Digital Destiny

Gadgets can weigh a man down. Which is why the big plan among electronics manufacturers is to make digital devices do multiple tasks. Future cell phones will do quadruple duty as television remote controls, MP3 players and electronic organizers. Televisions will be computers that let you web surf and channel surf, plus download movies and music and store them on to a built-in hard drive. And every home will be wired, enabling you to stash all of your hardware--DVD player, satellite receiver, stereo components and computer gear--in one spot, yet power it via remote from any room (even through walls). We're already seeing evidence of this melting plot. Later this year. Samsung will introduce the ultimate commuter phone: a digital cellular model that lets you catch up on the news via an LCD television and tuner built into the handset. Proton has unveiled a bedside theater that combines an alarm clock with a television. CD and DVD player and speakers that create virtual surround sound. And Sony's latest Digital 8 Handycam has an onboard color printer for producing on-the-spot snapshots. Of course, if you prefer to amass lots of stuff, there are plenty of one-trick ponies debuting this year. Wafer-thin portable DVD players with wide-screen liquid crystal displays. Equally slender stereo systems designed to hang on the wall like a picture. Pen-size devices for listening to Internet tunes on the fly. It's all on the way. So up that credit limit on your plastic, pronto.

Wall Tunes: If you've chosen the perfect spot for a wallhanging television, consider reserving a little extra space for Nakamichi's SoundSpace 5 stereo system. Nakamichi calls the setup Very Personal Audio. We call it very cool. The three-piece system above (in brushed aluminum with green-tinted glass) combines a top-loading three-disc compact disc changer, an AM-FM tuner, a power amp and a pair of extremely sharp-looking speakers. You get to select your choice of charcoal, blue or green grill covers and the option of placing the system on a tabletop or mounting it on a wall. Either way, you'll enjoy sonic performance on a par with a full-size stereo system at a terrific price--$800.

Movies in Motion: Listening to an FM radio station while driving to work is so 20th century. The new way to kill travel time is with a car theater. These souped-up mobile audio-video systems team LCD monitors (cleverly mounted from the ceiling or on the rear side of front-seat headrests) with DVD players, video game systems and even mobile satellite receivers. Most of the major car stereo manufacturers offer variations of car theater. Panasonic is the first to introduce an in-dash DVD audio and video player with a Dolby Digital decoder. The CQ-DVR909 (below), which also plays CDs, distributes 5.1-channel surround sound through your vehicle and features a center-channel speaker that flips out when a DVD movie is spinning. About $2000.

Bedside Cinema: A jumbo television and surround-sound setup can make you feel as though you're at center court during the NBA finals or in the front row at a Foo Fighters concert. Big. Bold. Perfect for the living room. But when it comes to watching movies or listening to music in the bedroom, subtlety counts. And that's where Proton's Pro-10 A/V Bookshelf System comes in. Similar in size to most compact stereos, the Pro-10 (pictured at right) serves your late-night entertainment needs with a 6.4-inch liquid crystal display, 181-channel television tuner, CD and DVD player and speakers with virtual surround sound. Plus, it wakes you up in the morning to either AM-FM radio or an alarm. The price: about $1200, including a handy remote control.

Couch Commander: If television and the Internet collide as predicted, man's desire to channel surf will intensify. Navigating the zillion-station expanse will require an extreme tool--namely, Philips' Pronto TS1000 (left). This $400 intelligent universal remote control can be programmed (by way of a touch screen) to command an unlimited number of audio and video components. If you're really anal, you can hook Pronto up to a PC and create custom surf commands. Either way, it's a learning remote that accepts one-touch programs that perform many tasks.

See and Say: It's not enough that you can place calls from virtually anywhere on cell phones these days. New models have to offer entertaining diversions. Nokia started the trend two years ago by adding video games to its digital cell phones. Now Samsung is taking the phone-and-fun mix to new heights. Its TV Phone (right) is similar in size to a Motorola Star-Tac and features a 1.8-inch liquid crystal display for watching television on the go. (Special switching technology enables the mobile phone to receive both cellular and television.) It also features a battery designed to optimize talk and viewing time. Sorry, there's no price yet.

Shoot and Print: We're all for instant gratification, and Sony's new DCR-TRV820 Digital 8 Handycam offers it in spades. The $1300 video shooter (right) has an onboard color printer that pumps out wallet-size photos or stickers with the press of a button. The camcorder shoots digital video on to standard Hi8 and eight-millimeter tape as well as still photos, which are stored on Sony's Memory Stick media cards. A four-megabyte Memory Stick comes with the camera and stores up to 60 pictures. Additional Memory Sticks are available in eight- to 64-meg capacity (priced from $30 to $140, depending on your choice).

Sound and Vision: By year's end, virtually every major electronics manufacturer will offer a portable Internet music player. Panasonic will release a model later this year that's designed to be worn watch-style on your wrist. Pioneer has shown prototype players that are no bigger than a Zippo lighter. And Sharp's MD-MT15 works with Voquette's Net-link PC interface to store MP3 files on to minidisc. But Samsung is taking the technology to the next level with its Photo Yepp (pictured at left). This pocket-size device holds downloaded Net tunes and stores and displays photo files and text. So when you listen to a track by some unknown band from Iowa, you can also punch up a group photo and song lyrics. Price: $400.

Do-It-All Dialer: Ericsson's $300 T28 World (right) is a digital cellular phone that functions on five continents and gets 10 hours of talk time on a fully juiced battery. It's also one of the first products that work with a new shortrange radio frequency technology called Bluetooth that enables gadgets, household appliances and car security devices to communicate without cables or connections. Available soon: a headset that works up to 30 feet from the handset.

Nice Rack: Despite the frenzy over Internet music, interest in recordable compact disc players remains strong. JVC has introduced a new stereo rack component, the XL-R5000BK, which includes a three-disc CD changer plus one recordable CD deck. The $670 unit offers a variety of high-speed recording options as well as the ability to program up to 32 instructions for storing tracks on to CD or just listening to them. A bonus: The component does double duty as a karaoke machine with a microphone input that lets you croon along with your favorite tunes--and record your voice on to homemade mixes.

DVD Anywhere: You're midway into a six-hour flight to San Francisco. The food's been served and the flight attendant announces that The Thomas Crown Affair will begin shortly. Here's our advice: Instead of watching the airline's watered-down version of the 1999 remake, pop the unedited DVD into Sony's DVP-FX1 and enjoy Rene Russo in all her naked glory. The supermodel-thin DVD/CD player has a seven-inch LCD wide-screen display, stereo speakers and a headphone jack. Its lithium ion battery will get you through two normal-length movies when fully charged. And when you arrive at your hotel, or back home, you can connect the player to a television for big-screen viewing ($1500).

More Tunes to go: Sony consistently creates some of the industry's slickest-looking products. Witness the Vaio Music Clip ($300). The size of a fountain pen, this digital music player stores up to two hours of audio downloaded from any Windows-compatible computer. For longer playback, Sony also offers the MS Walkman, a $400 digital music player that stores files on to Memory Stick media cards. Either way you go, an hour's worth of tracks travels from PC to player in about three minutes via a speedy USB connection.

WHERE AND HOW TO BUY ON PAGE 190.

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