Coolest Gadget...

[Bananatree]

What's the coolest gadget you have ever owned/own?

For me it's my iBook, since it is so radical and there is so much it can do. Well it's no car, but I like it alot. Probably followed by my cell phone which is really functional as well as I've always wanted a camera-phone ever since I was in Tokyo.

Yourself?

[atrain]

i have a nice little benq notebook i like a lot, when i got my first palm i was so proud of myself... despite having no job nor reason for an organiser!. i do own a car but i'm not stoked by it as its only a civic. looks a little fruity to me.

[Tiesto]

Coolest gadget... well, I must name three: first the Sharp MD player due to the way I got it, amazing ; second the remote rm-mc40elk due to it seems as if I was the only person with one of those in the entire city and third the ps2 due to it is cool to play Metal Gear once in a while.

[Bananatree]

Come to think of it tiesto, I really like my Gamecube a lot, as well as my Xbox, but my cube is better I think.

[dex Otaku]

My coolest gadget ever would be my 14-bit Technics Digital Audio Processor, the SV-100, which was meant to be used with a portable VHS video recorder. I made my first live recordings with my SV-100, and the ones I have still play.

btw - that SV-100 is currently sitting about 1m to my right.

[ozpeter]

Heh, that reminds me of the early days of digital recording using a Sony F1 system which recorded digits to Betamax tape. Then you took the result to a dedicated digital editing facility to have it prepared for CD.

I remember back in '84 going to HHB's HQ (then a converted garage in North London) to edit a double classical CD there at huge expense. First thing I did was ask where I could plug in my headphones.

"That's funny," said the house engineer, "that's the first thing Eric Clapton said when he was in editing his new CD last week".

"Eric Clapton sat in this very chair??!!" I asked in awe.

"Heh", laughed the engineer - "Eric Clapton nearly shat in that chair when we told him the bill he'd run up.

But I'm off topic again.

Favourite gadget - Palm Tungsten E. There seems to be nothing it can't do.

[bobt]

I've had so many it's hard to pick out one, like the first electronic calculator I bought, a four function Casio, in the 70's, for $150.00 Canadian, thought it was the greatest thing, now you can get a Palm Pilot for less.

A neet little Casio electronic calender/ calculator that was also a perpetual calender.

First cassette walkman, metal body, freedom of music.

Of course my MZ-NH1. even though it's a paperweight now.

My Revox Turntable, still looks like it came from the future, and it's almost 20 years old.

List could go on forever.

Long live gadgets

Bob

[Leon]

Woo, in order of their impact on me.

1. Panasonic RQ-SX60, 1996. This cassette walkman is advertised for 40x speed. In theory, 4 minutes of tape can be wound up in just 6 seconds. The transport sounds incredibly smooth and it "takes off" like a jet. In answer to Sony's MD-like eject mechanism, the cassette lid came in two halves, one recedes behind another when you open it. And Apple-style battery life LEDs. Matsushita can be very radical when they choose to; I think this was the finest moment for Panasonic portable audio - almost as glamorous as the S60/80 and more competent than Sony in mechanism.

I mean, I had the 15th anniversary Sony EX1/FX1 (both) and they wouldn't wind tapes properly

2. Sharp Zaurus SL-C760. Huge impact, because it showed me my future is NOT in computers, no matter what anyone may try to tell me because they're too dumb to wade through windows xp, use photoshop, or too dumb to protest that dreamweaver actually sucks! I had it for only two days cause people would post command line tricks and NONE of them worked.

3. Lamy 2000 fountain pen. The design will be 40 year old next year, very supple to write with. Together with those Rhodia notepads, these showed me I should've never never never never ever bought PDAs. I always had a tough time trying to get PDAs to work, and more creative/efficient with just pen and paper.

[D-EJ915]

Hmm...coolest gadget? Probably my NX10...everybody thinks it's really nifty, so I guess that's the coolest by public opinion.

[greenmachine]

...a fridge.

[dex Otaku]

For good measure ..

[attachmentid=406]

Note: that's my SV-100, sitting on top of an old Sears 8-track cartridge recorder that I was using to copy irreplacable 8-tracks until its motor decided to speed up to about 1.75x normal speed.

/sighs

[Damage]

Several:

1. My Hawkings Technology Wireless AP/Bridge. Nice to know that I can take my Wireless Access Point and convert that to a bridge as needed. Little things like that makes me appreciate the little guys.

