Gear21

Sony Bravia XDV-W600 TV

Sony’s Bravia line of LCD TVs sure does span the size landscape, from huge room-filling HDTVs down to this tiny Mini Bravia XDV-W600 LCD TV. Its 4-inch flat panel can go where few TVs have gone before, even surviving for a half-hour submerged under three feet of water. Battery-powered for 23 hours, you can even record video clips like a TiVo, or transfer your own movies onto its 2GB of built-in flash memory.

It might be a great set for a day at the beach or on the boat, for those who tend to drop things into the sink in the kitchen, or for TV-watching bathtub snorklers. Too bad it uses the Japanese 1seg data broadcasting system that’s not available in the U.S., but maybe if enough people convince Sony Japan that they’re needing to keep up with their soaps while getting completely wrinkly in the tub all day, a modified version of this trinket will find its way to these shores. It’s a perfect example of a solution in search of a problem, but nicely designed nonetheless.