With so much choice in today’s consumer tech market (and lots of device overlap), I find myself wondering: What devices do you actually need?
Like most people, I’m surgically attached to my iPhone 5s. It’s such a huge part of everything I do that I wouldn’t want to figure out how to live without it. If a smartphone is a gateway to the zombie apocalypse, sign me up.
I got rid of my traditional desktop PC years ago and it was the best decision I ever made. For a while, I used various sized laptops as my desktop replacement, but despite loving the mostly wire-free experience there were aspects of the desktop I missed – screen size being the most obvious. And as time went on, I’d added so many peripherals (screen, mouse, keyboard) to my laptop that it never moved from the desk, thus making the portability aspect redundant.
I think these days the most common case for a traditional desktop is graphic intensive tasks such as PC gaming or 3D rendering where mobile components just won’t cut it. I haven’t been a PC gamer since Halo: Combat Evolved and Counter Strike: Condition Zero. I’ve since offloaded my gaming requirements onto consoles, which I know isn’t a solution for all gamers, but it works for me.
My Dell XPS 27 All in One PC is the best computer I’ve ever bought. Admittedly I got it from the Dell Outlet store and there were a few niggles upon arrival but nothing the Dell engineers couldn’t fix under the XPS warranty. The components that I have/still plan to upgrade are accessible enough and the All in One design gives me the perfect balance between grunt, screen size, and minimal cables. It’s quite literally the PC I always dreamed of owning. Also, when you consider I can link my PlayStation 4 to it like a TV, it really is a bargain even at full retail.
The hardest question for me has been tablet vs laptop. Like my opinion on iPhone sizes (4.0″ screen being the sweet spot), I think the 13″ screen size is the sweet spot for this in-between desktop and phone category.
My Apple Pencil finally shipped last week which meant I could order my iPad Pro. I was happy to discover that everything the YouTube reviews had promised about the Apple Pencil was true – parallax was my main concern but not an issue. The iPad Pro is kind of cumbersome though, and even though I can hold it one-handed, it’s awkward. This motivated me to get the Smart Keyboard (which arrived today and what I’m using to type this). I was worried the iPad Pro would feel unstable with the Smart Keyboard, but the weight is evenly balanced and I don’t feel it’s overly top-heavy. The extra RAM in the iPad Pro also makes multitasking a breeze. Coming from the original iPad Mini, I love how browser tabs don’t reload when switching and how YouTube keeps my place when switching back and forth between apps. If I didn’t want to use the iPad Pro as a digital sketchbook, I’d probably be going for a small MacBook of some kind (even though I prefer Windows 10, MacBook battery life is hard to ignore). Although I quite like the look of the Dell XPS 13 too.
So in short, the devices that I really need are:
- Apple iPhone
- Dell XPS 27 All in One
- PlayStation 4
- Apple iPad Pro with Smart Keyboard and Pencil
