Holiday Buying Guide 2008

With 5,000 applications, the iPhone is everything from a work tool to an awesome gaming platform — and yes, it's much better at being a computer than a phone. With high-speed 3G service and geo-location, this is a communications device like no other, allowing you to do all kinds of things — locate the nearest dry cleaner in an unfamiliar city, read the latest version of New York Times or TIME.com, find your car in a parking lot — from the palm of your hand. Some day, smart phones that run Google's Android operating system might dominate the mobile computing world. But now, the Apple iPhone does. ($199 plus service contract)

—Josh Quittner