...to electronic gifts for
By Tim Ryan
the holiday season
Star-BulletinSony's portable CD players are more portable than ever thanks to a dramatic improvement in the company's shock protection called ESP2 SteadySound. So just when you think that music lover in your family's got a player, this holiday season may be the time to give the gift of an upgrade.
ESP2 SteadySound uses a new type of digital signal processor that can read information from the CD more efficiently than in the past, providing longer continuous playback while walking.
Sony's best shock protection system is available on most of the advanced model Discman CD players, starting with the D-E401, that lists for $139.95.For sports fans on-the-go there's also the new colorful, ergonomic and futuristic look of the popular Sports Discman series. These Sports models meet the needs of most any sports enthusiast from the casual jogger to the serious athlete.
The two new water-resistant Sports Discman CD players -- model D-ES51 in yellow and blue, $179.95, and model D-ES55, in black and blue, $229.95 -- offer up to 14 hours of playback with two AA batteries, 22-track random music selection programming and Mega Bass sound. The advanced model also includes its own customized street style headphones and rechargeable batteries.
Here are some other products on the market, whether you're shopping for yourself or someone else:
Recordable CD
Remember back in the 1980s when the CD player was introduced and the first thing you thought about was "Does it record?" Fifteen years later, a recordable version is here.The Philips CDR870 not only records on write-once, nonerasable CD-R discs (R standing for recordable), but also on the new CD-RW discs. The RW stands for "rewritable," indicating the discs can be erased and recorded over. (List price of a 74-minute blank CD-RW from Philips is $30, compared to $6 for a blank CD-R.)
Editability on the CD-RW discs is limited to the ability to erase the last track recorded on a disc. If you need to clear more space than that, you have to start at the last track and delete tracks one at a time back toward the first. If you want to reuse an entire disc, the CDR870 has a helpful erase all tracks feature.
Wave radio
Looking for the best clock radio? Hands down, it's the Wave Radio from Bose, $349, available in pearl white or graphite gray.Just slightly larger than an off-the-rack clock radio, the Wave Radio produces stereo sound that fills a room. All the radio's functions can be regulated by a credit card-sized remote control.
The radio features AM and FM stereo radio and a dual alarm clock. It has 12 radio presets, mute, scan and automatic sleep features, as well as a battery back-up in case of a power failure. A special feature allows the volume to start low and automatically builds to the preferred setting.
A CD player or cassette recorder can be plugged into the Wave radio to provide alternative sources of music. Even a television can be plugged into the Wave to improve the quality of TV sound.
And for computer users, here's another suggestion: Trash the cheesy little speakers that came with your system. Instead, connect audio cables from your sound card to the auxiliary input on the Bose. "Multimedia" will take on a much richer meaning.
Digital cameras
Digital cameras are taking photography by storm, creating lots of demand this holiday season. Yes, the technology makes taking pictures a great deal easier, but camera buyers must learn a new vocabulary to understand just what digital cameras can do.Basically, they serve to instantly gratify picture takers. Instead of dropping off film at the drug store for processing, consumers now can sit at their personal computers and view the photos instantly.
The new cameras record pictures onto memory instead of film. Some have built-in, or internal, storage for pictures, and use cords to transfer images from the camera to the computer screen. Other cameras save and transfer images with floppy disks or miniature cards.
To get hard copies of digital photos, any inkjet printer will produce a high-quality print. The key here is using special photo paper.
Some digital cameras have a liquid-crystal display screen to flash images back at photographers. The best models connect to a TV set allowing consumers to view their photos on the tube.But high-tech cards or LCD screens mean almost nothing if the camera has low resolution. The higher the camera's maximum resolution, or color information, the better the picture. High resolution needs a hefty chunk of memory to save photos and carries a hefty price tag. Generally, prices for digital cameras are competitive with their 35mm counterparts.
