If you’ve e-mailed Santa this year asking for a new wireless phone, a handheld PDA (“personal digital assistant”) organizer, a digital camera, or the latest video game gear, your wishes are about to be granted through a dazzling array of electronics wonderment, including a new crop of “all-in-one” digital devices that amazingly combine all of the above features in a single handheld unit.

The Sidekick from Bellevue-based T-Mobile ($200 w/phone account) is one such “wireless-everything” companion that fits in the palm of your hand. A full-featured cell phone, Sidekick also lets you browse your favorite Websites via its wide-shaped rectangular screen. Flip-up the screen and you’ll find a QWERTY keyboard for surprisingly easy thumb-press typing of E-mail or AOL instant messages as well as inputting information into your address book and calendar.

An add-on camera module lets you snap and send thumbnail size pictures to friends and family. Lest there be any doubt about the target audience for the device, Sidekick comes with a selection of very playable video games that feature audio and vibration effects and boast programmable polyphonic ring-tones. The low price, compact design and overall coolness makes this an ideal gift for teens. But the gray-scale screen of the Sidekick, while adequate, will leave some users longing for the crisp, color display of “business-class” devices like the new Pocket PC Phone Edition, or the combo PDA-phones from Handspring known as the Treo 300 or 270 Communicators that also synchronize with desktop computers.

If you’ve spotted other people speaking into what looks like a PalmPilot or overgrown calculator, you’ve caught the new breed of Treo Communicator in action. The listening device is built into the flip-top lid and you speak into the microphone located under the built-in keypad. Spiffier still, the Treo boasts a speaker phone capability that allows those with you to listen to the wireless call. Handspring’s award-winning web browser Blazer™ allows you to visit almost any web site, not just those optimized for mobile phones. Get directions from the road, stay current on the latest news, or confirm your flight from the back of a taxi. Like the Sidekick, the Treo 270 combination phone and organizer requires a T-Mobile (formerly VoiceStream) cellular account. The Treo 300 Communicator has been launched as a flagship of the Sprint PCS nationwide network requiring Sprint PCS mobile phone service.

You can preset the Treo’s Palm operating system so that the contacts you call most frequently show up on the calling phone grid as large easy-to-read buttons. Alternately, you can look up anyone in your address book and then just tap on the phone icon to connect. Your call history records are then stored in the handheld computer along with your notes, to-do’s, calendar and financial data — you name it!

There’s a virtual bonanza of software available to Palm and PocketPC carrying fans, from portable E-books to business software and colorful games. Downloadable updateable directories of area restaurants, movies and events like the service from Vindigo, are readily available. The annual Puget Sound Book of Lists is published as a Palm database with hundreds of companies at your fingertips.

Kitsap County’s own SplashData of Bainbridge Island has made a name for itself in the handheld universe as a leading PDA application provider. The company’s top-selling SplashWallet suite of software includes SplashID for securely organizing personal IDs, passwords, PINs and more (all with password encryption). SplashMoney will manage your checking, savings, and credit card accounts. Use SplashPhoto for viewing photos of friends and family, and SplashShopper, a shopping list manager. Each palmtop program comes with a corresponding desktop program for the PC and Mac so synchronizing your data is easy. All of the SplashWallet products will run for 30-days in full functioning trial mode. You can download a free trial from www.splashdata.com

SplashData president and Island resident John Chafee gives the PalmPilot an edge in the PDA battle between Palm devices, like the new Tungsten-T or the Handpsring Visor line and the Microsoft-backed PocketPC. “I think the main issue is that the Palm OS is built from the ground up to address the handheld market and the Pocket PC came from the desktop,” he said. “The PocketPC is more powerful, you can do more with it, but one of the key considerations for a handheld is that it’s got to be small, lightweight and, perhaps most importantly, have good battery life.

Another issue is cost. You can buy a Palm handheld for under $150. The PocketPC units are in the $500 range.” Chaffee adds, “What it all boils down to is that the Palm is really more well suited to the consumer market as far as cost, size and power. But all of that should change over time.”

