If you’re looking for my Amazon.co.uk wishlist, it’s here.
This is a short list of the things I find interesting enough to contemplate buying (I’ve outgrown the “gadget freak” stage some years back, but it’s always nice to contemplate my options).
Rather than the old, verbose format I had for this page, I decided to be a bit more systematic and use this URL as a scorecard for gadgets and software I’m likely to lust after every now and then, and why I won’t buy some of them anytime soon.
| Last Update | Item | Cost | Pros | Cons | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 17 | PX-B920SA Blu-Ray burner | TBD | Would likely solve all my backup problems. Plextor hardware tends to last ages. | What I really want is an external USB or Firewire drive that I can hook up to any Mac or PC. |  |
| Feb 17 | Nokia 6220 Classic | TBD | Should be a great replacement for the 6120 c | Not likely to have Exchange ActiveSync support due to Nokia’s idiotic decision to restrict that to the E-series |  |
| Feb 17 | Apple TV | $329 | Smaller than my PS3, better UI. | No content for Portugal (or most of Europe), no DivX support, no DLNA support. |  |
| Jan 19 | Asus Eee PC | ~$300 | With a Huawei E172 HSUPA USB adapter it would be the ultimate weekend/travel laptop. | No sign of a Portuguese keyboard layout, pitifully inadequate screen, based on1 Linux . | |
| Jan 19 | Time Capsule | Eur 499 | Might be a sensible way to centralize storage and backup for my machines | Hideously overpriced. Useless to backup my wife’s Windows machine. Unclear as to how it will deal with FileVault on my laptop. |  |
| Jan 192 | iPhone | $399 | Can’t really find any. | No HSDPA. Less flexibility than a Nokia. Lame3. | |
| Jan 19 | Cinema 23” Display | Eur 899 | Never run out of room again, regardless of which Mac I get. | Expensive. The monitor line is due for an overhaul for years now. The 24” iMac makes it look like a bad deal. | |
| Jan 19 | Blu-ray writer | ~$400 | Blank disks are now around Eur 20, and provide 25GB of capacity for off-site backups. | 1TB hard disks are 60% cheaper than current writers, lack of support from Apple. | |
| Jan 19 | OmniGraffle Pro | $149.95 | The best diagramming application on the planet, period. Visio replacement. | No real need for it at home (can’t really justify the expense), 5.0 has been in beta for ages now. | |
| Jan 19 | MacBook Air | $1799 | The perfect travel laptop for running Citrix and Office 2008 in a sane environment. | No wide-area connectivity built-in, and using a Huawei E172 would take up the single USB slot. A consumer MacBook does the same for much less and with a better overall feature set. | |
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1 Linux on something that is supposed to improve your quality of life is not really something I’m prepared to accept. There is too much scope for tinkering and wasting time.
2 A bunch of folk asked me about this, so I decided to toss it in anyway.
3 Yes, yes, I know.