Meet Sally - young, inescapably female and a gadget obsessive. She's not alone. Forget the idea that technology is the preserve of pale men in darkened rooms. Now big business, from top fashion houses to hi-tech manufacturers, is scrambling to get a piece of the new woman consumer. Polly Vernon introduces the new nerds

Sally Dixon has several mobile phones, a Nokia 7200 Navigator (which is a bit like a BlackBerry and, actually, she's got one of those too), four plasma screen TVs, a car that she can activate by remote control from her flat (so that it's warmed up by the time she gets to it on frostier mornings), an iBook and a super hi-spec Mac G5.

She's got a pair of Bang & Olufsen telephones, a digital camera and a Bose Lifestyle entertainment system that controls the individual output of each of the four amps she has wired into different rooms in her house. She's got a first generation iPod and was the first person she knew to hear about MP3 players, let alone actually possess one. 'And then I got a mini iPod too, because, well, it was pink.'

Sally Dixon loves gadgets. 'I just think it's fascinating, the things they can do,' she says. 'I covet gadgets like I covet handbags, like shoes. Probably more in fact. It has been ages since I spent loads of money on a handbag. I go to the Selfridges technology department, just for a look, just to pass the time. Whenever I'm in an airport, I'll have a quick look in Dixons. I always want something new. If I see someone else with something new, I want that, too. I've got a wish list in my head. I'm a little bit obsessed. Do I sound like a freak?'

Perhaps less of a freak, and more of a pioneer. She's hardly your traditional technology consumer - your gadget-fixated, spec-obsessed nerdy archetype. She is a young, glamorous, fashion editor for the glossy magazine B - and quite inescapably female. Sally Dixon is the technology consumer of the future.

In fact, increasingly, she and women like her are the technology consumers of right now. According to a recent report (commissioned early this summer by Dixons, who are unsurprisingly keen to tap into this burgeoning market) electronics retailers have experienced a 20% increase in female customers over the course of the past two years.

Silke Schilde, press officer for Sony, claims that in the UK last year, 'the number of female versus male purchasers of laptops, cameras and TVs is about the same. Women seem to be buying gadgets, just as much as men.'

New research by ICM suggests women spend three times as much on gadgets as they do on beauty products and treatments each year - an average of £634 on MP3 players, digital cameras and mobile phones, compared with £222 on cosmetics, facials and manicures. And in the teen market, statistics show that girls aged 13-18 are more likely to use mobile phones, digital cameras and DVD players than their male equivalents.

Two things are widely believed to have fuelled British women's love affair with technology: increasingly good styling and developments in 'sociable' gadgetry - gadgets such as mobile phones and digital cameras that enhance, accommodate and facilitate their user's social life rather than limit it, as televisions are perceived to do.

'Fashion and technology are converging rapidly,' says Joanne Illingworth, brand marketing manager of Dixons. 'Look at the number of adverts devoted to gadgets. They're taking up space and time slots that were previously occupied by fashion or make-up. Technology is a fashion statement. What's the first thing anyone does when they get to a pub or a restaurant? They get their phone out of their bag and put it on the tabletop - partly in case they get a call or a text, but partly because they're showing off. Women need their mobiles, and their gadgets generally, to make a statement.'

Katie Lee, journalist and editor of Shiny Shiny, a weblog for gadget-obsessed women, agrees - to an extent. 'Women want good design, absolutely, and there's nothing wrong with that. But also women, more than men even, need to see a use in every gadget. They need to know exactly how it's going to fit into their lives, what it's going to do for them.' Lee is sitting in an east London pub with the contents of her handbag strewn across the table. It's an impressive array. She possesses gadgets I've never heard of and accoutrements (such as a phone charm made of Swarovski crystal) that send me spiralling into what Sally Dixon calls 'gadget envy'.

'More than styling, size has had a big impact,' says Lee. 'As things have got smaller, women have got more interested because physically these laptops, phones, whatever, are easier to carry around. So there's a straightforward appeal in things being pink or sparkling or cute. But if they don't do what we need them to do, or if they're too big, we don't care.'

Lee agrees that the social function of gadgets is crucial to women: 'Women like gadgets that have nothing to do with sitting in a darkened room, hunched over a keyboard. They like mobile gadgets. That's why mobile phones were such a major gateway gadget for so many women. Watch this.' Lee takes a picture of me with her phone and fiddles about with its keypad for a few seconds. 'Now you're on my moblog,' she says. 'It's a mobile weblog, a photo log. I take pictures with my phone as I go about my day, post them on my moblog, and people can have a look to see where I am and what I'm up to.'

It's taken the various major electronics manufacturers a surprising amount of time to catch on to the fact that they should be marketing directly to Lee, Dixon and their female contemporaries. Apart from Apple - who were way ahead of the game when they launched their jewel coloured iMacs in the late nineties, machines that evolved into all-white iBooks, the much-coveted iPods and the white, airy, women-pleasing flagship stores in Manhattan and Regent Street - and Samsung, who, Lee points out, have pretty much built an entire business on the back of a female market with their elegant, compact-like silver phones, it's only really over the course of the past year that most companies have started targeting female customers.

But they're getting the hang of things now. Dixons, for example, has doubled its training budget in the interest of teaching staff about body language, speech patterns and attitudes that might help them engage with female consumers. By 2008, they hope to have at least a 45/55 split on female/male employees. In mid-June 2005, they also launched an evening entitled 'Glam, Gizmos and Geek Chic', a women-only shopping event that will roll out through their UK stores over the course of the next few months. While general opinion indicates that they would do well to put some of that cash towards prettifying their stores and carrier bags, you have to commend Dixons for the effort.

