| Gift Guide 2002 | |
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Electronics |
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| High-tech toys, from the miniest MP3 to the mightiest plasma TV. | |
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| Panasonic
DMRHS2 DVD Recorder Price: $800 at B&H. What: A VCR-like device that lets you record TV shows to either the built-in hard drive or to recordable DVDs—and convert old VHS tapes to DVD. Perfect for: Somebody who's addicted to TiVo, but wishes she could save her favorite shows to something more enduring than a TiVo hard drive. Why we love it: It also has TiVo-ish capabilities, like the ability to “pause” live TV. What else: It even has a PC-card slot so you can feed it photos from your digital still camera and watch them on your TV as a slide show. 
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| Sony
VAIO PCV-W10 Desktop PC Price: $1,600 through Sony VIP services (877-217-sony) or at J&R. What: An all-in-one PC with a 15.3-inch wide-aspect LCD screen and stereo speakers. Perfect for: Windows loyalists who have iMac envy. Why we love it: It’s got the Swiss Army knife of DVD drives—a Combo Drive that’ll let you play DVD movies and read and write both music CDs and multimedia CD-roms. What else: The modest footprint (the keyboard folds away for storage) makes it perfect for small desktops.
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Sonic
Blue Rio S35S MP3 Player Price: $200 at J&R. What: An impact-resistant, rubberized 128MB MP3 player that comes with a built-in stopwatch and FM tuner. Perfect for: A sporty music fan. Why we love it: It’s so small you can wear it with the included armband, and it’s expandable (with optional memory cards). Plus, it’s about 15 percent smaller than a similar model from Nike.
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Sony
NX70V Color CLIÉ Personal Digital Assistant Price: $600 through Sony VIP services (877-217-sony). What: A Palm-powered PDA that doubles as an MP3 player and digital still-video camera. Perfect for: A multitasking control freak. Why we love it: The little keyboard makes data entry easy, and the all-in-one design means you don’t have to lug around multiple electronic devices (it’s even got a built-in voice recorder). What else: The slot for adding an optional wireless network card means you can send and receive e-mail on the road.
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Palm
Tungsten-T PDA Price: $460 at J&R. What: A PDA with an innovative pull-down body that expands the viewing (and writing) area of the 320-by-320-pixel color display—which, by the way, shows more than 65,000 colors. Perfect for: A handheld devotee who wants to trade up to color. Why we love it: Thanks to the crisp, dazzling color screen, it’s no longer an exercise in futility to run Palm versions of applications like Excel and PowerPoint on your handheld. What else: It’s Bluetooth-enabled, which means it can wirelessly communicate with other Bluetooth-fluent devices, such as cell phones, laptops, printers, and other Palm handhelds.
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Royal
Linea 16 Personal Digital Assistant Price: $100 at Target stores in December. What: A low-cost alternative to many similarly featured PDAs, it includes all the usual basics (contact manager, to-do list, calculator with currency converter, etc.) but really shines when it comes to its powerful e-mail client and built-in modem. Perfect for: Those who are budget-conscious and anal-retentive. What else: An optional $30 snap-on module lets you hook it up to your cell phone so you can send and receive e-mail wirelessly.
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| Edited by Simon Dumenco. Photographed by Antonis Achilleos. | |
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From the November 25, 2002 issue of New York
Magazine
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