The Gift of Gizmos
The latest toys for wired girls and boys (and grown-ups, too)
DIGITAL MUSIC
HIP TO BE SQUARE. The Rubik's Cube. The spaceships the Borg flew when menacing the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And now the MobiBLU DAH-1500i Cube music player ($100 for 512MB, $130 for 1GB, only at Wal-Mart). It plays digital music, tunes in FM radio, and records your conversations. Worn on a lanyard that also holds its earphones, the DAH-1500i is so tiny it does take nimble fingers to operate. But the effort is rewarded with good sound quality and good battery life--about eight hours per charge. Kenneth Terrell
AIRBOUND SOUND. Wouldn't it be great to have a convenient way to listen to all those songs stashed on your family PC in any room of the house? You can plug the $130 Saitek A-250 wireless speaker system 's transmitter into a computer's USB slot and beam those tunes up to about 33 yards. Using other devices--such as some cordless phones and microwaves--causes static if you're listening to the Saitek. But when you've got an uninterrupted signal, the A-250 delivers a warm, full sound. Kenneth Terrell
DIAL-A-TUNE. The marriage of a cellphone and portable music player should be a match made in heaven. The much-ballyhooed Motorola RokR hasn't caught on. But other companies are strolling down that aisle. Sony Ericsson 's W600i Walkman phone ($200) has a flashy orange casing and swivel design, and it downloads songs from a PC in seconds. The W600i comes with 256MB of memory, enough for about 50 songs. But you have to share that memory with pictures from its camera, and you can't expand. Well, if you run out of memory for tunes, you can still use the W600i to tune in FM radio. Kenneth Terrell
CAMERAS & CAMCORDERS
HOOK IT UP. The Nyko Desktop Multi-Hub ($80) conveniently brings more ports to the top of a desk instead of the back of the computer: four USB, two FireWire, S-video, audio in/out, mouse, and keyboard. If all these slots were ever used simultaneously, that tangle of cords from the back of the PC would move to the desktop. That said, the hub is stylish, and it does make life easier. David LaGesse
WIRELESS SLIDESHOW. First came wireless phones that take pictures; now there are cameras that wirelessly transmit photos. Using a WiFi connection, the Kodak EasyShare-one ($600) can transmit photos to E-mail addresses, using the company's free online sharing service from a public-access hot spot (a camera-only account with T-Mobile's WiFi service is $5 a month). The camera is pricey for its 4-megapixel resolution, and it's unclear how useful a wireless connection is at home. But it was easy to connect to our home network. Cellphones have greater wireless reach, but the camera's photo quality is in a better league. David LaGesse
HARD-DRIVE IT. Videotape's 38-year run is coming to the end of its reel. The future is JVC's GZ-MG70 Everio camcorder ($1,100), which saves precious moments to a built-in 30GB hard drive. No more broken tapes or slow-writing DVDs, plus room for seven hours of high-quality recording. One big downside: The footage is saved in a format that can't be read by most mainstream video-editing programs. But your precious moments will play on DVD machines if you copy the footage to disk. David LaGesse
KIDS' STUFF
'tween phone. Want a link to your 8-to-12-year-old 'tween, but afraid she'd burn countless minutes arguing the fate of America's Next Top Model 's most recent castoff? The Firefly cellphone ($100) restricts calls to an address book of 20 or fewer numbers and only works with prepaid plans that cost $25 per 100 minutes. Only you can decide if you want your child going high tech at that young an age--and if you're willing to spend a half-hour punching tiny buttons to program its numbers. David LaGesse
Buzzing around the house. The RadioShack Spin Blade RC Indoor Helicopter ($60) is a blast for entertaining the kids and teasing the cat. The radio controls take practice, particularly navigating forward and backward, and the craft moves rather slowly. That's not all bad because its fragile plastic and Styrofoam parts can't take a pounding. The onboard battery is good for only about seven minutes of flight and takes a half-hour to recharge. Don't try it outdoors, where a breeze can send it crashing--and keep in mind that cats can leap. David LaGesse
ODDS & ENDS
NO GREASY KID STUFF. A necessary evil with bikes: the nasty stains from those metal chains. The iXi bike ($1,000) has a greaseless belt made of ultramodern materials that drives the four-speed hub. The iXi's all-aluminum frame breaks into two pieces for easy transport, and the pedals and handlebars fold away for storage in a tight space. It's unclear if the one size, while adjustable, truly fits all--our rides found that it feels different from other bikes at first. Whether the iXi's look is fetching or odd depends on taste. David LaGesse
DELIVER US. Men won't ask for directions but love gadgets--a double win for the budget-priced Garmin StreetPilot i3 ($430). The baseball-size device attaches to a dashboard with a suction cup, pulling coordinates from GPS satellites and speaking directions to nudge the wayward. Detailed maps must first be loaded from an included disk via a PC, and the screen isn't touch sensitive--you use a wheel and buttons to navigate menus instead. The StreetPilot runs on AA batteries or plugs into the car's power port with an included adapter. The maps also pinpoint ATM s, gas stations, and restaurants, making it easier to track down the Big Boy double-decker burger we crave when traveling. David LaGesse
stocking stuffer. By now, gripping a mouse is a reflex for most of us. Why not put that modern adaptation to use in the kitchen? The Zyliss multi-mouse 3-way opener ($7) offers a comfortable grip for opening bottles, and a magnet holds it to the fridge for convenient storage. Kenneth Terrell
This story appears in the November 28, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.