Elsewhere, Sony's sleek, chic, boutique-styled stores, which are located on major shopping thoroughfares, sandwiched between shoe shops and fashionably contemporised department stores, were certainly developed with a female consumer in mind. Siemens is in the process of planning a 'women's only' launch of a mobile phone designed by an all-female team, while Sky+ was launched with a keen eye on the female market. Fashion designers Matthew Williamson and Cath Kidston have even been drafted in to design limited edition Sky+ boxes.

Kate Rainbow, the 31-year-old owner of a communications company, is a woman with both a personal and a professional interest in technology. She believes dressing up gadgets so they appeal to more women will be the next huge growth area.

'It's only now becoming obvious, but the market in accessorising is huge,' she says. 'Swarovski crystal covers for BlackBerries, laptop bags, phone fascias and phone charms. The potential to customise phones and gadgets will grow immensely. People, women in particular, want to make their gadgets individual in some way. I've customised every phone I've had. The technology won't differentiate between male and female consumers. But the packaging, the styling and the accessorising will.'

Lee agrees: 'Increasingly the lines between jewellery or accessory and gadget are being blurred. You can literally wear your phone or your digital camera around your neck on necklaces designed for that purpose (although I'm not keen on that look). You can strap your iPod shuffle round your arm with the bracelet provided. You carry your laptop in a Roland Mouret or a Julian McDonald laptop bag - laptops are quickly becoming the new handbags.'

But there are rumblings of discontent about all this from certain factions of the female technology market. There is, perhaps, something offensive in suggesting women should be sold to as one undifferentiated lump, and that you'll charm the hard-earned cash from their Mulberry purses simply by coating electronics in sparkles and Hello Kitty logos.

Lee receives a lot of flack from disgruntled female bloggers who object to Shiny Shiny's appreciation of gratuitously pink gadgets. Even she thinks the girlification of gadgetry has its limits. 'I went to Paris recently for the launch of a Roja phone,' she says, 'and it had a mirror on it and a specially designed perfume to go with it. Let's face it, that is pretty patronising.'

And despite her pink mini iPod and her stylist sensibilities, Dixon prides herself in knowing a huge amount about the interiors of her gadgets, which she often researches hard before she makes a purchase. 'I can generally fix them. I'm good, particularly with computers.' She will certainly not be availing herself of the services of companies such as Geeks on Wheels, freelance IT men who charge a premium to speed round to the homes of girls incapable of unfreezing their iPod screens or resetting their Freeview boxes.

Lee thinks that the manufacturers, the female consumers and society at large still have some way to go. Popular culture, she says, is refusing to acknowledge women's interest in gadgets.

'Carrie Bradshaw had an iBook in Sex and the City, and everyone had mobile phones. But, apart from that, you don't see a lot of evidence of female take-up of technology reflected on TV.' Lee has written sporadically for women's magazines on the subject 'but they only ever print very half-hearted coverage. Sooner or later they give up. They simply don't understand the level of interest there actually is.'

But this will change. We're unknowingly raising a generation of kids who are so technologically literate that they make Dixon and Lee look positively 20th century.

Paul Jackson of Forrester Research, a company that specialises in technology market research, thinks both male and female teenagers embrace consumer electronics products simply because they've grown up with them. 'They don't necessarily see it as technology any more,' he says. 'They just accept it, like we accept electricity or television.'

'My niece is 14,' adds Lee. 'She had a CD player, a DVD in her room before she was in her teens. She got an iPod as soon as she could. She has countless email accounts. She was IMing (instant messaging) before I was. She doesn't like gaming though.'

What's next for women and gadgets? Dixon thinks it'll all be the gadgeting up of our homes. 'People look for technological extras when they're buying new houses,' she says. 'That's why I incorporated so many into mine. I spent more time and cash on them than I did the soft furnishings.'

Jo Illingworth of Dixons thinks televisions will become more important to the female buyer. 'Women love plasma screens. Because they're flat they don't take up any space. Women aren't so interested in the high definition, but more in the way TVs fit into their homes.'

Rainbow thinks the future of women and technology rests on targeting different types of women and beyond. It'll be about all sorts, she says, 'about breaking down specific markets. For example, early this year Nokia developed an incredibly simply mobile in Japan, that had huge buttons and only two functions - to make and receive calls - and they launched it as a granddad phone. It proved incredibly successful. I think we'll see more of that.'

Which, of course, would be the best idea all round. Never mind technology for women. The future is technology for individuals. As Lee says : 'Just make things that are small and look nice - because men like nice, small things as well.'

Katie Lee's five favourite gadgets

Philips Shoqbox £99.99

0906 101 0016 or www.philips.co.uk

'This tiny portable stereo system makes a lot of noise. You can store music files on the internal memory, listen to the radio or plug in your music player, which means it's perfect for picnics or holidays.'

Orange SPV C550

Free with an Orange contract

www.orange.co.uk

'It runs on Windows so it's like having a mini computer on you at all times - but one that's the same size as a normal phone. I keep it synchronised with my Outlook diary and use it to check my emails and browse the web when I'm out.'

Sky+ 160 £299

08705 800 866 or www.sky.com

'There's enough room to store 80 hours of TV on this white box, and you can get it to record your favourite series for you automatically. Looking back, I'm not sure how I managed to live a full and happy life before I had one. So easy even an adult can use it.'

Nikon D50 Digital SLR Around £600

www.nikon.co.uk

'Most digital SLRs are too heavy to lug about, but this is one of the smallest out there and it's a great place to start if you fancy getting a bit serious with your snaps. It's nice and easy to use, but you get to feel like a proper photographer when you're using it.'

Pretec I-Tiny

£29.95

www.girlsstuff.co.uk

'I have loads of USB memory sticks - they're so handy for storing images, music and files, and are a much easier way to transfer stuff from your laptop to your computer than discs. This one is tiny and pink so it's perfect for girly girls.'