CHOICES, CHOICES
I just finished re-packing my every-day gadget bag, updating a few old items with new ones. As most of you know, I'm a bit of a gadget nut, and tend to experiment with a lot of gizmos through the year.
A handful of these "experiments" become "essentials", and go into three gadgets bags I keep at the ready. Every few months, the old "Stuff" in these bags gets replaced with the latest, coolest, "essential" stuff.
The three bags are classified as follows:
1. The "Everyday" bag, which needs to be small and light. It has just the essentials for around-town traveling, from meeting to meeting.
2. The "Quick-trip" gadget bag, which is for trips that take me out of town for a day or two. It's a larger bag, and has more stuff in it obviously.
3. The "Kitchen-sink" gadget bag, which stays packed for trips of a week or more. This one is a pretty large bag, with WHEELS. It can get pretty heavy, but needs to qualify as a carry-on. So it does. And as the name implies, it has a LOT more gadgets and their accessories.
Since I just finished replacing the "Everyday" bag with some new items, I thought I'd share what's in that bag in this post. I'll describe each major item, what I like the most about it, and what feature do I most wish would be improved in the next version.
Where available, I'll include links to the original product site, or a good, recent full review of the product.
This bag should stay relatively unchanged with new items at least until the fall. I'll call it my Summer 2007 Everyday bag for now.
I'll cover the other two types of bags in future posts.
So here goes. First of course, is the bag itself.
I'm tend to go over-board with my gadget bag collection. My wife jokes that my gadget bags are to me what shoes are to her. Not quite Imedla Marcos territory mind you, but well down the slippery slope.
1. For my new "Everyday" bag, I went with the Brenthaven Metro Black bag. It can take up to a 15" screen laptop, 
and has room for a few files, papers or magazines.
Most liked feature is the special pocket outside that's designed to hold the power adapter for a laptop, especially the MacBook Pro 15" I'm carrying for now (more on that next). I always worry about stuffing power adapters in a gadget bag itself, since a hard knock or two could crack the laptop screen inside. The adapter pouch in this bag, takes the adapter away from the laptop inside.
Most wished for improvement, would be the shoulder strap. Although it has some cushioning, it could use more, plus be a little "springier", for the times when the bag has a few extra files. Not a huge problem, because any third party strap can work with the bag.
2. Next up, is my new, everyday laptop. As mentioned above, i went with the latest version of Apple's 
MacBook Pro, the 15" model. It's got Windows XP installed in a separate Bootcamp partition, so I can run Windows programs, and web services, where Mac versions are not available. So it's kind of like having two computers in one.
Most liked feature, is the bright, lower-power consuming LED screen. I wasn't sure how much of an improvement it would be over the regular LCD screen on my 17" MacBook Pro (which died a couple of days ago). But when I put them next to each other, it's no contest. I don't think I'm getting another laptop without an LED screen.
Most wished for improvement would be a built-in EV-DO or 3G wireless broadband data modem. They're available as an options on most of the latest Windows machines from Dell, Lenovo Thinkpad and others.
But not yet on the Mac side. Instead, i use the Verizon EV-DO rev. A V740 Express card modem, which works fine with the MacBook. it's just another piece to carry. Luckily, there's a nice, zippered compartment on the Brenthaven bag for the data modem.
3. Next gadget in the bag is my new Sanyo Xacti E1 digital camcorder. The just-released gizmo has gotten 
generally good reviews (see this one by the New York Times' David Pogue yesterday), not only for it's camcorder capabilities, but also for the ability to serve as a 6 megapixel camera for digital photos as well. It's water-proof up to ten feet and for five hours.
Since the camera does double-duty as a video and photo camera, it's perfect for the "Everyday" bag. Eliminates another gizmo to carry.
Most liked feature of the device for me is that it captures video in the new MPEG 4 format, which is the perfect for uploading onto online video sites like YouTube, without further conversion.
Most wished for improvement would be a fairly superficial one for me. I'd just like one in basic black. The available colors are a bit too "Summery" for me.
4. OK, you probably saw this coming, but the next new gadget to go in the bag is my new iPhone. Much has 
been written about the "Jesus Phone" here and elsewhere, so I won't belabor this one.
