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Style Gets Cheaper and Cheaper
A single-line LCD on the top of the device displays caller ID numbers. Like a Palm PDA, the SPH-I300 hot syncs with a PC and can accept any Palm application into its 8MB memory.
The camera comes with a CompactFlash memory card, rechargeable lithium battery and charger. The Coolpix 995 is a 3.3 megapixel digital camera with a pop-up flash, 4x optical zoom and 4x digital zoom.
Dark and boxy is a thing of the past it seems as more and more audio companies build affordable mini-systems that don’t cut corners in the good-looks department. Aiwa is one of them. Its new XR-X7 has a silvery, chiseled chassis that appeals to that modern look (no, not “mod”). It’s a stereo CD player with 16 watts-per-channel of power along with an AM/FM tuner and auxiliary audio inputs for attaching other audio devices, say an MP3 player (using a mini-jack to RCA adapter) or a tape deck. The price from the company is $300.
www.aiwa.com
Samsung’s Palm/Phone (includes Live Simulation)
Samsung’s 6-ounce SPH-I300 is both a fully featured Palm OS (Version 3.5) PDA and a dual-band mobile phone (CDMA 1900 Mhz, AMPS 800 Mhz). No keypads here—instead, enter data and click through applications via a Palm interface on a 256-color, touch-screen display. Initiate calls by tapping a phone number onscreen.
www.samsungusa.com
Speaker and Subwoofer in One
Hitting the market for bookshelf speakers, Definitive Audio is offering its new PowerMonitor series. Three levels of speakers adorn the category, the PowerMonitor 4.5-inch 500s, 5.25-inch 700s and 6.5-inch 900s. Each speaker has a built-in 8-inch powered subwoofer with power ratings of 150, 250 and 250, respectively. Each also carries a 1-inch pure aluminum dome tweeter. Prices are set per speaker at $425 for the 500s, $599 for the 700s and $799 for the 900s.
www.definitivetech.com
Nikon One-Touch Transfer (includes Live Simulation)
Nikon’s Coolpix 775 ($449.95) and Coolpix 995 ($895.95) have a One-Touch feature with a transfer button that, when pressed, automatically transfers images from the camera to the PC’s desktop or uploads them to www.nikonnet.com for storage and sharing. The Coolpix 775 is a 2.1 megapixel digital camera with 3x digital zoom, up to 40 seconds of video recording and a USB port.
www.nikon.com
New Subwoofer From Monitor
Monitor Audio, a company known for making audiophile quality speakers has a new subwoofer design. The FB 212 pumps out bass at 360 watts using a 12-inch driver. The main feature of the sub is Q control, which lets you adjust the sub to emit a subtle bass sound or one that is high-impact, depending on your bass taste and need to rumble your windows. The sub is housed in a wood veneer cabinet in Black Oak, Natural Cherry or Rose Mahogany. Price is $1,995.
www.monitoraudio.com
PLUS’s Itty Bitty Projector
To get the real theater feel, some people feel a projector is the way to go for video. But projectors don’t have to be large to produce theater-quality images. PLUS Corp. of America just introduced one of the smallest projectors on the market, the HE-3100 Home Projector. It measures in at 9.3-inches-wide by 7.8-inches-deep by 3.6-inches-high and weighs 4.4 pounds. This DLP (Digital Light Processing) projector has a contrast ratio of 600:1 and is capable of 3:2 pulldown.
www.plus-america.com
Digital Darkroom in Your Pocket
This summer, SiPix, a Silicon Valley-based digital imaging company, came up with a digital camera/printer combo that you can carry with you to instantly shoot and print digital images. The SP-1300 camera ($179) shoots at 1.3 megapixels and has a 1.8-inch LCD screen, a 2x digital zoom, black-and-white and sepia modes and 4 MB of internal memory. It accepts CompactFlash memory cards and is Direct Print Order Format (DPOF)-compliant. The camera connects directly to the SiPix PocketColor 200 printer via USB cable. The printer is available separately for $179 and creates 2˝ x 2.5˝ color photos. www.sipix.com
A Match Made by Marantz
Marantz, an audio company that caters to the higher end audio customer, recently released the Duetto System. This status-piece system includes the SR110 24-watt-per-channel stereo receiver and CD110 CD player, which can also play back CD-R discs that contain MP3 files. It doesn’t come with speakers, but the company is marketing some from its Mordaunt-Short brand that are compact enough in size to complement the components. The receiver is priced at $379.99 as is the CD player.
