GADGET BOOM
Some devices were on the way out, then 2020 happened
Gadgets were supposed to be over. Smartphones, tablets and smartwatches cannibalized the weaker devices around them, including cameras, music players, navigation units, fitness trackers and gaming devices. The few tech products that broke through the noise of crowdfunding sites and the crowded field of startups were quickly commoditized and undercut on Amazon.
The stores that dealt in gadgetry — Circuit City, RadioShack, Best Buy — had gone out of business or become glum warehouses for no- fun products. In 2016, my colleague Farhad Manjoo declared a “gadget apocalypse.”
“For 30 or 40 years, through recessions and war, through stability and revolutions, they were always there,” he wrote. Soon, to the horror of enthusiasts and mere consumerists alike, they might converge into a bland rectangularity.
For now, at least, it appears the gadget apocalypse has been averted, due in part to threats of actual apocalypse. Seven months of shattered plans, lockdowns and rapidly improvised new normals have converted jaded consumers around the world into frantic gadget freaks, each grasping for items that, in their chaotic disparity, tell the story of a strange, dark year: pulse oximeters, the iPhone 12, HEPA air filters, infrared thermometers, bare- minimum tablets and laptops for schooling, the PlayStation 5 ( pre- order), ring lights, miniature freezers, home networking equipment, and noise canceling headphones.
Elements of this gadget boom are more 2002 than 2020. When’s the last time you went comparison shopping for a webcam? How are you enjoying that new inkjet printer? And yet it evokes 2200 as well. Did you expect to spend your summer trying to figure out if an air purifier made by a
Bluetooth speaker company was going to be sufficient to clear the atmosphere in your isolation pod on an increasingly hostile planet?
One striking detail of this gadget boom is that the horsemen of the once- inevitable gadget apocalypse have slowed to a trot. Gartner, the research firm and consultancy, estimated that smartphone sales fell by 20% in the second quarter of the year, when much of the world was dealing with severe and increasing COVID- 19 caseloads and economies in steep decline. There are new game consoles on the horizon, but they’re not yet out; the breakout device in the gaming industry was also the most gadgety of its peers — the three- year- old Nintendo Switch.
Before 2020, many popular consumer electronics were receding into the background, more vital and useful than ever but purchased, wielded and discarded with a sense of routine, rather than novelty. In this way, smartphones are like cars: first, obnoxiously out of place; then, ubiquitous and yet more demanding; finally, taken for granted and made invisible, despite remaking the world around them in increasingly ambitious ways.
The ways in which people buy gadgets, too, have become less distinct and more infrastructural. Product review sites where readers might have compared wireless headphones are recommending, a few links over, home blood oxygen monitoring equipment. A style and language developed by an enthusiast consumer culture is stretching to accommodate new needs. ( For a family stretching to get their kids set up for remote learning, “The Best Laptops” is less relevant than “How to Shop for a Used Laptop or Desktop PC.”)
Nowhere are the disparate experiences of the pandemic gadget boom more obvious than on Amazon, which has mutated from the “everything
should not be the primary reason to splurge on an expensive handset in a pandemic- induced recession.
The iPhone 12, with bright screens and a more robust design, is still a solid upgrade from past iPhones. But you will pay a premium: The device, which became available Friday, starts at $ 829, up from $ 699 for last year’s iPhone 11. ( Another model, the iPhone 12 Mini, costs $ 729 but has a smaller screen and ships later this year.)
I tested the iPhone 12 and the high- end iPhone 12 Pro, which starts at $ 999, for about a week.
Setting aside the network issues, there’s still a handset to review. That brings much better news.
The design changes to the new iPhones are substantive. The iPhone 12 has a fancy OLED screen, a more modern display technology. So it looks brighter and has more accurate colors than the iPhone 11. The edges of the phone are also now flat instead of round.
The changes have helped the handset shed some weight and thickness while maintaining a roomy 6.1- inch screen.
Apple also said it had strengthened the display glass, making it four times less likely to break.
Also new is a charging mechanism that Apple calls MagSafe. It’s basically a new standard to support faster charging via magnetic induction. The new standard will open doors to other companies to make accessories that magnetically attach to iPhones, such as miniature wallets.
There’s a major downside to all of the new features: We have to pay a lot for these phones. Apple is also no longer including charging bricks or earphones with the new iPhones since so many people already have them.
So should I buy?
Here are three quick questions to ask yourself about whether it’s time to upgrade:
• Can I still get software updates on my current phone?
• Is my device repairable for a reasonable cost?
• Am I happy with my phone?