New Products

COOL FACTOR While other music portables can claim greater capacity, compactness, or coolness, this digital demon boasts the longest battery life of any MP3 player ever - 150 hours per charge, folks. Next time you decide to skip town for a week, don't even bother bringing the charger with you.

From a $200 bookshelf model to a 3.5-foot-tall tower ($1,800 a pair), NHT's new Classic speakers have gloss-black finishes that stand out and curves in all the right places. But in redesigning its Super Audio speaker line, the company went for more than just good looks by tailoring the speakers' sound for home theaters.

WINDOWS 1080P If you loved Legos as a kid, a Media Center PC will fulfill your need to build stuff in a grown-up, home theater kind of way. Niveus's Rainier, an "entry-level" model in the Summit series, gives you unprecedented tools: an HD DVD drive and an HDMI output capable of feeding your display 1080p video.

A NEW LIGHT So you think you know the big benefit of NuVision's 52LEDLP TV just from the name, do you? Well, yeah, having an LED "illuminator" instead of a regular lamp will get you better contrast, but did you know you also get a much longer life, full brightness as soon as you turn it on, and less power consumption?

HDTV FEAST If you give your TV a workout every time you turn it on - throwing everything from HD shows to discs to games at it - has Olevia got the TV for you. The 742i 42-inch LCD panel is equipped with a slew of high-def inputs, including a pair of HDMI ports, as well as two (count 'em!) HDTV tuners. The Olevia showcases it all in 1080p, the Rolls-Royce of HD formats.

NEVER COMPROMISE Going with an HTiB system generally means settling for convenience over performance, but Onkyo's HT-S990THX bites off a chunk of both. Not only is the included receiver rated to deliver an impressive 110 watts to each channel, but the speakers have big enough woofers (5-inchers) to actually do something with that power.

BACK IN BLACK The Optoma HD7100 front projector takes contrast to a new level with Texas Instruments' DarkChip3 DLP technology, providing an impressive 5,000:1 rated contrast ratio. So no matter how dark things get onscreen, the picture stays sharp and detailed.