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Gear & Gadgets

Show off those trip photos - onscreen

By JUDI DASH
Published December 25, 2005

Zoom in on the following neat photo gear, which could even make happy New Year's gifts. All products have been tested by the author.

Say goodbye to those bulky photo albums stuffed with yellowing snapshots. Say hello (and, wow!) to Brookstone's new PictureBook Digital Photo Album, which can store 10,000 photos on its 20 GB hard drive.

You can organize your images in up to 20 customized folders and watch the photos as a slide show. Measuring 8 by 6 by 1.5 inches, with a bright, 5.6-inch color LCD screen, the PictureBook accepts the seven most popular digital memory cards. You can also download images from a computer via the included USB cable, and you can display them on your TV or DVD player using the included video cable.

The rechargeable battery provides 3.5 hours of power. A leather cover snaps over the screen. It's easy to use, too, so start shooting.

PictureBook 498360 is $500 from Brookstone. For more information, call toll-free 1-866-576-7337; www.brookstone.com The little Epson P-2000 Multimedia storage viewer can hold and play back photos, videos and loads of MP3 music, thanks to a 40 GB hard drive. The built-in card slot accepts CompactFlash or Secure Digital memory cards; an optional third-party adapter supports most other formats.

Measuring 5.8 by 3.3 by 1.2 inches, with a 3.8-inch screen, the P-2000 comes with a high-speed 2.0 USB cable for fast downloads to and from a computer. There's also a headphone jack and a stand. The screen is considerably smaller than the Brookstone PictureBook's big 5.6-inch monitor, and the black-on-black buttons can be hard to decipher. However, images are crisp and vibrant.

Coming this winter: the P-4000, which has a giant, 80 GB hard drive in the same size body.

Epson P-2000 B31B174011 is $500. For more information, call toll-free 1-800-463-7766; www.epson.com The new Gemini case from Tenba is two innovative bags in one. One side unzips to reveal a compartment with removable, adjustable, padded dividers for safely transporting a camera, multiple lenses and other photo gear. Unzip the other side and you've got another padded compartment that is a work station for laptops up to 17 inches.

It has a drop-down surface, a pop-up glare/privacy shield for better screen viewing, and a pass-through cord port for powering up and connecting the computer to peripherals. You can separate the two sides and carry separately or zip them together as a single case. There's also a removable organizer file, multiple external and internal pockets on both sides, and D-rings on each side for connecting the included shoulder strap.

The combined Cordura nylon case system measures 15- by 11- by 8-inches. Multitask away.

PG17-C Gemini Case 638-191 is $210. For more information, contact 1Mac Group in New York: (914) 347-3300; www.tenbagear.com Kodak pioneered printer docks that allow easy printing from compatible Kodak cameras (without cables), while simultaneously charging the cameras. The company's new EasyShare Digital Photo Solution is a system that combines the new EasyShare Z740 camera, which has a generous 10X optical zoom, with the new Printer Dock series 3.

The dock prints out 4- by 6-inch color photos in about 90 seconds and supports both Pictbridge and Imagelink print technology for one-touch printing. The camera's 10X zoom is equivalent to a 38 to 380 mm lens on a nondigital camera.

The Z740 has a 1.8-inch LCD screen and 18 scene settings for various shooting environments, including fast action shots, and it comes with photo-organizing software.

EasyShare Digital Photo Solution with Z740 camera and printer dock is $499. For more information, call toll-free 1-800-235-6325; www.kodak.com/go/EasyShare

[Last modified December 23, 2005, 09:59:07]