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Further to my column on Saturday, I would like to discuss three
gadgets and toys that have become mass market favorites—well, sort
of—flat panel television sets, digital cameras, and phones.
Prices of flat panel TV sets have come down to
earth. They used to be in outer space—at close to P500,000 per
unit. Now, those TVs are less than P200,000, for the 40 to 52
inches.
To me, the plasma TVs are still better than
so-called LCDs—liquid crystal display TVs. Their colors are
brighter and they seem to have higher resolution, especially in the
dark. LCDs, however, look better in bright living rooms.
TV salesmen keep talking about high definition
or 1080p resolution. For TV sizes 50 inches or smaller, HD doesn’t
mean anything because TV signals come in 500 lines of resolution.
HD works best only with expensive Blu-ray disc
players (about P22,000 and above) and equally expensive Blu-ray disc
movies (about P2,000 on the average, though at Hidalgo Street in
Quiapo, they come as cheap as P50 per movie). Don’t buy Blu-ray
DVD players. They are a waste of money.
Also, with TVs, don’t pay much attention to
contrast ratios touted in LCD ads. A higher number is better, but
since manufacturers use different parameters and standards it is
difficult to compare brands.
Pay attention to so-called “refresh rates”
among LCDs (The lower the number, the better because it means the
screen can redraw an image faster). Pay extra for “120 Hz”
technology, which smooths out motion-blurring effects.
Consider TV units with HDMI outlets. More HDMI
(high-definition multimedia interface) inputs enables you to plug a
number of devices to your TV such as a home-theater receiver and at
least two DVD players, one branded and one China-made (which handle
pirated DVDs very well). A VGA connection, also called a PC input,
allows you to hook up a laptop to play Web videos, and a memory-card
slot while a USB port accommodates your camera’s storage card or
the camera itself for a slideshow.
Digital cameras now come under P25,000, for the
seven to 12- megapixel models. I like Pana-sonic Lumix LX3. It has
wide angle (24 inches), is bright (F2 opening), and has zoom (up to
60 mm). Above all, it has Leica lens. Of course, you can try the
Nikon P6000 (about P22,000) or the CanonG10 (P25,500) at Mayer’s
Photo at Hidalgo Street.
If you like semi-pro, the cheapest is the Nikon
D40 (P21,000). You cannot go wrong with it. It works well under most
given photo situations.
Aside from megapixels, most camera makers talk
about two other things: optical zoom and screen size.
Optical zoom refers to the telephoto reach of
the lens. It is expressed as a multiple like “3x,” “4x,” or
“10x.” A3x optical zoom should be the minimum. It is equal to
115 or 118 mm telephone on a 35-mm camera.
Digital zoom doesn’t mean anything. It simply
means what the camera crops and what it magnifies in what’s left
of the image.
Meanwhile, the increasingly large LCDs on the
back of cameras make it easier to view the shot you have just taken
and show them off to the curious.
Other useful features on a camera include image
stabilization, which enable to make shots at slow shutter speeds
without blurring the image taken. Also
useful is face detection. The camera recognizes your face and stays
focused on you.
As a rule, buy the smaller cameras. They are
pocketable, easy to carry and so handy. In this department, you
cannot wrong with the Panasonic Lumix LX3 or the Ricoh GR Digital
(which has no distributor in Manila).
The Lumix has ultra wide-angle 24-mm lens, which
can be manually focused, huge F2 lens opening, 10.1 megapixels, and
high-speed image processing engine.
Avoid buying cameras from Sony, which uses
proprietary Memory Sticks, which are atrociously expensive, and Fuji
and Olympus, which use xD Picture Cards. Canon, Nikon and Pana-sonic
use generic me-mory cards called SD or CF (big ones). The 4-Gig SD
card sells for less than P1,000.
For competent and reliable reviews of cameras,
go to Digital Photography Review.
Smartphones are the buzz in cellular phones.
They refer to phones with many functions. Here, Apple’s iPhone is
the gold standard.
In the Philippines, you are tied with Globe
Telecom to enjoy the iPhone’s features. When buying smartphones,
consider what uses you have in mind for it. Browse the Web? The
iPhone seems to be the best choice. Want to organize your life? Palm
and Blackberries work well.
Computers? Buy Apple. The Mac OS X is far better
than Microsoft’s Windows Vista. Macs often come with pre-loaded
software, making up for their higher prices than PCs.
For computer memory, you will need at least one
gigabyte of memory on a Mac, 2 GB on a Vista PC. Get also computers
with bigger hard drives, like 320 GB. And consider buying external
disk drives to back up data and photo files.
Merry Christmas!
biznewsasia@gmail.com
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