Hot tech gifts for the holidays

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Digital cameras still snappy
Digital photography remains a big draw this year, according to analysts, despite recent figures that show the rate of digital-camera sales growth slowing.

"They are more user-friendly now," said Best Buy representative Drew Loftus. And they are more powerful for less money.

Related story
Holiday tech sales

Tech expected to make a strong
showing this buying season.

Starting on Black Friday, Sears will drop the price of an Argus 5-megapixel CMOS digital camera from its original retail price of $119.99 to $79.99, according to print advertisements posted on Black Friday 2005.

CompUSA is also expected to sell a Kodak C360 5-megapixel digital camera with 3x zoom for $129.99, which is nearly 50 percent off its regular price of $249.99.

"The thing to remember is that these inexpensive deals are the blowout stuff and are not designed to be profitable for the retailer or the manufacturer but to build awareness and get people in the stores," NPD analyst Baker said. (Click here to read CNET's digital-camera roundup.)

A DVR with that flat panel?
Consumers this year are also expected to purchase more digital video recorders--with or without the help of their cable or network providers.

Nearly 8 percent of U.S. homes use DVRs, which rely on a hard drive to store large amounts of content. That number is expected to grow to 39 percent by 2010, according to David Poltrack, head of ratings research for CBS, one of several media conglomerates keeping tabs on DVR sales.

TiVo is still the best-known of the bunch, but it has been experiencing a wave of competition as of late. DirecTV's TiVo replacement DVR is on the market, and Scientific-Atlanta plans to release its own combined DVR-DVD recorder by the end of this year.

Shock jock hawks satellite radio
Commercial-free, reception-anywhere and bawdy radio personality Howard Stern are expected to make satellite radio a top gift for 2005, according to holiday sales analysts.

The combination of Stern and new contracts with Major League Baseball are expected to help the U.S. digital satellite radio market grow from an installed base of 12 million units in 2005 to 55 million units in 2010, JupiterResearch predicted on Tuesday.

Devices cost anywhere from $50 and up and subscriptions for music, news, talk and sport channels start at $10 a month.

And if you still can't find that perfect gift, CNET is sponsoring a Black Friday 24-hour Holiday Helpdesk to help you get the best gadget gifts for the holidays.

[Llib Setag]

XBOX 360 = Return to get your money back

Now you know WHY it's called 360...

Turn right around & take it back to the XBox store who returns it
to Microsoft, who "repairs or replaces it at their discretion" then
returns it to you...REPEAT.

Endless "do loop" of Microsoft monopoly.

Every person I know in Seattle that stood in long lines to get
their *******' XBox that Citizen Gates was autographing at
midnight has been "*******'" about their box for days because of
overheating, crashing, stuttering & underperforming due to lack
of quality control testing & "Computing Assurance" as Mr. Bill
had promised for all future Microsoft products...

BUYER BEWARE!

[jbe3rd]

...Yawn....

Mine has worked flawlessly since I bought it Tuesday.. and no, I am not in the minority.

Microsoft haters bore me. Sure, there are problems for a number of people... Microsoft has already said they would take care of them.

I'm not a Microsoft "fan boy," but your tirade against them is wasteful & tiremsome, and you're rant doesn't hold any water.

[afwjam]

PSP? Better get a DS

While the PSP is fantastic, it is lacking in good games, it is over priced, and all the music,photo,movie features are made null by the video ipod and $100 dollar portable dvd players.
Plus what good is minute long load times when you are only going to be playing your portable an average of 10 minutes at a time. The DS has a killer game library, Mariokart, sonic, tonyhawk, metroid is coming!!!?!?! Most of these games are wirlesly multiplayer off on cartridge and a lot go online with nintendo wifi. Better get the 150 dollar marikart bundled with the red DS and have some real fun this christmass, I will be waiting on nintendo wifi for all of you.

Friend code: 322182016876

~Andrew

[mhouse]

Yawn? (1 out of 4 XBOX 360 users reports failure)

According to most news, blog and store reports out there, an average of 1 out of 4 legacy XBOX 360 users reports many versions of the failure issues being described lately. I think expect for ethics and anti-trust issues, Microsoft is a company that needs to reevaluate its quality control processes. Unless you have something to defend these stats to the contrary, Yawning and proclaiming you are not a Microsoft fan-boy doesn't change the mass issue with its product.

[Weenerdude]

Stats?

Anecdotes and unsubstantiated speculation are not stats so they are hardly credible evidence. Antitrust? You're reaching on that and simply parroting those who are looking for any reason to bash MS... Ethics issues? Find some real stats and a deliberate intent to deliver faulty products and I'll take that seriously.

[ricard2798]

Don't have stats, but got an observation

I got my unit on launch date afet a 10 hour wait at wally mart, and luckily, no problems so far. Yet, this weekend i went to a local game store to buy a game for the 360, and while standing in line, 2 people had with them defective 360 units.
I proceeded to talk to them to find out what was happening. The first one stated that there seem to be a loose bolt or something inside the unit cause it made a wierd sound. The store staff tested it, and no funny noise (go figure).
The second eprson had an even worse problem... DISK SCRATCHING. She showed me a disk, and it was SEVERELY scratch with a consisten scratch sicrcle along the outer bands od the disk.
Anyways, the point is that even though my unit seems to be perfect tehre are several (and i would even say substantial) problem reports with the 360... its a shame cause the system is pretty awesome.

[mangunt]

Exageration Once Again

You should work for CNN or ABC or NBC you remind me of the Libs trying to make an issue out of something that is not a real problem. I admit the shortage issue was a drag but the system problems I know are being over blown. 5 Friends 5 Xbox's no problems at all and we hit them very hard. I don't know of anyone that has had a problem besides the people who have heat problems and like any system where you have it and how it is setup makes a difference. Stick this baby in a tight space like any system that is high performance heat will bring it down. Oh by the way at my place of work we have servers very expensive servers that don't run windows but will crash if the air conditioning goes out.

[Stating]

Sony Music CDs On My Shopping List

I will give them out to my enemies.