Gadgets for the Needy Geek

It's an established fact that I am a geek of the 1st degree. The worst kind that is. When Star Trek Voyager ended, I went out to buy the books to find out what happened to the crew after they made it home. (Hey, I missed my Trek Family allright?!?) I've a human-sized full-length picture of Einstein attached to my wall (fair enough, it's hung right next to my picture of a Highland Cow, but that's beside the point). I'm entirely wireless. I have a backup for my backup. I ordered the latest Harry Potter book 6 months before it got published. I own a telescope (which admittedly I only use to spy on our neighbours, but still). I take a thermal blanket/survival kit with me when I ski. I get excited by thunderstorms, lunar eclipses, foraging squirrels and the very lastest digital gadgets. And this week, I've been getting *VERY* excited about the impending arrival of my latest purchase...

Tada:
The Archos AV420. I've been eyeing up this puppy for weeks now, and I finally found a place that sold it with a 30% discount! (nope, even Amazon got beaten to the price this time) How chuffed am I??

This thing beats every i-pod out there. It's a harddrive-based storage medium so there is not need for software to transfer anything. And there are no issues with music licenses. You just drag and drop everything straight onto the 20Gb device.

- It plays DVD, mpeg & DivX video files
- It supports mp3, wav & wma music files
- U can connect ur camera straight to it via USB & upload ur pictures on it (very handy when travelling!)
- U can link it to your TV/DVD player and record programs/films on it, so there's no more need for tapes.

And all this on a device the size of a PDA, for (in my case) not much more than the price of the i-Pod. It's got rave reviews, so I don't know why this thing isn't more popular. It should arrive next week. Fingers crossed I don't find out why it's not popular then. Catch me crying on this blog if I do ;-)