New Gadget 2011

Robust menus are a hallmark of hp cameras, featuring plenty of advice to help consumers take a good picture, and this model is no exception. Even so, I was disappointed with the performance and video quality of this ultra compact.The affordable Photosmart R837 has a 7.2- megapixel CCD sensor and features a typical 3X optical zoom lens. Nicely designed and relatively small, it still has room for a 3-inch LCD that’s both sharp and clear. Best of all, though, is the R837s easy-to-use interface and...

Unless Steve jobs have some tricks up his sleeve, Apples reign over the small-format PC market may be in trouble. The latest Apple Mac mini iteration, with a 1.83-GHz Core Duo processor, barely keeps ahead of the HP Slimline and Acer Aspire L310 mini PCs. The Mac mini is still the epitome of cool, but it’s a bit frugal in features (especially with its premium price).This Mac mini is slightly faster than the 1.66GB version that I tested a year ago. Though this model isn’t a speed demon, it’s sufficient...

Business machine? cool multimedia rig? The Acer TravelMate 8210-6038 is both. Were not convinced, though, that its Bluray drive is much of a benefit. At 7.7 pounds, this TravelMate isn’t too travel-friendly. Much of this weight resides in the matte-finished 15.4-inch widescreen, which is useful for viewing documents side by side.The 8210 comes with a drive that lets you both play and burn Blu-ray discs. The system uses CyberLinks PowerDVD BD, a fine program for HD playback. This desktop replacement...

With a new form factor, a completely revamped user interface, and roadside assistance features, here’s a GPS device that shows some real innovation. For the price, the Maestro 4040 offers a surprisingly large number of features. Magellans Say Where text-to-speech engine enables the device to pronounce street names and exit ramps. Next, you get expanded map data and a larger POI (points of interest) database.The 4040 is also upgradeable to provide live traffic info. Finally, you can enable the Maestro...

Canons new budget powershot should please the average picture taker. More discerning shooters, however, will find the device lacking in few areas. The camera comes equipped with a 4X optical zoom lens with a 5.4mm to 21.6mm range. It has a 5-megapixel sensor and a 2-inch LCD for framing your shots. Nonetheless, a wider angle (like 28mm) at the end of the zoom range would have been nice.I also wish the camera could capture VGA videos at 30 fps instead of a choppy 10 fps. But I was impressed by the...

Since the late nineties, apple has been making the technically complex simple. The iMac did it for personal computing, and the iPod is a paragon of portable consumer electronics. Now Steve Jobs and company want to simplify your home entertainment experience with the $299 Apple TV. But what, exactly, is it?The basic concept of this product is straight forward: It wirelessly streams content from the iTunes libraries of up to five computers and can also play content directly from the boxs 40GB hard...

You needn’t squint anymore to view videos on your iPods tiny screen. The ViewSonic PJ258D ViewDock lets you dock your iPod and project its images so that a whole room can see them. The PJ258D was designed as a stylish companion to an iPod, trading in a boxy projector shape for curved surfaces and a piano-black case. At 3.9 pounds and 3.3 by 11.3 by 7.5 inches (HWD), its fairly portable, ViewDock and it comes with a soft carrying case as well as a street lumens feature-rich remote.The PJ258D is rated...

Imagine scrolling through your e-mail, calendar, media files, and stock ticker without flipping your laptops cover open or even turning on your system. The auxiliary display on the ASUS W5fes lid makes this a reality. It does this through SideShow, one of Windows Vistas most intriguing functions.The W5fe has a gorgeous 12.1-inch widescreen, but it’s the 2.8-inch full-color secondary LCD on the cases outside that gets your attention. It gives you quick access to e-mail, photos, calendar info, and...

It's a phone; it's a PDA; it's a GPS navigation system; it's a camera; and it's an FM radio. The Pharos GPS Phone 600 is the first Windows Mobile device to be released in the U.S. that features all of the above. There have been other devices that include an integrated GPS receiver, but until now, they've lacked a full-featured navigation application. The 600 comes with Pharos' OSTIA software built-in, including its full-featured, turn-by-turn navigation system and suite of navigation utilities....

