Summer Gadget Guide

Designed for the not-so-skilled player (like me), the Wilson Staff Dd5 driver (www.wilson.com) lived up to its billing as the "most forgiving club in the history of Wilson Staff." Its carbon-composite crown is reinforced with nanotubes, making it strong but very light, and distributing the weight to where it's most effective. Result: The 460cc head, about the size of a small gopher, handled effortlessly. Combine that with a graphite shaft (infused with more nanostuff), and I easily walloped drives a good 200 yards, though not necessarily in the right direction. The club also rewarded me with a pleasing ping! even when I sliced the ball -- which for $499, it had better. Even my 84-year-old grandfather, a notorious curmudgeon who plays 18 holes nearly daily, was impressed. "I'd pay 50 bucks for it," he said. That means he liked it a lot.

-- MP

Q: Will all that technology take the hitch out of my tennis stroke?

A: Sorry, no. But it may add power and control.

The promotional literature for today's high-end tennis rackets reads like a research study from materials science or the aerospace industry. So we asked three pros at New York's Midtown Tennis Club to try out the latest technology-enhanced rackets: Does this stuff really make a difference?

Max, Hayden, and Byron liked the $199 Babolat VS NCT Tour best. NCT -- that would stand, of course, for nano-carbon technology. This makes the racket more rigid, adding power without weight. "It feels like you were playing with it all along," says Max.

Head's Flexpoint 6 Mid Plus ($250) -- lighter and longer than the others -- took some getting used to, but it generated the most power with the least effort. Its conceit -- the racket flexes horizontally -- creates a trampoline effect, ideal for serving and volleying. And Prince's O3 ($250), with big, computer-designed "O-ports" on the side of the frame, offered a huge sweet spot, and lots of power too.

-- MP

Q: How do I bike and charge at once?

A: A solar-power messenger bag

The new Voltaic Systems Messenger Bag ($230, www.voltaicsystems.com) comes with three built-in solar panels. Charge your phone, PDA, or MP3 player directly from the panels, which work even in indirect sunlight (an LED sewn into the logo lights up when the unit is in use); the bag comes with a multitude of adapters. On rainy days, you can resort to the detachable battery pack. And the bag itself? It's constructed of heavy, UV-resistant nylon, with beefy zippers and capacity of about 900 cubic centimeters -- enough for all those juice-eating gadgets.

-- MP

Q: Is there one device that truly does it all?

A: No. But PalmOne's LifeDrive comes close.

Already burdened with cell phone, MP3 player, personal digital assistant, and laptop computer, I'm guided by a single principle: No more new gadgets unless they replace at least one I already have. For me and all my fellow travelers, our pockets and portfolios bulging with gear, PalmOne (www.palm one.com) has created its new LifeDrive Mobile Manager. And it definitely is good.

The $499 LifeDrive's 4-gigabyte hard drive -- the first ever on a personal digital assistant -- is like a really small, dense filing cabinet. It holds (by PalmOne's calculation) a year's worth of documents, emails, voice memos, and photos -- plus 10,000 contacts, five years of appointments, 300 songs, and an hour of video. Bluetooth and WiFi are both built in. So, good-bye, PDA. Farewell, music player.

And adios, laptop? Well, not quite. While the LifeDrive is loaded with versions of Excel and Word, it's still basically a PDA, at 4.8 by 2.9 by 0.7 inches. I strained to read long documents -- and without an external keyboard, typing more than a short memo is a surefire path to a class in anger management.

That said, I happily watched The Lion King on the LifeDrive's great 320-by-480-pixel color display. My tunes sounded great. And if I can leave the laptop in the office just once in a while, I'll be a much happier traveler.

-- Niklas Johanson

A: So does Archos's portable DVR.

On a ski trip to Vermont last winter, my friends and I confronted an all-too-familiar electronics dilemma. There we were, surrounded by two laptops, three iPods, and a slew of DVDs. File this under "poor planning" (which also explains why we ended up with three jars each of peanut butter and jelly) -- but still: We're on-the-go entertainment junkies. Why isn't there a portable entertainment system to save us from overkill?