After the iPhone, What Gadgets Do You Want?

I was visited by several former students last week while I was setting up my classroom. One of my students asked if I got an iPhone and they all “Oow”ed and “Ah”ed when they saw it. Then she asked matter of factly, “So what are you going to get next?” The question caught me off guard and at first said “nothing,” that I was pretty much tapped out as far as gadget buying. But then I quickly quickly remembered the Sanyo Xacti video camera that uses SD memory cards and mentioned that it’d be great to buy that little beasty (model VPC-HD2, currently $575.99 at Amazon.com – click on the picture to get your own copy of this great camera).

Since my conversation I’ve come up with a couple other things that I’d like to add to my gadget collection.

I love my Apple Macbook Pro, but it sucks that I bought mine long before they upgraded the wireless card to run 902.11 N (which runs faster and further than the current “G” wireless). Sucks. My mac can’t use a generic card from Linksys or D-Link. Luckily I found a company that has a USB solution (which is a bit clunky) and an internal upgrade card (which is a bit expensive) called Quicktek. So, I’m looking into that. Of course, if I were to upgrade my macbook I would have to also buy a new “N” router (preferably Apple Airport Extreme). So the boost in speed and distance would cost me over $300 for both internal card and router. Is it worth over $300? Something to think about.

The last two items are iPhone related. I’m okay with the headphone/headset that came with the iPhone. I do miss my XtremeMac in-ear headphones. A cool but very pricey replacement would be the V-Moda Vibe Duo Earbuds (no price listed in Amazon.com, $99.99 on V-Moda’s website). Actually having had an iPod of some form since 2002, I’m ready to ditch the corded earbuds/headphones all together. Motorola has stereo headphones (Motorola HT820) but at the moment there is no wireless solution that does both stereo music and headset calling (an iPhone version one problem that it doesn’t support stereo bluetooth!!). Damn. In the meantime, I’ve ordered a new bluetooth headset that’s supposed to have state-of-the-air noise-cancellation built-in called the Jawbone from Aliph. Not cheap. But come on, I have a kick-#@s phone, I can’t have a dorky Borg-esque headset. Gotta have the cool headset that goes with my cool phone. Gotta keep my cool gadget street-cred.’ JBB