High Technology Product Reviews | Trends and News

The Sony PSP has been a premier mobile gaming platform for the past five years, but it was always a bit large for a portable system. Sony's answer: The PSP go ($249.99 direct), a shrunken-down version of the PSP that eschews the UMD optical drive and game cartridges for 16GB of internal storage, download-only titles, and a new slider design. The screen is bright, the controls are responsive, the storage is sufficient, and Sony's online download store is reliable and robust. The problem is that the PSP go is really only for gamers who are new to the PSP platform, not the faithful who have stuck with Sony for a half-decade. If you fit into the latter group, you're better off sticking with your original, albeit chunkier, PSP-1000, or buying the slightly smaller PSP-3000 ($169.99 direct) if you want to get in on multiplayer games. With the PSP go, Sony is poised to compete with other portable gaming platforms, including the Nintendo DS Lite and Apple's iPod touch—at least...

Think all those new touch screen smartphones look too much alike? Motorola has finally hit on a fun new formula with the Flipout, a nifty pivoting square with a highly usable keyboard and (given the phone's small size) a large LCD. You'll pay for the Flipout's originality, as it has one near-fatal flaw and several smaller ones. But it's much more compelling than the bizarre Motorola Backflip ($49.99, 2 stars). Specifications Service Provider AT&T Screen Size 2.8 inches Screen Details 320-by-240-pixel, 65K-color TFT LCD capactive touch screen Camera Yes Network GSM, UMTS Bands 850, 900, 1800, 1900 High-Speed Data GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA Processor Speed 720 MHz Design, Call Quality, and Hardware The Motorola Flipout is surprisingly small, if a bit thick. It measures 2.6 by 2.6 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.2 ounces. It's made of silver and black high-impact plastic. A thin metal plate sits behind the slide-up front panel. Holding the Flipout ...

The 12-megapixel, Nikon Coolpix S4000 is among the least-expensive cameras on the market to offer a touch screen interface. The touch experience on this camera isn't particularly glitzy, but it's perfectly functional and is complemented by a few, smartly selected physical buttons. Also, the 3-inch display is much sharper than most other under-$200 point-and-shoot cameras. The S4000 also performs somewhat better in low light than other shooters in this price range, but in all lighting conditions, this camera produces softer images than much of the competition. Another problem: there's no optical or mechanical stabilization—most budget cameras offer some kind of image stabilizer on the lens or image sensor to avoid blurry images. With the Nikon S4000, you need to decide whether a touch screen interface is worth sacrificing image stabilization for—and we don't think it is. Specifications Type Compact Megapixels 12 MP Media Format Secure Digital High Capacity 35-mm...

Scanner technology tends to improve over time, benefiting consumers mostly through lowering the cost for a given level of capability. The Epson Perfection V300 Photo scanner ($99.99 direct, which includes a one-year parts-and-labor warranty) is a case in point. Coming a year after the now discontinued V350 Photo scanner, it is $50 cheaper and can run rings around the V350 in performance, particularly for scanning transparencies—both slides and strips of film. It's also comparable with, yet cheaper than, the Canon CanoScan 5600F, which is enough to warrant having the V300 replace the 5600F as Editors' Choice. Specifications Maximum Optical Resolution 4800 pixels Mechanical Resolution 9600 pixels Maximum Scan Area Letter Scanning Options Reflective, Transparency Flatbed Yes You won't find many differences in basics between the V300 and 5600F, but the few that exist are in the V300's favor. Both offer 4,800-pixel-per-inch (ppi) optical resolution; both have tra...

Manufacturers tend to label low-end home inkjet printers such as Canon Pixma iP2702 Photo Printer ($49.99 direct) as photo printers, and these tend to print decent to very good photos (by consumer standards, at least), often to the neglect of text quality. In our testing, the iP2702 stood that model on its head. Its photos were rather disappointing, and it did surprisingly well in printing text. A bit different with my last reviews about Canon Pixma . The iP2702 is a handsome yet Spartan device. Matte-black with rounded corners, it is compact: 5.2 by 17.6 by 9.8 inches (HWD), weighing 12.1 pounds. Its interface is minimalist: just two buttons—one the on-off switch, the other labeled with a sheet of paper plus a puzzling icon; the on-screen user manual reveals it to be a resume/cancel button. There's no LCD or viewscreen of any sort. The exposed, top-feeding paper tray can fit up to 100 sheets. It lacks an auto-duplexer or any optional paper-handling features. Specifications Pr...

Toshiba has had a long, outstanding history of making desirable ultraportable laptops. Today, it continues to crank them out as thin and as light as ones that cost over $2,000. Indeed, the Toshiba Portege R705-P35 ($899.99 list) costs a fraction of what the Sony VAIO VPC-Z116GXS ($1,800 direct, 4 stars) is selling for, yet both are easily the lightest 13-inch ultraportables (with optical drives) in the world. Since the last iteration, the Portege R705-P25 ($800 street, 4 stars), Toshiba and Best Buy have partnered up to include WiMax (4G) support, a faster Core i3 processor, and a larger battery (from 63WH to 66WH)—all while keeping the price down. The Sony Z116GXS is still the most luxurious ultraportable, but the Portege R705-P35 takes over as the new Editors' Choice (in the ultraportable category) for being as luxurious as it is practical. Specifications Type General Purpose, Media, Ultraportable, Small Business Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Processor ...

We meet again with Lenovo product reviews . The Lenovo IdeaCentre Q150 ($399 direct) is a simply designed nettop, made to be placed on your desk or bolted behind an HDTV or large LCD monitor. It's one of the best Web video/photo/music media consumption devices out there, once you've hooked up to a big screen. Design and Features At 6.75 by 0.80 by 6 inches (HWD), the Q150 is even more compact than tiny PCs like the Apple Mac mini ($699 list, 4.5 stars) or eMachines Mini-e ER1402-05 ($299.99 list, 4 stars). It has no distinctive features, easily blending in with any decor. The Q150 looks like a black silicone trivet you'd keep in your kitchen to prevent hot pans from damaging your table. Because of its slim form, you could bolt it to the back of a large screen monitor or HDTV with the included VESA mounting bracket. Once bolted to the back of a big screen, the display effectively becomes a large all-in-one PC. Specifications Type Multimedia, Digital Entertainment Syst...