The sun beckons with promises of good times and great memories — if you have our top 5 must-have gadgets for summer.
YAHOO! MUSIC UNLIMITED: It’s not a gadget, but this service fills your compatible MP3 player with as many songs as it can hold, listen to them all, then refill. Again and again, as many times as you want, for $6.99 a month. You don’t own the music; you’re digesting it the same way you consume cable TV. You pay for everything but take only what you want. In the case of Y! Music Unlimited, the service checks your account via the Web, and as long as it’s good, the service lets your music play. Miss a payment, and your computer and MP3 player are wiped clean of Y! Music Unlimited tracks. Remember, you’re renting, not buying. Some people say the idea helps record companies keep music fans on a leash. But for finding new music quickly, few other legal options come close. (music.yahoo.com/musicengine; $6.99 a month)
EPSON’s PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition: Many fine people don’t know how to get their photos out of their camera phones and digital cameras. Epson thinks it has the answer with its updated PictureMate photo printer. Now with a screen to view — and alter — images in your camera before you print them, the PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition is a goodie.
Photo labs and drugstores can print your digital images, but the PictureMate is meant to be where you are, not on your way, like photo labs and drugstores. (www.mypicturemate.com; $250)
ALIENWARE Area-51m7700: No Intel Centrino or M chips here. The Area-51m7700 uses a Pentium 4 chip, just like many desktop computers do. No M- or Centrino-style power-saving shortcuts, just full-out computer brawn all the time. That means battery life isn’t the greatest, but so what? You’re a video game rock star, so buying an extra battery and keeping it charged is not a problem. What is a problem is keeping yourself out of free wi-fi hot spots for a bit of “Far Cry 3,” “World of Warcraft” or “City of Heroes” when the mood strikes. When it does, you’ll have the power to take on all comers. (www.alienware.com; starting at $2,190)
LG VX8000 PHONE: Hooked up to Verizon’s V CAST next-generation network, the LG shows what it can do. While not quite DSL-fast here in downtown Chicago, V CAST does lessen the time spent searching online with a phone. The VX8000 handles every task thrown at it with ease. A big sharp screen and chunky keypad came in handy when dialing, when playing 3-D games and when downloading video made especially for V CAST. Wireless carriers want you eventually to get your television programming from them, just as you do now from the cable company or satellite broadcaster. The difference is, mobile viewing is better in short bites: quick recipes, sports highlights, stand-up comics. Multimedia phones such as the VX8000 are the bridge to that future. Chicagoland’s Verizon subscribers have had access to V CAST since February. (www.verizonwireless.com; $220)
ARCHOS AV700 Mobile Digital Video Recorder: When it comes out next month, the Archos AV700 will have one of the biggest screens among mobile video devices, and unlike the Sony PSP gaming/multimedia handheld, the AV700 comes with a tuner that lets you record shows to watch later. It takes a little bit of work to hook up the AV700 to your cable system, but the results are worth it. Why take a book to the beach this summer? (www.archos.com; $600 for the 40-gigabyte model, $800 for the 100-gigabyte model)
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egwinn@tribune.com
