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CNN Sunday Morning

The Latest in High-Tech Toys

Aired April 08, 2001 - 08:41   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, if you can't do without your Palm Pilots or other high tech gadgets or if you want some new electronics for the home, we've got some hot products for you today.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. Mr. Gadget, also known as Steve Kruschen, joins us this morning with the latest technology for your home. Hi, Steve.

STEVE KRUSCHEN, "MR. GADGET": Good morning.

PHILLIPS: All right, my vacuum cleaner I've been complaining about. It spits everything back out. I thought the bagless was the way to go. But you've got another one you guarantee will work.

NELSON: It will work. It will work. It's the newest from Hoover and it is their latest wind tunnel and it, too, is bagless. No messy bags. It also has, of course, the wind tunnel technology is what keeps the debris from being redeposited back out onto the carpet. It pulls it into this collection cup, which you can see through, and it also has HEPA filtration, which means it saves inside 100 percent of dust mites and their eggs and all those nasty allergens. So it's great for allergy sufferers.

And check this out, it really works well. It does not redeposit the debris. And the wind tunnel technology is also built into this fabulous hand tool, so that means you can do your carpeting, you know, your runners, your upholstered furniture with this hand tool that attaches to the hose. It's a great way to go and that's from Hoover, the new upright wind tunnel with bagless technology.

NELSON: Wow.

PHILLIPS: For a mere $300.

KRUSCHEN: That's right. Now, energy consumption is something near and dear to all of our hearts, especially in California. It's a big story. But in the rest of the country, it's going to follow suit. Now, this is from Phillips and this is the latest from them. This is their brand new compact fluorescent lamp. It is super long life compact fluorescent CFL. It has the look of a regular lamp but it's a 75 percent energy saving. Look at that. I'm going to turn it off so it doesn't make your cameras go nuts. It's bright, 75 percent energy saving, which means that it's going to save at least about $26 over the life of the bulb, which is guaranteed five years. So the energy savings is tremendous. And in California, it'll save even more.

NELSON: All right.

KRUSCHEN: And those are available at all Home Depot, by the way, for $9.99 or less.

Now, we move from there to high tech monitors. Now, this is from Samsung. This is the Singmaster (ph) 170MP flat panel display. What's cool about this is it's not just a brilliant flat panel computer monitor, but it also has a built in TV tuner. That's right, you can watch TV on it. You can also watch DVDs, as I'm doing. So while you're working on your word processor, you can be watching a DVD or watching a video of any kind. And if you don't like it that way, you can also go full screen. And this operates independently of the computer. You can have the computer off and still be watching.

Now, this works for PCs or for Macs, as I'm doing here, and I'm running, of course, the new Mac OS10, operating system 10 on my Mac. Great way to go.

Now, we move from brilliant computer monitors -- and by the way, I should mention it also has great multi-media sound built in -- from computer monitors we move to computer printers. Now, with printers the problem has been and continues to be that ink jet printers are terrific, but have you ever gone through ink cartridges every few hundred pages? If you have, you know, gee, that's really expensive. It's going to cost you $20, $30, $40 every few hundred pages. I tell people get laser. They say Mr. Gadget, you're nuts, laser costs too much. Not anymore.

This is from Samsung. This is the ML4500 laser printer, under $200. Take a look at this output, though. That's what I really want you to see. The output is crisp, sharp blacks and it also has something called N-Up (ph) printing. N-Up printing means you can print up to 16 different pages on one page, so you can see what the layout's going to look like. So you can test it all out before you commit to those 16 pages.

And look what it does with graphics. I scanned this out of a magazine. It's the actor William Macy. And I printed it on the ML4500. Under $200 for eight page per minute laser quality from Samsung. It's magnificent.

Now, we'll move from there to the automobile. Vehicle navigation systems are all the rage. The problem with them is that they cause you, on a nice screen, they cause you to have to take your eyes off the road. Not with this one from Audiovox. It's the NAV5800. You put the display up on the dash wherever you'd like. You put the rest of the unit anywhere else that you like out of view, of course, and instead of just watching the screen, you listen to the voice prompting because it voice prompts you along the course.

We're doing a simulated drive from New York to the White House and it tells you to make your turns, tells you if you go off course. That's where it's really outstanding, if you go off course it will guide you back on course so you don't need to take your eyes off the road.

So it really is an intelligent vehicle navigation system from Audiovox, part of a complete line that they have at prices starting at under $1,000.

This really works and it's a lot of fun. We've got information about all of these products, of course, at my Web site at mrgadget.com.

Any questions?

PHILLIPS: Wow. I think you summed it...

NELSON: No, we're just overwhelmed.

PHILLIPS: Yeah, exactly, we're overwhelmed and whipping out our credit cards.

NELSON: Thank you, Steve, very much. It was great.

KRUSCHEN: Thank you.

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