Sling Media announces 3 new Slingbox units

I am having a great time at Mobius 2006 here in Boston and listened to Brian tell us that Sling Media will be announcing 3 new devices today. Last month when I interviewed Sling Media executives I was told about these devices in confidence I wouldn't release any details. Yesterday we saw the Slingbox Tuner, Slingbox A/V, and Slingbox PRO models. The Slingbox Tuner and A/V will retail for US$179 each and are targeted to specific markets. The Tuner has basic analog cable inputs that a large majority of the U.S. still use with their cable service. The A/V is designed for set-top box users with composite and S-video inputs. These two Slingbox units are quite small as you can see in my comparison to the very small Samsung SGH-i320 WM Smartphone.

The replacement unit for the current Slingbox is the Slingbox PRO that will retail for US$249. The PRO has 4 inputs (coaxial, composite, S-video, and a component video dongle connector) and is double the size of the two other units. The video dongle connector allows you to purchase a US$49.99 dongle that will be available in October and allows you to connect a HD receiver.

You may be asking why should I upgrade to any of these two new smaller Slingbox units when I can get the current one for about the same price? These new units have 300% improvement in performance over the existing Slingbox so it isn't just a connector improvement that is taking place here. It looks like I'll have to add the PRO to my Christmas list now.