"Dollar Signs": Buying That High Tech Gadget
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: "Dollar Signs" straight ahead. But first, here's what's happening at this hour. In Gaza City today, Palestinian witnesses say missiles fired from a helicopter killed three people in a car, and a young boy standing nearby, 15 others were wounded. Israel says the strike was targeting members of the military wing of the Islamic Jihad. Violence and unrest continue in and around the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Embattled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide vows to remain in office. That's despite a suggestion from Secretary of State Colin Powell that he examine his position carefully. Investigators are combing for clues across 106 acres of land in Mississippi. They're looking for a family missing for two weeks. Investigators say a relative is being questioned in the case. Mayor Anthony Williams is trying to figure out what to do about same-sex marriage in the nation's capital. Today he asked the city's corporation council for recommendations. The mayor's office says the council is expected to issue its findings within two weeks. Welcome to "Dollar Signs," where we help you make the most of your money. Today we're going to help you save money and time by doing some fast-moving computing. Our own gadget guru Daniel Sieberg is in Atlanta. And Dylan Tweney, is in San Fransisco. He is the editor of "Mobile PC" magazine. We're going to talk about the newest high tech gadgets that can help you be more productive at home and on the road. Gentlemen, thanks for joining us.</s>DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: The truth is it's stump the geek, isn't it, Kelli? This is what it's all about.</s>SIEBERG: The geeks, plural. In a good way. In a good way, right Dylan?</s>ARENA: In a good way.</s>DYLAN TWENEY, MOBILE PC: We're the geeks and we're here and we're proud of it.</s>SIEBERG: Right, exactly.</s>ARENA: Well, Dylan, I know that you are bursting with information about the hippest new gadgets that you think everyone should have. So why don't you start?</s>TWENEY: Well, I brought a few things with me, Kelli. And let me start with one of the things that I think is the coolest. This is sony Vaio X505 and it's an ultralight notebook. I'm going to close it up so you can see how skinny this thing is. It weighs under two pounds. And it's one of the -- I haven't seen people drool over a notebook computer quite the way I have when I take this one out and show it to people. It's really light. It's incredibly easy to carry, and it's pretty much the ultimate in portability if you want a computer like this.</s>ARENA: So how much?</s>TWENEY: Well, you'll definitely pay for it. It's about $3,000.</s>ARENA: Whoa! OK.</s>TWENEY: So you're paying a premium for that light weight and the carbon fiber casing. And also it's not really available in the United States. It's being sold by Sony only in Japan right now.</s>ARENA: One small catch.</s>TWENEY: You can get it through some retailers that specialize in sending things to the U.S. from Japan, such as dynamism.com. But it's not on the general market in the U.S. yet.</s>ARENA: OK, what next?</s>TWENEY: I brought a couple other things here. This is a handheld that wants to be a PC. It's from Samsung and it's called the Nexio. And it's got a wider screen than most handhelds, so it's 800x480 resolution, which actually lets you work on office documents, word processing, even powerpoint files if you want to. It's got wilt in wi-fi so you can connect to a network anywhere you are. And as you can see it's got this tiny little keyboard. It's hard to type a whole lot on this, but if you want to just get on and check your e-mail and send a couple quick replies it's just the ticket. And it fits in the jacket pocket. It's very lightweight.</s>ARENA: Daniel, do I need one of those?</s>SIEBERG: That's the big question, Kelli, that everybody always asks. Do I really need any of these items? They look cool. They do a lot of cool things, but for a lot of people they're just not necessary. You may need a cell phone if you're on the go all the time. You might need a laptop if you're not in the office. But a lot of times these products come out, the marketing is very heavy. And they look very cool. You don't necessarily need to upgrade every year, every six months, every month for that matter. Sometimes you can get by with the basic products. Now, the high tech industry doesn't want me to say this type of thing. They want you to update everything and upgrade all the time. But if you're on a budget, you can get away with lower-priced items that can do similar things. But you know if you're one of those people that just has to have the coolest thing, we call them early adopters and you just want to get your hands on the coolest product out there, sometimes you go for it.</s>TWENEY: I agree with you, Dan. The Nexio is a really good example of something that only an early adopter should buy. You pay a premium for the small size. And also, frankly the performance is not that great. Despite the wide screen, you'd think it would be good at showing movies or videos and actually it's not very good at that. So, for the $1600 or $1700 that it costs -- I'm sorry this one is about $1200. Still pretty pricey.</s>ARENA: That is pretty pricey.</s>TWENEY: You're paying for portability.</s>SIEBERG: And Bill makes a good point there...</s>ARENA: All right. You know what guys, I'm going to jump in because we do have a phone call. We don't want to keep them waiting too long. Dean in Florida is on the line. Go ahead, Dean.