Digital Lifestyle: December 2007

Innovative technology can increase business productivity and personal enjoyment.

The latest high-tech products are designed to serve you better at the office, at home, and on the road. Although the best new devices have a certain built-in "cool" factor, a few stand out from the field with a sense of design that combines form and function in a whole new way.

If you missed Sony's VAIO Graphic Splash Maya Hayuk Limited Edition notebooks, don't be too disappointed. The powerful TZ series is still available in four colors to suit your sense of style. Prices start at $2,100.

Need directions? Mio DigiWalker C720t can help. It's a pocket-sized, full-featured GPS navigator with a big screen, a media player, and a 2MP camera. The $600 unit works well in the car or on foot and can play videos, slideshows, and your favorite tunes.

The compact Epson PictureMate Zoom prints 4x6-inch professional-quality photos from memory cards, and a "Save to CD" button enables auto-coping of images from your card to a CD via the built-in CD burner. $200

A cornucopia of new products is at your fingertips…

Enhancing creativity with digital tools can add zest to life and dollars to the bottom line. A high-performance digital camera, camcorder, monitor, storage drive, and printer can make it easy to unleash the Edison, Spielberg, or P.T. Barnum that lurks inside you. Whether you buy them for work or as holiday gifts for family, clients, and friends, these creative tools are sure to make the season shine.

Casio's Exilim EX-S880 provides a capture mode for maximum image quality that can be easily uploaded to YouTube. The 8.1MP camera with 3x optical zoom sports a 2.5-inch LCD display and an optical viewfinder. $249

The new Olympus E-3 digital SLR camera is a rugged, lightweight, professional 10-megapixel camera with image stabilization for every lens, a "live" 2.5-inch swivel LCD, and a sealed magnesium alloy body for dust- and splash-proof durability. Expect to spend around $2,700 for an E-3 equipped with a sharp Zuiko 12-60mm lens.

With the Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB hard disk camcorder, you can record up to 15 hours of high-def video. The compact $1,099 camera can also shoot 3-megapixel stills on to a MiniSD card. The HG10 is bundled with powerful editing software from Corel, for use on a Windows XP or Windows Vista PC.

SimpleTech's External Hard Drive, elegantly styled by Pininfarina, is available in five capacities and colors. The 500GB drive with USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 inputs is available for $200.

A big high-def desktop display lets you run multiple apps and/or games. Gateway's new XHD3000 multi-tasking LCD monitor provides an awesome 30-inch, 1600p widescreen image for work and play, but will set you back almost $1,700.

Tired of waiting for a multi-page document to finish printing? Try the speedy Epson Stylus C120 printer. This sub-$90 inkjet can deliver up to 37 pages per minute black and 20 pages per minute color. It produces great prints on plain or photo paper, and you can rest assured the text won't smudge -- even if you use a highlighter.

You can get up-close and personal with the new generation of digital buzz and bling at the next annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, January 7-10. Check out demos of advanced technologies for personal and business use and discover profitable new applications and opportunities, particularly in some of the smaller pavilions. Here, we present a few superb home-theater and home-office products.

The Epson Ensemble HD Home Cinema System is a cost-effective, turnkey, high-performance AV projection theater solution. The pre-configured system includes a high-definition Epson projector, a motorized 100-inch screen, an AV controller with integrated DVD player and universal remote, and an Atlantic Technology 5.1 channel amplified speaker system with subwoofer. All mounting brackets, cables, and wire-management tracks are included for easy, unobtrusive deployment. With a 1080p projector, the Ensemble costs $6,999, plus installation, and will be available next month from authorized AV integrators.

Panasonic's new 65-inch 1080p plasma HDTV delivers a definite wow factor wherever it's displayed. The $9,000 list price for the spectacular TH-65PZ750U might seem a bit steep for the den, but as a centerpiece in your conference room or media room, this beautiful screen creates an unforgettable impression.

The latest compact Bose Lifestyle V30 home theater system delivers wonderful 5.1 surround sound for movies, music, sports, and video games from a variety of AV sources, including those with HDMI. All AV sources connect to the media console, which can be hidden away because the system's radio frequency remote does not rely on a line-of-sight connection. Lifestyle V30 systems are currently available with prices starting at $2,999.

With Logitech's Harmony 1000 Universal Remote you can control your entire AV system. The sleek, $500 touch-screen color LCD works with up to 15 devices. It's simple to set up with even complex components.