The French company Parrot Technologies is one of the foremost manufactures of Bluetooth-related accessories today. At CTIA, they launched a number of new products, including Parrot Conference, a hands-free teleconferencing system designed to work with mobile phones connected to it via Bluetooth.When I first saw the Parrot Conference concept, it took a while for me to wrap my head around it. I couldn't figure out why someone would need or want to use something like it-either use the cell phone's...

Although it's still chasing the competition, this tiny HD camcorder offers decent video capturing plus still-image capabilities.Conveniently compact, the HD2 boasts an HDMI output and captures 720p high definition footage, which looked quite good: sharp and fairly clear, on both our lab computer monitors and our HDTVs. The device also lets you store video on SD and SDHC memory cards. Video is encoded in MPEG-4 format: so, if you're using a 2GB memory card and capturing at the highest quality setting,...

Essentially a widescreen version of the highly rated TomTom ONE, the ONE XL has the largest LCD in TomTom's GPS lineup. Unfortunately it lacks text-lo-speech, a handy feature found in competing products.Measuring 4.7 by 3.4 by 1.2 inches and weighing 7.4 ounces, the ONE XL boasts a big 16-bit (480-by-272-pixel) screen. Complete TeleAtlas maps for the U.S., Canada, Guam, and Puerto Rico are preloaded, along with a database of five million POIs (points of interest).TomTom has always had bragging rights...

Competition among widescreen GPS Devices is intensifying. The latest entry from Mio is packed with features and sports a big display within a super thin, stylish design. But although it's brimming with multimedia extras, Bluetooth phone problems keep it from being a clear-cut winner.The most notable feature of the C520 (powered by the latest SiRFstarIII 20-channel receiver) is its 16-bit touch-sensitive display with 480-by-272-pixel resolution. The device also has 2GB of onboard flash memory and...

For a standard-definition camcorder, this new offering from Hitachi is certainly unique and competitive. It records both on miniDVDs and on an internal hard drive. Unfortunately, confusing menus and unintuitive controls make it hard form to fully recommend this product.Featuring a 25X optical zoom, the Hitachi DZ-HS300A gives you two storage options. On the internal 8GB hard drive; you can record as much as 110 minutes of high-quality movie footage. This is valuable because you can then burn this...

Graced with a naming convention borrowed from Apple's iPod, iriver's clix gen 2 rolls tons of features into one cool design. If you're not married to iTunes, this adds up to a fine little player that looks pretty darn cool, too.Using flash memory, like the iPod nano, the clix comes in varying capacities (2GB. 4GB.and 8GB). The new model borrows the excellent click-screen interface from the previous clix, and it's just as intuitive as the iPod's scroll wheel. The new model is also slimmer than its...

Incredibly, RCA touts its new audio player as having "feminine flair and case of use." In fact, the little player, though quite affordable, is held back by a counterintuitive user interface and an unappealing video/photo-viewing, function. One redeeming quality, however, is that it boasts a pretty nice pair of earphones, which is rare.File compatibility for the Opal is more or less standard. You can play MP3, WMA, subscription/protected WMA, Audible, and WAV audio files and view JPEG and BMP images....

It's an ultraportable whose sexy looks are made possible by some hot new tech. Not only is the Toshiba Portege R500 Series incredibly svelte and lightweight for a laptop (at 8.5 by 11.1 by 0.7 inches and 2.4 pounds), but no other ultraportable this light manages to accommodate a built-in optical drive. And despite its compactness, it manages to integrate a full-size keyboard.Toshiba spent two years developing the R500 out of its previous iteration, the R200. Recent advances enabled the company to...

Here's a solid cell phone that offers good voice quality and a powerful camera-and is good enough all around to be our Editor's Choice for a feature phone on T-Mobile. It's a great option if you don't need a smarthphone.The screen is easily readable in sunlight, and the handset's keys, although small, give pleasingly tactile cues. Reception and sound quality are spot-on, voice dialing is excellent, and the Z3 uses Motorola's new-style improved phone book. I'm also glad to report that voice dialing...

