I am off to convince my wife that we actually need one of these. Because well, to be honest I have wanted the Chumby since the ~~original~~ Classic and it now just seems to make much more sense given the larger display.