"Why don't we review more affordable cars?" asked my editor-in-chief. "Because they don't have as much technology as, say, the $100,000 Mercedes S-Class, I rejoined. It was a Mexican standoff, and I blinked. Besides, Jim had a good point.

The Honda Fit is a good vehicle for proving both our points. Cheap cars don't have a boatload of shock-and-awe technology. But the just-out Fit, around $15,000, has quickly become the best cheap car you can buy. I arrived at a rating of 4 (out of 5) by way of simple math: technology wizardry, 3; traditional automotive bang-for-the-buck excellence, 5; average, 4.

Having said all that, the Fit is an excellent platform for adding your own technology. I'd say the same about the Ford Fusion, except that the Fusion is an okay car platform with a neat hybrid engine, and the Fit is leading edge. The Fit Sport, $15,720 with the manual gearbox, is so much fun to drive that it reminds me of the Mini Cooper, but with a real back seat and a real cargo bay. And, alas, with less horsepower.

The Fit (called the Jazz elsewhere in the world) has a reasonable audio system, with huge buttons and dials. It plays audio, MP3, and WMA CDs. And on the Fit Sport, there's six-disc changer, a line-in jack, and six speakers to reproduce the 200 watts of audio power.

The faceplate displays MP3 and WMA folder, album, artist, and track information, but only one type of information at a time even though there appears to be room enough on the multi-line display for all of it. You can add an iPod adapter for $199 at the dealership; you cannot add satellite radio through Honda, though there's room aplenty for a $50 XM or Sirius add-on module through the line-in jack.

As with the Honda Civic Hybrid, which we liked enough to name as one of the top ten Digital Drive cars, the Fit's sound was most impressive with the tone controls set to flat. When you turn up the treble too much, it gets tinny.

Other technology includes six airbags (front airbags with dual-stage inflation), anti-lock brakes, electric (not hydraulic) power steering, a variable-valve timing engine, a ULEV (ultra low emission vehicle) rating, drive-by-wire throttle, Formula One-style paddle shifters on automatic transmission Fits, and—I'm reaching here—remote door locks and variable-speed windshield wipers. The Fit has a five-star (out of five) crash safety rating from the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), impressive for something without a lot of crumple room.

Missing from the Fit is technology you probably don't need. There are no power folding side mirrors and no parking sonar or backup camera, but then, the back of the car is only about 5 feet behind you. The Fit has no stability control, which is nice but less necessary on front-drive cars, and no traction control. The steering wheel has no buttons other than on, off, faster, and slower buttons for cruise control; but with the dashboard so close, it's just as easy to reach for the radio's volume knob as it would be to tap a tiny volume button on the wheel.

An amazingly wide variety of navigation options are available for the Fit: Lowrance, Magellan, Garmin, TomTom, Sony, and Verizon VZ Navigator all come to mind. The only option unavailable is the excellent Alpine-based factory-installed navigation system that's available in virtually all other Honda and Acura cars.

There's lots of space atop the dash, as well as under it (the console is really just a tray and two cupholders between the seats), to mount a nav unit, or should you be so inclined, an aftermarket backup camera and display. I can imagine a lot of modification going on inside the cockpit and under the hood.

Honda's 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine puts out 109 high-revving horsepower, with even more horsepower on tap as soon as someone stuffs a nitrous-oxide tank in the spacious hatchback cargo bay or a supercharger in the engine bay. In the meantime, make good use of the shifter. Alternatively, you might go for the automatic transmission: It takes away a bit of the horsepower Fit doesn't have to spare but gives you the very cool paddle shifters. Or you can hope Honda adds a continuously variable transmission (CVT).

Honda cut only a few corners, using a solid rear axle rather than independent suspension, and drum instead of disc brakes in back. The gas tank holds just 10.8 gallons, although EPA ratings of 33 mpg city, 38 mpg highway for the manual transmission model (click here for other models) means a highway cruising range of about 300 miles. The two sun visors have only one vanity mirror (on the driver side), and it's unlit. The Fit has only one power outlet.

The view out of the rear corners is obstructed by the big rear pillar. The front pillar is also big, but at least there's an extra triangular window pane for slightly improved visibility. The driver sits atop the gas tank, which is even better than the tank being just ahead of the rear axle under the back seat, but somebody somewhere is going to freak out thinking about how much safer it would be to have flames licking at you from 3 feet away. Fair enough; Honda's only bringing in 50,000 Fits, which should sell quickly.

As with some other Hondas, such as the S2000 sports car, the engine revs effortlessly. You'll need that, because at low rpms, there's no torque, the force that helps you launch the car without bogging down. If you haven't driven a manual transmission car in a while, or ever, you'll probably stall a few times from underrevving and chirp the tires a couple more times when you drop the clutch at a high rpm. (That's what rental cars are for: learning to drive stick shift cars.)

