Summer Gadgets Arrive in Japan

TOKYO -- The rainy season is showing signs of ending here, and that means two things: The long hot days of summer are arriving, and millions of Japanese company employees are getting their summer bonuses. Consumer electronics companies are readying a new batch of gadgets to tempt buyers.

Consumer electronics firms look to the summer and winter bonus seasons for a sales boost, since buyers have a little extra cash in their pockets, but even the bonuses might not be enough for some of the pricier products about to hit the shelves. Most of them are available only in Japan--at least for now.

Handhelds Get Smarter

Sharp has put a little something extra under the hood of its latest Zaurus personal digital assistants.

The Zaurus SL-C750 and SL-C760 models, available now in Japan, are updated versions of the C700 Zaurus and share the same shrunken-notebook look. The new models run the 400-MHz version of Intel's XScale processor and double the memory of the C700 to 64MB. Sharp has also built in software support for virtual private networks to let business users connect to their offices over connections other than the open Internet.

The SL-C750 is priced at $423; the SL-C760, at $550.

Meanwhile, J-Phone is out of the gate with one of Japan's coolest handsets to date.

Sharp's SH53 handset, marketed by J-Phone, has a 2.4-inch QVGA-resolution (240-by-320-pixel) display capable of 260,000 colors. It sports a full-color 1.2-inch subdisplay and is one of the first phones in the world with a megapixel-class camera.

With the arrival of built-in megapixel-class cameras, handset users will find it increasingly costly to transfer images from their phones by sending them through the carrier's e-mail system to their PCs, and so the SH53 has a Secure Digital card slot. Other features include Java support, a 256KB storage area, and video encoded in either the MPEG4 or Nancy formats. The phone is compatible only with Japan's Personal Digital Communications cellular standard.

Shrinking Cameras

Canon has managed to shrink its tiny Ixy digital camera even further.

The Ixy Digital 30, which is called the Elph Powershot SD100 outside Japan, is about two-tenths of an inch thinner than previous models in the series thanks to a number of changes. Canon saved space by switching from CompactFlash to Secure Digital cards, designing a thinner display, and implementing a compact 2x optical zoom lens.

Start-up time and image quality are improved through the use of a new digital signal processor, Canon says. The Ixy Digital 30 is on sale now in Japan, priced around $300.

For the Living Room

Several new gadgets are available for the digital living room. Hitachi is expanding its LCD TV line, and Toshiba is releasing a new multiformat DVD hard-disk recorder.

The Hitachi LCD Monitor/TV (W17-LC50) is the newest model in the Wooo LCD TV line, but it's more than just a cool-looking television with a silly name. The set can double as a PC monitor and, with its 17-inch wide-screen WXGA resolution (1280 pixels by 768 pixels), it's a pretty good monitor at that.

Better still, while you use the display in PC mode, you can keep your eye on up to four video sources arranged down the side of the expansive screen; they don't rob you of too much desktop real estate. On the rear are two A/V inputs (one with an S-Video port), along with a conventional antenna input and a D4 digital input, so you can see local TV, cable, DVD, and satellite all down the side of your screen while you surf the Web.

The W17-LC50 is available in Japan now, priced around $1150. Hitachi does not currently plan to sell it in other regions.

Toshiba's RD-XS31 covers just about all the bases, serving as a DVD and hard-disk video recorder.

The unit features an 80GB hard drive--enough space for 104 hours of video in the recorder's lowest quality mode--in addition to a DVD drive. The optical drive supports DVD-RAM, DVD-R, and DVD-RW; however, like other similar multiformat recorders, it presents users with confusing rules about which variations (VR mode or video mode) of each format can be used for recording, playback, and copying.

An electronic program-guide function is included, and a remote Web or cell phone programming option is also supported if the unit is connected to a broadband Internet line. The machine goes on sale in Japan in the middle of this month, and will cost around $900. Toshiba has no immediate plans to sell it in other markets, though the company introduced multiformat DVD drives elsewhere in May.

Big-Ticket Tech

Sony's new Qualia line combines technology with what the firm considers some of its best design and quality, as well as with a much higher level of customer service and care. The four devices are designed to put a little bit of magic back into the Sony brand name and to help the company's bottom line.

Whether the strategy succeeds will take some time to judge, but a couple of points are clear: The products are priced such that only the wealthy can afford them and, though the new items excel in some areas, other Sony products match or even better them in other aspects.

Sony has no plans at present to put the Qualia products on sale outside Japan.

The Sony Qualia 016 is a 2-megapixel-class digital still camera noteworthy for its small size. It measures just under 3 by 1 by 0.67 inches and weighs just under 2 ounces, making it a bit over a quarter of the volume of the company's Cybershot U and less than half the weight. The screen is 0.55 inches diagonally, the camera has no optical zoom or internal flash (though external flash and lenses are available), and the battery life is 50 minutes. The 016, which stores images on a Memory Stick Duo card, is on sale in Japan priced at $3220.

The Sony Qualia 004, a high-definition video projector, is the first from Sony to use the company's Silicon Crystal Reflective Display (SXRD) LCD projector technology, which was introduced earlier this year. SXRD uses a new construction method to produce a panel that is 0.78 inch across and contains 2 million pixels. It can deliver a high-definition picture at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. The Qualia 004 supports 525i, 525p, 1125i, or 750p video in any of the three video color standards or a computer monitor signal, and it has video, composite video, RGB, DVI-D, and HDMI inputs. It will go on sale in Japan in August, priced at roughly $20,000.

The Sony Qualia 007 is the first audio product in the line, a CD player that supports both conventional CDs and Super Audio CD, which Sony codeveloped with Koninklijke Philips Electronics. It has a distinctive curved, clear plastic top and has an optional speaker set. On sale in Japan in August, it will cost $6700 for the main unit and $6000 for matching speakers.

The Sony Qualia 015 is a Trinitron high-definition 36-inch color monitor. Like the projector, the set accepts 525i, 525p, 1125i, or 750p video. It provides a multitude of connectors, including video, component video, and RGB. The set also has a Memory Stick Pro slot. It is available now and costs $11,000.