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By Leodard Fischer
Cool
gizmos for couch potatoes
Some people like to
exercise in their spare time. Others enjoy home improvements or
crafts. And, then, there are folks who like to perch themselves
on the couch in front of the television watching their favorite
shows and videos or playing video games.
If you're shopping for
a "couch potato" this holiday season, you'll have a
lot of choices, according to Jeff Faust, a spokesman for
electronics retailer Best Buy.
"Across the
board, we think categories like game consoles and home theater
are going to be hot again this year," he said. "A lot
of consumers are going to be value conscious this holiday season
so we think they'll be buying game titles for their consoles or
individual components — like a first or better DVD player —
for home-theater systems."
Here's a selection of
value-priced gadgets that should appeal to the couch-potato
crowd:
Universal remote
controls
Think of the latest
universal remotes as personal digital assistants (PDAs) for home
theater. They resemble handheld PCs in shape and size, plus
include PDA-like touch screens. RCA's RCU100B retails for $130
and is priced as low as $80 online. It can control a TV, VCR,
stereo system, satellite dish, cable box, DVD player and radio.
You can assign sophisticated programs to nine of its on-screen
buttons. For example, a program could flip to a channel, open
another channel in picture-in-picture, and start the VCR
recording. Sony's $200 RM-AV3000 expands on the RCA's
capabilities. It can store more than 30 programs and can control
MiniDisc players, digital video recorders, such as TiVo, and
even the room lights.
Console video-game
gear
Useful add-ons for
Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube
are appearing, such as X10's Game Sender ($80). It wirelessly
sends the picture from any console system to a television across
the room so "serious gamers can easily change games without
getting up from the couch and tripping over AV cables,"
said X10 spokesman Jeff Denenholz. Logitech's Cordless
Controller ($60) lets PlayStation (PSOne and PS2) owners
wirelessly control game action as far as 20 feet from the
console. Also, adapters for Xbox ($50) and PS2 ($40) that let
players compete online should be popular, said Best Buy's Faust.
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