Michael Antonoff

Palm-size jukeboxes that hold hundreds of hours of MP3 music on an embedded hard drive are no longer a novelty. Now Archos has taken the category to the next level by adding a 1 1/2-inch color LCD, the ability to store and play photo slideshows or highly compressed but full-motion video, and direct A/V output to a TV.

The Short Form $499 / ZEEVEE.COM / 877-493-3833 Snapshot

Stroll through any large store that sells audio and video equipment, and it's mind-numbing how similar the products in each category look. If you close your eyes, point to any receiver or DVD player, and guess "black and boxy," you'll almost certainly be right.

Conventional wisdom dictates that there are good reasons why A/V design is so homogeneous.

Running with a stack of my favorite CDs compressed into a player no larger than a deck of cards, I set a personal best on the trail around the Central Park Reservoir.