A teeny-weeny, 149-gm projector that can beam 50-in images. A charmingly modest, high-definition quality video cam that can be mistaken for a mobile phone. A little Swiss knife that doubles up as a USB drive, triples up as a remote control and quadruples as a laser pointer for PowerPoint presentations. A bitsy extended battery for your iPhone that can turn you into 24-hour jabberwocky. A carry-along, fiesty fistful of a printer that wirelessly spews out pictures pronto — even as you shoot them with your cell phone, be it on a beach or in your own backyard.

Wishful thinking? Sci-fi fantasy? Future nama? Nope. Nah. Nay... Honey, the geeks just shrunk the gadgets!

Here’s a look at pocketables that pack in plenty of punch.

Apple iPod Touch

Price: Rs 25,000 (32GB)
www.apple.com

Forget the game-changingly intuitive interface. Forget the 32GB flash memory at the upper end with the potential to hold 7,000 songs, 25,000 photos, or 40 hours of video. Forget the WiFi wireless support, speaker, and TV out capabilities etc. And forget the battery juice that takes 36 hours for music playback to drain. Just think of an adjective that can you give a device that has a mega-bank of over 30,000 applications to draw from.

From the Hanuman Chalisa to airport status reports, WiFi detectors to daily vocabulary builders, stock market reports to Wikipedia look-ups, motion detection to myriads of games, watchwords of ancient wisdom to anagram fun... these apps (free, as well as paid) give the iPod a lot to offer in realms of both frothy fun as well as serious business. Most of these apps have been programmed to exploit the devices’ inherent abilities, be it the accelerometer, Multi-Touch interface, GPS, 3D graphics, or connectivity options. Woefully, premium goodies come with premium price tags. Sigh...

Victorinox Presentation Pro Swiss Army Knife

Price: $330
http://www.photopress.ch/Lightbox.do?oid=2979

Think Swiss army knife. Think a multi-tooled, multi-functional pocket knife. Think on-the-go life. Adapting to changing times, Victorinox, makers of the original Swiss army knife now have the specially built Presentation Pro knife for white-collared corporate road warriors.

The prongs of this new fangled invention comprises a 32GB USB drive (which secures your PowerPoint presentations by means of biometric fingerprint identification), a Bluetooth-enabled remote control (for those Microsoft Windows laptops for PC-based presentations), as well as a laser point. Yeah, yeah it still features a sharp steel blade to slash at rowdy listeners when calming words don’t suffice. There’s a snippy pair of scissors to cut competition to size when required. And yes, the obligatory nail file, screwdriver, key ring hoop are also all in place.

SanDisk Ultra Backup USB

Price: 8GB (Rs.1,499), 16GB (Rs 2,499)
www.sandisk.com

You may think your files are safe and secure sitting in that swanky new notebook. But you can never be too sure. Security as the Big Bard said, is mortal’s chiefest enemy. This makes the pen-drive sized SanDisk Ultra Backup USB Drive a great pocket tool for backing up critical files and documents — especially when you are on the trot. When you are on the move, keeping a USB flash drive ensconced in your laptop case is always a practical idea. But if it’s a question of data of vital importance, something far more specialised yet easy to carry — such as the SanDisk Ultra Backup USB is the need of the hour.

Available in 8GB and 16GB capacities, this nifty contraption gives you something far more than a regular pen drive. Apart from special built-in backup software to ease and automate the task, it also comes with a dual layer of security. Pressing a dedicated backup button automatically pulls selected data off your computer without any complicated rigmarole. And to safeguard your data and interests in case the drive falls into evil hands, password protection as well as AES hardware encryption shield your privacy.

Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer

Price: $100
www.polaroid.com/pogo

Called PoGo in short for Polaroid on-the-go, this almost dinky printer allows you to print out your photographs virtually right then and there, immediately after they have been shot, wherever you may be. Because it’s so diminutive, you can carry the 226gm printer easily in your pocket — to the beach or backwaters, desert or dargah, forest or fields. Digital cameras aside, it will even print pictures you have shot and trapped on your cell phone, and that too very wirelessly via Bluetooth.

According to Polaroid, PoGo takes less than 60 seconds for the printer to produce its 2in by 3in full-colour, borderless photos prints. In reality the time taken is almost double. The prints have peel-off, sticky backs. A single charge is said to last for 15 photos. In terms of print quality, you can’t expect anything eye-popping. But it always gets the job done, when you want it, where you want it.

Lenovo Pocket Yoga Netbook

www.lenovo.com

Don’t ask me about the cryptic name. Maybe it’s to do with its flip-back-to-tablet convertible design. But just look at it: Awesome appearance. Touchscreen stylus capabilities. Flat edge-to-edge keys. Extremely (maybe, rather uncomfortably) w-i-d-e screen. Slick leather-bound shell. Very Sony Viao P-esque in silhouette. Hmmm... No internal specs. No horsepower details. No pricing. Not yet.