The inspiration for the new generation of GSM phones like the Sony-Ericsson T-68 (available from Kirkland-based ATT Wireless) and a bumper crop of picture-taking (and transmitting) phones, including the T-Mobile Cameraphone is the transcendence to a higher plane of personal productivity. After all, a picture is supposed to be worth at least a thousand words. Phones that offer a graphical visual interface and run on the GSM or GPRS networks let you quickly check a stock quote or a sports score, retrieve or compose E-mail or SMS messaging, and transpose idle time into Type-A hyperactivity.

Still, there are those moments when you have time on your hands, and a wireless device becomes a personal entertainer, your portal into the blissful domain of solo or multi-user gaming.

A Puget Sound company, aptly named Mobliss features a bevy of entertaining diversions for your rarified leisure time, from the classic word game Jumble to the ever-popular Family Feud (just like the TV show, it plays by letting you compare your top survey answers with hundreds of other Feud players).

In “Pro Football Pick ‘em” from Mobliss, you guess the winner of one or more NFL games. Mobliss provides score information and schedules over the phone, and you can get news alerts based on your favorite teams. The more games you predict correctly, the more points you score. This past year, Mobliss teamed up with Seattle’s RealNetworks to let mobile phone users receive baseball stats and scores over the phone — then go one step further — and listen to actual Major League Baseball games in real time over their wireless phone.

“A mobile device is in your pocket at all times, so you can take advantage of ubiquity, being able to alert people to time sensitive information,” Mobliss president Brian Levin remarked. “If it’s a game, you can add the aspect of a sense of urgency by urging people to respond quickly, like playing a spy game, sending a message that they have to respond to in a timely manner. And there’s also the sense of community. You can interact with other people. You can play multi-player games, and do things like chats and dating services.”

AT&T Wireless recently added a service from Yes.net that lets you use your wireless phone to find the titles of songs you hear on the radio. If you like a song, enter the city you’re in and the radio station’s call letters and you’ll view the most recently played tunes. If you wish, you can click on a link that will let you buy the song on CD directly from Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, back at your computer, wireless devices are letting you cut the ties that bind you. The Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer from Microsoft allows you to plug in the USB receiver and click on your favorite Web site from up to six feet away! Don’t miss, too, its ergonomic design, five programmable buttons, and accelerated scrolling ($69.95 from Microsoft).

And who says you can’t take it with you. The Cool-iCam Micro-Cam (www.cool-icam.com), a combination digital camera, video camera and Web cam, also doubles as a key chain ($49.99 at jcpenney.com). One of the best-known manufacturers of key chain memory is DiskOnKey (www.diskonkey.com), which offers an entry-level key chain that plugs into your laptop for $29.99. It holds 8 MB of data; a newly introduced 512 MB unit will set you back $499.99. These key chains are easy to use and, given the new luggage restrictions on aircraft, make a practical present.

The Veo Mobile Connect (www.veo.com) is a new Web camera designed for the frequent traveler. It clips onto a laptop and plugs into your PC’s USB port, letting you record video or still images and send them back to the office or to friends and family while you’re away ($79.95). Logitech’s (www.logitech.com) QuickCam for Notebooks Pro includes software that lets you add video to instant messenger services ($99.95).

Once you’ve unwrapped your bundle of wireless gifts, you may want to take them for a stroll by trying on the new eVest. The eVest contains pockets for MP3 players, digital cameras, wireless phones and more. You can even string connecting cords for headsets and other devices through what the company calls PAN or “personal area network” technology.

Feel ready for a joyous wireless holiday with no strings attached? Now if someone could only invent an assortment of wireless Christmas tree lights, or even better, make them solar powered. The tree lights could store their energy during the day so that, on Christmas Eve, jolly old Santa wouldn’t be left in the dark. Maybe next Christmas!

(Editor’s Note: Larry Sivitz is a technology writer, publicist and direct marketing consultant who runs the online business community Seattle24x7.com He can be reached at 206-842-5420.).