Houston Chronicle

Thank heaven for Samsung. This past week I looked at a shelf full of gadgets that frankly didn't work, were boring or didn't matter. It was like kissing frogs.

Then a technology prince rolled into my office: the stylish, svelte Samsung SyncMaster 191T. This 19-inch flat-panel monitor is hot and cool, too. It's got a great screen that pivots for landscape and portrait modes. It uses the power of a 40-watt light bulb when it's on, and despite its large screen, it doesn't heat up.

The pivoting software is great for applications like word processing, e-mail, spreadsheets and presentations. It can be set up to look like a piece of paper for a better picture for material that will be printed.

Tired of boring beige? You can order the SyncMaster 191T with stylish silver front or a black front bezel.

The monitor conforms to the current industry standards for mounting flat displays and can easily be hung on the wall or an extended long arm mount. It's compatible with most popular operating systems by Microsoft, Apple and Sun Microsystems and weighs only 13 pounds.

Not only is this a great-quality flat-screen monitor, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Depending on the retailer, I saw prices between $799 and $949. It also comes with a three-year warranty on parts, labor and light from Samsung, www.samsung.com.

The SyncMaster 191T features the latest in display technology with a 1,280 pixels by 1,024 pixels maximum resolution, dual digital/analog inputs and an ultrathin 0.7-inch bezel. It comes with a 500:1 contrast ratio.

It gets two thumbs up from me.

But wait, another great product arrived, but my sticky-fingered son took it from the case to his ear: theBoom. It's a telephone earpiece/microphone combo with some of the best noise-canceling software I've ever heard.

I called my voice mail from two noisy locations. On the first voice mail I didn't say anything at first, and the voice on TV news could be heard. Then, I started speaking, and the other voice was all but gone.

On the second trial, I left the message right away. It never picked up any background noise until I stood beside a loudspeaker. I had trouble thinking creatively and could hardly speak. But the voice mail recorded only a muffled sound in the background.

theBoom comes from UmeVoice, which got its start with speech recognition on Wall Street. Obviously, a tough audience.

The technology worked so well that the company patented its technique, miniaturized it and now brings it to the wireless (or cordless) phone market.

It's available for $149 on its Web site, www.theboom.com.

It's been an interesting week. Flat-panel screens are getting larger, telephone accessories smaller. I wonder what's next?

Cheryl Currid is president of Currid & Co., a Houston technology research and analysis firm. For more information, visit www.currid.com/labs. E-mail comments to labs@currid.com.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/tech/weekly/1838414

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