When Money's No Object
Great gifts and gadgets for $200 and up.Brad Grimes
Been enjoying the stock market recovery? Ready to share some of those heady gains with loved ones? Maybe you're just feeling extra generous. If you find your pockets are especially deep this year, check out these big-ticket electronics:
Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra. As far as MP3 players go, the Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra is a pretty good deal. For $300 you get 30GB of storage; other MP3 players offer about 20GB at this price. For $400 you can have a whopping 60GB. The Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra has a cool backlit LCD that's easy on the eyes, and it doubles as a portable hard drive--great if you need portable storage for photos or other files.
Gateway DV-S20 Pocket Multi-Cam. Digital video cameras keep getting smaller. Gateway's $199 DV-S20 Pocket Multi-Cam weighs just 4.3 ounces and measures 3.5 high by 2.5 inches wide (and only 1.2 inches deep). It has a 1.5-inch color LCD screen so you can see what you're shooting and runs on standard AA batteries. Unfortunately, the batteries last for only about 45 minutes--a $40 rechargeable battery kit will get you about 90 minutes of battery life.
The DV-S20 Pocket Multi-Cam functions as a 2-megapixel still camera or an MPEG-4 video camera. It captures only about 18 minutes of video on its 64MB memory card, but you can add a 256MB Secure Digital card for about $115; a 512MB SD card will set you back about $275--that's more than the camera costs. You probably won't use the DV-S20 to record an entire wedding reception, but for short video bursts in an ultra-portable package, this camera makes a nice gift.
Panasonic DVD-LS5 Portable DVD Player. Portable DVD players normally cost a fortune, but not this mini model. The $400 DVD-LS5 is highly portable, with a 5-inch (diagonal) screen that you can adjust independent of the base. It plays multiple DVD formats, as well as CD-R and CD-RW. You can even use the DVD-LS5 to play MP3 and WMA music files. Panasonic says the battery should last about 2.5 hours, so keep that in mind when you want to watch a lengthy Lord of the Rings movie on the airplane.
Sound Blaster Wireless Music. If you've got MP3 and WMA files on your PC and you've got an 802.11b home wireless network, why not beam those songs over to your living room stereo? That's what Creative's $250 Sound Blaster Wireless Music does. Hook up the wireless device to any audio system and it detects your existing network. Now use the remote control and its built-in LCD screen to select music from your hard drive and play them on your stereo. It also works with 802.11g wireless networks.
Samsung SCH-i600. It's not the first smart phone to hit the market (i.e., a wireless phone plus PDA using Microsoft's Windows Mobile software), but Samsung's SCH-i600 may be the first to incorporate next-generation CDMA cellular technology, which offers better coverage, higher capacity, and faster data rates to mobile users, so you get better connections when you need them and can download information faster. But not every wireless carrier uses it. The SCH-i600 is available from Verizon Wireless for about $500 (keep an eye out for rebates and specials). It comes with Windows Media Player, Pocket Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Pocket Outlook, making it a handy MP3 player, Web browser, and PDA that you can easily synchronize with your desktop Outlook data.
If you want to shop around for smart phones or prefer a different wireless provider, check out the $300 Motorola MPx200 from AT&T Wireless, which works on GSM/GPRS networks.