2. My Norelco CoolSkin electric shaver, because it works when I shower without the fear of shocking, and shaves without the 'cuts and knicks of a blade!'

3. The (dead) Sidekick. Best cell-phone/Internet combo.

4. N-Gage (QD). Cellphone, smartphone, MP3 player in a pinch. Sure, it ain't got a camera, but when I had one with my V600, I could count on my left hand the times I actually used the camera (4). The N-Gage, on the other hand, slices (phone), dices (Internet, albeit slowly), chops (plays 3D games), grinds (acts as a simple PDA), and never needs sharpening (MAME: Ms. Pacman, 1942, Kung-Fu Master, Xevious in the palm of my hands). Add that with great battery life (2 days of moderate to heavy cell, browsing, and gaming) you possibly have one of the best gizmo ever created.

Pity Nokia castrated the MP3 functionality off of QD...

5. Sega Dreamcast. It's a magnum opus of a console from Sega. But hey, it did Internet gaming, gave me Phantasy Star Online habit, and more. I still wish I had the damn thing with me.

[Bananatree]

Dreamcast, I forgot how much I loved that bad boy.

If I could get a cheap N-gage that played MAME or NES games, I'd be so stoked.

[Rumz]

Dreamcast, I forgot how much I loved that bad boy.

If I could get a cheap N-gage that played MAME or NES games, I'd be so stoked.

←

Currently I'd have to say my Treo 650 phone. Mostly I love having a keyboard on my phone for texting and data entry, but it's also fairly cool that I can throw movies, tv shows, mp3s, etc. on there. A 40 minute tv show only takes about 5% of the battery life (assuming you have your cell radio turned off, like you do on airplanes). So yeah-- watching movies is no problem. Oh yeah and it's nice that it keeps track of my to-do lists, e-mail, calendar, etc. Not to mention web browsing and using bluetooth to connect a computer to the internet in a pinch. I would never use a PDA unless it were attached to my phone. (Had a Pocket PC and just never used it much except to play old Atari games on it, heh... speaking of which, I should get some emulators for this phone).

Ranks fairly high up there on the cool gadget scale for me.

Edited July 1, 2005 by Rumz

[L7R]

Best console in the history of videogaming: Sega Dreamcast!

Dreamcast and Fishing Rod controller

or

Dreamcast and Samba De Amigo Maracas controllers

or

Dreamcast's VMU=Visual Memory Unit hanging in my neck.

[Christopher]

It's gotta be that Casio remote control watch back in 1994. I owned school, sportsbars, electronic departments in any retailer. It was the best.

[atrain]

now that you mention watches i have a pretty kickass one

it's this one in 'platinum' & white leds

http://www.engadget.com/entry/5719585415083584/

[dvallere]

My Casio (G-Shock) atomic, solar-powered, analog, pretty blue watch. Never have to wind it, never have to set it, never have to change a battery, don't have to look like a technogeek boy while wearing it. Hooray!

Edited July 18, 2005 by dvallere

[Syrius]

As of now, a Nintendo DS. Man, it rocks. Oh, the possibilities.

[D-EJ915]

It's gotta be that Casio remote control watch back in 1994. I owned school, sportsbars, electronic departments in any retailer. It was the best.

←

Haha, my friend had that watch...you had to know the right control frequency (or you could waste the whole bell trying to figure out which one it was) but it broke...

[yamagatacamille]

my top3 (and plenty of firsts)

3 -- PS2: first owned console since the NES days. after timeless events of popping by my cousins house to play video games, i finally have one to call my own. time to play GT4 now!

2 -- Sony Ericsson T610 Mobile Phone: first time i owned a mobile phone. i was gunning for the Samsung SPH-A600 but it would seem flimsy on account of the swiveling screen. anyway, the T610 is sleek, bulit-in camera, and it has the Seinfeld theme song as my ringtone!!!

1 -- Apple iPod Mini: i said to myself that i'd buy one after i sold my N10 about 2 years ago. my entire CD collection in one device, and it's pink!! say what you want, i love it!

[MDX-400]

Hmm, according to a lot of people nearly everthing I own could be classified as a "gadget" LOL.

Personally I think the most "gadgety" of things I have are MD units (though they aren't too gadgety compared to a PDA for example--I don't even have one of those).

I think by "popular opinion" though the most oohs and aaahs might come from the TP504 2-way touchscreen remote that I bought separately to use with my DA4ES receiver.

Here is a pic of it:

Note that I stole the above pic from an already expired eBay auction I found so it probably won't last long, lol.