Archos 80b Helium Tablet
Don’t be the guy who stalls the airport security queue unpacking a PC World’s-worth of gadgets from your carry-on. The Archos 80b Helium is laptop, tablet and mobile rolled into one, with enough screen real estate for work, and 4G so you can make calls on it too. Although we’d advise headphones to avoid that 1980s businessman with an oversized phone look. Plus, the price means you won’t struggle getting the invoice through accounts. Available at Office Nerd, priced £99.38.
Wocket Smart Wallet
A wallet stuffed with personal and corporate credit cards is an unsightly accessory. Even worse when you leave it in a restaurant after one too many expense account sangrias. Wocket Smart Wallet stores multiple card details so you can streamline yours – just pick the one you want from the touchscreen then tap to pay. And if you do forget it, its voice security and encrypted chip mean you don’t need to spend hours on the phone with your bank’s fraud department. Available at Wocket, priced £123.45.
SolPro Helios Charger
Portable chargers are a lifesaver – until you realise you forgot the power cable in that pre-dawn packing rush. Not so with the SolPro, which provides enough power to charge your smartphone after just 90 minutes in direct sunlight. The 5,000mAh battery also accepts juice the traditional way – so you’re covered even for those impromptu drinks post-sunset. Available at Amazon, priced £82.71.
ZutaLabs Pocket Printer
The paper-free lifestyle falls down the minute someone asks for a physical copy of a presentation and you spend hours trying to email a document off your phone to a Spanish internet cafe owner. Avoid the runaround with the ZutaLabs pocket printer, which fits in a carry-on bag and prints by sliding across a sheet of paper, like a Roomba that ejects, rather than sucks. Because it connects to WiFi, you can print from a phone, tablet or laptop, and there’s no cables with proprietary attachments that only spike your blood pressure. Available for pre-order at ZutaLabs, priced £140.
AMPL Smart Bag
Take one backpack. Add one battery with enough juice – and enough cables – to charge a laptop, phones and tablets. And suddenly the nightmare of hitting an airport terminal with a four-hour layover and red battery indicator doesn’t wake you up over Reykjavik in a cold sweat. The AMPL Smart Bag is also built with shock absorbers and a waterproof fabric. So you can have that third bloody Mary without worrying about introducing it to the laptop carrying tomorrow’s presentation. Available for pre-order at AMPL, priced £170.
Acer H7550ST Short Throw Projector
Relying on what’s in a client’s boardroom means spending the first 20 minutes of a pitch fiddling with cables and trying to work out how to stop all the greens on your Powerpoint showing up as pink. Better to pack the Cellulon PicoPro, which is compact to fit in a shirt pocket but projects an image clear enough for business meetings and streaming Netflix in your hotel room afterwards. Available at Amazon, priced £499.98.
GlobalTrac TracDot Luggage Tracking System
Few things frustrate like unfolding yourself from 15 hours of long haul then waiting in vain until the carousel empties, as it becomes clear that your luggage has taken a trip without inviting you along. TracDot Luggage Tracker lets you approach the complaints desk pre-armed: stow the GPS tracker in your suitcase and it pinpoints precisely which Caribbean beach it’s lazing on, so you can expedite the process of actually getting it back. Available at Amazon, priced £78.16.