Now that Motorola has acquired Symbol, the leading manufacturer of rugged mobile devices, the spectrum between consumer-focused Smartphones and industrial-strength handhelds continues to be blurred. The MC35 is the newest model in the class of device that Symbol has dubbed the Enterprise Digital Assistant.While the market for this device may not be readily apparent at first glance, potential users occupy the previously neglected space between blue-collar workers needing extremely rugged hardware,...

Although the consumer electronics market is shifting into high definition, there's still room for standard definition in the camcorder space. In fact, standard-definition miniDVD is still the most popular format with most consumers. As I found with last year's top Sony DVD camcorder, the DCR-DVD508 easily rises to the top of the miniDVD camcorder market by offering excellent quality performance, and ease of use, clearly earning itself an Editor's Choice. This 1OX optical Handycam should definitely...

i-mate introduced its first JAQ in the fall of last year. It was a lightweight Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition device with a spacious keyboard, but it was criticized by reviewers for being bulky and lacking integrated Wi-Fi capabilitly. Early in 2007, i-mate followed up with the release of the JAQ3, and has more recently announced the JAQ4, a Windows Mobile 6 Professional device that may be available by the time you read this review. Hens, we will cover both the JAQ3 and 4.As you can see...

T-Mobile is on a roll. The carrier recently announced a Windows Mobile 6 Standard upgrade program for its Dash Smartphone users as well as North America's first ever WM 6 Professional device-The T-Mobile Wing. T-Mobile's focus on style is evident in the devices it sells, and the Wing fits in with the Nokia 8801, BlackBerry Pearl, and other Smartphone it offers.AThe T-Mobile Wing is a slim, royal blue device with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard similar to but larger than the one found on the HTC S710,...

USB-Powered portable hard drives are a new standard in convenience for people needing to back up and transport large amounts of data. Hp's Pocket Media Drives go one step further. If you have an HP Pavilion desktop with an HP Pocket Media Drive bay, you can pop the drive into the bay like a cassette into a deck. Owners of other PCs will have to connect the drive to the computer via a USB cable, which is easy enough, particularly as no external power source is required. Data transfer over the internal...

Maybe it sounds crazy, but I’m sure there are a few folks out there who want to reap the benefits of owning an iPod without messing with a computer. For these technologically shy individuals, there's the iLoad Wingspan.The concept is simple. Just load CDs directly onto the iLoad and it will transfer them to your iPod, eliminating that pesky middleman, the PC (and i Tunes). During setup, the iLoad requires you to install software onto your iPod. It takes just 6 minutes to do so from the provided...

This speaker system plays your PC's shared music wirelessly within a range of about 65 feet. Though very easy to set up, its limited remote and slow transfer speeds tarnish what would otherwise be an amazing product.Too often, when products interact with your PC via Wi-Fi, making them talk to each other can be pain. Not so with the simple installation of the Sony VAIO VGF-WA1 Music Streamer. Yes, it's Vista compatible, and you can use either your own wireless router or the included USB adapter.There...

This new and advanced Coolpix is the perfect illustration of Nikon's innovation in wireless digital cameras. Boasting a wonderful iPod-like scroll wheel, which also activates a beautiful menu system, the compact, 7.2-megapixel S50c has a 3-inch LCD and a non-telescoping lens.The "c" in the S50c's name stands for the Coolpix Connect service. The camera has a built-in 802.11b/g chip that can transfer picture in one of two ways: via e-mail (the Picture Mail feature) or to storage on a Nikon-run server...

Sony's point-and-shoot cameras generally have three things in common: exquisite product design, excellent picture quality, and a high price. This new 8.1-megapixel Cyber-Shot is no exception. With a 3-inch LCD and a 5X optical zoom lens, the gorgeously crafted Cyber-Shot DSC-T100 certainly stands out.In my lab tests, the T100 wasn't flawless, but it produced solid results. There was a little noise in the daylight shot, but much more in my flash shot. Overall, though, the image was very good. Color...

