Posing At The Round House

[countblastula]

I know it's lame of me, but I sure do love articles like this: "Spring Cleaning - Gadgets You Should Get Rid Of (or Not)". clyde-park did a similar post a few months ago. I'll just go down their list and figure out which ones I have gotten rid of, will get rid of, or do not plan to acknowledge.

1. DESKTOP COMPUTER
New York Times says: Lose it. You may have

Comments

[clyde_park]

**Desktop Computer - I've been using the same DELL desktop computer for 10 years with a few minor upgrades in memory and storage. Now that storage devices have become smaller and hold more info the big box under the desk doesn't make too much sense. Maybe once I start college again I'll see the desktop as cumbersome and use the laptop more than I do now (Almost never) Honestly I have no feeling one way or another on this one. As long as I have a computer that does the job it doesn't matter much to me if its a laptop or a box

[countblastula]

My main use of iPhone as a music player is also in the car, and I have a car charger so there's no battery loss.

I don't know if you looked at the whole NYT article, but they do rationalize the alarm clock. My question is why include it at all?

[countblastula]

OK, in fairness, here's their entire justification, since neither of you could be bothered to click on the link! (Kidding)

ALARM CLOCK Keep it. Smartphones can be terrific alarm clocks. They can ramp up the volume gradually, display weather information and awaken you to your favorite song. And when on the road, they are still light-years ahead of the incomprehensible alarm clocks in hotel rooms. But a recent daylight time glitch in iPhones that fouled up the clock could give some early risers pause. Furthermore, setting and resetting smartphone alarms may require a dive into one submenu too many; turning a little knob on the back of a clock and flipping a switch is still simplicity itself.

[halphasian]

A lot of mine are skewed because I haven't had a permanent "home" for almost 10 years, and because I still have a "dumb" phone:

1 DESKTOP COMPUTER
My last desktop computer was a Mac G4 Cube. I'm on my third laptop since then, plus an iPad. I think laptops (or less) are probably the way to go, but if I actually had a house or an office or a desk, I prefer desktops in some ways. (Mainly screen size.) But I could probably go the rest of my life without one.

2. HIGH-SPEED INTERNET AT HOME
Absolute necessity, unless you can reliably steal a Wi-Fi signal from neighbors. Of course, out in the country, our satellite Internet is no faster than mobile 3G, so if the choice is between "high-speed mobile Internet" and "high-speed Internet at home," the mobile Internet probably wins, as long as it is compatible with our computes (and not iDevice-only

It's about half right.

[deadslug]

One of the more annoying things about the NYT article is that it assumes you have, or want, a "smartphone," and the resultant cellular carrier BS that comes with it. That punctures a lot of the article's credibility

Re: It's about half right.

[countblastula]

>No iPhone has a zoom function, afaik. (Also, see above about smartphones.)

ALL iPhones have a zoom function, at least the ones made in the past 2 years.