Personal electronics

What to buy

There’s so much being produced that it's hard to keep up with what’s available and the most-hyped isn’t necessarily the best thing available on the market. When deciding what you want to buy consider the following aspects:

• price and availability
• age of the product: has it just been released? If not there may well be a new version coming out soon. Older versions are often available at a reduced price but may have fewer features, be slower or have less memory. Can its software be updated? If so is there a cost or will it happen automatically?
• features: does it have the features that you need? make a checklist of the features that you’re looking for.
• capacity: will it have the storage that you need? Is the storage expandable and if so how easy and expensive is it to expand.
• speed: how fast is it in terms of processing and in terms of file transfer?
• support: if something goes wrong can you easily get help with it or are you on your own?

Sources of information

NZ PC World’s Hot Products Blog is also a handy link as you can be fairly sure that items are available locally. If you’re looking for a more major investment a good place to begin is their Buyer’s Guides.

Wired magazine’s Gadget Lab blog for review articles or get it as a RSS feed. Wired's article archive has cool toys but you may have to wait for them to become available in New Zealand.

Things to watch out for when buying online

• When buying electronics from overseas check that power voltages, etc are compatible or that you can get adaptors.
• Check to see if you can get support locally or online.
• If paying by credit card check ensure that the site is secure.

Be a power user

Once you have your new toy home don’t forget to read the guide. If that’s not enough we have heaps of books about key technologies from making the most of your iPod to VOIP including some e-books in our OverDrive and Safari sources.