Unplugged!

Before the wireless revolution, pundits worried that our growing dependence on and love for personal technology were making us too isolated. We were staying home to spend long hours surfing the Web, sending e-mail, doing instant messaging and playing video games. Sure, we might be communicating or playing games with folks on the other side of the world, but we weren’t getting out in our own neighborhoods.

Then came the proliferation of WiFi, advanced cellphone services, super-light laptops and wonders such as satellite radio and the iPod that set us free. But for the most part, it just made the isolation portable. Walk into a popular coffee shop these days and you might see at least half of the customers peering at laptops, talking on the phone or text messaging. There are no chance encounters or even flirting among these folks. It’s as if everyone has become a personal gated community, even in a crowd.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I love this tech stuff--it’s just so gee-whiz amazing in a way that science fiction writers couldn’t have predicted. It has transformed much of my working, recreational and even cultural life. So let’s appreciate this cool stuff, but don’t let it stand in the way of old-fashioned analog encounters:

WiFi Router To make your home a WiFi hotspot just like your favorite tech-savvy coffee shop or airport lounge, you’ll need one of these devices to broadcast your incoming Internet signal throughout the house. Get the spiffy Apple AirPort Extreme ($200) if you use a Mac, or a PC-oriented model such as the Netgear WGR614 ($50) if Windows rules at home. Just make sure you get a model that uses 802.11g, the current WiFi standard.

GPS Trainer The wrist-worn Garmin Forerunner 201 (about $160) determines the precise distance a runner covers in a workout by using GPS signals from outer space. It’s way better than an old-fashioned pedometer, as long as you’re outside and within signal distance of the GPS satellites. A pacing feature shows an on-screen animated “virtual partner” running at your desired gait, while below him another little animated man shows your actual speed. The idea is to stay even with Mr. Virtual.

Laptop They’re getting lighter and sleeker, and many now come with built-in WiFi capability. On the PC side, the super-thin Toshiba Portege R200-S234 ($2,100) is stylish and an ergonomic pleasure to use. The more utilitarian-looking but still quite light Dell Inspiron 600m (about $1,000) also is a terrific choice. For Apple fans, you can’t beat the 14-inch iBook G4 ($1,300) or the lighter, feature-packed 15-inch PowerBook G4 ($2,000).

Hand-held Game Machine The arrival of the Sony PlayStation Portable (about $250) this year posed a serious threat to Nintendo’s long-standing dominance of hand-held game players. And for good reason--the PSP sports a relatively big wide-screen color monitor that’s good enough to show movies (as long as they’re in Sony’s proprietary UMD disk format).

Smartphone In the name of convergence, cellphones now are routinely combined with electronic address books, date books, e-mail systems and primitive Web browsers. The Palm Treo 650 (about $300, if bought with a cell network plan) with its mini-keyboard is as good as they come, but I still prefer carrying a small cellphone and a personal digital assistant. E-mail can wait till I get to a computer.

iTunes Phone The long-awaited Motorola ROKR E1 ($250, includes cell network plan) mobile phone can store about 400 minutes of music downloaded from Apple’s popular iTunes service. But because the iPod is really quite compact, is there much need for a combo phone/iPod? Time will tell--the ROKR was released just last month.

Bluetooth Headset If you have a cellphone equipped with Bluetooth technology, you can use a headset sans wires. The sound fidelity is not quite as good as on a wired unit, but it’s nice to get rid of those cords. One of the best functioning--and least dorky looking--of the wireless headsets is the Plantronics Voyager 510 ($100).

Car Speakerphone For hands-free cellphone chatting, the Jabra SP500 speakerphone ($100) can attach to the visor or inside of the windshield with suction cups. It eliminates the need for a headset, although the sound isn’t as good. Requires a cellphone equipped with Bluetooth technology.

Portable Music Player Like the Sony Walkman did for a previous generation, the Apple iPod defines this category, and it has proved to be resilient against competitors. The reason, for once, is simple--it just works better than anyone else’s player. It may also be the most stylish piece of digital technology in existence. The latest iPod flavor is the Nano ($200-$250), which replaces the Mini line.

Wireless Headphones Not much happening in this category yet, but it could pop eventually. This year, the Pioneer SE-DIR800C wireless headphones ($400), which come with their own transmitter, were introduced for home stereo or gaming setups.

Wireless Home Stereo If you have WiFi at home (see WiFi router), you can use the Roku SoundBridge M500 ($200) to send music or Internet radio from your computer to your home stereo setup. A drawback is that the Roku works with only one setup at a time--you can’t, for example, simultaneously listen to music coming from your computer in your home office and the living room. For that, you need the elegantly designed Sonos Digital Music System ($1,200 for introductory bundle), but it’s a lot more expensive.

Internet TV If you can’t bear to be without your home cable-TV channels while traveling, the innovative Slingbox (about $250) takes the television signal from your home and streams it onto the Internet. You can then pick it up on your laptop anywhere in the world there’s a broadband online connection. The downside is that the image quality is not nearly as good as on a TV, and it will suffer unless the broadband connection is extremely fast.

Portable Satellite Radio The Delphi MyFi ($300) allows you to take your XM satellite radio service with you while you are out walking, hiking and such. The unit is bigger and clunkier than current portable music players, and works only where it can receive a satellite signal.