</s>CALLER: Good afternoon, folks. Technology is a great thing, especially for those who truly need it. My question to you is kind of two-part. What companies and products are out there for those who are mentally or physically challenged or hearing or sight impaired that technology like this can truly assist them in everyday lives?</s>TWENEY: That's a really good question, Dean. There are actually a lot of features built into Window right now, into the most current versions of Windows that are aimed at people with various disabilities. So if you're hearing impaired or if you're seeing impaired or can't see the screen, there are a lot of options built in to Windows. So that's a good choice. I think. You have to set those up. They're not enabled by default. But they're available.</s>SIEBERG: That's certainly true. There are a lot of products that really do target people who have certain disabilities, whether it's hairing impaired or sight impaired or even for the physically challenged. There are wheelchairs out there, for example, that help people to climb stairs believe it or not. So, there are all kinds of products out there on the market. You just have to look around for them depending on what you want it for.</s>TWENEY: Absolutely.</s>ARENA: All right. Well Dylan, for those who are anxiously awaiting to see what else may be newly available, what do you have?</s>TWENEY: All right, Kelli, I've got another hand held here. This is from Asus, it's a MyPal Pocket PC. This is actually a much more practical handheld. It's about $400. It runs Windows Mobile, so it's a version of the Windows operating system. It means that it can run lots of applications in addition to the things built into it like the calendar and the address book, and e-mail and so forth. It's got Bluetooth so that if you have a Bluetooth enabled phone, it can talk to that or you can get an Internet connection through that. And it's got a little expansion card so you can put in more memory or additional accessories and things like that. This is pretty good. Actually, this despite -- you know it doesn't have a lot of whiz bang features as far as handhelds go, it's pretty straight ahead PDA, but it did deliver the best performance we've ever seen in the mobile PC testing labs.</s>ARENA: All right. We're going to talk about accessories and more when we come back. Your calls and e-mails next on "Dollar Signs." And of course, you can still send your question to dollarsigns@cnn.com. Or call in. And that number is 1-800-807-2620. We'll be right back.</s>ARENA: Welcome back to "Dollar Signs." We're talking about keeping you connected with cool high tech gadgets, but do you know what you need? Our technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg and "Mobile PC" magazine's Dylan Tweney are answering your questions. And we do have a question. I'm told, Marie from Utah is on the phone. And she is 80 years old, and she has a question pertinent to older folks -- Marie.</s>CALLER: Yes, my hands are all wrinkled and crinkled from arthritis, and we need something that you can just talk to. I'd like to get a laptop that I could just talk to and it could come up with what I want. And I can't use a laptop anymore or typing or anything like that.</s>SIEBERG: Well, Dylan may have a couple of specific products suggestions for you. I can tell you that voice recognition technology has come a long way, but it's still not as good as you could like it to be. In other words, you may speak words into your computer, into a microphone and it may try and convert them into text or something like that, but it's not as accurate or as specific as you would like it to be when you talk into it. So that has a little ways to go. But Dylan might have some products in mind.</s>TWENEY: That's absolutely true, dan. The fact is, voice recognition is accurate to about 90 percent or 95 percent right now which sounds pretty good until you hit that 5 percent and you're constantly going back to correct every 20th word that it didn't recognize correctly. That said, "Mobile PC" did a comparison of several voice recognition technologies, and that's going to be in our upcoming issue. One of the ones that did very well is called Dragon Dictation. And that does pretty well at transcribing text. Also, again, there are features built into Windows that will let you control the interface so that you don't have to use a mouse or the keyboard very much. I'm not saying that you can throw away your keyboard tomorrow, Marie, but you can definitely get a lot more done with by just talking to your computer than you used to be able to. So that's good news for people like you.</s>ARENA: All right. Marie, I hope that answered your question. Dylan, what else do you have?</s>TWENEY: Well, I thought I'd show you a cell phone now. This is from NEC. It's the 525-HDM. And I don't know if you can see it on the TV very well, but it has, in comparison to other cell phones that are on the American market right now, it has a really big, very bright beautiful display. So it's really good for showing photos. Or just sort of looking at photos that you've uploaded to the phone. It's also got a camera phone feature on the back. There's a lens here so</s>NEVILLE: at you can take pictures. Unfortunately the quality of the pictures it takes is not really comparable with the quality of the screen. The pictures are really pretty crummy as they are on most camera phones. But it's a novelty to be able to take pictures. And it's fun.</s>ARENA: Daniel, OK, wait, I've got to jump in here. Why do I need a camera on my telephone?