Hot Summer Leads to Cool New Gadgets

TOKYO -- The summer months usually mean a slowdown in the number of new products announced by Japan's consumer electronics makers, but that hasn't stopped them coming up with some great new products during June and July this year.

Cool Camera

If we had a gadget of the month award, the July winner might just be Sony's cool new DSC-U10 digital still camera. The device truly fits in the palm of your hand and isn't short on features either. It has a 1.3 million-pixel CCD pickup which is capable of a maximum resolution of 1,280 by 960 pixels. That's a little on the low side compared to most of today's cameras, but Sony is aiming this at beginners or as a second camera that can be carried always. It measures 3.3 inches by 1.6 inches by 1.2 inches and weighs 4.2 ounces. In Japan it costs around $210, which isn't a bad price for such a cool camera. Sony plans to put it on sale overseas although has yet to decide on timing.

Next-Generation

Maybe its a good thing we don't have a monthly award because what do you do when a second undeniably cool toy like Sharp's SH2101V third generation telephone-cum-PDA is also released in the same month? More than just a mobile phone, this is really the first example of what could become a major form factor for cellular telephones in the future. The handset is nothing more than a small stick with a few basic functions, making it light to carry (1.5 ounces) and easy to hold, while the main base is intended to be carried in a bag or pocket and has a 2.2-inch color screen, which is larger than can normally be fitted onto a telephone, and even a keyboard. Bluetooth links the two devices. Available now for NTT DoCoMo's Foma 3G network, the only thing that isn't cool about the gadget is its price tag of $1,000.

Toshiba Hears the Beat

What's this? An iPod with a Toshiba logo? Not quite but Toshiba's new Gigabeat digital music player does bear more than a slight resemblance to Apple's distinctive gadget. Like the iPod, the Gigabeat uses a hard disk drive for data storage although, unlike Apple's device, it is based on removable 1.8-inch drives that Toshiba has been making for some time. Users can play MP3, WMA or WAV files and the bundled 5GB hard disk offers enough space for around 1,000 MP3 files of five minutes length recorded at 128 kbps. The removable drives are built into PC Card cases so they can also be used with notebook computers as portable storage. The Gigabeat costs around $402 bundled with a 5GB hard disk. Additional hard disks, of 2GB and 5GB, will cost $160 and $320 respectively. Toshiba said it has plans to put the Gigabeat on sale in the U.S. and then Europe although the company has not decided on a schedule for an overseas launch.

Sub-Notebook Computers

Victor of Japan, better known as JVC, is not the first name that usually comes to mind when you think about sub-notebook computers, but the company has been selling a line of Windows CE-based machines in Japan for some time. Now things are moving up one gear with the launch of the MP-XP family of two computers running Windows XP. One is based on an Intel Pentium III-M 800-MHz processor with the other packing a Mobile Celeron processor running at 650 MHz. Memory is 256MB and 128MB respectively while hard disk sizes are 30GB and 20GB respectively. Japan and Germany are the first markets to see the machines, which cost around $1,291 and around $1,694 respectively.

NEC Notebook

NEC's latest addition to its Versa Pro notebook computer line couldn't be more different to the mini-machine that JVC announced. Abandoning any desire to make the machine as compact as possible, NEC has fitted it out with a 15-inch LCD panel that boasts QXGA (2,048 pixel by 1,536 pixel) resolution. Not only is that a higher resolution that most desktop LCD monitors but also represents a world-first in a notebook, according to the company. Of course, such a monster display doesn't come without a catch or two. In this case they are in the price, a cool $3,750 for the machine, and its weight, which at 8.4 pounds will remind users of the good old days of portable computing.

Digital Video

Matsushita Electric Industrial's latest digital video camera doesn't look very special at first glance but the camera is the latest to do away with videotape in favor of a recordable DVD disk. The VDR-M20 will accept 8cm DVD-RAM or DVD-R disks, each of which provides around space for between 36 minutes and 120 minutes of recording. It uses a variable bit rate system that adjusts the amount of data being recorded depending on the image, so more time can be squeezed onto each disk. The camera has a 1.1 million-pixel CCD sensor with 12 times optical zoom.

DVDs on the Go

Watching DVDs on the move has never been cooler than with Toshiba's latest portable player. The MED-900J has a 8.9-inch widescreen PolySilicon TFT LCD capable of 1,024 by 600 pixel resolution, which should mean you can watch DVD movies in all their glory. But the device is about more than simply watching movies on the move. A D2 output means you can plug the player directly into the digital input socket on a TV set when you want some big screen action. There's even a remote control unit to help when it is doing double duty as a home player. It will play DVD Video, Video CD and even MP3 CDs. Toshiba is selling the player in Japan for $884 and has not yet announced plans for an overseas launch.