PCWorld's 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years

[Jonathon Watkins]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20051224/tc_pcworld/123950;_ylt=AmbhgU2nrA2kkrmPUO.nFluSxLEF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA' target='_blank'>http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/200...lYwN5bnN1YmNhdA</a><br /><br /></div><i>"We're living in the golden age of the gadget. Don't believe it? Check your pockets. Odds are you're carrying a portable music player, an electronic organizer, a keychain-size storage device, a digital camera, or a cell phone that combines some or all of these functions. And you'd probably be hard-pressed to live without them. . . . In honor of this raging gizmo infatuation, we polled our editors and asked them to name the top 50 gadgets of the last 50 years. The rules? The devices had to be relatively small (no cars or big-screen TVs, for example), and we considered only those items whose digital descendants are covered in PC World (cameras, yes; blenders, no). We rated each gadget on its usefulness, design, degree of innovation, and influence on subsequent gadgets, as well as the ineffable quality we called the "cool factor." Then we tallied the results.</i><br /><br />[Selected results for mobile devices]<i> (4.) PalmPilot 1000, (6.) Motorola StarTAC, (12.) Motorola Razr V3, (13.) Motorola PageWriter, (14.) BlackBerry 850 Wireless Handheld, (20.) Handspring Treo 600, (28.) Apple Newton MessagePad, (30.) Sanyo SCP-5300, (35.) Motorola DynaTAC, 8000X, (48.) Sharp Wizard OZ-7000, (50.) Poqet PC Model PQ-0164"</i> <br /><br />There's certainly some interesting choices in the list. Oh, and a fair few dubious ones as well. Would you have put the Sony Walkman at nr 1? Hmmmm, obviously they complied the list before the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=45017&amp;">Sony Rootkit debacle</a> news broke. ;-) Moving on to more pertinent matters, I suppose I can see why the PalmPilot 1000 was at nr 4. Being first to the party (or at least properly sized and attired) certainly counts for something. There's a good reason why this is posted as "The Competition" btw. There is is not one Pocket PC in all the mobile devices! I was surprised not to see the Compaq iPAQ 3600 series listed. For me, it was the breakthrough Pocket PC that really opened my eyes to the possibility of mobile devices due to it's fun form &amp; functionality. How about you guys? What do you think of the top 50 list as it stands and do you agree with the mobile devices listed and ranked?

[Phoenix]

Speaking of gadgets of the past 50 years, does anyone remember the IBM Simon from years ago - 1994? I almost bought two of these when they were out. I think I was sporting an Apple Newton 120 at that time. Yeah, those were the days. :D

IBM Simon (http://cdecas.free.fr/computers/pocket/simon.php)

[pocketpcadmirer]

I really rspect ur thinking and I fully agree to u with compaq 3600 series's matter.
I am indeed flumoxxed, why any pocket pc aint listed on the list ??

IMHO, ipaq 2215 should have been in 1st 20 or so.

Sunny

[alese]

US centric and (like all such lists) bias - not to mention Motorola and Sony??

Since I'm computer centric and more Europe bias, I guess they should add stuff like:
Commodore Amiga - (first?) real successful multimedia PC,
first IBM PC :?: ,
maybe Apple II - that more or less started PCs
and also Macintosh.
Then what about Nokia phones - Nokia have sold more Nokia 33xx phones worldwide than and other mobile phone ever...
And Timex/Sinclair 1000 (1982) is just an US branding of Sinclair Spectrum, that sold 4 or 5 million if I remember correctly in Europe.
Also I haven seen any HP calculators, they don't classify as gadgets?

[JonathanWardRogers]

This list is so arbitrary it makes me sick. Aside from the earlier noted US-bent (come on, no Amiga?!?! - affordable video editing anyone? 3D graphics to the masses anyone?), their details are incorrect. Just one example would be stating that the Commodore 64 was "was the first PC with an integrated sound synthesizer chip"! Check your sources before you publish, you dolts. The Atari 400/800 line was released two years earlier than the C64 and contained a better sound synthesizer.

PC World is the Jayson Blair of tech journalism. Use any information (accurate or not) to make your story (however insignificant) sound more authentic.

[Jacob]

Well, this list is based on opinion and as they say, those are as common as, well, you get it.

I'm not surprised people disagree with it, I'd be more surprised if we had posts without any complaints - no matter who wrote the list.

Sony's walkman was an important device and the "rootkit" debacle doesn't take away from that. Although the iPod is not as much of a new or important concept.

[JonathanWardRogers]

Well, this list is based on opinion and as they say, those are as common as, well, you get it.

I'm not surprised people disagree with it, I'd be more surprised if we had posts without any complaints - no matter who wrote the list.

Sony's walkman was an important device and the "rootkit" debacle doesn't take away from that. Although the iPod is not as much of a new or important concept.

Before the iPod the "average" person (like my Grandma) had no clue what an mp3 player was. Now they do. That, in my opinion, is enough to add it to this list.

[Jacob]

Before the iPod the "average" person (like my Grandma) had no clue what an mp3 player was. Now they do. That, in my opinion, is enough to add it to this list.

I agree that it should be on the list. I don't agree that it should be #2. Apple simply created the fad that was iPod and created a device that allowed it to be popular.

Apple definitely deserves credit for it, but the iPod wasn't in itself revolutionary. I would say it was merely an evolutionary step that was essentially invevitable, and Apple just made it happen.

[Jonathon Watkins]

I really rspect ur thinking and I fully agree to u with compaq 3600 series's matter.

For all that, I never owned one. ;-)

You could not get hold of them in the UK for months and when they were available, I was wanting something better. It's a familiar story. :?