New technology gadget: can't be too thin, too light or too powerful.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: IT/COMMUNICATIONS

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Whether you're working at your desk, or conducting business from airports, there is no end in sight to the technology gadgets, gizmos and conveniences that continually become available to make you more effective and efficient in the business world, while at the same time offering enough of a glam factor to let your colleagues know that nothing passes you by. Some of our top picks can actually help improve your bottom line by maximizing your time. Some of them are just downright decadent. But if you ask us, we think you deserve all of them.

NETBOOK

Derived from the words Internet and notebook, the NetBook is a rapidly evolving category of small, light and inexpensive laptop computers suited for general computing and accessing Web-based applications, regarded by the industry as nothing more than smaller, cheaper notebooks. The Nokia Booklet 3G, which just recently touched down on U.S. soil, is the cell phone manufacturer's first laptop. Made of sturdy aluminum (think MacBook), it is also mobile broadband/SIM-card friendly. The palm rest and bottom of the system feels as solid as the body of the Apple laptop. Less than an inch thin, this NetBook weighs 2.6 pounds, but that includes a whopping 16-cell battery that doesn't jut out of the back of the system and provides 12 hours of juice.

Like the Toshiba NB205 or MacBook, the keyboard has an island-style layout where soft-coated keys are isolated from one another. The Booklet 3G may have an HDMI out port on its left edge, but all you have inside is an underpowered 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor. That should handle basic applications and 720p video, but 1080p doesn't stand a chance. The 120 GB hard drive will boot up Windows 7 Home Premium. With so many companies making NetBooks, why would you buy a Nokia? Its bundled Nokia services, GPS and hot-swappable SIM slot make it different, allowing you to easily pop a SIM into the right side of the NetBook while it is running (most NetBooks with 3G have their SIM slots hidden behind the battery) and get on a 3G network. Some may opt to buy the NetBook when it is subsided by a 3G carrier (AT&T is the rumor) and commit to service contract, but you should also be able to snatch up the thing without one and slip in a SIM from a broadband card or phone.

CHILLIN'

I once worked in an office where you could smell the fridge without opening it. And then there were my colleagues who took food and cans of soda that didn't belong to them. (You know who you are.) Go ahead and laugh, but...