Which Tech Gadgets Can Survive the Outdoors?

FOR MARIA YUNCOSA, this is what vacation is all about: On a balmy 78-degree morning, the Wilmington, Del., nursing student is wading ankle-deep into the water at the edge of Miami's South Beach. When a gaggle of seagulls begin to squawk, she tunes them out — by tuning in to the portable music player clipped to her T-shirt. Still standing in the Atlantic, she holds a digital camera in one hand while using the other to flip open a cell phone and send a picture of herself at the beach along with a text message to her dad: "I know you're jealous!"

As Americans make their annual summer migration to the seashores, lakes and national parks this year, they're tossing a few new friends into their beach totes and backpacks: the latest generation of high-tech gadgets. To be sure, we've all taken our cell phone and iPod on vacation (not to mention, unfortunately, our BlackBerry), but today's 2.0 family is loaded up like never before. The humble pile of paperbacks, for example, is being replaced by electronic readers that can store more than 200 titles — and let you purchase and download the latest Stephen King thriller wirelessly. Who needs unwieldy and hard-to-follow trail maps when the flannel-and-gorp set can download full-color video trail guides directly onto their handhelds? Technology has even infiltrated backwoods camp spots. Listen carefully: That sound you hear when you're trying to get to sleep isn't the chirping of crickets; it's the clicking of buttons on handheld videogames.

Indeed, gadgets are becoming as common out of doors as sunscreen and bug spray. Since 1995 the average American household has nearly doubled its collection of electronics, to no fewer than 25 products, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, with more of these devices becoming pocket-sized and portable. No one broadly tracks how many of them we cart around on holiday, but a June 2007 survey from Kampgrounds of America, which operates more than 450 campgrounds around the country, found that nearly a quarter of campers head into the woods with an MP3 player or videogame system, 65 percent tote a portable TV, and — no surprise — more than 90 percent bring cell phones and digital cameras. Says Andrea Stokes, VP of travel and leisure at research firm Synovate, "Most people can't imagine a vacation without them."

But even if the age of high-tech vacationing has arrived, gizmo makers still seem to be working out the kinks. Something as simple as sun glare can make that videogame player almost useless, and nobody is happy with the battery life of most devices. Sand, sun and rain present a new set of challenges for pricey electronic book readers and laptops never really designed for alfresco use. And here's an outrageous number: One recent survey projects that gadget users can spend up to 91 hours a year trying to deal with their technology problems. But fear not. On our editor's dime we've been going on holiday ourselves, toting a beach-bagful of beeping and glowing devices to find out just how well they fare in the great outdoors. Below, our roundup.

DVD Players

It could be pretty unnerving to be camped in the woods, miles from the nearest road, and hear the sound of gunshots and the screech of tires. Or...not. Because it might just be the guys one tent over, catching up on back episodes of The Sopranos. Indeed, the traveling couch potato (yes, we know it's an oxymoron) has found a way to make sure he doesn't miss a moment of boob tube even when the sun is setting in full Technicolor over the Grand Canyon. Industry officials don't publicly track sales, but according to that Kampgrounds survey, nearly a quarter of tent campers have shelled out the money for a portable DVD player — just to take into the wild. Their options are many, ranging from the eye-squinting 2.5-inch-screen player (which might make it hard to see which of Tony's cohorts pulled the trigger) to an impressive 10-inch screen that flips up like a laptop and swivels 180 degrees. Some of the fancier ones have MP3-player docks so you can play a full season's worth of Lost while lazing on your own island paradise.

But this is not exactly a device for butterfingers. (Are you listening, kids?) One good drop can crack a screen or render the laser that reads the disk toast. Of course, the most common complaint from users regards battery life — or lack thereof. Most players last only two to three hours. (Memo to manufacturers: That's not quite enough to finish the third Lord of the Rings.) Industry executives say they are "working on it" and the problem is that bigger batteries make the units bulkier and more expensive than most consumers want. For now the only answer is to pay up for a player like Toshiba's SD-P2900 ($300), which claims to supply six full hours of juice.

Videogame Systems

Most handheld videogame systems — which let you zap bad guys or quarterback an NFL team without hooking up a console to a television set — are becoming slimmer and much more travel-friendly: Nintendo's DS Lite ($130), for one, is 20 percent lighter and less than two-thirds the size of its predecessor. And they're no longer just an excuse for your kid to throw himself into thumb ballet on rainy afternoons. The current crop of players now features Wi-Fi connectivity, letting gamers chat wirelessly with friends and play, say, "Tony Hawk's American Sk8land" remotely against other DS Lite players — anywhere in the world — in real time. The other big change? More games designed to have Mom and Dad hogging the handheld, from graphic-rich challenges like "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08" to Nintendo's hugely popular "Brain Age," an on-the-go grab bag of math problems, memory games and other mental gymnastics designed to help keep those synapses firing as fast as your kids'. They're even horning in on the DVD players' territory: Sony's PlayStation Portable, for instance, now plays hundreds of movies and TV shows on its proprietary optical-disk format.

Those industry initiatives helped drive sales of portable game systems up 25 percent last year, to $2 billion, after remaining flat in 2006, according to NPD Group. But even with more ways to play, we couldn't avoid the dreaded sun-glare screen blackout. "As with any portable device that has a view screen, playing in direct sunlight might not provide an optimal experience," says a Nintendo spokesperson. So far the only fix (aside from yoga-like contortion) is decidedly low-tech: Vendors like BoxWave sell sheets of film ($10-$15) that promise to "maximize outdoor screen readability."