Gadgets

The wonders that have grabbed hold of the world that you can get today is truly outstanding. Not a day goes by when I don't wonder how better my life would be without a Margaret Thatcher Nut Cracker or the aptly named Nothing. But, without their doubts, gadgets bring the world of science and understanding to you at a price, and they bring with them hours of entertainment and boasting. As in "I got a Lightsaber Brolly, be jealous and bow down in awe...". Many gadgets are tech brilliance, especially for those who never really grow up. I mean, who wouldn't want a radio controlled Apache helicopter? Or better still a USB missile launcher to fire missiles from their office desktop? There is an endless list to all the items that I (and then, no doubts you) could possibly dream of. It's also a lot of stuff that I'm not going list here otherwise it'll look like I'm plugging iwantoneofthose.com (which is a wonderful website, go look). Gadgets range from the 'make life easier' to the 'outrageously silly' and all that in between. I praise the items that give such joy. There was once a shop in a local shopping centre where I live, called The Globe - which has been replaced with a fake jewelry shop, which is somehow going to make my life better (?) - that sold all sorts of useless stuff. From plasma globes, fibre optic lights and police beacons to radio controlled Daleks, bubble machines and yapping toy dogs that performs backflips (just like real life then). It was always worth a visit, when it was there. I realised, in a nutshell, they're just there to give your life that lil' bit of zing. And they are, of course, highly uncivilised. Which is a nice cue to move me onto civilised gadgets. The big boys of the tech industry. I'm talking about the stuff only science fiction could only have dreamed of 30 or 40 years ago.

Phones, computers, laptops all spring to mind. And then there's the everyday items such as TV's, radio's, games consoles and related paraphernalia like sound systems. Again, the list is endless. Let's start with a main consumer. Apple. Apple have gained a lot of respect in the gadget world, and with me, with their high powered computers, iMac's; their smaller lap-based offspring, MacBooks (with the impossibly thin, MacBook Air); sleek iPods; the even more sleeker iPod Touch, to name some of their most famous innovations. And out of them, there is one that can't seem to understand and that's the iPhone. Not hate, I don't NOT like it, I think it's rather clever and highly advanced for a phone with the amount of applications and wizardry like the accelerometers to turn the screen when you hold the device in whatever way, but it's the claims that's given out. In a recent UK advert, it shows the iPhone (3GS) amazingly shooting video. It then shows that it can miraculously edit and trim said video and send it to someone. Now, I have a Sony Ericsson K800i, which isn't a Smartphone, but can do what the iPhone does so easily. And the K800i is a big block 'candy bar' phone that's almost 3 years old and it isn't even a rival competitor, nor does it have the processing power of the International Space Station which the iPhone does, which I suppose is where the Apple brings it back. But, whoa, all is not in the clear yet! The iPhone, as with other Apple products, encounter another hurdle and that's the expense. On contract, under O2 for two years, the iPhone will set you back nothing for the handset, but £74 a month! Do the maths, that's in excess £1,776 a year (Based on the best you can get). If you saved that up, you could buy the International Space Station. There is a cheaper option, of course, which is to buy the handset. £538.30 (32GB). One of the iPhone's main rival's, the Nokia's N97, is cheaper and more likely a better deal. £40 a month for 32GB, a better camera and a QWERTY keyboard (from Vodafone). Or you could go cheaper still and get a K800i and spend the money you save on better things like the Poptastic bubble wrap-Sim keyring. I'd rather have a big manly phone with a lot of buttons (men like buttons). Not for a moment am I knocking Apple, they make wonderfully crafted pieces of tech but the prices can be sky high and you can only afford them if you can be patient enough to save up. Which I am not.

Now Apples main computer competitors are the ever trouble Microsoft. And Microsoft and their operating system Windows, are without a doubt, utterly useless. They're slow, they get infected and they're not made for fun. It's the computer equivalent of becoming old. But it'll have to do until I can afford a MacBook. There's a lot not to like about them. I don't like the way it doesn't respond and I don't like the way it wants to send error reports to nowhere. But I do like that I can play Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 with ease. These computers are work horses, not objects of desires. So what did Microsoft do? They made a games console...

