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.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.