Gadgetory

hello I'm Tom Merritt editor from cnet.com and welcome to road warrior where we take a look at the hottest gadgets for life on the go coming up a schizophrenic HD camcorder another Trifield UMPC from sony and an infinity with a safe rear end let's start with the NECN 908 it's a touch screen cell phone so how does that work Nicole you die by tapping the phone screen like this and sort of dial numbers with the key input screen right here if you want to text just press text able to create a message you have to go through and click the text messaging button and then you brings up a virtual qwerty keep up for you to tap through it takes a little getting used to using the touchscreen it has an SD card but they buried it behind the battery I hate it when they do that the sony handycam HDR FX 7 is supposed to be a prosumer HD camera but it has a split personality one of the more disappointing aspects of the camcorder or is its audio support there are no XLR inputs and you can't even independently control the left and right channels of the audio the video call is excellent sharp colors are good and it handles low-light situations pretty well it's not quite powerful enough for the entry-level professional and it's not quite focused enough for the consumer but it might be perfect for makers of hi-def silent films hmm speaking of devices with unclear target markets sony has a new ultra mobile pc the UX 390 now how to use an ultra mobile pc well they're compact easy to carry around in your pocket when you're ready to use it slide the screen up there's a full keyboard under here the keys are a little flat kind of hard to use even if you're good at the blackberry style thumb typing to move the cursor around there's a pencil eraser dub over here kind of like that an old thinkpad and the left and right mouse buttons would be under your other thumb over here now if you hate all of that the screen is actually a touch screen you can use your finger to a click around on it or there's a small stylus built into the back you can whip out and click round with it does have a built-in a video card but only two hours of battery life finally the infiniti fx45 has optional gps navigation and stereo system niceties but what's cool is what's standard the other little cute feature of this LCD that is standard on all the fx45 is the back up camera pop it in reverse and you get a rear view as well as distance markers and also beep tones if you're about to hit something and you're not looking at the screen standard beep tones to stop me from backing into something I could have used that at poor azalea bush anyway that's it for this edition of road warrior I'm Tom Merritt check back next time for more gadgets that keep you armed and dangerously productive