The combined printer-scanner-copier makes no great technological leap, but it's sleek and small enough to cut the clutter and wires in your computer nook.
The Hewlett-Packard PSC1210 thus fits right in at this year's CeBIT technology fair, where the latest products reflect a more sober, post-boom tech world -- not necessarily cutting-edge, but packaged smaller, better designed and, in theory anyway, less fiddly.
With a footprint just a little longer than a sheet of letter paper, the 169-euro (US$186) HP all-in-one device is the smallest of its kind in the world, the company claims.
The buzzword for consumer markets this year is "ease of use," while for business products its "ease of use" -- saving people time, hassle and money, said Bernard Meric, HP senior vice president.
With consumer and business spending sluggish and the threat of war casting a pall, this year's CeBIT saw the number of exhibitors drop by about 20 percent to around 6,500, and there were noticeably fewer new devices on show. Much of the buzz was about wireless local area networks -- just as it was the year before. Much of the new hardware to accompany the trend may show up next year, analysts say, though Intel did unveil its wireless-capable Centrino chip assembly.
Things like cellphones with a built-in digital camera, and laptops with detachable keyboards were new and cool last year; this year they're everywhere and companies have done things to make them less confusing.
Sony Ericsson last year touted its P800 camera-equipped cellphone. This year, it's the T610, which simplifies the taking and sending of pictures by MMS format down to five button pushes.
"It's fine to offer imaging and gaming capability, but you have to make it easy to use," said company spokeswoman Kerry Matheson.
Likewise at Nokia, the world's largest phone seller. Its 3300 model, available in the second quarter in Europe for 250 euros to 350 euros (US$270 to US$380) depending on the country, includes an MP3 player and an FM radio.
It's the successor to the previous 5510 music phone that was larger and had a typewriter-format QWERTY keyboard for people who send a lot of SMS text messaging. Consumers balked.
"We learned that people didn't want to make a size compromise," spokesman Damian Stathonikos said.
So the phone shrank, and got a game-machine-like oblong shape -- though it can still be held up to the ear for phone conversations without looking odd.
Sony's new equipment such as its Z1 Vaio notebook emphasizes design over specification, encased in a very light, gracefully curved magnesium-aluminum case that the company -- which frankly admits it's responding to the success of Apple's metallic notebook design -- says resists scratches.
Its 850-euro (US$935) Clie PEG-NZ90 personal digital assistant has a camera, but one with 2 megapixels, not the 310 kilopixel version last year, the company hopes will drive sales. "We want it to be a replacement device for a digital camera," said spokesman Ricky Yokota.
Another old-is-new design is Parrot's DriveBlue 170-euro (US$187) handsfree cellphone adapter for autos. It uses the voice recognition software and the Bluetooth wireless standard, so it can only be used with Bluetooth capable phones -- about 7 percent of the phones in Europe and only a few in the US, said Paris-based Parrot's president Henri Seydoux.
RSS