On Cellphones, Girl Talk Comes With a Bling Tone

That approach appeared to work, said Kebran Alexander, a personal shopping assistant for Best Buy whose job is to help female shoppers find what they're looking for.

"I had a woman come in here as versed in the technology of the Wii as her son was," he said. That, Alexander said, is not the rule; generally women solicit more help and advice before making their purchases, which is why Best Buy started employing personal shopping assistants last year.

Many manufacturers are also becoming more sophisticated about how they communicate with women.

Motorola, for example, recently developed a list of what women want -- including keyboards with long-fingernail clearance, surfaces that don't rub or trap makeup and features that make it easier to find a device in a purse -- and is trying to incorporate the items into products.

"You're starting to see women embrace technology and you're starting to see the market talk to them," said Robin Raskin, a Yahoo Tech blogger who has written books about parenting and technology. "In the early stage that meant talking to us in red and pink."

But now there are products like the Toughbook, a rugged laptop computer from Panasonic. It not only comes in red but is smarter, lighter and easy to use in a way that appeals to older women. "I'm using one right now," Raskin said.

Women over 25 "tend to be a bit more practical in their choices," compared with their male counterparts, she added. Women favor lightweight, durable and functional devices over gadgets that feature speed, versatility and high resolution. "It sounds sexist, but it's true," Raskin said.

Monika Schoepe, a recent retiree, fits that mold. "I'm not a tech-savvy person, and I do find it changing so quickly it's hard to keep up," she said after trying to ferret through digital cameras at the Germantown Best Buy with her daughter, Susanne.

"The lens is very important," she said of her criteria for the new camera. "And it has to feel good."

Feeling good often translates to an ergonomic design fitted for women's smaller hands, such as the recently released Blackberry Pearl, said Stephanie Joyce, a vice president who manages the supply chain at Cingular Wireless.

Her company, she said, works with manufacturers as much as a year in advance to formulate and fashion new devices. "For next year, we're trying to figure out: What is the new pink?"

Susanne Schoepe said she generally prefers practical gadgets but admitted she was sold on the pink Motorola Razr for its style.

"I'm a girl, it's a girl," said Schoepe, 28, a graduate student at the University of Maryland. "I had to get the pink Bluetooth thing that comes with it because it matches!"