Peter Pachal

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?