Geoffrey Morrison

One of the fun parts of this job is that we get to check out all sorts of weird and wonderful gear. Most of the time, things that seem crazy, are crazy. But every so often, something crazy is actually crazy good. These are the things that fit into that latter category.

So here are the top gifts we’d love to give this holiday season… if we only knew someone who we could give them to.

This is a bit of an odd review. This is a review of two products I’ve already reviewed.

What’s cool is these two products are finally together, and they really deserved to be together.

One is an in-dash entertainment system, the other is a cool automotive data app. Together they’re awesome.

Bigger than a direct-view, smaller than a big-screen, Tabletop TVs offer an almost perfect balance between two sides of the TV world. On one side of that world, you have the direct-view TV's small footprint and commensurate aesthetic niceties. However, with a maximum 40-inch-diagonal screen size (38-inch for 16:9 models), these sets aren't very big. On the other side, you've got big-screen rear-projection TVs, which offer a much bigger image at the expense of a much bigger footprint on your carpet. Until recently, almost all RPTVs were quite an eyesore. Even now, no matter how nice an RPTV may look, it's still a huge box taking up real estate in your living room. On the other hand, tabletop TVs like the CRT-based Toshiba 46HX83 offer a far more-pleasing aesthetic and larger screen sizes than are available in the direct-view category.

1080p HD DVD for $500—sort of.

The new models of HD DVD and Blu-ray players are coming faster and faster. Even better, they're getting cheaper and offering more features. The big draw for the HD-A20 is its 1080p output. That, and a price tag of $499.