Back at it. Useful gadgets for your office or classroom
Ultra-portable notebooks
Carry your computer often? Then go with one that weighs less than about 1.5kg (or about 3lbs.). These three notebooks are easy on the shoulder, have integrated fingerprint readers for security and look really slick coming out of a backpack or briefcase.
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HP Compaq nc2400 Last year’s nc4010 was a very nice unit but it had the one flaw common to light 12-inch notebooks: no onboard CD/DVD drive. This year HP blew past that limitation: the nc2400 incorporates an optical drive and the notebook is no bigger than last year’s model. So use this in a customer’s boardroom and then watch a DVD on the plane ride home. The 1.3kg nc2400 starts at $1,699. |
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Fujitsu LifeBook Q2010 This notebook is the slickest of the slick: it is so thin colleagues will wonder if it is really a computer. However, to accommodate this size the Q2010 does not have an on-board CD/DVD drive. An optional docking station adds an optical drive. The Q2010 weighs only 1kg and starts at $2,259. |
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Lenovo IBM ThinkPad X60 ThinkPads have long been a standard for corporate buyers and this new unit from Lenovo maintains the line’s solid feel and performance. Again, though, there is no onboard optical drive. The X60 starts at $2,499 and weighs 1.64kg. |
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Hottest smartphone Motorola Q The Q is the most-anticipated smartphone of 2006 and it lives up to the hype: the Windows Mobile 5.0 PDA/ phone combo delivers e-mail, calendaring and Web access, and shares much of the design elegance of the company’s popular Razr phone. The Q starts at $249.99 on a 3 year contract from Telus |
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Check Out S60 Nokia 6682 This Nokia smartphone runs theS60 operating system and so is a direct competitor to units running Palm OS, Windows Mobile or the BlackBerry operating system. Owners can choose from thousands of S60 applications. The phone also sports a 1.3 megapixel camera with flash, and voice-activated dialing. It retails for $199.99 on a three-year contract |
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Save with Wi-Fi calls UTStarcom F1000 Sold by Vonage, the F1000is one of the first Wi-Fi phones on the market in Canada. About the size of a cell phone, the F1000 costs $160 but rebates may be avaiable |
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Sexier than a Razor Samsung SPH-a900 Motorola Razrs are hot, but that’s the problem: everyone already has one. For both sexy and new check out the a900 from Samsung: it’s slim and dark, supports streaming TV, has a megapixel camera and even has media control buttons on the front. $199 on a three-year contract from Bell. |
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Want moblile Internet? Rogers Yahoo! Portable Internet It’s a small box, a network cable and a power cord. And it delivers wireless high-speed Internet access in 20 cities across Canada. The radio frequency used is neither cellular nor Wi-Fi, and the system is honest-to-goodness plug and play: in our tests notebooks were online in a few minutes. The introductory price is $44.95 per month for 12 months, with free activation. |
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It's a pen. Fly PenTop Computer It looks like a fat pen and it writes on regular paper. But it is also a calculator and a scheduler, can recognize what you write when used with special paper, and add-on applications are available. It retails for $99.99.
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Tunes plus maps Mio DigiWalker 310 If you haven’t tried an in-car GPS system you’re missing out on a huge convenience. From Mio comes a unit that will not only get you to the church on time but, thanks to a built-in MP3 player, it will also play music for the drive. It retails for $499.99 and comes preloaded with U.S. and Canadian maps. |
