The Canadian dollar is still strong. With that in mind we should start making our Christmas list.
What gadgets are cool on the market and for what price?
HDTV
Time to move on to high definition television. Compared to standard definition television which displays images at 480 lines of resolution, HDTV is capable of showing 1, 080 lines, or talking in pixels, HDTV offers up to 1920 x 1080 pixels on the screen.
Hence a much clear image.
Another asset: HDTV is wider, offering 16:9 aspect ratio, compared to 4:3 offered by standard television.
Plasma
Pros: the most accurate color reproduction and better contrast; handle motion smoothly- important for watching sports or playing video games; wide viewing angles
Cons: Reflective glass, making them suitable for rooms with less ambient light; it starts at 42 inches; energy consuming
LCD (liquid crystal display)
Pros: thinner, lighter, more energy efficient than plasma; wide range of sizes, from 13 to 108 inches; anti glare screen; long life span of about 60,000 hours; better motion control than years ago
Cons: contrast is not as good as on plasma; price is comparable to plasma
Rear-projection television
Pros: price is a third of the price for plasma TV
Cons: good for big size rooms and it needs about 45 seconds to warm-up
Audio-video receiver
Now that you have HDTV, you need a good AV receiver. It is one of the most important pieces of equipment that will bring you the movie-theatre sound to your home.
Along with the receiver it comes the cables. Good quality cables, different from the old RCA type. Think High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) cable. More on these components later on.
iPod docking stations
Offers small speaker systems that can be placed anywhere you want to enjoy your music, without earbuds.
For $99.99 you can get the iHome iPod Dual Alarm Clock Radio It lets you dock your iPod in a cradle on top of the unit.
Looking for something fancier?
For 229.95 you can get a
JBL Radial Cool design. Features as listed at JBL site:
“JBL RADIAL MICRO (Black)
JBL Radial™ Micro Blk – Performance Loudspeaker Dock for iPod
It’s an iPod party machine with legendary JBL® sound. It’s a space-saving, all-in-one computer sound system and iPod docking station. Connected to a TV, it’s an iPod slideshow and video player. JBL Radial Micro is one of the smallest and most-versatile multimedia speaker systems ever developed. And wherever and however you use it, it’s among the best-sounding systems out there. Experience clean, accurate full-frequency sound, and tight, distortion-free bass, from a compact device that looks great anywhere”
Kodak EasyShare Digital Picture Frame
You are at work and want to feel closer to your family? Why not buy the new gizmo from Kodak? You can have hundreds of pictures loaded onto the digital frame, or play music and videos.
All you have to do is plug it to your Windows PC or Mac’s USB port, drag and drop selected pictures onto the frame, then unplug and place the frame on a table or mount it on the wall.
Many digital frames come with a memory card slot that will take the most popular photo card types.
Pop the memory card out of the digital camera and place it into the frame.
For $249.95 US, you get the top-of-the-line EX1011 model (www.kodak.com)