

If you thought the future of TV looked as dry and lifeless as a desert, look again: Sony's new Bravia XDV-W600 not only makes channel surfing lively again, it's portable so you can surf WHILE you surf!



The advanced features built into the XDV-W600 show that Sony expects television to remain a viable media venue that will attract new viewers. For one thing, the attractively designed set is fully compatible with Japan's "One-Seg" digital TV standard. It also packs a hefty 2 gigabytes of memory, allowing users to record up to 10 full hours of digital TV programs. When it comes time to play 'em back, the XDV-W600 doesn't disappoint - the set will operate for 23 hours on a fully-charged internal battery.



The most interesting feature of this set is that it's waterproof. Not "water resistant" like my old watch which didn't survive a dive into the deep end, officially waterproof with a JIS IPX6 and IPX7 rating. What that means is you can watch Seahunt, The Sea Hunters, even Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea for a half hour with the XDV-W600 sitting 3-feet underwater. C'mon, you know you want to!





As for specs, here they are... the XDV-W600 costs $370, not bad for its size - this isn't a monster 60 inch plasma TV. Pretty much the opposite; the li'l Bravia has a 4-inch, 16.7 million color LCD screen. It weighs 302 grams (almost 11 ounces) and measures 145×42×98mm or around 6-inches wide by 4 inches tall.Oh, one more thing - the set also has an on-board AM-FM stereo tuner so you can soak away to the sweet sounds of the radio. Remember radio?



Anyway, Sony's XDV-W600 will find the pool already occupied by a competitor from Panasonic once it goes on sale this coming October 30th. Seems there's still a market for boob tubes after all, at least ones that function underwater. Maybe the XDV-W600's cute design and the choice of pink, blue or white cases will give it an edge over Panasonic's rival offering, being as it'll only be available in Japan. Fade to black... (via Crunchgear)