Plantronics Calisto 825
Making the right calls can make or break a deal. With the Calisto 825, manage all your PC and mobile phone calls simultaneously. It’s compact, has an intuitive visual display panel and a touch-sensitive dial pad. Since time is money, the folks at Calisto have made sure that setting up is easy and fast: It takes less than five minutes to get the device running. You can then switch between mobile and PC calls, dial and mute across devices at the touch of a button. The 825 comes with a wireless lapel microphone that allows you to move about freely during a conference call. The unit is also equipped with echo- and noise-cancellation technology to give you unmatched audio quality.

Price $429

TDK Clef-P Earphones
Listening to music doesn’t only help lower stress levels when the going gets rough, but it can also enhance your focus and concentration. Have your favourite tunes piped into your ears with this pair of earphones from TDK. They come in three pre-tuned versions. The Vocal Tuning model, for instance, works best for jazz, acoustic or J-Pop music because it’s designed to enhance the vocals in audio recordings. Those whose musical tastes lean towards rock, Latin and live music should opt for the Live Tuning version. It provides an immersive music experience, as it is tuned for high-treble sounds. The third, the Mega Bass, adds more oomph to the bass. It’s perfect for electronic music and other genres that feature high-powered, low-frequency sounds.

Price: $49.90

 

Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1
Sometimes, even a wheeling and dealing corporate titan needs a break. For such moments of downtime, there’s the 0.74kg K1 to keep you entertained. It runs on the Android Honeycomb platform, and you get access to over 250,000 apps in Android Market as well as the Lenovo App Shop. There are more than 30 pre-loaded apps, including the ever-popular Angry Birds, and the full version of Documents To Go. What’s more, Lenovo’s exclusive Socialtouch app allows you to access all your social networks in one place. And, best of all, it comes with Flash support. There’s also a unique “Home” button that activates Lenovo’s Launch Zone application, which accesses your most frequently used apps.

Price: From $699

LG Optimus 3D
Bringing your entertainment with you on the go has never been easier. Watch your favourite 3-D movie or play three-dimensional games on the Optimus smartphone without the glasses. It boasts a 4.3- inch WVGA display and flicker-free images. Better yet, you can record highquality 3-D content to share via HDMI cable on your 3-D TV, or convert 2-D content into 3-D with free conversion software. Also, the phone’s dual-channel configuration allows for simultaneous data transfer between dual-core and dual-memory. This means smoother and faster browsing, gaming and multimedia enjoyment.

Price: $938 (without contract)

 

Jabra Freeway In-Car Speakerphone
Making your next sales call while driving is a joy with the Freeway. Forget about straining to hear calls on your current wimpy hands-free set-up because the Freeway offers exceptional sound for a speakerphone. In fact, you get surround sound, as there are three speakers providing what Jabra calls Virtual Surround. The speakerphone will read out the caller ID and you can command it by voice to answer or reject calls – all without taking your hands off the steering wheel. Normally, the audio quality of speakerphones is underwhelming, but music playback on the Freeway is surprisingly impressive, particularly on acoustic tracks. Audiophiles would definitely give this their stamp of approval.

Price $198

Geneva Sound System Model XS
When work is getting you bogged down, perk up by streaming a couple of upbeat tunes to the XS. It’s the world’s first portable audio system with true hi-fi sound. It comes in a leather-wrapped clamshell and is small enough to slip into your briefcase. Sound quality is impressive: A digital amplifier and stereo speakers hit the mid and high frequencies with accuracy, while a woofer delivers powerful bass responses below 80Hz. The XS also hides other qualities: an integrated digital FM radio tuner and alarm clock. The speaker’s battery life is also commendable – it lasted five hours with the volume at full blast.

Price: $299

Blackberry Bold 9900
At 10.5mm, the 9900 is the slimmest Blackberry yet. This smart-looking BB is powered by a 1.2GHz processor, runs on the new OS 7, and comes with a high-definition video camera. It has a capacitive and highly responsive 2.8-inch touch screen, with a sharp resolution of 640x480 pixels. We dare say the screen easily looks as good as anything with “Retina” display. The handset comes with generous memory options as well – there is 8GB of internal storage (expandable to 32GB) and 768MB of RAM. Lastly, BB mainstays such as a superbly tactile Qwerty keypad and top-security round off the key offerings.

Price: $888

 

Nokia N9
For those who appreciate elegance in design, the newly launched N9 is a shoo-in choice. The smartphone’s body is precision-machined from a single piece of polycarbonate and blends seamlessly with its 3.9-inch scratch-resistant, curved glass screen. But the phone isn’t just a looker: It’s the world’s first smartphone with Dolby Digital Plus decoding and Dolby Headphone technology, which gives you surround sound with any headphones. Frequent flyers will find the pre-loaded street maps for over 90 countries handy. Plus, there’s navigation assistance and free turn-by-turn drive and walk directions. In case you’re looking for the “Home” button, there’s none. Instead, a swipe is all it takes to bring you back to the “Home” screen. It also packs an
8-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens that takes great pictures. Last but not least, the N9 comes with Near Field Communication, which allows you to, for instance, share content between devices when they touch each other.

Price: From $799

 

Blackberry Playbook
This seven-inch slab comes with quirky features like bridging to a Blackberry phone for secure e-mail. Its credentials as a business tool are affirmed with built-in viewers for spreadsheets and word processing files. We give it bonus points for being fast and nimble when handling processing tasks, thanks to its dual-core 1GHz processor. While it won’t put your digital SLR into retirement just yet, we reckon its 5-megapixel camera is decent enough for snapshots on the go. The Playbook features a crisp 1200x600 resolution and is a lightweight 425g.

Price: From $668

 

Canon LV-8320 LCD Multimedia Projector
Clinching that multimillion-dollar deal calls for savvy and slick presentation. While this LCD multimedia projector can’t help you with the former, it can provide a successful presentation. Weighing just 3.4kg, it’s perfect for road warriors and provides a bright 3,000 lumens with a sharp 2,000:1 contrast ratio. The LV-8320 has an intelligent lamp-dimming feature that adjusts automatically to suit the brightness of the image projected, which saves power consumption by an impressive 69 per cent. Of significant note is its ability to combine two projections within a single screen – ideal for comparing charts. It also features Auto Keystone Correction, which detects tilt and corrects the projection to achieve distortion-free images.