LAPTOP BAG Ground Diabase When we travel, our tech toys come with us -- and that calls for a bag. Our favorite: Ground's Diabase. External pockets keep your phone, music player, passport, tickets, and water bottle nearby, while a generous amount of storage (925 cu in) invites reading material, a laptop, and snacks. [$70; groundwear.com]
LAPTOP Itronix Hummer Laptop Knock them around, get them dirty, freeze them overnight (we did) -- rugged laptops are the tanks of the computer industry. But they're a little weird, especially on the aftermarket. Not Itronix's Hummer, though. It features a 1.86 GHz Intel Centrino Pentium M processor, a removable shock-mounted 80GB hard drive, optional integrated GPS, and magnesium alloy casing that can withstand a drop of 30 in. The bummer: It's 5.8 lbs heavy. [$2,988; hummerlaptop.com]
MEDIA PLAYER Toshiba Gigabeat S30 Toshiba's new Gigabeat S30 will test Apple's best iPod this year. Load it with your favorite music and video (either 30 or 60GB capacity) and utilize the crystal-clear 2.4-in LCD screen. Great for movies, it rotates between vertical and horizontal display. Finally, the S30 runs Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center, making it a perfect traveling companion. [from $299; gigabeat.com]
GPS Garmin Nüvi 350 While you drive, the NŸvi provides automatic trip routing with turn-by-turn voice directions. Touch its 2.8" x 2.1" screen to navigate, play its built-in MP3 player, or review snaps from your digital camera. Then abandon your vehicle and take it along: It weighs just 5.1 oz, and the battery lasts up to 8 hours. [$970; garmin.com]
DIGITAL SLR Olympus Evolt E-330 The E-330 is the first digital SLR that lets you take pictures using the 2.5-in LCD screen instead of squinting through the tiny eyepiece. Olympus achieved the feat by combining a unique internal mirror design with a second image sensor. You can even magnify the live view up to 10x on the LCD to ensure pinpoint focusing precision. [$1,100, lens included; olympusamerica.com]
PORTABLE RADIO Pioneer Inno Satellite radio and MP3 music need not compete. Pioneer's 4.4-oz Inno, a full-fledged portable XM Satellite Radio receiver, incorporates 1 GB of built-in memory. That's enough to store 50 hours of recorded XM content (or hundreds of MP3s) for cross-country flights when the satellite signal fails. [$400; pioneerelectronics.com]
SMART PHONE Palm Treo 700W With its new Treo 700w, Palm scrapped its own software in favor of Windows Mobile. Corporate customers win, but so do those of us who like entertainment to go. The 700w plays Windows Media music, MP3s, audiobooks, video files, and has a 1.3-megapixel camera. [from $399; verizonwireless.com]
SMART PHONE Motorola Q Motorola's on a roll: first the super-slim Razr cell, now a smart phone with a similarly sexy size. The 4-oz Q measures less than .5 in thick, yet features a QWERTY keyboard, the multifunctional Windows Mobile software, Bluetooth compatibility, and a 1.3-megapixel camera. [no price yet; motorola.com]
DIGITAL BOOK Sony Reader Carry a library with Sony's Reader, the first practical digital book. Instead of a laptop's tough-on-the-eyes LCD, the 8.8-oz Reader relies on cutting-edge "E-Ink" technology. The screen reflects light like paper, with much higher resolution than a computer display. And because it uses power only when refreshing new screens rather than to keep them lit, you can go 7,500 pages without recharging. [$299Ð$399; sony.com/reader]
DIGITAL CAMERA Kodak V570 To ensure that the V570 excels at panoramic shots Kodak added an ultrawide-angle lens to complement the 3x telephoto zoom. Think of the 5-megapixel V570 as two cameras in a 4.5-oz package. [$400; kodak.com]
CAMCORDER Sanyo Xacti HD1 Just a year ago, shooting high-definition video required a 4-lb, $4,000 camcorder. Now, with Sanyo's HD1, the technology costs one-fifth that price -- and comes in a pocket-size, solid-state device weighing just 8.3 oz. With a 10x optical zoom and bright 2.2-in OLED display, the HD1 stores both high-def video (in 720p format) and 5-megapixel stills on tiny SD memory cards. [$800; sanyodigital.com]
CELL PHONE Sony Ericsson W810 The best music lover's cell phone we've seen or heard, the W810 carries on the Walkman's portable audio heritage. The lightweight quad-band phone provides worldwide coverage, looks stylish, and, with a 512MB Memory Stick PRO Duo card, stashes up to 2 GB of audio and video in your pocket. [$300Ð$400; sonyericsson.com]

By: Steve Morgenstern
Photographs by: Jeff Harris (laptop bag); Michael Pirrocco (laptop, garmin, kodak)
(April 2006)