Most Unique Hardware I Have Owned

I have had a deep interest in technology ever since I was in my early teens back in the mid to late ’90s. Over the years, I have owned a lot of different technology, be it a laptop, desktops, tablets, smartphones, etc. However, I am not the usual fan of technology I actively seek out strange or different kind of hardware, software, or platforms to see what they offer. So with now over 20 plus years experience of these things going in and out of my life, I wanted to look back and reflect on some of what I would consider the most unique pieces of technology hardware I have owned.

1. First up, we have an ultrabook. Now, this might not seem that strange. I mean, we have an ultrabook and thin and lights for years now. However, this one is different The Toshiba Satellite u845w came out in 2012. The thing that made this ultrabook so distinct and different, is the fact that the screen aspect ratio was a 21:9 with a resolution of 1792x768 on a 14.4-inch screen. This to me was a productivity boon as it allowed for more side by side use of applications than the typical 16:9 ratio that is so common now. It also had a pair of amazing, for notebook, Harmon Kardon speakers that had the ability to play say your phones audio through the notebook's speakers. You can still occasionally find these kicking around on eBay they run for anywhere from $200 to $300 If you want a machine that will have you stand out in the sea of Apple logos at the coffee shop this is the machine.

2. Let’s take a minute and talk about smartphones. I have used years and years of, what we consider current smartphones. I had the original Motorola Droid, I remember when the app store app count mattered, and Google was advertising 30,000 apps in the Android Marketplace aka Play Store. Out of all those smartphones, the one I loved and still love, and consider hands down the best one is the BlackBerry Passport. Until you have to write out  3 to 10 page documents on a regular basis, you will never understand the difference a physical keyboard makes instead of a virtual one. The 1:1 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1440x1440 made working with Word, or Excel spreadsheets so much easier. Not to mention how under appreciated BlackBerry 10 as an operating system was, which is easily its killer feature. I personally found the built-in office apps adequate, but this device really shined once you installed the Android version of WPS Office, cause you know you could do this thing, and install Android applications on this none Android phone. Such great communication and productivity device.

3. Last, on the list let us talk tablets when the first iPad was released it created a whole new category of device. The problems with tablets have always been they have never been able to functionally bridge the divide of the productivity and power of a laptop and the content consumption nature of a smartphone. Well in 2015 along came this company from China called Jide, with a version of Android called RemixOS was meant to bridge that divided. Jide did this by doing a Kickstarter for a tablet hybrid 2 in 1 much like the Surface line of machines from Microsoft. I got one of these machines a few years ago, and I still have mine to this day. RemixOS did something that no other mobile OS has been able to do in bridging that gap from smartphone and laptop, but Jide nailed it, by smartly choosing to use a 2 in 1 design, a familiar desktop design, that also accommodated the touch screen nature of the original Android OS. Unfortunately, Jide decided to move beyond RemixOS in Mid 2017. Which is a shame, because it wasn’t Apple or Google or some other big company that was able to bridge that create or consumer divided that still continues to plague tablets to this day. It was a completely unknown company called Jide.