Worst-dressed gadgets? Blu-ray and HD DVD players

Royal Philips Electronics' Blu-ray player is bulky yet simple. Its few visible controls make it look like it could be easy to use, yet its size makes it seem like it could run hot and suck a lot of power.

Daniel Terdiman

The Panasonic DMR-E700BD is the company's first-production Blu-ray player. Its image quality is terrific, but the machine itself looks like something out of "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Daniel Terdiman

Pioneer Electronics' BDP-HD1 player was one of the slicker looking of the Blu-ray machines on display at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Yet it still looked more like a decent mid-1990s VCR than state-of-the-art technology.

Daniel Terdiman

To look at Sony's BDP-S1 Blu-ray player was to flash back to '80s-era Trinitron TVs. The buttons seem the same, and the machine itself is big and bulky and about as unsexy as possible.

Daniel Terdiman

Hewlett-Packard's HD DVD digital-entertainment center looks kind of modern but also reminds one of an old dual-cassette deck.

Daniel Terdiman

It seems that in creating its sample HD DVD player, RCA simply took a shell from one of its old VCRs and stuffed it with new technology. The machine may turn out stunning image quality, but by its look, no one would know it.

Daniel Terdiman

With its bottom control panel door closed, Toshiba's sample HD DVD player is a study in large simplicity. With the door open, the machine looks archaic.

Daniel Terdiman

Do the new Blu-ray and HD DVD players remind you of anything? To one CNET News.com reporter, they look a lot like 1980s-era VCRs.

Las Vegas Sun