The 6 Best Gadgets I Bought in 2009

By Dec. 22, 2009, 12:06pm PT 15 Comments

As the year winds down, I find myself looking back at the year in gadgets. Sure, we’ve reported on hundreds, maybe thousands of devices, applications and services, but ultimately the best ones are the ones that I purchased with my own money. Don’t get me wrong — enjoying features on the very latest devices on loan is always fun, but the real stamp of approval comes from my wallet. Here’s the best of the best that I purchased this year, in no particular order.

Apple iPhone 3GS — I bought a first generation 8GB iPhone in June of 2007, but I passed on the iPhone 3G a year later. There simply wasn’t enough of a boost in the hardware for me to upgrade in 2008 and I paid full price for the first generation handset. This year, Apple gave me enough reason to upgrade thanks to the auto-focus camera, 32 GB of storage and faster processor. Say what you will about Apple’s control — you’d be right to criticize them for it — but my iPhone 3GS is still the best smartphone I’ve ever used. The device is never out of my sight, is extremely versatile courtesy of large application library and functions like a digital Swiss Army knife in so many situations. I use it to track my exercise, to take video, read my feeds and so much more. In fact, when my computing needs are light, I use the Apple iPhone over other devices because I always try to use the lightest tool for the task.

Toshiba NB205 netbook — One Saturday night this past summer saw me and my son checking out the latest netbooks at Best Buy. It didn’t take us 10 minutes of play time before we found ourselves in the checkout line with a new netbook. While the guts were largely the same from my MSI Wind U100 –bought in 2008 for almost double the price — the compelling difference was in the battery life. The NB205 routinely lasts for eight hours of real-world use using Microsoft Windows XP. Benchmarking shows it to lose some of that advantage with Windows 7, but it’s still a device that can be used for hours with nary an outlet in sight. Other key features include the generously sized trackpad, effective chiclet-styled keyboard and a USB sleep-and-charge port.

Canon EOS Rebel T1i DSLR — Like my netbook, this digital SLR camera was an upgrade over a 2008 purchase. Last year, I bought the EOS Rebel XSi, but once Canon added a higher resolution sensor and high-definition video recording to the T1i, I knew I had to have it. The very first 720p recording almost impressed me more than Tyler’s speed and agility used to solve his Rubik’s Cube. I was more than happy with the 12.2 megapixel sensor on the XSi, so the bump to 15.1 megapixels on the T1i was just icing on the cake. A faster DIGIC processor on the T1i also allows for more continuous pictures in burst mode — another nice bonus.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens — It didn’t take long before I wanted a new lens for my new camera, so I picked up the “nifty fifty” in 2009. While I didn’t gain any focal length over the included 18 – 55mm lens, I did add some “speed” to my camera in terms of aperture, or the amount of light that passes through the lens. The aperture of Canon’s kit lens ranges from 3.5 to 5.6 — the higher the number the smaller the opening for light to travel into the lens. The prime 50mm lens at 1.8 is fairly wide open which offers better low light photos, the ability to use a faster shutter speed and a shallow depth-of-field which highlights the focus of an image on a very specific point. A good example is a pic I took of the HTC Touch Pro 2 — one commenter said it was the best product photo he’d seen on our site.

Amazon Kindle 2 — Very few of you know this, but I was a full-time library supervisor for five years in the early 1990′s. My childhood love for books made it a perfect workplace for me. So it should be no surprise that I bought my first e-book in 2003 for a Pocket PC device  – after that, I was hooked. I initially veered away from the original Amazon Kindle, mainly due to what I consider shoddy physical design. This year, Amazon corrected that with the Kindle 2 and I had to have it. I’ve already spent more on digital content than I did for the device itself, and like my iPhone, my Kindle goes where I go. It’s light enough to travel anywhere, offers weeks of battery life and can get new content over mobile broadband in seconds. It’s not uncommon for me to read two to three books each week with this device. And in the rare times, I don’t have it with me, I can always revert to reading on my iPhone 3GS thanks to the Kindle for iPhone software — in fact, the flexibility that software provides is what pushed me to make the Kindle 2 purchase.

Apple Magic Mouse — One of my favorite features on the MacBook I use is the multi-touch trackpad. Since purchasing the laptop in late 2008, I never wanted to use a mouse because I knew I’d lose those useful touch functions. Unfortunately, some pain in the second half of this year had me thinking that I need to find an input solution that was more ergonomic. I’ve since redesigned my workspace with a floating monitor mount and superb ergo chair, but to do things right, I have to layoff the MacBook keyboard and trackpad. Enter the Magic Mouse with support for two finger touch — with it, I haven’t lost all of the trackpad functionality I use daily. I can still have my touch gestures but can leave the trackpad behind.

There you have it — my top six gadget purchases of 2009. I’m anticipating that some will ask where the Palm Pre is on my list since I bought it the first day it became available. Just to be pre-emptive on that topic — I do like the phone and the operating system (although there’s quite a bit that needs refining), but I’m simply tired of waiting for the apps and services that I use and need on a daily basis. The lack of inclusion on my list doesn’t mean the Pre is a bad device — it’s just not meeting my personal needs, as I’ve clearly stated before.

What’s on your list of top gadget purchases in 2009?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.