Every year, thousands of high-tech products hit the market. Among the dozens of laptops, hundreds of cell phones and thousands of accessories released this year, surprisingly few are worth your attention.

We’ve rounded up some of our favorite new gear and gadgets, spanning the spectrum from digital workhorses that will help out on business trips to all-star entertainment devices that will keep you (or your kids) amused during next summer’s road trip. Whether you’ve only got a few bucks to spend or are rolling in millions, we have something in the tech world for you to check out.



Mobiado PRO105EM Cell Phone

$3,600, mobiado.com

Forget all those solid-gold and diamond-encrusted cell phones, which are far too ostentatious and, dare we say, gaudy for anyone this side of Rodeo Drive. Mobiados cell phones are just as exclusive and artistic without the overwhelming sparkle. Crafted from anodized aluminum inlayed with genuine hardwood (your choice of dark ebony or the more chocolate toned cocobolo), the PRO105EM has only a couple of bling factors: the 24 karat-gold, hand-painted lettering on the phones face and buttons, which are made of sapphire crystals. The phone itself is a 3G device that will work with any GSM carrier (AT&T or T Mobile in the U.S.), complete with a spacious screen, video player and two megapixel camera. Really, though, this phone is so sophisticated and expensive that we’d be a little nervous to use it for anything as pedestrian as making a call.



Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z150

$200, casio.com

Casio’s latest ultra-portable digicam maintains its slimness—it’s the thinnest camera in its class—while dutifully upping the features. New to the Exilim line is 4x zoom, up from 3x on its older models and the standard on most other pocket cameras at this price. Of course, the Z150 also packs in all the latest digital camera goodies, including anti-shake technology to prevent blurry shots, face detection to aid with focus and a huge, three-inch LCD for previewing your shots.
Available in five colors, the 8.1-megapixel camera also sports an impressive price tag of just $200, making it one of the most affordable cameras on the market.



HP Voodoo Envy 133

Starts at $2,099, voodoopc.com

The Voodoo brand used to be strictly for gamers: ultra-high-performance products in ultra-expensive packages, often with garish paint jobs designed to prove that the bearer is the slickest shooter at the party. Earlier this year, Voodoo dropped its gamers-only aspirations and metallic, Trans Am–esque styling and went up-market. The new Voodoo is just as luxe, but it has a new design focus that underplays gaudy colors and aims instead for cool sophistication. In the case of the Envy 133, the sole laptop left in the company’s portfolio, it’s also all about extreme portability: This 13.3-inch machine is even thinner than the vaunted MacBook Air, while packing in ports that the Air lacks. Innovation is rampant in the Envy: For example, the machine is too thin for an Ethernet port, so Voodoo puts it in the A/C adapter, with a wireless data link back to the notebook.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

What kind of tech developments can business travelers expect to see in 2009? Here are some things in the works...

____________________________________________________________________________________________________


Kensington Wall/Auto/Air Notebook Power Adapter with USB Port

$140, kensington.com

There’s a reason why they call your laptop’s A/C adapter a “power brick”: It does little more than take up space in and add weight to your briefcase. Its only job is to send juice from the wall (when you can find a socket) to your notebook. Upgrade it with Kensington’s universal charger. As the name implies, the Wall/Auto/Air doesn’t just charge from wall power, it also includes adapters to charge from your car’s cigarette-lighter port, as well as airplane power ports. Tips are included, so the device works with all major laptop vendors. As a bonus, the charger includes a standard USB port, which lets you charge any USB-connecting device (camera, iPod, many cell phones) by plugging it directly into the unit. This way, you can leave yet another brick behind.


Linksys WRT610N Dual-N Band Router

$200, linksys.com

Having a Wi-Fi network at home or the office doesn’t have to mean filling the place with industrial-looking equipment festooned with antennas. Linksys’s WRT610N is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise uninspired category: a router with no visible antennas and a design that will fit perfectly in a modern office space or hide completely out of the way, if you don’t want it seen at all. The glistening slab of a router hides all its antennas inside, but that doesn’t mean it skimps on performance. Thanks to its two simultaneous data channels, range and throughput with this router are comparable to or better than other 802.11n devices on the market, so you’ll get top performance from anything you choose to connect to it. Also, Linksys’s setup and management software is second to none, making it painless to get the router up and running in a matter of minutes.