www.marantz.com
A Feature-Heavy Lightweight
Don’t let the simple, compact design of Toshiba’s PDR-M81 digital camera fool you. This camera looks like a point-and-shoot and weighs about 8 ounces, but is packed with features. The 4.2 megapixel PDR-M81 sports 2.8x optical and 2.2x digital zooms, a macro feature, four flash modes and up to three minutes of video with audio. It is Mac- and PC-compatible and accepts SmartMedia memory cards. At press time, the exact price hadn’t been set, but the company said it would be under $1,000.
www.dsc.toshiba.com
A Reader of All Seasons
The problem with solid state media—Smart Media, CompactFlash, etc.—is that there are a number of formats and there is no consistency in the devices to which they are related. You could have a PDA that uses an SD disc, an MP3 player that uses Memory Stick and a digital camera that uses CompactFlash. Moving files to and from the PC can be a real pain and no one wants to have to own several different card readers. Imation’s FlashGO! could solve the problem.
This single-slot USB reader reads CompactFlash cards and has adapters for Smart Media, Multimedia Cards, SD, Memory Stick and IBM’s Microdrive. FlashGO! sells for around $79.99.
www.imation.com
Polk’s New Digital Solution
E-Gear this spring had an early listen to Polk’s latest high-end, all-in-one home theater system, the DS7200, a replacement to Polk’s award-winning RMDS-1 first introduced three years ago. For $2,599, Polk’s DS7200 Digital Solution system gives you a Polk-branded component DVD-video player, a Dolby Digital/DTS preamp/processor/tuner with 6-channel audio inputs, a 350-watt (total system power), 6-channel amplifier built into the 8-inch driver subwoofer, five satellite speakers and all necessary cables. It sounded good in preview, but we want to get our hands on it for a definitive review.
www.polkaudio.com
Casio’s Wrist Cam in Color
Last year, Casio released a normal-sized wristwatch that snapped low-resolution B&W digital images using a discretely built-in digital camera. This year, the company has two new versions that use a 25,344-pixel color sensor able to capture up to 80 digital images that you can transfer to a PC. The pictures can also be viewed on the watch’s LCD screen, but only in B&W. There are two models of watches, one with a metal band (the WQV3D-8, $269) and the other a resin band (the WQV3-1 $249).
www.casio.com
Hitachi Doubles Your Viewing Pleasure
With the transition to HDTV making molasses in January look positively supersonic, Hitachi has dropped significant cash flow on improving the quality of its upconverted picture. The company’s new HDTV projection monitors include its proprietary D3 Virtual HD digital signal processing and an advanced line doubling system that upconverts video signals to either 540p or 1080i. Hitachi’s most economical of these rear-projection televisions is the 43-inch 43UWX10B (now available, $2,199) with a 3-D Y/C comb filter, 3:2 pulldown, multi-view PIP and two sets of component inputs.
www.hitachi.com
Bell’O Latest Lust Objects
Bell’O has long been in the business of creating lust object A/V furniture out of metal and tempered glass, but the company’s latest line adds touches of wood as well. The three-shelf TV component stand, model AVSC-7007, fits a 32-inch TV and at least five components. The bottom shelf is 24 inches deep to hold large components; the middle shelf is adjustable. For the audio-centric, the taller model AVSC-6056 has four shelves but only fits a 27-inch TV. Both models retail for $700.
www.bellointl.com
One Size Fits All Formats
Smaller and faster than its predecessor, the Minolta DiMAGE Scan Multi PRO (scheduled for release in early fall for about $2,995) is designed for multi-tasking. The scanner measures only 6.6˝ x 5˝ x 14.8˝, but produces 4,000 dpi scans and supports a number of film formats. In addition to the obvious 35mm and medium formats, the DiMAGE Scan Multi PRO can scan (with optional multi-format set) microfilm, 16mm film, Minox, 24 x 64 mm panoramic and even the transparent electronic microscope film.
www.minoltausa.com
Do Toasters Like to Dress Up?
This phat leopard-print toaster comes from Toastmaster, the company we have to thank for bringing the first commercially viable pop-up toaster into the American homes in 1926.
Toastmaster is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year by introducing two new models. One is an elegant spin on a classic 1940′s model in chrome; another is the lovely leopard-print model (pictured), a bold fashion statement in itself. It will be available in Wal-Mart around November for $21.99.
www.toastmaster.com
Tale of the Tape
What’s even less likely than finding a TV show in high definition worth recording? Owning something to record it. Because Mitsubishi does not believe recording HDTV to an optical disc will be widespread for another few years, it’s releasing the HS-HD2000U D-VHS high-definition VCR. In addition to a full-function S-VHS analog VCR, the HS-HD2000U model is also a digital VCR capable of recording up to 4.5 hours of HDTV per full-length tape. Look for it this fall for around $1,049.
www.mitsubishi.com
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