Gadget loving mommies, unite!
I’m not ashamed to admit it - I am a huge gadget freak. I don’t know why there should be any shame involved in loving gadgets, except that women are always viewed as being completely clueless when it comes to anything with buttons. That has never been the case for me. I was the kid who when faced with the choice of going clothes shopping with my mom or going to the electronics store with my dad, would always pick the electronics store. Now that I’m all grown up, I still get excited at the mention of new technology. And I get furious at the generalization that women are the weaker sex when it comes to all things electronic.
Ladies, has this happened to you? You go into Best Buy (or your nearest electronics store) with your husband to look at cameras/phones/GPS units. You make it clear that it’s for you, but the sales guy still completely ignores you and keeps talking to your husband. Of course, stereotypes exist for a reason. I know plenty of women who have trouble working their universal remote control and wouldn’t even try something as advanced as setting the time on their alarm clock. But that’s my mother’s generation or older. I really think the tide is turning. I think that more and more women these days are becoming self-reliant. They are becoming more interested in how electronic devices can simplify and enrich their lives. And with the wealth of information available on the web, they don’t need to rely on their man or the sales guy for help. As a testament to that, more products these days are being marketed to women. I’m not talking about dumbed-down versions of the real thing, but the same phone or MP3 player but in more exciting colors. Who do you think is driving the demand for more stylish looking gadgets? You guessed it!
Now, being a self-proclaimed gadget freak, I don’t go out buying up every gadget I have my eye on. First of all, I can’t afford to do that. And second, I wouldn’t have the time to play with them all. But when the price is right, and it’s something that I could really use - watch out! :D Here are my faves:
- Smart phone (Palm Treo 700wx) - This is my phone, my PDA, and my best friend (of the electronic variety). For years, I had two separate devices, my wireless phone and my PDA. I always had both with me at all times. For the last several years I was keeping an eye on the smart phone technology, waiting for that moment when the price and the feature set were at a sweet point where I could enter the market. When my contract with Verizon was at an end early last year, I jumped at the opportunity to switch to a Windows Mobile phone and I haven’t looked back since. With the hundreds of applications that were developed for it, you can customize your Treo to be anything you want it to be. Sure, it can do all the usual stuff that PDAs are famous for, such as keep appointments and contact info. But I can also go online with it and check my email anytime anywhere. I can view my favorite websites while waiting at the doctor’s office. I can play games while waiting for my take-out order. I can read e-books while rocking my baby to sleep. The possibilities are endless.
- XM radio (Tao XM2go) - My commute to work is 25 miles each way. At times there’s traffic. And a dead zone for FM radio on the most trafficky part of the commute. A few years ago, I bit the bullet (after all, who wants to pay for radio?) and got Sirius. I thought it was great! I loved the commercial free music, and I didn’t have to listen to any annoying radio hosts. Unless I wanted to. Eventually, I switched to XM radio because comparisons of XM vs. Sirius touted XM’s deeper playlists. It was true, Sirius really was a lot like FM radio when it came to its playlists; and I wasn’t interested in its other content, such as Howard Stern or sports radio. With XM, I found that I wasn’t listening to the same songs over and over. I was actually discovering new music, and old music that I had forgotten or never knew existed. Now, with the merger of XM and Sirius coming up, I’m concerned for what this means to me as an XM subscriber. But whatever is coming up, I’m sure it will still be better than FM radio.
- digital camera (Olympus Stylus 1010) - When you have small kids, you really must have a fully charged digital camera around at all times. How many times have your kids done something really cute, and you said to yourself - I wish I had my camera with me? For this reason, I switched to a really small digital camera that I could easily keep in my purse at all times. But I also wanted to have a big optical zoom. These days, the standard for compact digital cameras is 3x optical zoom. That was what I had with my old busted (long story) Canon SD450. For most situations this is just fine. But the short zoom made it difficult for me to pick Tommy out at recitals, or anywhere else where he wasn’t in close range. So I decided that nothing less than 10x optical zoom would do. Unfortunately, that eliminated 99% of compact digital cameras. Except the Olympus! This is really a nice little camera, and it comes in blue, which appealed to my sense of style and didn’t offend my husband’s dignity.
- GPS (Magellan Maestro 3225) - This is not a gadget I use on a regular basis. In fact, in my day to day life, I don’t really have a use for it. But on those occasions when I’m going to an address I haven’t been to before, it’s a lifesaver. This is because with printed directions, you can still easily miss a turn, especially when you’re not sure when your next turn is going to be. With a GPS, there is no such thing. My Magellan unit tells me that in half a mile, I will be making a right or left turn. It tells me again when I’m a few hundred feet away. Finally, when I’m almost at the turn, it chimes. My husband also has a GPS, his is a work issued Garmin unit that retails for $500. We both prefer my $150 Magellan. And let’s face it, ladies - with kids and tight schedules, we really can’t afford to get lost.
If you’re a woman of the new millenium, I’d love to hear from you! What gadgets do you love and can’t live without? What gadgets would you love to own?
