Digital, Wi-Fi, entirely self-contained—going mobile today means taking your tools (and toys) along for the ride. With the season's new breed of travel technology you'll be lighter, faster, and better equipped for your connecting flight, your next hike, or the long road ahead.
1. Hear No Evil - Logitech Noise-Canceling Headphones, $150, www.logitech.com
Filter out that snoring seatmate or incessant jet-engine whine. The Logitech Noise-Canceling Headphones nullify ambient noise at the flick of a switch. They're battery-powered and block clamor from intruding on your MP3 books and tunes. But they soothe your nerves even when unplugged from an audio source. We field-tested them on a New York City subway train, and they were music to our ears.
2. Lap of Luxury - Sony Vaio TX Notebook, $2,400, www.sonystyle.com
Take a working vacation in style. The ultracompact, 11.1-inch-wide (28-centimeter-wide) screen Sony Vaio TX Notebook weighs just 2.8 pounds (1 kilogram) and sports a zippy Intel Core Solo processor, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, and integrated WWAN for accessing Sprint's high-speed wireless Internet virtually anywhere in the country.
3. Slick Shooter - Nikon D80, $1,000 ($1,300 with 18–135 mm lens), www.nikon.com
The Nikon D80 camera, the company's ergonomic new DSLR 10.2-megapixel titan, is for amateur photogs who take their vacation snapshots seriously. It offers full auto or manual operation, interchangeable lenses, and a range of idiotproof shooting modes. It also has a wicked 0.18-second power-up and an 80 millisecond shutter lag, which allows you continuous three-frames-
a-second shooting for up to 100 JPEGs.
4. Entertainment Center - Archos 604, $350, www.archos.com
If you've ever endured a 17-hour flight to Asia, the benefits of the Archos 604 media player are self-evident. This personal playmate has a 30GB hard drive and a 4.3-inch (11-centimeter) LCD, uploads from a PC or a Mac, and has juice for 14 hours of music or four hours of video. An optional DVR station ($100) works like a TiVo, letting you schedule and record shows from your TV for distraction on your next trans-Pacific slog.
5. Signal Sniffer - Novatel Wireless Merlin Expresscard XU870, $80, www.novatelwireless.com
As free Wi-Fi hotspots at airports and other public locations continue to dry up, the glory days of Internet-anywhere access are becoming a thing of the past. A compromise: The NovAtel Wireless Merlin ExpressCard XU870 slips into a suitably equipped laptop and lets you log on at high speed wherever you can get a cell-phone signal across the globe. So far it's the only worldwide card available.
6. Communications Hub - Rim Blackberry Pearl 8100, $199, www.rim.com
Unlike the black pearl of pirate movies, the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8100 cell phone and organizer is anything but a curse. At a pocket-friendly half inch thick and 3.2 ounces (91 grams), this world phone keeps you connected nearly anywhere with voice mail, e-mail, and high-speed Internet access (via T-Mobile's EDGE network). It also has a 1.3-megapixel camera, a slot for a microSD (Secure Digital) memory card, and a media player.
7. Eye Candy - Kodak EasyShare V705, $350, www.kodak.com
The conventional wisdom about compact digicams is that quality and features suffer at the expense of size. The 7.1-megapixel Kodak EasyShare V705 digicam debunks that theory. This versatile mini has two lenses to work with: one with a 5X optical zoom (and optical stabilization) for standard focal lengths of 39–117mm; the other for ultrawide-angle shots (23mm equivalent), a feature not found on any similar camera.
Our November 2006 issue features the best new adventure travel trips; an exclusive look inside Iran; a Greenland global warming report; backcountry spas; digital cameras; travel Web sites; weekend getaways; and more.
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