A Fall Feast of Multimedia Gadgets

There are always some areas of the consumer electronics business that are advancing at a faster pace than others. Most recently these areas have included digital still cameras and mobile telephones and now the two products are coming together. Witness the J-SH09 cell phone from Sharp, which goes the furthest towards duplicating digital camera functions than any phone to date.

Sharp J-SH09

It wasn't so long ago that a few hundred kilobytes of memory space, with room to store 300 telephone numbers, was considered satisfactory for a cellular telephone. But in these days of the wireless Internet, embedded cameras and Java applets won't cut it any more.

Sharp's latest handset for J-Phone comes with an impressive 5MB of memory and bunch of cool camera functions. There's a 310,000-pixel CCD image pick up which can deliver VGA (640 by 480 pixel) resolution images and two LCDs: the main 2.1 inch display inside the flip phone, and a cute little 0.9-inch panel on the outside that can display a photo, a clock, or tell you when mail arrives without making you have to open the phone. It's available in Japan only at a carrier-subsidized price around $250.

Panasonic DMR-HS2

Panasonic's latest digital video deck is a very hot little number. The device packs a 40GB hard drive and optical drive supporting DVD-RAM and DVD-R formats. This means users can record TV and video onto the hard disk and use optical discs to archive anything they want to keep.

With this new second edition recorder, the company has also added a PC Card slot to the front. This allows customers to plug in memory cards, such as Secure Digital, Memory Stick, or MultiMedia Card, via an adapter from a digital camera and then to either view the images on a TV or store them on the hard drive or disks. Panasonic gets full marks for using a PC Card, which allows any card to be used via an adapter, than forcing its preference of memory card format on users. The device is already on sale at $1125 and the company plans to sell it in the U.S. and Europe.

FujiFilm XD Picture Card Cameras

SmartMedia rest in peace! Fuji Photo Film has dumped the memory card format in favor of XD Picture Card, a new format developed with Olympus Optical. The XD cards are pretty small, which should lead to smaller, more compact cameras, according to FujiFilm.

The first few cameras based on the cards will hit Japanese shelves in September and FujiFilm announced something for everyone: the low-end 2-megapixel A202; mid-range 3-megapixel A303; and the high-end S304, which has a 3-megapixel image pickup, 6X optical zoom, and 1.8 inch LCD panel. The switch pretty much marks the end of SmartMedia but its too bad FujiFilm replied with another format rather than adopting one of the seven already available.

Sony DCR-IP220

Sony came up with something a little different in the design of its latest digital camcorder. The main body of the IP220 is shorter than most camcorders allowing you to get a much better grip, at the side and on top. A large 2.5 inch LCD monitor takes up virtually the entire of the rear of the camera and a 2.1-megapixel class CCD image pickup means top quality video and also still images up to UXGA (1,600 by 1,200 pixel) resolution.

The camera is based on Sony's recently unveiled MicroMV cassette format, has a 10X optical zoom and 120X digital zoom, and can be connected via Bluetooth to a network adapter to allow basic Internet access via a built-in web browser. It goes on sale in Japan on September 10 at around $1650.

Sanyo PDP Televisions

Have you noticed how a new range of gadgets, including printers and storage systems, has begun springing up that means digital still cameras are no longer tied solely to personal computers? Sanyo's latest range of PDP, or plasma display panel, televisions fits into this category. They have a SD memory card slot on the side allowing the owner to view digital photographs stored on the cards on the TV screen. Being flat-panel PDP sets, they are also incredibly cool and expensive. Prices begin at around $5400.

Panasonic Portable MD Player SJ-MJ15

Panasonic's latest Mini Disc player is just what you need for a long journey. The company says the tiny little players, which weigh just 3.5 ounces, are capable of pumping out your favorites tunes for an impressive 103 hours--that's more than 4 days of continuous music! Snap in a long life battery pack and this increases to 193 hours--the longest battery life yet achieved for an MD player, according to the company. As is the fashion, the players come in a selection of colors and will go on sale in September. Panasonic would not provide an estimated retail price.

Kenwood DPC-X527 CD Player

Kenwood's latest portable CD players look so cool you're going to want to show them off to everyone when you are traveling. Available in three colors, the players support CD-R/RW discs in addition to Audio CD and also include a digital anti-shock system so your music doesn't miss a beat when you are bopping along the street. The players are already on sale and cost $75.

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