Though still a good handheld, Palm's latest Treo runs a fading, elderly OS and doesn't do much to update the previous Treo 700p. The 755p is essentially a 700p in a smaller case. To be fair, it does lack the antenna stub and uses miniSD rather than full-size SD memory cards. Everything else id left pretty much unchanged.The Palm OS is still tremendously easy to use, and Palm's HotSync system still reliably syncs with Microsoft Outlook and the free Palm Desktop application on both PCs and Macs. The...

This specialty point-and-shoot is pricey for an ultra compact, but it'll let you take pictures in a place that few other cameras can go: underwater. The Olympus Stylus 770 SW is submersible to a depth of 33 feet and will withstand temperatures as low as 14"F. It's pretty rugged, too: It can be dropped from a height of 5 feet, which I confirmed in my testing, and is designed to shrug off 220 pounds of direct force.A 7.1-megapixel point-and-shoot camera, the Stylus 770 SW comes equipped with a 2.5-inch...

Fuji's latest point-and-shoots sport a slimmed-down stylish body, support for SD cards, and some compelling features. The 8.3-megapixel FinePix F40fd produced decent images and performed well. Even so, there's still room for improvement.One of the FinePix's features that I really like is relatively new to Fuji: face detection. With this function enabled, the camera will make people's faces the focus of each shot, rather than simply focusing on the center of the frame. I found this ability to be...

Verizon's new Blackberry is that wireless provider's best business smartphone yet- a reliable PC companion that lets you stay in touch pretty much anywhere on earth.The phone works in more than 100 countries (including all of Europe) by combining CDMA and GSM calling capabilities. You can use it as a PC modem as well. In the U.S., that means speeds of about 600 Kbps on Verizon's network. You get to keep your phone number, and you can continue to get your e-mail if you subscribe to Verizon's new...

Although it's the best social networking handheld so far, the Ocean is still very much a work in progress. I am encouraged enough, however, by what I see in this smartphone to give it our Editors' Choice. The Ocean, like the T-Mobile Sidekick 3 and the upcoming Apple iPhone, is essentially a closed device. Helio will provide more features over the air as time goes on, but unlike real smartphones, it doesn't let you tap into a deep array of third-party software. Nonetheless, the Ocean already has...

By definition, media extenders pull content off your computer so that you can enjoy it on your home entertainment system. Though the setup process can be tricky, the MediaGate MG-350HD accomplishes the task pretty well.Here's what I mean by tricky: A firmware upgrade, installation of an internal hard drive (annoyingly not included), calls to tech support, and several changes to my PC's security settings were needed before I was set up. But in the end, the product proved its worth. I enjoyed crisp...

Heres an interesting device that's supposed to stream music, video files, and even DVDs from your PC to your TV over Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, the Pegasus Cynalynx simply would not work as promised.On the most fundamental level, the Pegasus Cynalynx just wouldn't play my files. During testing, I was able to stream DVDs successfully only a few times, and the quality was pretty sketchy. Video would sputter and often freeze and crash the system. I had no luck streaming video files,...

Pocket-size and available in a variety of colors, Kodak's new EasyShare is designed to appeal especially to women. Unfortunately, despite its slick styling and fashinable accessories, picture quality and performance will disappoint any woman for whom image is everything.An attractive little camera, the V1003 is crafted in eight unconventional colors with evocative names like "Java Brown", "Golden Brown", and "Pink Bliss". The deviceis also sculpted with rounded edges and has an iPod-like texture...

This Excellent 7.1 Megapixel camera features the largest optical zoom found on a point-and shoot. Evevn so, because of a few shortcomings, this fantastic feat of engineering isn't enough for the device nab the top spot from our reigning superzoom, the Panasonic Lumic DMC-TZ3.With an ultrapowerful 18X optical zoom lens that spans a 4.7mm to 84.2mm range, the SP-550 UZ is optically well equipped. The zoom lens ranges from ultra-wide-angle (letting you capture more in picture) to telephoto, which gets...