TOKYO EDGE - July's coolest gadgets

The inability of major consumer electronics companies to agree on a single format for next-generation DVDs probably means waiting for a winning format -- Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD -- to emerge. Each camp says they are on the consumer's side in pushing their respective format. But if that was really true we wouldn't be facing this mess.

Forget the companies for a moment. Consumers have the march of technology on their side. Several companies are already developing optical drives that can read both formats, and recently Samsung Electronics said it could have a dual-format player on sale by year-end.

Once such players hit the shelves, the battle between the two formats could become much less important and today's single-format players might end up looking like expensive bricks. It's another reason to delay purchasing a high-definition player until later this year or next year.

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The inability of major consumer electronics companies to agree on a single format for next-generation DVDs probably means waiting for a winning format -- Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD -- to emerge. Each camp says they are on the consumer's side in pushing their respective format. But if that was really true we wouldn't be facing this mess.

Forget the companies for a moment. Consumers have the march of technology on their side. Several companies are already developing optical drives that can read both formats, and recently Samsung Electronics said it could have a dual-format player on sale by year-end.

Once such players hit the shelves, the battle between the two formats could become much less important and today's single-format players might end up looking like expensive bricks. It's another reason to delay purchasing a high-definition player until later this year or next year.

If you really have to go out and buy a machine right now, Toshiba is offering the first HD DVD recorder.

Toshiba HD-DVD Recorder

Toshiba's RD-A1 is much like existing digital video recorders (DVR), but with high-definition support. There's 1TB of hard-disk storage space for day-to-day recording, and the HD DVD drive lets consumers burn TV shows they wish to keep onto an optical disc. The hard-disk will store about 130 hours of digital HD terrestrial TV, with a dual-layer HD DVD-R disc able to hold about 230 minutes, or just less than four hours of programming, Toshiba said. Prominent among the features of the RD-A1 is its support for 1,080 lines progressive video output, which was missing on Toshiba's first generation player, and has been seized upon by Blu-ray Disc backers as a reason to buy their machines. The recorder won't be inexpensive with a price tag of $3,467. Initially it's been announced for Japan only.

Web: http://www.toshiba.co.jp/hddvd/eng/

Sharp W-Zero3 ES Smart Phone

The Japan-only W-Zero3 ES is a slider-type phone with a complete QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is revealed by rotating the handset through 90 degrees clockwise, and sliding the upper half of the phone away from the lower half. There's a VGA (640 pixels by 480 pixels) resolution 2.8-inch screen and the phone offers USB host mode. This means that data from devices like digital cameras can be transferred to the phone via USB without the need for a computer. It will go on sale on July 27 and will cost S$261 with a one-year service contract from Willcom.

Web: http://www.sharp.co.jp/ws/special/007sh/ (Japanese)

Samsung SGH-i320 Smart Phone

At about the same time as Sharp was showing off its new Windows Mobile 5.0 phone, Samsung was taking the wraps off its SGH-i320. Based on the same operating system as the Sharp phone, the SGH-i320 has a landscape format display and QWERTY keyboard. It includes all expected features, such as a 1.3-megapixel camera, a music player, video player and recorder, Bluetooth and voice recognition and it has a 2.2-inch screen with QVGA (320 pixels by 240 pixels) resolution. It will go on sale in Europe this month and in Southeast Asia shortly, Samsung said. No other launch details were announced and the company did not disclose pricing.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.