OTHER TECH

Most would agree that portable music players are the hottest tech ticket in town. You're just not cool these days unless you have a few thousand tunes in your pocket and earbuds (preferably the fashionable white kind) stuck in your ears.

But hard on the heels of that technology is the next new thing: the portable multimedia player. Imagine an iPod-like gizmo that also plays video or movies on its built-in color screen and records from a variety of audio and video sources. Along with your music, it holds a dozen TV shows or movies that you can watch on those long train or bus commutes. These versatile little bit buckets can also store and show off your digital photos or hold any other kind of digital data. Throw in extras like a TV tuner and flash-memory reader, and you have a new breed of gadget that will have even the most jaded electronics buff going, "Whoa!" Some people attribute the iPod's success to its simplicity. These players do much more, so they're a lot more complex. Throw in all the different video formats they play and record, and they're a pretty diverse breed. So which one is right for you? Thought you'd never ask. I rounded up five of the newest models to assess their strengths and weaknesses.

But before you run out and buy one, a word of caution: There's a dizzying array of video file formats, and incompatibility is rampant. A player that plays AVI files, say, might show the video portion but be unable to play the audio soundtrack. Decide which file formats are the ones you want, or need to use based on your other gear, and make sure the player can accommodate them. This will take a little homework. Frankly, I was skeptical when these players arrived. I figured their limitations would outweigh their capabilities - the same imbalance that's often true of first-generation gear. But I was wrong. These multitaskers really do herald an entirely new era in audio/video recording and playback.