As I type, Earth currently has the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. These are the 3rd modern generation consoles to date all of which derived from the Nintendo N64, Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube, and upto the modern day Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii, respectively. Games consoles have been an escape from reality and into a new realm of digital vastness. And they have advanced as years have gone on. "Back in the day" of Pac-man and Space Invaders, it gave you the experience of running amok eating ghosts or dealing with aliens and this sort of thing took the world by storm. Now-a-days, you can do almost anything! You can shoot Nazi's in World War Two in Call of Duty; You can race Ferrari's through London in Gran Turismo 5 and you can even beat Tim Henman at tennis (albeit, not that difficult) in Virtua Tennis 2009. The sheer amount of what you can do is unlimited within the gaming world. It's hard to imagine where game makers get their ideas from, unless you work for Grand Theft Auto in which case, if it's not broken, don't fix it because it's basically the same, game in game out and they've pretty much cracked that because it's one of my and proven, the worlds most popular gaming titles. It's brilliant. Gaming has opened up what is a new release on life. The media then has to get in the way by claiming that games like Burnout glamorise car crashes, but I fail to see the glory of going out and becoming a part of twisted metal. It's not justified. These consoles and games have sold in record numbers over the past years and they can still deliver. Whats more, these are essentially toys with enough processing power of more than the International Space Station. Take that Apple! The PS3 comes with a 30GB hard drive. My Acer TravelMate doesn't have that much. Well at least it doesn't now, now that it's all full of music and whatnot. Both the 360 and PS3 together are just as powerful as each other, boasting high quality graphics, much more power and overall just better than what we had before. You would expect that this would leave Nintendo, which had a bit of a downfall after the GameCube wasn't as successful as it's competitors, to be left in the dark. Yet, this story is the other way around. Out of the three, the Wii is more successful than both the Sony and Microsoft machines. Which just goes to show. You don't need High-Def picture quality or realistic graphics. What you need is playability and that's what the Wii gives because it let's you, your mum, your grandparents and anyone else who would never really think twice about playing on a console, to play on this outstanding piece of kit. It also because it's more user friendly. No doubt the majority of Xbox' and PS3's are in a bedroom being played by only one person physically there (notice I said physically there. Just because you're playing online against some American doesn't mean you're not playing by yourself. You're isolated in digitals, or whatever the term is). So, not only does the Wii beat it's rivals, it absolutely trounces them! And it doesn't end there. There is a current battle with the handheld market with the DS and the PSP. The Sony PSP is so much more powerful, but the innovation with the DS dual screens and voice, touch and with the DSi built in camera compatibility, these two couldn't be any different. It's a good battle as Sony are up against handheld lords Nintendo, famous for the Gameboys. It could start to get interesting...

Mobile phone? Check. Console? Check. What next? What you need next is a telly. And a whole new barrel of fish fingers. HD being the fishiest. High-Definition TV is now very popular but I don't see the reason why. Sure it give crystal clear pictures but when you're sitting on your sofa, does it really matter? HD TV is a good thing yes, but no one watches TV up against the screen. HD is really meant for watching blockbuster movies on, I think, to give you a cinema experience in your own home. Not really to show Bruce Forsyth's face in all it's clarity. And to go with your TV, you're going to need surround sound to capture the home cinema experience even more. All you need is the popcorn dispenser and people walking in front of you to go to the toilet and you're practically there. Now in the 21st Century, there's DVD and Blu-ray, to make it that little bit better for you. Radio has even been given a cool, futuristic makeover. The way forward is to destroy all transmitters and get everyone to go digital, as the same with TV channels. Go go gadget, ultimo-recorder (with Sky + and Virgin Media) which does what the VHS video recorder - or the BetaMax to all you retro lovers - could do but better as it records, pauses and rewinds live TV all without the dreaded tape which has since died out. It looks like DVD really has killed the video star as the song states, if it were to be updated...

So you've got your flash phone - to call; text; play music; play games; take pictures; film; surf the web; send you're pictures, music, films wirelessly via blutooth; you've got your games console - to submerge your everyday fantasy of smashing up cars and blowing up buildings; and you've got your massive 500 billion (beating around the point) inch TV to watch Eastenders on in the best quality and make it sound like a Michael Bay epic. Yes it does cost but at this day and age, if you don't pay that lump sum and say 'wait until it comes down in price,' then there's going to be something else that's a lot better when you do eventually buy it. And you'll be kicking yourself for it. The flip side to that is buy the cheaper stuff. Example: Instead of buying a top of the range phone, get a phone that performs just as well as a phone and use the money you've saved to buy a camcorder to film on, a camera to take pictures and a laptop to put it all together. But where does that leave you? Well, you go onto iwantoneofthose.com and you buy what you like the look of, be it a chain wine bottle holder to impress your party guests, or a Nerf Havok Fire Automatic Blaster (or as I call it, Insane but Impressive, and that's just the name of the thing) to shoot whatever moves. That's what all these things are. Toys. Like I said earlier, you never really grow up, you just want to show off what you can afford and that'll give you a broad smile on your face in knowing you can afford such a thing and that you own it!