Gadgets To Pack For The Beijing Olympics

Love your snazzy iPhone? Well, unless you are prepared to rack up gobs in roaming charges, leave it snug at home. Take an unlocked world (tri-band or quad-band) phone and buy the SIM chip locally. We like HP's new iPAQ 910, but for the bargain hunter, there are plenty of unlocked Palm Treos available on eBay.

There are plenty of electronic translators on the market, and they are fairly popular among Asian business travelers. ECTACO has a line of translators with voice-recognition capabilities. Speak your request, and have the iTRAVL translate in to Chinese. Or hold it up and let the taxi driver speak into it and get the translation instantly! The iTRAVL NTL-9C also comes with maps and addresses programmed to simplify getting around.

If the translator is too pricey of an investment, hunt around for the Talkman Euro to load on to the Sony PSP. The Chinese version of the "game" features the a blue bird named Max who speaks English and Chinese fluently, as well as a handful of other languages. A game and a practical companion in one, Max fits in perfectly in an international gathering.

Whether it's from a PDA (the iPAQ 210, perhaps?) or a smartphone, a handheld is handy to load maps. So are UMPCs like the Samsung Q1 and the OQO model 02 -- Street maps are easy to download from the Web. For public transportation, we like Metro, a freeware application for the Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and others. Never get lost navigating the buses or trains in a foreign country again. If you are staying off public transport, check for GPS on one of your gadgets.

What's the point of traveling if there are no photographs of manhole covers, street signs, and store awnings to capture the memories? The 53 MB of internal storage on Nikon's P5100 (pictured) may not go too far so pack a couple memory cards. The 12.1-megapixel camera can take on extra lenses.



If that's a little too heavy and complicated, Samsung's NV40 is a more traditional point-and-shoot. The 10.5 megapixel camera with 3X optical zoom is nothing to sneeze at.

Record the sights, protests, and events on to the DZ-BD7HA camcorder's hard drive and then copy the video directly onto a Blu-Ray disc in the camcorder. What could be easier or more long-lasting?

Back up all those photos, videos, and all that digital data that needs to come home. And as any conscientious security expert can tell you, encrypt, encrypt, encrypt! We like the RFID data encryption that comes with the Tornado Plus external hard drive from Aluratek. 250 GB of storage is not shabby and the black metal enclosure with a matching carrying case is also stylish, to boot.

Regardless of the gadgetry, they all need to be charged. A travel adapter for each? Not practical. Wait and charge each item individually? Too much time. Drag along a power strip to use with the adapter? That's a possibility. A Chargepod, from emerging technology vendor Callpod, is more elegant. The Chargepod charges up to six devices at a time -- including cell phones, PDA, Bluetooth headsets, mp3 players, digital cameras, GPS units, portable gaming units. Callpod sells adapters that connect the device to the base station individually. Get the ones you need and your gadgets will always be powered to go.

What if you run out of juice smack in the middle of the day? If it's an iPod, Nokia, or Sony Ericsson device, the USB Mobile Device Charger from Proporta will let you charge it up on the fly. The charger has 3400 mAH capacity.