ISSUE 600: Currentz- Apr 24 2001
by Alan Zisman
April 24, 2001
Gear Guide
Technology that keeps pace
Lyra and Eurocom, where portable and power
meet
It seems with today's fast-paced lifestyle, technology that comes with
a 'you-can-take-it-with-you' style, is going to go places.
Music while you jog
RCA-Thompson's Lyra 2 is a
second-generation portable
MP3 player. Sleekly styled and very pocket-sized, it comes with a 64-MB
Compact Flash memory card, allowing it to store about an hour's worth
of
MP3 or Windows Media Audio (WMA) files in near CD quality. Also in the
package is a Compact Flash drive; this connects to a (PC or Mac)
computer's
USB port, for faster file downloads. (It took me about 10 minutes to
shoot
an hour's worth of music to the CF card.)
The Lyra 2 also includes an FM radio tuner and
comes with a car kit
with power and cassette adapters. Like other products in its category,
its skipless music playback makes it beloved by joggers and bike
riders.
And because it stores its music on a replaceable memory card rather
than
internally, in theory, users could own multiple memory cards. But with
64-MB CF cards selling locally for $170 each, how many will you buy?
Similarly,
priced at $429, the full-featured Lyra 2 isn't on my shopping
list.
Taking it with you
While sales of standard, desktop-styled
computers are stagnant, sales
of notebook computers continue to grow. Canadian company Eurocom
(www.eurocom.ca) sells notebooks designed as "desktop
replacements."
While heavier than some other models, these offer the performance of a
desktop model, along with the features that some other notebooks skimp
on.
While their Eurocom 2700-C models start
at $2,299, the price
of my loaner was pushed up to $3,614 by its 1-GHz processor, 128-MB
memory,
DVD drive and more. It included an ample 14" TFT screen. The company's
higher-priced 8500-V models feature a luxurious 15" screen. Both models
include dual-USB ports, a Firewire port and built-in modem and Ethernet
networking. I was surprised, however, that this otherwise full-featured
notebook left out an old-fashioned serial port. Palm users or
users
of older digital cameras would have to get a USB-serial adapter to work
with this notebook.
But it sure was fast! For comparison, on my
current workhorse, a 300-MHz
Pentium notebook, Adobe Photoshop 6 takes 60 seconds to load.
On
the Eurocom, Photoshop flashed onto the screen, ready to work, in 10
seconds.
Oh-so-nice stereo sound along with the DVD
drive, makes it a fine, portable
entertainment unit for movie disks or MP3 music files. Or get the CD-R
drive and use it with the built-in Firewire input for digital video
production.
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