Balanzza Digital Luggage Scale

$25, balanzza.com

With airlines charging for every possible incidental, slapping travelers with a hefty fine for overweight baggage is becoming a real cash cow. Fees top $150 per bag in some cases, and if you go just an ounce over the limit (usually 50 pounds per bag), you’re on the hook for a big surcharge when you check in at the airport. Take the sting and surprise out of traveling by easily weighing your luggage while you’re still at home. No, you don’t have to wrestle your bag onto a bathroom scale: Use the Balanzza instead. Just clip this battery-powered device to your bag’s handle, lift it up, and wait for the beep. A digital readout shows you exactly how much your bag weighs, to the nearest tenth of a pound. The display goes up to 100 pounds, but if you see anything over 50, you’ll know it’s time to repack.





Buffalo MiniStation USB Hard Drive

$70–250, buffalotech.com

Most portable hard drives are about as rugged as a Hummel figurine; they’re just bare hard drives encased in plastic. Buffalo’s MiniStation portable hard drive, though, is carefully padded on all six sides by rubber bumpers, cushioning it against the shocks and drops that happen all too frequently when you’re on the road. As a bonus, the padding only adds minimally to the overall size of the drive and nothing to its weight—at just 6.7 ounces, it slips easily into your travel bag. Another nifty feature: The drive is powered completely by its single
USB cable connection, and the cable wraps around the side of the drive and clips to itself when not in use, keeping everything nice and tidy. Capacity options range from 80GB to a whopping 500GB.



Apple iPhone 3G

$299 (16GB with service plan), apple.com

Now that the iPhone includes GPS and a high-speed radio—and even supports Exchange (start bugging your IT guy today)—there’s no reason left not to love the iPhone, rereleased at a lower price earlier this year. With its 3G network features, browsing Web pages away from a Wi-Fi hotspot is no longer the agonizing exercise in waiting that it once was. But GPS is the real highlight, with the iPhone’s pulsating blue dot a comforting reminder that wherever you go, Apple can find you. Apple’s app store remains tricky, with many users reporting bugs in the thousands of programs available for download; but even without extra apps, it’s still a standout phone that deserves the hype. Now that the lines and shortages have finally died down, maybe you can actually get your hands on one.







Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth Headset

$150, plantronics.com

Hands-free headset design continues to evolve beyond hunks of metal dangling from the wearer’s ear. Plantronics’ latest, the Discovery 925, is eye-catching in its design yet small enough to be unobtrusive. Rare among headsets, the Discovery is “loopless,” meaning it doesn’t rely on a wire hook to loop around your ear and keep it attached to your head. Instead, it includes a set of different-sized rubber eartips that lodge snugly in your ear canal and do a surprisingly good job of keeping the headset where it belongs; this also makes it one of the lightest headsets on the market. The Discovery isn’t all about looks (three colors are available to match your style), though—the audio quality is top-notch, too.



Eye-Fi Explore

$130, eye.fi

One of the most exciting technologies of the year is the most humble in appearance—the orange (yet otherwise unremarkable) Eye-Fi memory card. On its surface, the Eye-Fi is a standard 2GB SD memory card that slips into your digital camera. But inside its plastic shell is a secret: a tiny Wi-Fi radio that turns your boring old digital camera into a wireless one. Configure the Eye-Fi with just a few simple steps on your PC or Mac and pop it in your camera. Every picture you take then gets uploaded to your computer and/or the Web service of your choice (Flickr, Facebook, Shutterfly or 20 other offerings) whenever you’re within range of a wireless hotspot. The new Explore model also tags shots with geographic information, so you’ll never forget where a picture was taken.


Archos 605 WiFi

$400 (160GB), archos.com

Archos continues to dazzle with the latest version of its venerable high-end portable media player. The Archos 605 WiFi has everything you could want, all in a pocket-size package.
Naturally, you can load it up with music and movies from your hard drive, but the 605 can also record TV shows directly if you hook it up to your cable box (just like TiVo), and even stream movies from your PC wirelessly without having to download them to the device. The 605 also features a full-fledged Web browser ($30 extra), and the new GPS attachment ($130) lets the device double as a dashboard navigator. The Archos 605 WiFi can be a bit daunting for newcomers, but gadget fiends will find its feature set absolutely unbeatable.



Creative Zen Stone Plus with Speaker

$70, creative.com

Creative has been pumping out portable audio players that offer pristine music quality and loads of features, but without the excessive price of Apple’s iPod line. The Zen Stone Plus is a palm-sized MP3 player (just 2.2 x 1.4 inches) that offers 4GB of storage, a crisp display, FM radio and even a voice recorder. But this model’s killer feature is invisible from the front: It’s a tiny speaker embedded right in the Zen Stone that lets you listen to music without headphones. Sure, you won’t get perfect audio from such a minuscule driver, but it’s great for when your car stereo’s on the fritz or for that impromptu picnic when everyone forgot the boom box. Available in four colors, so it won’t clash with your cell phone.
____________________________________________________

CHRISTOPHER NULL is a freelance technology writer in San Francisco.