</s>SIEBERG: That is a great question, Kelli. And partly it's because everybody wants to have a digital camera these days. But digital cameras have definitely come down in price, but for people who can't afford maybe a $300 or $400 camera they think if I can buy a cell phone that already has it in there anyway I'm only going to spend $150 on my cell phone, I can have both. Now, of course, as Dylan will point out or anybody else will point out, digital cameras that are in cell phones are nowhere near as good as the cameras you buy separately. The resolution is not there. They're really only good for sending to somebody else on a phone, or seeing them on the Web or looking at them on your phone. They're kind of a novelty item if you're out somewhere and you see something sort of funny and you want to send it to somebody you can do that very easily. They're very simple to use. Of course there are all sorts of privacy concerns that come into this. Some gymnasiums have banned them because people are afraid their picture is going to be taken in the locker room or something like that. So, for some people they make them a little nervous. On the other hand they can be fun. A lot of people put in their contact list with their photo. So if someone's calling you can see who's calling right away. You just have their picture there. And you don't have to look to see who is calling you.</s>TWENEY: Yes, this one actually does that too. It's got a little window there, so you can see the face of the person who's calling you as they call.</s>ARENA: That could be dangerous. We have another phone call, Pedro in Texas. Go ahead.</s>CALLER: Yes, I'm calling because I've been looking around for a TV, and I want to get a good TV for the price. Do you have recommendations or what? Because I've been looking at high definitions and plasma and they're prices are just outrageous right now. What's good for the price?</s>SIEBERG: Outrageous is definitely the word for the prices for plasmas right now. They're still a bit high for the average person. Of course, they look amazing when you see them on the wall. People use them simply as artwork sitting there because the resolution and the picture is so crisp and amazing. You can consider something in the LCD market if you don't want to go all that way. High definition TV, eventually we're all going to have to HDTV, because it's going to be changed over to that signal at some point. So we're all going to have to upgrade or get a receiver. But you just have to balance out what size of picture you want. You can use it for sporting events, for gaming, for that sort of thing and decide how much you can spend. If you can wait a little while the plasma prices are going to come down. They're slowly coming down. I'm sure Dylan has seen that, as well.</s>TWENEY: That's for sure. One of the things we've seen, too, as computermakers start to get into the consumer electrics market they're driving the prices of things like digital TVs down. So Gateway is a good example of a company that's making pretty decent digital televisions pretty cheap.</s>ARENA: All right. Well we have another question from Michelle in California. Michelle?</s>CALLER: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I have a question about what's the best time of year to purchase tech products? I'm thinking particularly about PDAs. I had an experience in 2002, I think it was, where I purchased a Palm Pilot in January, and by December they already had the new model out. So I'm wondering if you can respond to that.</s>SIEBERG: Yes. That's a tough one.</s>TWENEY: It's a common complaint, Michelle.</s>SIEBERG: You end up buying something and you think, gosh if I'd only waited a little longer, I could have gotten X product. You're always going to feel that way, because there are always new products coming onto the market. It's impossible, unless you want to spend money every month or every couple of months to stay on top of everything that's coming out. Of course, around the holiday season, prices do tend to come down a little bit. But then after the holiday season if they're left over then the prices may come down even further. So you may want to wait like around now the prices for certain products that were sort of hot last year may have dropped a little bit. But then, of course, they're going to bring in the new products and you're going to see those and wish you waited. It's a tough balance.</s>TWENEY: There's no way to avoid that feeling of I should have bought this next month, instead of last month.</s>ARENA: Okay. Well, stay with us. We are going to take more of your calls and e-mails right after the break. We'll be right back.</s>ANN HARRINGTON, "FORTUNE": Employee talent is a distinguishing feature of America's great companies. And in America's most admired companies. This year, Proctor and Gamble takes the lead in employee talent. For years, Proctor and Gamble has been known as a great breeding ground for management talent. Some of the great CEOs of today started at P&G.; They include: Meg Whitman from eBay, Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft, Jeff Emald (ph), the CEO of GE and Jim McNerney who now leads 3M. The second factor in the employee talent is the CEO himself. AG Lafley has done an incredible job at turning around a company that many people felt had lost its way.</s>ARENA: Welcome back to "Dollar Signs". High tech gizmos can help you work more efficiently and stay connected with loved ones, but the dazzling array of gadgets out there can be confusing. Daniel Sieberg and Dylan Tweney are taking some of the guesswork out of getting the most for your money. Gentlemen, we do have a call from Mary in California. Mary, your question?