How Many Gadgets Do You Carry?
on 11.14.04, 04:45pm in life • comments (3)
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the stuff that I typically carry with me. At a minimum, I always have my smartphone and a usb keychain (1gb): these things are pretty ubiquitous to me and work well because they didn’t require my daily habits to change (I have always carried my phone and keys with me). Carrying a PDA in addition to this never really worked for me - it was just something else to lose.
When I’m around the office I almost always have a laptop with me so I can take notes during meetings (um, read email), remote desktop into my main work machine, surf the web, write some code and, as mentioned, read email.
Sometimes, when I go into uber-geek mode, I really want to have my entire desktop in my pocket (JK has a great look at the Sony Vaio U70 and Pocket PCs to do this), or have a keyboard on my cellphone (that, of course has WiFi).
But as hard as it is to admit, most people don’t want, need or can afford all these gadgets ($2000+ for a UPC! No thanks!) and even if they could, they don’t want to look like Inspector Gadget with 10 different devices. Frankly I don’t know anyone who’s going to buy PDA pants.
However, I am convinced that people generally want access to their “stuff“.
What’s your thoughts? What do you carry on a daily basis (pda, laptop, etc)? How do you use them?
Thomas Hawk (November 14, 2004 @ 10:04 pm)
I carry at all times an IBM ThinkPad T40. It serves as a laptop as well as my mp3/video player. I have a USB watch with 256M memory. I have a cheapo old Nokia cell phone. As much as it’s a pain in the ass, 90% of the time my Canon EOS 10D is with me. About 20% of the time a foldable tripod that also fits in a computer bag also comes with me.
The computer bag is key. It can double as a backpack when I’m shooting pictures with headphones connected to the Thinkpad or I can carry it as a computer bag. If I’m going on a long photo shoot I’ll carry an extra battery for the camera as well as the charger for the laptop and the transfer cable to move photos on my laptop hard drive and free up memory space on the camera memory card.
I’ve never carried a PDA because a laptop does it all simply and better. As far as a fancy phone (I was an owner of the original brick Qualcom PDQ Smartphone about 5 years or so ago at $800) after dropping and losing several of them I’m just not in the market for an expensive one. I don’t need a phone to play mp3s, connect to the internet, or carry email or my contacts if I’ve got my laptop with me.
On extended trips sometimes I’ll also throw an external Maxtor 250 gig hard drive in the bag (you never know who’s CDs you might want to rip).
Randy (November 15, 2004 @ 4:35 am)
Honestly, it depends on what I’m doing. At all times the cell phone comes with me, but that’s primarily for phone calls, contacts and calendar… the fact that it also has a browser, to do list, MP3 player, etc. - um, yay, or something. Before I had an ActiveSync friendly phone, I used to carry a Pocket PC for the contacts and calendar, but I left that behind when I got a SmartPhone. Also, in the gym I bring an iPod with me, but I’m probably going to switch to a solid state player with an FM receiver.
Work days, I carry my ThinkPad T41 with me. It’s got WiFi (a/b/g) and in a pinch, it can dialup through the SmartPhone’s IR (although I haven’t had to do that yet - there’s WiFi wherever I am with the notebook), and since it’s a PC I can do anything with it. And wherever the ThinkPad goes, so does the iPod, if only out of habit.
Having said all of that, my goal - aside from getting data - is living with hassle-free mobility. For each device that I bring around for on days of the week, the best cash I spend on it is for an extra AC adapter… one to leave in the office and one to leave home: I did this for the iPod and the ThinkPad, and a few dozen devices before them. Invaluable, honestly, to be able to just crap the notebook and iPod and be… well, wire free.
Nic Wise (November 16, 2004 @ 12:21 am)
Personally, I carry my phone, wallet, and keys. Thats it. My phone at the moment is an aging Nokia 6310, but that’s more ‘cos of a lack of cash to get a Smartphone C500, than any special love of it (tho it is a good phone)
I agree with the PDA comment - I’ve had a few of various types (IPAQ 3800, IPAQ 4300, IPAQ 1940), and I find I dont use them enough to warrent taking them everywhere…. and they are too bulky….
Now, the IMATE Jam, which is the size of a Smartphone, but actually a PPC Phone, might be another case
My MP3 player goes with me a lot, tho - its a 2gig Philips one….