A couple of years ago, digital cameras capable of capturing 1.5 million pixels cost thousands of dollars. Recently they have dropped under $500. The MX-500 from Fujifilm, $499, has 1,280-by-1,024 resolution producing images that can be transferred to a Mac or Windows computer and printed as large as 8-by-10 inches on a photo-quality inkjet printer. The camera includes a built-in flash and auto-focus lens, but no optical zoom. You'll need to spend another $50 or more on extra storage cards.
The Sony Digital Mavica, $499, uses an LCD screen, average resolution, floppy disc storage for up to 40 photos, and rechargeable batteries. For a couple hundred dollars more, Olympus makes the D-500L model, with higher resolution and auto focus. On the down side, the camera holds fewer photos than the Sony and has a smaller LCD screen.
Tape recorder
One of the newest gadgets in tape recording is Toshiba's Voice Bar 60, $150, a digital, tapeless audio recorder not much bigger or heavier than a pen.Its sound quality is so-so, but the player is more than adequate for recording memos. During playback, you can jump instantly from one recorded segment to the next. Its recording capacity is one hour; for $50 more you can buy a 120-minute version.
Compact video recorders
Video cameras don't get any smaller than Sony's RUVI, about $800. This pocket-sized instrument weighs well under a pound.Its high resolution recording format uses an exclusive re-recordable video cartridge system comparable to Hi8, producing great looking video or stills. The 30-minute record time stores up to 30 minutes of audio, video, and still images, which are easily downloadable to your VCR, camcorder, or any analog device.
(Still pictures can be downloaded to a computer via a floppy disk but that requires purchasing another Sony device.)
The RUVI's 21/2-inch Passive-Reflective LCD Monitor uses available light to display images, significantly reducing power consumption. It also has a 3X Optical Zoom With Macro Focus.
The InfoLithium Battery System with Accupower, Sony's smallest InfoLithium battery, shows the remaining battery power, displayed in minutes on the LDC. RUVI also uses AA batteries providing up to 1 hour of playback or recording time.
The Photo Scan function locates still images quickly and easily. And the End Search finds blank recording space without the guess work and the risk of losing important previously recorded material.
There's also a backlight mode that automatically compensates for such conditions. I used RUVI in every possible lighting situation -- as did my 13-year-old daughter -- and always had good results.
Sony's digital Handycam DCR-PC1, $1,900 fits in your palm and weighs less than a pound yet is versatile. It has a 10 percent optical zoom, 120 percent digital zoom, and built-in stereo microphone.
Home theater system
Bose home theater systems are noted for their ease of setup and use, elegant appearance and quality. And now comes the company's latest offering the Lifestyle 30, $3,500, which more than lives up to the Bose reputation.This system comes packed in a single 58-pound carton. There's the sleek tabletop "music center," which contains a six-disc CD changer, tuner, five tiny satellite speakers and a Bose's Acoustimass bass module. There's also a remote control, AM and FM antennas, a test CD, and all the cables you need for hookup.
The five satellite speakers -- Bose calls them Jewel Cubes -- measure 4-by-3-by-2 inches. Each satellite actually consists of two tiny cubes, stacked one atop the other and connected via a pillar that permits them to be rotated up to 180 degrees (horizontally) so that users can adjust the dispersion pattern to suit their listening environments. The Jewel Cubes are available in black or white.
The Lifestyle 30 music center is finished in brushed aluminum and has a black display window on its right front edge. The left two-thirds hinges up to reveal 12 buttons that control power, volume, source selection (sequential), and basic CD and tuner functions.
The Lifestyle 30 offers three listening modes: stereo, stereo plus center, and five-speaker surround.
There are hidden features also. Whenever you select one of the system's two inputs for audio from a video source, the system automatically switches to an enhanced bass mode that boosts deep-bass output for added impact during movie viewing. To revert to normal bass response, simply hit the same video-source key again.
Sound quality is excellent, almost surreal on the Lifestyle 30s.
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