Samsung device packs it all in

Mobile Phones
Samsung's new SCH-u740 is a great tool for checking e-mail and grabbing text headlines in its rotated, or horizontal, mode. It is also a decent phone and digital camera in either mode available with the dual-hinge device. As for music and videos, it's as good as any I've come across.

The SCH-u740 (available through Verizon Wireless) has a bright, 2.2-inch color display and stereo speakers for watching video clips. You can make speakerphone calls in the phone's horizontal mode. The phone has music player controls on the outside cover, for playing songs you download from the Verizon V Cast music service. A button on the keypad launches you straight into the phone's camera-camcorder mode.

In the phone's rotated mode, you are only a few clicks from CNN and USA Today headlines. The phone's e-mail application is easy to configure, once you get the hang of the keyboard. However, you have to learn to read the numerical keys sideways when working horizontally.

Some of the websites I tried to reach (including one I occasionally use to get my e-mail) were blocked by Verizon Wireless, which flashed a security error at me. I also encountered a frustrating amount of buffering delays when streaming videos from the V Cast Video service.

The SCHH-u740 is available for about $150 after rebate and with a two-year contract.

Health

Device helps you chill

I am willing to try virtually any scientifically shaky, unproven therapy at least once if it promises a quick fix or super longevity. My primary-care physician for two years was a Tibetan Buddhist from Lhasa who prescribed a monthly "precious purified moon crystal" to cleanse my liver and cure my heat and wind imbalance.

I'm guessing that the emWave, a hand-held "personal stress reliever" (available at ThinkGeek.com) will prove a safer way to improve my mental health . At least there is nothing to swallow but a bit of new age hooey about "heart breathing" and "heart healing."

It may be the emWave is as useful as an orgone box. But the device emits beautiful patterns of color and audible chimes, a welcome, if temporary, distraction from the stress that the mind-body gurus warn are damaging our health.

The emWave's display looks like the life-signs monitors in Dr. McCoy's sick bay. While you are synchronizing your breath with a rising and falling blue light, the emWave senses changes in your heart rate. Another light blinks to show your pulse as it is read by a thumb sensor or an ear clip, which is included. Yet another shifts from red to blue and then to green as you near your optimal heart rate.

At about $200, the emWave, from HeartMath LLC, is a bargain compared to the $300 StressEraser ( stresseraser.com), which I reviewed in this column last year. It's also a simpler device to figure out and comes with a case and belt clip.

Accessories

Bluetooth headset switches between phones and is easy to recover when lost

Bluetooth headset switches between phones and is easy to recover when lost

A new, Borg-like Bluetooth headset, the scala-700 ( cardowireless.com), is easier than most to use with multiple phones. It has a one-click switch you can use to connect to the phone you keep in the car on weekends, for example, and the one you reserve for business. No need to continually pair the device to either of the two phones you regularly use.

Cardo Systems Inc., which makes the scala-700 ($69.99 at the company's online store), also has a Bluetooth adapter for non- Bluetooth mobile phones, which plugs into your phone's audio jack. Combined with the scala-700, the adapter may give you enough of a reason to hang onto that old phone (with all of those useful contacts) a little longer.

Unlike other tiny Bluetooth headsets, the scala-700 is hard to lose. The tiny device has a location buzzer, which you activate by switching the volume control on your mobile phone up and down. Of course, options such as this are useless once the device's batteries are drained.