In Brief

By Jyoti Thottam Sunday, July 29, 2001
    • STYLE FILE Belt clips aren't the only way for geeks to carry their gear. The Scott eVest ($160), made of a water-repellent, cotton-blend fabric, conceals a dozen pockets that are designed for everything from laptops to PDAs. Velcro tabs along the edges hold wires in place, and an opening near the neckline keeps your cell phone's earpiece handy. The eVest comes in black and khaki. A version for women is on the way.

    PRINTS CHARMING There's a reason you hide your printer under the desk: printers are the plain Janes of the home office. But the P-2600 ($50) from Apollo, a unit of Hewlett-Packard, begs to be displayed. It comes in midnight blue and white and boasts an appealing round-edged design. Print speed is a respectable seven pages a minute for black and white. Color printing is slower, but at least you'll enjoy the view.

    UNCHAINED MELODY Napster taught millions of Americans how to turn CDs and other sound files into MP3s. For the rest of us, Archos makes the Jukebox Recorder ($350). It lets you create MP3s directly from a stereo or CD player, it's more compact than similar devices like the Nomad Jukebox and it has a built-in mike for voice recording. With six gigabytes of memory, the Recorder can even double as a backup hard drive.