There’s a good chance I’ve caught the wrong tram, I realise, as I rattle along Hong Kong Island, leaving the skyscrapers behind. I whip out the smartphone that I found in my hotel bedroom and open Google Maps. Yep, there’s my little arrow, chugging determinedly in the wrong direction. Still, while I’m here, I use the smartphone’s camera to take a photo of the tram that I’ll download to my laptop later via Bluetooth. The phone, called a Handy, shows there are some attractions in the area I’ve accidently reached, so I click for more information.

The Handy is a brilliant free device offering travellers unlimited internet access, articles about things to do in the city, apps including Google Maps, a camera, an alarm clock and a radio, and a click-to buy shopping service with free delivery to your hotel. You can link it to your Facebook and email accounts, and it has a phone number you can give to anyone who needs to contact you. You can make free local and international phone calls too, to save roaming fees, but my hotel limited those to China, Japan, the US and Australia. Any data added by the user is automatically erased when they check out, and to deter theft, it can be locked if a guest pockets it when they leave.