Coolness reigns at PC Expo

A host of new, useful and even cool products debuted recently at the annual PC Expo trade show in New York.

What follows are some of the latest trends, with a close look at how well companies are balancing splash and utility.

Computer-makers are increasingly turning to an odd, yet practical, strategy: cramming the engine of a desktop computer into a laptop.

Conventional thought has held that this is not a good idea. The Intel Pentium 4 processors that power desktop computers guzzle more power and give off a lot of heat.

Plus it’s harder to cram a cooling system into a portable computer. That’s why Intel makes chips specifically for laptops that are slower, cooler and pricier. But as laptop cooling systems get more sophisticated and computer-makers compete to offer powerful portables for less money, conventional wisdom is going out the window–and the trend toward desktop power in a mobile package is likely to continue.

The fastest desktop chips are not going into laptops–the 2 gigahertz laptops announced last month with Intel’s mobile Pentium 4 processor hold the speed crown. But laptops with desktop chips running a little slower deliver a better value.

Folks at Hewlett-Packard, Dell and IBM are learning that many laptop users are willing to deal with shorter battery life in a laptop, if it means getting such perks as a 15-inch screen, a CD-burning drive, and an affordable Pentium 4 processor running at 1.5 gHz or higher.

The laptop trend is called “plug to plug.” As in, the majority of laptop users are willing to carry their laptops from one electrical outlet to the next rather than rely heavily on batteries. There are more compromises that come with these machines than battery life.

They’re bigger. They’re heavier–some can run close to 10 pounds, about three times heavier than trendy featherweights.

The plug-to-plug laptop certainly isn’t as eye-catching as those 3-pound, battery-sipping ultraportables that run $2,000 or more. But for most of us, it’s a lot more practical.

The most interesting development in the mobile device category came from Kyocera, a cell phone-maker that has been using the Palm operating system to add data capabilities to its phones.

Kyocera announced the $500 7135 SmartPhone last month, a pocket-size clamshell CDMA phone with a 65,000-color screen, global positioning, built-in MP3 player and a Secure Digital storage slot. It also has speaker phone.

That’s a lot. Kyocera claims 3 1/2 hours of talk time and 160 hours of standby time, but that’s sure to drop quite a bit if you’re playing MP3s. It will be available at the end of the year.

Sony, which has kept competitors on their toes by announcing a new Clie hand-held computer at seemingly every opportunity, surprised no one by announcing yet another model. The $400 Clie PEG-T665C is thin, and plays MP3s.

Sony is tied with Handspring for the No. 2 spot in the hand-held-computer world. Don’t be surprised if it uses its strong brand and design expertise to shake up the wireless hand-held category before year’s end.

Also, Hewlett-Packard introduced its $650 iPaq 3950 and $750 3970. Both should be available in the next few weeks. The new units have brighter screens and software that allows them to act as remote controls.

One of today’s foremost symbols of tech chic is the flat-panel liquid crystal display monitor.

People are snapping them up so fast that roughly half of the computer monitors sold in the first three months of the year were flat LCDs, according to Samsung, the world’s biggest monitor-maker.

Practical panels

Aside from being cool, though, flat panels can be practical. Since they don’t flicker like cathode ray tubes, they are easier on the eyes. They take up less space, which can be nice in dorm rooms.

The popularity of LCDs has created something that is great for shoppers: price competition among manufacturers.

Fifteen-inch flat panels, which sold for about $700 at the beginning of 2001, now tend to cost closer to $350. The 17-inch models, $1,000 at the beginning of the year, are $700.

Dell announced an 18-inch monitor for $950. Monitor-makers keep racing to put out larger monitors they can charge at least $1,000 for.

But by far, the most popular flat-panel is the cheapest: the 15-inch, which accounts for 68 percent of sales. To keep them from becoming indistinguishable from one another (and universally cheap), manufacturers have been adding features, like TV tuners, built-in speakers and adjustable stands.

One of the most practical of these classier 15-inchers is Samsung’s 152t ($500). The screen moves up and down for comfort and comes with color-calibration software to keep its images honest. But at just $100 more than your basic, no-frills, flat-panel monitor, you don’t have to pay a huge premium for the convenience.

A new mouse works without a table, or any flat surface. You just wave it through the air.

The Ultra Cordless Optical Mouse works on a table too, which keeps it from being just an oddity.

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Better yet, the mouse, from Saratoga, Calif.-based Gyration, costs just $80–about $30 more than a regular cordless mouse (it will be available in August from online electronics stores).

It has a range of about 25 feet. It doesn’t require special software drivers; just a USB hub that reads the movement of as many as eight Gyration devices. It also has a rechargeable battery, a nice plus for a cordless mouse.

And the pricing suggests this company is not so blindly in love with its technology that it feels the need to make it unduly expensive.

What’s the practical use of a cordless mouse that senses midair movement?

Well, it could be useful for business presentations. It also adds a new dimension to first-person shooter games–and it would be even cooler if Gyration would put the technology in a glove or pistol-shaped package. If you’re so exhausted that you don’t want to hold your hand up to the table while surfing the Web, this solves your problem.

Perhaps the most useful product I spotted was Keyspan’s Mini Port Replicator, for $80.

This thing plugs into a USB port, and turns it into a serial or parallel printer port. Since a lot of the new computers out there–especially those from Apple–lack the older ports, something like this is a must-have for many people who don’t want to toss old printers, scanners and other peripherals. And at $80, this promises to be half the price of similar port replicators, most of which are too big to carry around.

It should be available in the fall.

Affordable printers

Even these days, when people are buying fewer PCs, printers are one of the few tech products that sell better than personal computers.

It helps that they are so affordable. Inkjet printers start at about $50. While they don’t produce text as crisp as laser printers do, they produce nice color on plain white paper. Pricier printers–those starting at about $150–produce color images on photo paper that a casual observer might mistake for professional prints.

The big player in the printer world is giant Hewlett-Packard, which announced three new color inkjet printers last month: the Deskjet 5550, 3820 and 3420.

HP says the top-end 5550 ($150) can print with six inks for 1.2 million colors, and detect when the right type of paper is in the printer. All three printers produce images at 4,800 x 1,200 dots per inch.

Also worth noting: Samsung, which has led the charge in making black-and-white laser printing affordable for folks at home, has done it again. This time it’s a 15-page-a-minute printer for $200, compatible with operating systems including Windows, classic Mac OS and Mac OS X.

Even better, the previous model of Samsung printer, running at a not-too-shabby 12 pages a minute, will probably be discounted as retailers phase it out–look for it for $180 or less.