(FORTUNE Magazine) – T-MOBILE COLOR SIDEKICK Danger Inc. and T-Mobile have released a greatly improved, color version of their hip PDA-wireless-phone-camera-game-mail-and-messaging device (expected to be around $300, plus monthly service fees). The Sidekick's 240-by 160-pixel display is transflective, making it readable both indoors and in all but the most glaring sunlight. As a PDA, it stores calendar and to-do lists, and up to 2,000 contacts and 50 notes, about double the capacity of its monochrome sibling ($199 after rebate). Danger stores all the user's data in its servers, so if the Sidekick gets lost, the info can still be reached via the web. Why spend the extra $100 for color? Besides the obvious benefits for web-browsing and games, the Color Sidekick makes the honor roll for its coolness factor (including polyphonic ring tones), its digital camera, its ability to handle instant messaging and e-mail (including AOL), its HTML web browsing, and its best-of-breed keyboard, hidden under the switchblade-like lid. As a phone, however, it still gets only a C-, and it's just a bit too bulky to carry easily in a pocket.

APPLE IPOD Apple has just introduced a class of iPods with advanced engineering degrees, which must be a bummer for competitors that still haven't been able to match the style, ease of use, or functionality of Apple's first-generation digital music and data device. The latest iPods are sleeker but have bigger storage capacities, and they add new ways to organize all those tunes--plus contacts, calendar, and to-do lists--while remaining relatively uncomplicated. At the head of the class is a 30-gigabyte model ($499) that holds some 7,500 songs; to put it in perspective, that's roughly an hour of new music every day for more than a year. Both it and the 15-gigabyte model ($399) come with a slick new docking station, clip-on case, and remote control. The skinny freshman model holds ten gigs and costs $299. All the '03 iPods harmonize with both Macs and Windows PCs; a USB 2.0 cable for Windows is coming soon. For honors grads, you can have the iPod laser-etched with a personal message for $19 extra.

PALM ZIRE 71 Palm had a big hit with its original Zire, a simple, stylish, snow-white PDA that sells for less than $100. As with the T-Mobile Sidekick, however, a splash of color changes everything. The new, blue Zire 71 ($299) has all the standard PDA stuff--date book, address book, calculator--but also a built-in color camera that slides out, like a spy camera. The photos show up well on the impressive transflective display, and the ARM processor is zippy enough to handle video too. The drawback? Unsteady hands will cause blurry snapshots. By syncing with a PC or Mac, however, it's easy to download color photos taken with a better camera, for handheld slide shows. Another bonus: The Zire 71 also works as an MP3 digital music player and, for Windows users only, as an Audible audio-book player.

LOGITECH Z-680 MULTIMEDIA SPEAKER SYSTEM Big-screen home theaters are cool, but they don't fit in small starter apartments, let alone small budgets. The next best thing is desktop theater, a PC or Mac with a widescreen LCD, a DVD drive, and a multichannel sound card. The finest desktop-theater speaker system I've heard so far is Logitech's 5.1-channel Z-680 ($400). Consisting of five surround-sound speakers and a subwoofer--if your grad ends up moving back home, make sure his subwoofer is on the other side of the house--the Z-680 system cranks 450 watts and is fully THX-certified with Dolby Digital and DTS hardware decoding. What that means: The Z-680 kicks serious bass, and offers true surround sound for the PC, DVD player, videogame consoles, TV, CD player, and MP3 portable audio devices.

M-AUDIO SONICA THEATER USB 7.1 SURROUND SOUND CARD More and more people use laptops as their primary computers, gaining mobility at the expense of awe-inspiring sound. Not anymore. The dinky Sonica Theater USB 7.1 ($100) simply plugs into a laptop or desktop USB port and delivers top-quality surround sound to any speaker setup, ranging from two stereo speakers all the way up to a 7.1-channel rig. And it comes with great music-mixing software.

VIEWSONIC N1700W LCD TV Why buy both a TV and an LCD computer display when your grad can have both in the good-looking form of Viewsonic's 17-inch N1700W ($1,000)? The widescreen LCD displays side-by-side pages of text, and DVD movies look good too. The external tuner box takes feeds from cable TV or even HDTV. With picture-in-picture, the user can peek at TV while working on grad-school homework--or vice versa.

EPSON STYLUS PHOTO 960 If your grad is into digital photography, the six-color Stylus Photo 960 ($349) is hard to beat unless you shell out twice as much for its big brother, the 2200. Photo print quality on the 960 is superb, but what really sets it apart is its ability to print directly onto special CD and DVD discs. That's right: The free CD Print Kit lets Windows PC users design artwork--graphics, text, or photos--and feed the discs directly into the printer. The CD Print Kit also works with the Stylus Photo 900 ($149), but not with Macs.

NINTENDO GAME BOY ADVANCE SP The best portable game machine just got better. The "SP" in Game Boy Advance SP ($100) stands for "special," although "small and portable" is equally appropriate. It's not much larger than a clamshell mobile phone but otherwise plays just like the original, larger GBA (with a new built-in front light). Here's the ultimate testimonial: When my nephews were deployed to Iraq, they jettisoned food to make room in their overstuffed rucksacks for this gadget and some spare games.

On the Net For more tech advice, see Peter Lewis's weblog at www.fortune.com/ontech.

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