The CF-W2 costs £1,650 plus VAT.Two devices offer an alternative for those who don’t want to take a complete laptop or PDA away with them, but instead plan to stay in touch using a cyber caf?r hotel internet terminal.The VTEC Flash Pen doubles as a ball-point pen and memory device, with 32Mb costing £24.38 (including VAT). Panasonic has responded with a Toughbook Light, a semi-ruggedised design. The CF-W2 weighs 1.29kg and comes with a combination drive that reads DVDs and can read and write CDs. The Toughbook has a relatively low-powered processor, an Intel Centrino clocked at 900MHz, but has a 40Gb hard drive, 256Mb of memory and WiFi wireless connectivity.It also has shock absorbers for the screen and hard drive, and a splash-proof keyboard and track pad, making it as resistant to the rigours of a building site as to a spilled sundowner. These have additional features, such as shock absorption and keyboards proofed against dirt and moisture.Toughbooks have, though, been both heavy and expensive.

The new screen also reduces power consumption, an important consideration if you do want to go online from the beach. The M1400 with View Anywhere costs £1,450, plus VAT.An alternative that will appeal to the frequent traveller is a ruggedised laptop. Panasonic has come to dominate the market for these devices, with its Toughbook range. It costs between £99 and £200 depending on the contract, from O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone.Travellers who need more screen “real estate” than a smart phone or PDA can provide have two options: a tablet PC or a laptop.

Tablet PCs have not been an overwhelming success in sales terms, but manufacturers are still producing new models that address some of the shortcomings of earlier versions.Motion Computing’s M1400 tablet is designed for those who need to work as much outdoors as in the office. The M1400 already has a 160-degree viewing angle, which makes it possible to read data on the screen no matter where you are sitting. Motion has taken its standard M1400 tablet – a “slate” design built around a 12.1in (31cm), touch-screen display – and added a technology called View Anywhere.Motion claims that the screen cuts reflections to a tenth of those on a normal flat screen, and improves contrast 225 per cent. The latest model, the 7230, keeps to the over-sized pager design of earlier models, and has a colour screen and a thumb-style qwerty keyboard.BlackBerry claims a three-day battery life, based on sending emails and making phone calls, but its real selling point is the way it can pick up emails from personal and work-based accounts simply. Delete an email on the BlackBerry and it is deleted on the office mail server; send a reply and a copy will be filed back at base The BlackBerry is small, unobtrusive and portable. The P910 costs around £500 without a contract, and between £200 and £250 with.A more compact and cheaper alternative is the hugely popular BlackBerry (beloved of merchant bankers and top executives).