Digital Trends

Sony recently hosted their annual line show in Las Vegas to showcase their new 2007 product lines. The company, struggling to keep top tier market share as it battles the likes of Apple and Microsoft in various vertical CE spaces, had some flair going as they unveiled new televisions, home A/V equipment, digital cameras, digital voice recorders, personal audio systems and more. This collection of new products is of course designed to capture your dollar and hopefully continue to brighten the somewhat diminished Sony consumer electronics star.

The Energy Link: Sony Does Portable USB Power
One of the more interesting offerings from Sony interestingly enough was one of their smallest announced products. The CP-3H2K Energy Link ($35 – early summer release) is powered off of two AA rechargeable batteries and fully charges itself within three hours. When fully charged it is designed to serve triple duty as a power adaptor, portable power supply and battery charger for many USB compatible MP3 players, mobile phones and other USB-powered devices.

The Sony Energy Link

Bluetooth Car Stereo: Keeping Both Hands on the Wheel
In an effort to keep the wandering eyes and hands of drivers on the road and not the stereo, Sony unveiled the MEX-BT2500 AM/FM CD receiver ($180 – March release). This receiver does double duty as a CD player and wireless streaming device, incorporating Bluetooth technology so you can conduct various wireless functions like making hands-free telephone calls via an integrated microphone or streaming music from select music mobile phones and digital music players. The MEX-BT2500 delivers 52 watts across four channels and has a front auxiliary input for hooking up a device such as a Sony MP3 player.

The Sony MEX-BT2500

Blu-ray Disc Player: Done Less Expensively the Second Time Around
Perhaps realizing not too many people were willing to shell out top dollar for a Blu-ray Disc player, Sony unveiled the BDP-S300 ($600 – summer release). This second Blu-ray Disc player from the main pusher of Blu-ray Disc technology can output 1080p resolution through an HDMI connection and supports BD-ROM, BD-Java, AVC-HD and DVD playback from DVD/DVD+R/+RW encoded discs. This is in addition to CD playback, as well as MP3 audio files and JPEG images stored on DVD recordable media. For standard DVDs, the BDP-S300 is capable of upscaling the image quality to 1080p when connected through HDMI to a compatible HDTV. It is also capable of decoding Dolby Digital Plus, among various audio features.

Sony BDP-S3000