Wireless technology
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Wi-Fi Radio — What youngster doesn’t love music? Thousands of radio stations are broadcasting over the Internet that feature music from big band to sub-Saharan African folk. If you’re a news junkie you can listen to the BBC (my favorite) or domestic streams such as Hawaii Public Radio.
I can recommend three: If you don’t mind dropping $600 on your graduate, Tivoli Audio is easy to set up, very stylish (hardwood cabinets) and has the best-quality sound system I’ve ever heard on a Wi-Fi system. My main complaint is that the controls are difficult to maneuver, and the menu structure is less intuitive than others. It’s for the den — not the bedroom. I’ve used the Roku (www.roku.com) SoundBridge Radio (which costs $299) for several years and really like it as an alarm radio. Sound quality is decent, and control buttons are well placed for a sleepy late-night listener. The least expensive at $209 is the Logitech Squeezebox Boom, which also has good sound, and (like all of the radios) connects wirelessly to a PC to play music files. It has multiple brightness settings for when it’s off, playing or idle. Compact size is also a plus.
Kindle 2 — If your grad is a serious reader, the Kindle 2 is a serious tool. Available at Amazon.com, it’s the size of a standard 250-page paperback. I had a chance to play with a model that belongs to a friend of mine, a former magazine editor, and he and his wife (also a former journalist) love it. I liked it, too. Essentially it’s a device for buying, storing and reading books and periodicals. Price is $350, not counting any subscription fees. (There is no monthly fee for Wi-Fi for the device.)
User tips: If you don’t turn on the wireless function, the batteries can last two weeks. You also can download thousands of books (free) that are now out of print.
Netbooks — These are best described as “laptop lites” whose main functions are e-mail, Web browsing, chat, Skype and word processing. Forget about gaming or heavy-duty apps. They generally cost $350 to $500 and run XP, a very respectable OS. Here are a couple I like:
ASUS EEE PC 1000HE ($375): Nice keyboard with a multitouch-sensitive trackpad, allowing you to magnify or shrink Web pages and scroll by dragging two fingers.
SAMSUNG NC10 ($440): At 93 percent of full size, the keyboard for the Samsung is comparably vast and includes dedicated page-up/page-down keys, which you generally don’t get with other netbooks.
HP MINI 1000 ($445): This wins the coolness award. It’s drop-dead beautiful. Smaller and lighter than the rest, it has a surprisingly functional keyboard. If you’re a traveler, this is the ticket.
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