</s>CALLER: Yes, with so many out of work, and so many old that lost their money investments and everything, is there any place or way you can go if you're -- say you don't have the money, you can get these things? So that companies, can't the companies set up a price for people where lower incomes now that everything's gone to pot?</s>TWENEY: I hear you, Mary. The prices on a lot of these products are just ridiculously high. And it's very hard to afford unless you've, you know, unless you have a need for it or have the income to pay for it. The good news, if there is any good news in what you're asking is that the prices on many basic products, I'm not talking about the kind of cutting-edge stuff like the superthin notebook or the high-end PDA, but the prices for basic computers are definitely coming down. So that you can get a decent desktop computer now for $500 or so. You can get a decent notebook computer for under $1,000. That's definitely a lot lower than it used to be. It's still a lot of money, yes, but it's better than it used to be.</s>SIEBERG: And you can compare it to a car in a sense. Because with a car, for example, you can have a car that gets you from A to B. It's a very basic car, but you can still drive it around. You can get a very basic computer, a budget level computer that will still do many of the same things that other computers that are much higher priced in the thousands of dollars can do. You can still surf the Web, you can still create all sorts of word documents or whatever you need to do. It can still do all of those things, it just may not look as flashy or do all of the things the other computers can do as fast. And so it's really -- you're not sacrificing anything in terms of what it can do. You just may not have the coolest or the most amazing computer or device on the market. But it will still get you from A to</s>B. TWENEY: That's right, you pay a lot for speed and style.</s>ARENA: What about buying something used, on eBay for example?</s>SIEBERG: There are always risks involved with buying something that's used. You never know exactly what you're getting into, especially with a computer. You just never know what that person has done on that computer. If it was infected with a virus, if it had problems in the past. That's very tough. They are available on eBay. I mean, all sorts of products are available on eBay. Not only computers, but cell phones and digital cameras, PDAs you name it, it's available on eBay. You can always consider that as an option because they're certainly much cheaper. If you know somebody at work, for example, or a friend who's upgrading and you know that they've probably had a decent run with their computer and they're going to upgrade you can always see if you can get it from them. It can be a little risky.</s>TWENEY: There's another good option, which is that many manufacturers of computers offer refurbished products which means they're slightly used products that maybe they sent out to somebody, the person didn't like it and returned it for whatever reason. The manufacturer then gets it into good working condition, makes all the tests that they need to make sure that it's working right, and will sell it for a reduced price, but with a full warranty behind it. So that way you can buy products from the manufacturer that are significantly less than the regular price.</s>ARENA: You know, in the interest of keeping costs down, what about items for children? For example where they don't need all the bells and whistles. They're very rough with things that they handle, likely to break them. Any suggestions on what to look for when you're buying for a young child?</s>SIEBERG: Childproof is definitely...</s>TWENEY: Durability.</s>SIEBERG: Durability. And there are products that are tailored specifically for children. I'll let Dylan mention some of the names that are out there. But they do have that durability factor built in. They're very easy to use, very basic. They offer sort of an entry level into computing. Although, a lot of kids these days are more advanced than some of us when it comes to computing. So they don't necessarily need the basic as far as the computing part of it. But just the durability factor and the fact that it will survive.</s>TWENEY: My daughter who is almost three has a product called a leap pad which is sort of a digital book. It doesn't have a screen on it, but you can click on different areas of the book, and you can put in different stories and different books. I think that's kind of a neat thing. It doesn't cost a whole lot of money, $40 or $50 I think. And that's pretty neat for kids. But like Dan is saying, a lot of kids actually really want to get on real computers and play around with them. And they're amazingly quick at learning how to manipulate computers. And very quickly get more advanced than their parents.</s>ARENA: And Dylan we can only imagine what your daughter is like on the computer.</s>SIEBERG: Future editor of "Mobile PC" I think.</s>TWENEY: That's right.</s>ARENA: There you go. Well that is all the time that we have for now. But stay with CNN. Up next, "People In The News" profiles Mel Gibson. Then at 6:00 eastern on CNN LIVE SATURDAY the latest on a missing family. We'll bring you late details from a police news conference. And at 7:00 Eastern, Republican Senator John Sununu joins the "CAPITAL GANG" to discuss President Bush's calls for an amendment to ban same-sex marriages. I'll be back after a quick break with today's top stories.