Post your latest gizmos

The best gizmo I ever bought was my iPod. Normally whenever I buy something new I figure out every button and function and enjoy it for a few days, but then it gets boring. With the iPod, not only do I use it regularly for a wide range of functions, but it's always "new" because I can just download a new App to play with. Or I can browse the App store to see if anything interesting has been created. I just recently downloaded a free "white noise" generator which I now use to help put the baby to sleep when she's fussy. I bought the iPod long before I ever knew I would have a baby.

I hate to sound like a commercial for the iPod, I know they aren't everyone's favorite thing, but for me it's been about the most entertaining and functional $280 I ever spent.

That's how I feel about my iPhone.

I've never been happier with an electronics purchase than I have been with the iPhone.


Most recently I bought a Surefire LED E2D Defender flashlight. Very cool.

Oh, that reminds me, I bought a Pelican 7060 flashlight last year and have been thrilled with it.

I wanted an ultra-bright flashlight that was rechargeable and didn't have a bulb that would burn out. And I also wanted one that wouldn't get dimmer as the power drained. The Pelican has all that. It's got an ultra-bright LED bulb and when the power gets low instead of getting dimmer and dimmer, it simply starts to flash off briefly as a warning that it needs to be recharged. It'll stay lit for 4 to 6hrs on a single charge. It's shockingly bright and produces a perfect light-cone which looks like a spotlight when shined into the sky at night. It'll easily illuminate objects 100 yards away.

http://www.pelican-case.com/7060-basket.html

Correction: The 7060 has a burn time of 1.5hrs. The 8060 has the longer burn time.

Here's the manufacturers video for this product:

My latest gadget is a camcorder as well, the Sony HDR-CX100 AVCHD HD. I haven't been doing the incessant gadget purchase thing for a while now (I had to get rid of crates of gadgets when I started moving again and I now see it as dead weight) but this is on sale on Amazon now for under $3oo. I was going to just get a flip to play around but if I ever got into video (I want to try my hand at some stop-motion animation) I'd probably want something more capable soon, and hopefully this will be good enough to not need an upgrade.

But I also feel the same way as the last two posters about the iPhone, it's not just my favorite PDA/Smartphone (and I've been using them since the old B&W Palm days), or my favorite electronic gadget ever, but it's flat-out my favorite toy of all time.

I wouldn't feel the same way about the iPod touch, even though it's essentially the same but without a phone, because I don't want more than one gadget on me at any time (I don't even want a watch) and if it isn't a phone I'll have to carry a phone as well. That all of the games and apps are always with me actually got me back into playing games. I hadn't been gaming for years but now I'm playing Civilization, Fifa 10, Driver and a host of other 2000-era PC quality games on my phone while I wait in the car etc. I've always had smartphones with apps and games, but the iPhone was the first one that had enough usability to build enough of a network effect (iTunes userbase kick-started) to develop the market for the apps I can now run on my phone. There's no other phone where I can play games like that, so it wormed its way into my life as my only current Apple device, and in typical Apple fashion it forced me to switch my music library over to iTunes. I hadn't ever done a music library switch to another software and iTunes on PC is an abomination of software, so that should give you an idea of how much better the iPhone is over its competitors for me to cede my music to iTunes.

Of course, I am rooting like hell for the open-source Android platform to supplant the draconian iPhone platform, but right now they have such a head start that I think I may have to wait up to five years to see that happen.

I would like to get a green laser pointer to play with some day, but I just haven't been able to convince myself that it's worth the price as a toy.

I have a Targus wireless multimedia presentation tool with trackball but it's a red laser. Why green?

I am charging up mine up as we speak, it charges via USB but it does have a replaceable battery, proprietary though. It's not much bigger in two dimensions than a credit card. You know what they say: "the best camera is the one you have with you".

All gizmos great & small. I don't own a cell phone but sometimes seem to end up having them foisted upon me. I am probably buying a Little Giant Ladder System - Type 1A Classic Ladder Model 26

http://www.littlegiantladder.com/little-giant/type-1a.html

The green lasers are much more visual. The beam can be seen in the air.

What advantage would that be if I'm in front of a class and using the pointer to identify parts of a schematic (for example) as either color would still direct the student's attention in a similar manner (at least in terms of end result) no?

I just want one for a fun toy. I won't even attempt to rationalize it

That's the best reason of all!

How much do they run for? I really want one now!

I think they're around $100.