$2,199, Panasonic Toughbook W4 | At 2.8 pounds, this laptop weighs less than many hardcover novels. It has a 12.1-inch screen, 512 megabytes of memory, a 6.6-hour battery, a 60-gigabyte hard drive and an internal DVD player/CD burner. Its 1.2Ghz Pentium M processor is a bit on the slow side, but that’s a small price to pay for a full-featured PC that disappears in a backpack. Plus, the Toughbook earns its name with a shock-mounted hard drive and an impact-resistant magnesium-alloy case, which comes in four fashion colors. www.panasonic.com

$250, Samsung K5 MP3 player | Digital video recorders such as TiVo have allowed us to record shows while we’re away and watch them later (the technological name for this capability is “time-shifting”). Slingbox, on the other hand, does “place-shifting,” allowing you to control and watch your television, DVR, DVD player and virtually any other AV component while on the road. Slingbox sends the audio and video inputs out over the Internet, compressing the signal so you can tune in on your laptop or even a Windows Mobile cellphone. www.samsung.com

$250, Slingbox Pro | Digital video recorders such as TiVo have allowed us to record shows while we’re away and watch them later (the technological name for this capability is “time-shifting”). Slingbox, on the other hand, does “place-shifting,” allowing you to control and watch your television, DVR, DVD player and virtually any other AV component while on the road. Slingbox sends the audio and video inputs out over the Internet, compressing the signal so you can tune in on your laptop or even a Windows Mobile cellphone. www.us.slingmedia.com

$350, Sony Mylo | This multi-talented gadget is the next best thing to toting a laptop with you. The Mylo taps into any open Wi-Fi network for instant messaging, Internet surfing and e-mail using its slide-out QWERTY keyboard and 2.4-inch color screen. It can also play MP3 and WMA audio files and MPEG-4 video files, and can make Skype calls for free or nearly free anywhere in the world. www.sonystyle.com

$200, BlackBerry Pearl | Research in Motion’s BlackBerry has been a standard weapon in the corporate arsenal since its introduction in 1999, but it has also been about as exciting as an extra-long chain to the office. The new Pearl changes all of that. Not only is it sleek and slim, but it includes fun features like a 1.3-megapixel camera, an MP3 player and the device’s namesake omnidirectional white trackball. The predictive-text, two-letter-per-key QWERTY keyboard is a small compromise to have so much functionality in such a tiny package. www.tmobile.com

$345, Bose QuietComfort 3 | Noise-cancelling earphones have become standard in the frequent-traveler toolkit. Bose has pretty much defined noise-cancelling technology for 25 years, supplementing the music that the wearer is listening to with a negative soundwave to knock out annoying ambient noises such as jet engine roar. The QuietComfort 3 is Bose’s smallest noise-cancelling headset; it rests on the ear instead of around it, molding to your body using memory foam. The headphones have a rechargeable, 20-hour lithium-ion battery and fold-flat design so they don’t get crushed in your suitcase. www. bose.com