Geeks, more than any other type of person are obsessed with technology. In fact I would go so far as to say that you cannot be a true geek unless the thought of a shiney new piece of tech excites you. Working in an I.T department I find myself regularly drawn into conversation about some new gadget or other, and a few years ago I may also have been one of the people talking about purchasing said gadget. These days however my thoughts run more towards what that gadget’s worth would be, and how it would improve my life.
Which all rather neatly brings us to the subject of this weeks blog, my personal top five gadgets.* Before I discuss them however, we need to lay down some ground rules as to what I class as a gadget: It must be portable, and in some way contain technology. Now I know that is not the classic definition but for the purposes of this blog it is what we will use.
5. The iPhone.
Smartphones in general have revolutionized both how we communicate and manage data. But it is the iPhone that has ensured that everyone (not just geeks) have moved fully into the 21st century. The very fact that we can now surf the internet, play games and manage our lives from a small handheld device is pretty damn amazing. And we owe a lot of the leaps and bounds that other handhelds have taken to the compettion the iPhone has bought to the table. As much as I hate to admit it Apple has helped shape the modern world in a very real way. In fact the only thing stopping it getting further up my list is that the one thing they can’t do very well is make phone calls (well in my experince any way).
4. The Watch
It may seem like a strange inclusion to this list but I would argue that a watch is a very useful gadget. Something I always look for in tech is how well it does the job it is designed to do, and lets be honest a watch performs that task very well. You can spend a fortune on something like a new laptop or phone only to want to replace it six months later, but a simple, well designed, well crafted watch will last a lifetime. That is why it makes it into this list.
3. Digital Camera
I think, if you told someone 30 years ago that the technology would exist in their lifetime to be able to take a photograph, view it instantly and print it out at home, they may laugh at you. However here we are, in a world where a camera just light that can be bought and used by anyone. Hell you can even get camera’s on your telephone which are capible of capturing pretty great imagery.
That is why including the digital camera to this list was a no brainer.
2. The Kindle.
In a world where most gadgets have to do a million things to be sucessful Amazon have pulled off a pretty neat trick. What they have done is created a product that is simple and does one thing – read books. Now the reason it’s on this list is the fact it does that very, very well. The Kindle’s design is in my eyes perfect. It’s easy to use, stores thousands of books and works pretty much anywhere you want it to. It’s those key factors that make the Kindle so sucessful and it’s ignoring those factors that stop other more wide ranging devices have not done as well.
1. The Laptop
Computers themselves are pretty great but what makes a laptop the top of my list is the fact it does everything a pc does but it portable. Now you could argue that a tablet device does that as well but I don’t think it does it as well as a laptop. Which is why they will never truly replace them. Portability is important but processing power, storage and compatibility with other devices is just as important. The laptop is a true innovation because it can replace a pc, which is something the iPad or other tables will never truly do.
That is, unless Windows Surface turns out to be as good as they say it will be.
Well that’s it for this week. Hope you liked it and as always, see you next time.
*With apologies to Stephen Fry, who did this first.