But after having used it now for a couple of weeks, I now have a clearer idea of what I like most about it, and don't.
Most liked feature so far is the web browsing on the iPhone, using the mobile Safari browser. Having surfed the web on almost every mobile device over the past decade, I personally think this one is the best it's gotten so far on a phone-sized device.
It is the "full" web as advertised, although I like most purists, eagerly await an iPhone on a faster wireless broadband 3G network, with a browser equipped for Flash and Java-enabled sites.
What makes the browsing experience especially unique relative to other phones/PDAs, is the ability to have all your bookmarks from your desktop always synced with your phone.
Of course this means using the Safari browser either on your Windows PC or Mac, but the payout of not having to type in your latest, favorite websites on a phone is totally liberating.
I have a special "iPhone Bookmarks" folder on my Safari browser that gets auto-synced everytime the iPhone is in it's dock for a charge. Great stuff.
Most wished for improvement would be a way to navigate around a web page WITHOUT touching the screen.
Although I really like the new multi-touch interface for most of the applications on the iPhone, I do think it's a bit cumbersome scrolling around on a page using fingers.
Most of the time, you end up tapping on a live link that goes to another page, when all you wanted to do is move the page around a bit. It happens about half the time for me, which can get tiresome pretty quickly.
I think there's a fairly easy fix for this, and it'd be to have a four-way scroller built into the single button on the front of the iPhone today, the "Home" button.
Today, it's only function is to bring you back from any application to the home screen. But a 4-way scroller would make it far easier to move around the web page with one's thumb, holding the iPhone in just one hand. And the cool thing would be that it'd work either in landscape or portrait mode.
I wouldn't be averse to a mini-trackball on the home button position, not unlike the trackball on the Blackberry Pearl and 8800/8300 series (see picture below).
And Apple doesn't even have to worry about being accused of copying RIMM, the makers of the Blackberry.
After all, Apple was the first one to put some of the best trackballs EVER on it's original Powerbook laptops over a decade ago. They'd just be bringing them back in a "new and improved" form factor.
Some how I think the multi-touch screen may be bit of a "religion" thing with Steve Jobs though, much like his obstinate refusal to release a mouse with two buttons for the longest time, or a two-button touch-pad on the Apple laptops.
He's relented a bit on making two-button versions available in software on both fronts, but still is a stickler for not messing up the "look". I suspect he may feel the same way about the "Home" button on the iPhone, although that's a mere speculation on my part. Time will tell.
5. The final item in the gadget bag, is the aforementioned Verizon Blackberry 8830 phone, which remains 
my primary business phone. It's enterprise-grade, push e-mail service can't be beat, despite earnest efforts by all it's competitors. I've already talked about this in previous posts, so I'll keep it brief here.
Most liked feature besides the email is the aforementioned trackball. It's the closest to a laptop interface on a phone. And given that I'm one of the few people who'd still buy a laptop with a trackball if offered the option, I of course love the trackball as the best navigation system on a hand-held.
Most wished for improvement on the 8830 would be Verizon enabling the GPS capability that's crippled on the 8830.
It's cousin, the Blackberry 8800 on AT&T Cingular, offers GPS navigation services for an extra fee per month. Having that on the 8830 would eliminate an extra gadget I carry around in my other two bags, for road trips. But Verizon has decided to cripple that capability in it's infinite wisdom.
So there it is. My current Everyday gadget bag.
What "must-have" gadget is in your "Everyday" bag, and why do you like it? Would love to hear. Thanks.
One "gadget" I definitely can't live without is the super-tiny umbrella stuffed in the front of my bag...
The bag is cooler than my gadgets, I found a Targus "Ladies" laptop backpack a while ago which is on its second thinkpad, and the front pocket is just enough for the power adapter and an umbrella.
Posted by: candice | Friday, July 13, 2007 at 04:51 PM
Are you happy with the Xacti E1, im thinking of taking the plunge and getting one. Just for fun .
Nothing professional
Posted by: Ayush | Saturday, July 28, 2007 at 05:32 PM