The Top 10 High-Tech Hotels

iPod docks and flat-screen TVs are nice, but these 10 hotels rounded up by Laptop magazine are tricked-out with all sorts of magical gadgets. We've also included some stories from our archives to help you get started planning.

All 252 guestrooms have free wired Internet and Wi-Fi powered by multiple Cogent T-3s. The hotel says wireless service hums at 20 Mbps and wired rages from 50 to 80 Mbps, and it is expandable in meeting rooms at up to 100 Mbps. The guestrooms also have 37-inch LCD TVs with high-definition programming from DirectTV and a MP3 dock with an alarm clock.

In the guestrooms, you can order room service without human intervention—other than your own, that is—through an IP desk phone with touchscreen ordering capabilities. The guestrooms have ergonomically comfy work spaces, and 52-inch high-definition TVs. And for those who want to watch the morning news while they shave, there’s even a TV embedded in the bathroom mirror.

A DoubleTree hotel located in the Loop just a half block from the Chicago River, theWit offers wired and wireless Internet, jack packs with a multiport connectivity dashboard, 42-inch HDTVs, and Wolfgang Puck coffeemakers for the caffeine-addicted.

With partner PSAV, the hotel offers iMeeting services, enabling meeting organizers to share content from a single laptop across 10 to 100 iPads, which are provided to attendees. After a day in meetings or trekking through the rainforest, the hotel also supplies Club Level guests with iPads to unwind in the lounge.

The property management system, cued by the front desk, activates a “welcome scene” in the room at check-in. The system warms or cools your room, depending on the season, and the system remembers your settings. Everything fires things up (or down) upon your entrance.

The Hilton-Americas Houston uses behind-the-scenes surveillance technology from 3VR Security, which should put guests at ease. The system can use color, directional, and object-based search to find your lost bag, tracing your luggage from the moment it arrived to its final resting spot. Guestrooms have MSN TV, local cable, Pay Per View, and video games.

In the 200 guestrooms, you can kick back and enjoy NXTV HD digital movies, and there’s an iPod dock in the bathrooms. The hotel’s 27 suites are equipped with PlayStation 3s and XBoxes—choose your weapon—and a Digital Door Security Viewer makes peepholes virtually obsolete.

Among the Aria’s high-tech offerings is a system that “remembers” your preferred lighting and temperature settings, along with your music of choice. All of these preferences—plus control of the TV/video systems and the curtains—can be punched in via the remote control.

There’s room entry via RFID-enabled cards, and once you’re inside, you’ll find a wireless control unit for managing the temperature, lights, and entertainment systems (including an HD video-on-demand system on flat-panel TVs).

Hotel 1000, located near the waterfront and the business district, offers everything from a Microsoft Surface table (in Studio 1000) to a silent doorbell for staff which sets off an infrared scan to determine if you are still sprawled in bed or if the room is ready for tidying up.