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Five Must-Have Gadgets

Five Must-Have Gadgets

Let’s face it: lots of gadgets are disappointing. They’re too hard to use or don’t do what you expect or aren’t worth the expense. The problem is that it can be hard to tell the difference between marketing hype and reality. It can also be difficult to recognize bad execution of a good idea before you buy. And with technology changing so fast, it is really tough to know when upgrading is worth it.

This survey covers five sure bets in the world of gadgets. These are gadgets that we think most people would love. You may have some of them. As for ones you don’t have, we tell you why you’d want them. Some of the gadgets you have may need upgrading.

Amazon Kindle Electronic Reader

Five Must-Have Gadgets
What It Does:

The Kindle can download and display electronic books, newspapers and magazines. You can download from your PC or the Kindle can download items over any EVDO (cell phone) connection. Items are backed up at Amazon so if you lose or break your Kindle, you still have your library.

What’s To Like:
The Kindle gets the major elements of a book reader right. Text is very clear and easy to read. The display is not backlit, which might sound like a disadvantage until you try it. In practice, the display works very well in bright sunlight and is about as usable in low light (e.g. reading in bed or on a plane at night) as a print magazine or newspaper. The Kindle is small (about the size of a thin paperback), so carrying it while traveling is easy. Battery life is long (15–25 hours). We found the subscription feature to be a big bonus. When you are on the road (or at home), you leave the Kindle plugged in with wireless turned on. When you wake up, the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or Le Monde is waiting for you. Weekly or monthly magazines load automatically, too, so when you’re running out the door to catch a flight you don’t  have to remember to do anything. If you are mid-trip and want a new book, you can order it from the Kindle and download it in seconds (and because it uses EVDO, you can download almost anywhere that advanced cell phones work, not just at hotspots).

Amazon offers over 185,000 titles. Many are cheaper than their print equivalents. They have an ample list of newspapers, blogs, and magazines, too. 

What’s Missing:

It doesn’t have a color display. This will come in a few years, and you’ll want to upgrade then, but the current product is very usable. It won’t do video or surf the Web. Adding those capabilities would give you a laptop and then battery life would be short, the product would weigh five times as much, etc.

Cost:
$359, plus the cost of books, newspapers and magazines.

 

Satellite Radio

Five Must-Have Gadgets

What It Does:
Allows you to listen to over 180 radio channels in your car, at home, on the beach or over the Internet. These channels are specific to satellite radio, though some programming will overlap with conventional broadcast radio. Channels cover music, sports, news, comedy, kids, relationships, and talk subjects. Sirius and XM are the two providers and there are differences in their programming, so check both lineups (they have recently merged so
these differences may disappear over time).

What’s To Like:
With Satellite radio in your car, there is no issue about driving out of range of a station. You literally can go from Bangor, Maine, to San Diego, California, and listen to the same station all the way across the country. Whether you are in your car or at home, the other satellite advantage is that channels have pretty consistent programming 24/7. For example, if you are in your car at 2 p.m., BBC World News will be on—you don’t have to wait for the 5 p.m. news hour. Sports programming has a national orientation. For example, XM has all the NFL games.

So, if you live in Boston but are a Packers fan, you can get the Green Bay-Chicago game. This works for baseball, basketball, and college sports, too, although XM and Sirius have specific sports that they handle. The music channels are attractive for those who like programming outside the mainstream. For example, there is a Metropolitan Opera channel. You probably can’t get narrow-casting like that over the air anywhere.

What’s Missing: 
Because XM and Sirius were locked in death battle competition until this year, they each have their own specialties. For example, XM has Major League Baseball but doesn’t have NPR. Sirius has NPR but not MLB. Since that is a service issue, not a hardware issue, it may change over time and simply require buying new services.

Cost: 
Starts at about $40 for a car add-on. Installation in you car may be extra (but check promotions). Home radios and boomboxes are $100–$150. Handheld portables are $150–$300. Internet service doesn’t require any additional hardware. The Sirius service costs $6.99 a la carte (you pick 50 channels) and runs up to $16.99 per month for everything (including some XM channels). XM pricing is similar except that the a la carte option is not available. Also available as a factory installed option in many new cars.

 

High Definition Digital Video Recorder

Five Must-Have Gadgets

What It Does:
Records television programming on a hard disk drive. Records when you choose a show to record (time shifting) and automatically when you are watching a show. Provides a programming guide to all channels and shows that are available to you (for a specific service like cable or satellite).