In fact, for all its alluring posturing and teasers, nothing is certain about when the Pocket Yoga netbook will adorn shop fronts. However, Lenovo has put up some glorious pictures of it at its Flickr photostream at www.flickr.com/ search/?q=yoga&w=38381753 %40N00

iriver P7

Price: $200
www.iriver.com

A suave, sexy, (and ummm somewhat) sleek personal media player, the all-screen P7 is framed by a light rigid aluminium body. You operate it via its 4.3-in TFT LCD touch screen interface. The PMP is available in 8GB and 16GB capacities and can playback most popular video, audio and photo formats. Its battery is rated to last 50 hours of audio or seven hours of video playing. Along with FM radio, the device can record off FM and also offers voice recording.

If you turn a blind eye to the somewhat lethargic touchscreen response at times and somewhat muddled menu navigation, the P7 makes for an excellent choice for movie mavens who like to do their own number whenever due to its expansive screen size. You also get a movie converter application to re-jig any incompatible video into a conforming format before transferring it on to the P7.

Fastmac iV

Price: $80
http://fastmac.com/iv.php

Know what is the saddest thing about an Apple iPhone for most intrepid users? Its battery life. But as they say, one man’s poison is another man’s meat (okay, okay it’s the other way round, but you get the general idea). So, in steps Fastmac, with some life-saving meat in the form of iV (as in a contraction for intravenous). This 2.4in by 5.3in by .5in iPhone slip-on is, in fact, a 3100mAh battery that can lend the iPhone up to 24 hours of talk time, 72 hours of audio playback, 21 hours of video, or 30 days of standby time.

In addition, you can use it as a flashlight torch in emergencies and also as a flash to stand in for the iPhone’s missing lux in low light photo shoots.

And you’re not restricted to the iPhone alone with the iV; a USB port on it can be used very efficiently to re-juice other devices as well. The iV is available for both iPhone 2G and 3G models. Downside? It feels relatively bulky on the phone and affects the signal strength in weak coverage areas.

Kodak Zi6 Pocket HD Video Camera

Price: $140
www.kodak.com

Almost at the other end of the spectrum, the Zi6 may perhaps be the cheapest and easiest way to shoot HD quality video straight from the hip. And in a trice. Unlike other video cameras that need you to tweak various settings and tune controls to get things right, the name of the game with the Zi6 is simplicity. Switch it on and press the record button. It doesn’t even have a lens cap you need to pop before hitting the trigger.

Internal memory is limited to 128MB but you can use the SD/SDH expansion slot to shoot to your heart’s content. In terms of quality, the camera captures HD (720p at 30 fps) VGA video with a 16:9 aspect ratio as default but can also be beefed up to shoot HD60 (720p at 60 fps). Still images are captured in 3 megapixel quality.

Canon Legria FS22

Price: Rs 39,995
www.canon.com

Hidden deep down in the DNA of most us lurks a dollop of Steven Spielberg. And there’s no better way to give vent to such dormant desires than a camcorder. Not a sinew-straining, shoulder-sagging chunky luggable but something as incredibly compact and fistful like the 230gm Canon Legria FS22 digital camcorder that you can stuff into your pocket when you choose. With a 37X optical zoom and image stabilisation, the easy to use FS22 offers dual flash memory, which means that you can store 21 hours of movies to 32GB of internal memory plus record to a removable SD/SDHC card.

Its Video Snapshots (4 second clips), Dual Shot (for automatic settings) and Pre recording (3 seconds of footage even before you hit the REC button) functions make it newbie-friendly. The ability to shoot still images (in JPEG format), microphone and headphone jacks, various preset scene modes (sunset, landscape, portrait, beach/snow) and LED video light, further enhance its appeal. Naturally, all this comes at a price.

3M MPro110 Pocket Projector

Price: £292.64
www.3m.com/mpro

You can carry it where you want — in your pocket or in your laptop bag because it weighs an incredible 149gm. It fits into the palm of your hand — just like your mobile phone. And it’s capable of projecting video and still images to a size of as much as 50in. And it can do so without any external power for about 40 to 60 minutes — and then you can plug it into the AC mains for it to flicker on in the same stride. That’s the 3M MPro110 micro projector for you.

Compatible with laptops, video MP3 players, video mobile phones and other multimedia devices, the instant-on, no-set-up contraption allows you to share digital content at small gatherings with no fuss whatsoever.

Queries? Hurl them to Ashish Bhatia at ashishone@gmail.com or www.twitter.com/ashishone.