Honda makes it easy to buy: You just choose the standard or Sport model, manual or automatic ($800), and one of six exterior colors and two interior colors (beige/black or black). The fit has just one fabric choice (cloth) and one roof choice (fixed, no sunroof). Make a beeline for the Sport model, with its vastly superior equipment: a CD changer, bigger wheels, and fatter tires. The base-model Fit is just a nicely made econobox with a so-so stereo and little excitement.

If you want a long list of available factory-installed technology options, the Fit is not your car. Instead, you might look at the Scion Xa and Mazda3, and maybe the Dodge Caliber, Toyota Yaris, Ford Focus, and Chevrolet Aveo, as well as the not-much-costlier Honda Civic. Though the Mini Cooper lives in a higher price class, the Fit can be just as much fun to drive, and the extra 14 inches of length (157 inches versus 143 inches) allows for a huge back seat and cargo area.

Play Slide Show/All Shots (8)

$14,400.00 - $16,520.00

Price: $14,400 to $16,520

The Honda Fit is the best small car you can buy today. It took a lot of engineering technology to make a car this cheap this good. If you want a high-tech cockpit (with navigation, satellite radio, and backup camera), you'll need to add your own. Be sure to order the Sport model.

Superb handling. CD plays all the important digital music formats. Has an audio line-in jack. Good back-seat and cargo space.

Few technology options. Modest acceleration. Easy-to-stall manual transmission (little low-rpm torque).

For a while now, I've been working with a Verizon Treo 700w owner who bought his gadget without a data plan, but with an unlimited MMS picture-messaging plan. There are a bunch of other folks I noticed on the HowardForums bulletin board in the same straits. They were rightfully surprised to find themselves socked with huge data charges for sending picture messages, because they thought their unlimited MMS plan covered that.

Contrary to Verizon's previous marketing language which was shown on their Web site, though, there's a "hidden" charge when sending or receiving picture messages with a PDA/phone. Along with the 25-cent MMS charge, you're charged for the data transfer -- and without a data plan, that can be several dollars per picture message.

Verizon says they're solving the problem by changing their marketing language to make it clear that sending picture messages incurs data charges. They've also changed their Web site to require that new PDA/phones be purchased with unlimited data plans, which solves the problem there. But they've been reluctant to offer a blanket solution for people suckered in by the earlier MMS-plan language, telling them only to call customer service to get a credit on their bills. I'm still trying to work towards a resolution where the folks who signed up for an unlimited MMS plan can get just that.

Here's my word of advice for the future: Do NOT buy a Verizon EV-DO PDA/Phone, such as the Palm Treo 700 (either w or p) or Motorola Q (shown at left), without an unlimited data plan. The device will try to touch Verizon's data network at times that may surprise you, and you will get charged up the nose for it.

Do not try to put a Wi-Fi card into a PDA/phone and think it will save you, unless you hack the phone to totally disable cellular data. (And then, really, there's no point in getting a PDA/phone.)

If you can't afford Verizon's data plan rates, or you want a PDA and a great phone without using Verizon's EV-DO service, get a Motorola E815 phone and a Palm TX or Dell Axim X51v PDA. Both PDAs are terrific devices, with built-in Wi-Fi to access the Internet, and the E815 has the best reception and voice quality I've ever tested on a Verizon phone. You'll pay a lot less and be a lot happier than if you struggled monthly with Verizon over data charges.

Paul Saucido, the saucy Chicano comedian whose "La Migra" ringtone caused a national furor, hasn't hung up the phone on his budding cellular career. He's used the newfound celebrity to launch a range of voice ringtones starring parody Latino characters, available now from Spanish-language portal zukamovil.com.

I am way too Anglo to understand this round of Saucido's satire, because all of his ringtones this time are in Spanglish -- possibly a way to insulate himself from the criticism that followed his parody of a Texas border-control agent.

But new spoofs of anti-immigrant forces are on their way, Saucido said, including a new "La Migra" ringtone and a parody of the Minutemen, the volunteer civilian border-patrol group.

Even Saucido's edgiest jokes are likely to find less controversy on Zuka's deck than on Cingular's. When the original "La Migra" ringtone was discovered by journalists at the Brownsville Herald, they didn't think it was satire and took its overblown anti-immigrant posturing at face value. But Saucido's new tones are sold under his own brand, so those who buy them will know they're getting humor.

The unspoken question is, will listeners? It depends. Brownsville Herald reporters found that local Latino teenagers got the joke, while the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens didn't.

Saucido also said his ringtones will be available at dalevida.com, a portal currently selling ringtones to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Venezuela. So while some folks may disapprove of Saucido's kind of funny, it looks like actual Latin Americans are giving it a thumbs up.