What’s To Like:
The conventional part of a DVR is the basic recording of shows (for oldschool folks, this is like a VCR). The advantage here is that the DVR is much easier to program, because it contains the programming guide as well as the record function. You just find a show in the guide (the same as if you were to watch it), and hit the “record”
button. Recording quality is higher than with a VCR and no tapes are needed. But wait, there’s more.

A DVR allows you to have a subscription to a show. That means you can choose to automatically record every episode the first time you record something. The other great DVR features are pause, fast forward, and rewind. Because the DVR is always recording live TV, you can pause, say, a football game, grab that beer, and come back without missing a thing.

Once you’re behind real time, you can fast forward though commercials or dead time between plays. If you want to replay something, you can do it as often as you want (normal speed or in various levels of slow motion).

What’s Missing: 
Some DVRs have jerky fast forward speeds. Others have clumsy interfaces. Some do a better job of managing subscriptions. As a rule of thumb, Tivo DVRs outperform the DVRs that many cable and satellite providers
offer.

Cost: 
Costs vary quite a bit and are somewhat complicated. You should check exact options in your area. Two examples: Tivo Series 3 HD DVR costs $299 plus $12.95 per month (or $399 lifetime). Cable HD DVR costs $0 upfront plus $8 per month. Service fee is $10 per month.

 

Turntable

Five Must-Have Gadgets

What It Does:
Once upon a time, music was recorded on 12-inch Long Playing (LP) records (discs) made of vinyl. If you remember that time, long ago and far away, you probably saved a bunch of those records. If you don’t remember that time, your parents might have a stack of those LPs sitting in a closet. Either way, you need a turntable to get the sound off the vinyl and into your audio system. A turntable has four major components in reality:

  • A cartridge (sometimes called a needle) that connects with little grooves on the record and turns the squiggly grooves into electrical current
  • A tonearm that holds the cartridge over the record
  • A platter that spins the record
  • A phono preamp that equalizes the electrical signal so that it sounds right when you play it

What’s To Like:
The big thing is that there is some great music on those old records. If you’ve been saving them, you may be surprised
at how good (and bad) some if the music of your youth was. If you can raid your parent’s home for their choice records, you may be surprised at what cool music they listened to. Even better, you may be surprised at how great some of the music of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s was. The other big thing about vinyl is the sound. Digital can be great, but
records have a special sound that to many ears is more lifelike and poetic. Sure, you’ll hear ticks and pops,
but on top of that you’ll hear some impressively dynamic sound (and some really bad stuff, too).

What’s Missing:
A lot of new music either isn’t released on vinyl or is released after the CD or digital files are released. Strangely, some of the most hip music does come out on vinyl. Classic recordings from past decades are also re-mastered and re-issued with regularity.

Records can also be hard to find. Music Direct (www.musicdirect.com), a Playback founding partner, offers a wide range of new and classic titles. Many larger cities also have stores that stock extensive used record selections along with some new titles.

Cost: 
If you want the magic of vinyl, you shouldn’t buy the cheapest thing out there. The basic cost of a good turntable with phono preamp is $329 (e.g., Denon DP-300F with built-in phono preamp). From there it is easy to spend more money, with very nice turntable/cartridge combinations available in the $500–1000 range, and separate phono preamps going for $200 and up. You can also find interesting used turntables (try: avguide.com/marketplace), but we recommend installing a new cartridge (e.g., Shure M97xE, $89, reviewed in Playback issue 1) as cartridges deteriorate with age.

 

Mobile Broadband (WWAN) Card/Service

Five Must-Have Gadgets

What It Does:
Allows you to create an Internet connection anywhere there is a high-speed cell phone signal. It requires an adapter that usually plugs into a USB or PCCard port on your laptop. Software is needed to start up a connection. And you need a service plan from a mobile communications company (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc).

What’s To Like:
Mobile Broadband (WWAN) works well beyond WiFi hotspots because it uses the mobile phone network.

You can use your laptop at the pool or on the beach. Like a phone, it works when you are on the move, for example in a car or train (not in planes, though that separate service is coming on line). Speed is moderate, but generally acceptable given that the alternative is usually no Internet connection at all.

What’s Missing:
While these WWAN services are called “broadband,” speed is not as high as on a WiFi system or your office network.

New services, for example, Sprint’s WiMax, will be coming in 2–3 years that offer speeds competitive with wired networks. Some WWAN services work in Europe (check with your carrier), but the cost can be astronomical for all but short sessions.

 

Cost: 
Cards typically cost $50 to $120. Service plans range from $20 to $60 per month depending on the amount of data transmitted before additional fees kick in. PB

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