Gadgets

March 4, 2008 at 10:52PM

NEITHER CELL PHONE NOR LAPTOP

$300, www.sonystyle.com

The Sony Mylo Personal Communicator COM-2, or Mylo 2, is a device situated firmly in the netherworld between laptops and cell phones. It has Wi-Fi and a touch screen, but it can make only Skype phone calls. It has a keyboard, but you wouldn't want to type your novel into it. It's not a media player, but it can handle audio, photos and video.

Unlike the original Mylo, the Mylo 2 has a 1.3-megapixel camera, built-in microphone and speaker. It can do instant messaging through Yahoo, Skype and AOL in addition to Internet voice calls. This version is also a bit bigger than the original and has a larger screen.

The 6.8-ounce device, available online for $300, comes with headphones, an external microphone, stylus and carrying pouch. The 3.5-inch screen is designed to show video in widescreen format.

A LIGHTER LENOVO

$2,548, www.lenovo.com

It's hard to be the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. While the rest of the world was fawning over Apple's ultraslim MacBook Air, Lenovo's laptop entered the world with little fanfare, even though it is one-tenth of a pound lighter and runs Windows Vista.

The X300 gets up to 10 hours of battery life on one charge and has an internal metal cage to keep it from snapping during the rigors of travel. It has a 1.2-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 64-gigabyte solid-state drive that uses flash memory instead of spinning hard-drive platters. But that last feature contributes to the laptop's high price: It starts at $2,548.

Next to the shiny MacBook Air, the X300 looks as if it is wearing a black wool suit at a costume ball. But plenty of road warriors might just like it that way.

NEW YORK TIMES

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