Does your home phone yearn to roam? The beefy new DuraFon Lite is a cordless phone with leather lungs: thanks to an amped-up 700-800 mW radio, it can cover 250,000 square feet or 12 floors of a high-rise. It has a built-in walkie-talkie function, as well, so a pair of handsets can be used as two-way radios when you're away from home. Makers EnGenius told me that extensive special shielding protects your sensitive brain parts from the extra-strong radio waves. (If the FCC says it's okay, I'm not one to argue.) The DuraFon uses digital spread spectrum security technology on the 900 Mhz band; as a phone geek, I prefer 900 Mhz and 5.8 Ghz phones to the more common 2.4 Ghz models because they don't interfere with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connections.

The extended range will cost you, though: the DuraFon runs a painful $699 for the one-line base unit, with one handset, and $349 for each additional handset. I'll try to get a few of these into PC Labs so I can see how different they really are from ordinary cordless phones. You can buy 'em now from EnGenius.