Status Symbols: devices that transcend time

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

There was a time when every portable speaker was a status symbol. As commercial AM receivers grew popular in the early 1920s, many were opulent tabletop units brimming with vacuum tubes and brass dials — the kind of stuff that makes steampunks salivate. Almost a century later we live in a world overflowing with cheap, underpowered Bluetooth units as small as golf balls that you can buy as an afterthought near the checkout line at Walgreens. At the pinnacle of the small-speaker spectrum is Tivoli Audio’s PAL radio, a subdued chunk of gear that’s the ranch dressing of portable audio: everything you put on it sounds amazing.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

In December of 1989 Roger Ebert ended his review of Nintendo-produced Fred Savage film The Wizard thusly:

In 2003, Nokia made the world’s three most popular phones. They were all short, stubby candy bars, with nine buttons and a tiny monochrome screen. All three looked and worked like every other cellphone on the market, but they were $50, or $20, or free. So they sold like like crazy.

But early the next year, underneath a glass case inside the Arken Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, a select group of 110 fashion journalists got an unexpectedly high-tech glimpse at the future. It was the Motorola RAZR V3, the cellphone that would change the world.

The late ‘90s were a wild transitional period for computing. Laptops were finally entering the mainstream, but the wild days of the internet bubble, ubiquitous connectivity, and smartphones were but glimmers in Silicon Valley's collective eye. Toshiba dropped a crazy, ambitious computer into that protean world of technology: the original Libretto. The idea was simple: pack a complete computer into as small a package as humanly possible, ergonomics be damned.

Toshiba released several models of the Libretto over the years, first in Japan and only a bit later in the US. No matter which model, the Libretto was more about an idea of the future than actual functionality. You bought one to say that you had a computer the size of a paperback book. Although there were several models, all were alike in their basic form factor. Only 8.25 inches wide, each key on the tiny keyboard was half the size a chiclet and they were nearly impossible to hit accurately. The mouse was a tiny nubbin to the right of the 6.1-inch screen with the buttons relegated to the back, and built-in connectivity on the early models was limited to an IR blaster.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

Run-flat tires equipped with a pressure monitoring system. All-wheel drive. Adjustable, electronically-controlled ride height. A top speed brushing up against the magical 200 mph mark. These thoroughly modern specifications could easily describe an exotic car from the world’s most exclusive automakers that you might buy today, if were you lucky enough to have a few hundred thousand dollars to spare — but this isn’t today. It’s 1986, and the car is the Porsche 959.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

The MiniDisc represents Sony at the height of its 1990s arrogance. In 1992, when the MiniDisc was introduced, Sony could do no wrong in consumer electronics: the best TVs were Trinitrons, the Walkman was still booming and the Discman was a hit, and Sony’s legendary hardware design was at the peak of its powers before software changed the world. It’s no wonder the company thought it could launch a quirky new music format around the world through sheer will alone.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

The Samsung Blackjack was AT&T’s first 3G phone. You may not remember what a big deal that was, but at the time, in practice, this meant that the phone seemed blazingly, almost impossibly fast, in areas where 3G reception was available. It changed how I interacted with a phone. First, it was realistic to write and send emails on it, but more importantly, it was great for reading lots of email. This meant that the relationship between me and my email changed forever, and it all started with the BlackJack. My favorite thing to do with it, however, was to read RSS feeds and catch up on the news while I walked to other places, usually the subway on my way to or from work. Windows Mobile had a pretty decent built-in RSS reader, and I spent a lot of time adding feeds to it, so that suddenly, my 10 minute walk in the morning felt useful to me.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

The handheld video game market has gone through a number of changes, but the basic formula has remained the same for some time: Nintendo dominates, while a company with more powerful hardware fights for what's left. This hasn't lead to a lot of room for companies that aren't Nintendo, Sega, or Sony. And that's something that SNK learned with its ill-fated Neo Geo Pocket line. Much like the company's overpriced console, the handhelds never quite caught on in a big way. But the devices, in particular the later Color version, did something that no other portable device could really emulate — they put an arcade in your pocket.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

2005 was a good year for Nintendo handhelds. The original DS was on its way to becoming the most successful portable device of all time, while the Game Boy Advance SP let you play your entire Game Boy library — dating back to the monochromatic original — on one, handy machine. So it was a bit curious, then, when the company decided to release the $99 Game Boy Micro, a small, streamlined version of the handheld that could only play GBA games. It improved form at the expense of functionality, creating a device that wasn't strictly necessary, but was amazing anyways.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

This might come as a surprise to younger readers, but there existed an age before smartphones. The 1990s and early 2000s bore witness to dozens upon dozens of so-called PDAs — personal digital assistants, a term famously coined by ex-Apple CEO John Sculley upon the introduction of the ill-fated Newton — and Palm Computing was one of the PDA Age's superstars.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

30 years ago, Microsoft Hardware was born. The Word team wanted a mouse, and so the new group built what's affectionately known as the "Green Eyed Monster," thanks to its dual distinctive green buttons and so-ugly-it's-adorable form. It had a stainless steel ball and gold contacts, and shipped for $200 in 1983 alongside brand new version of Word.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

There was a span of a couple years in my career as a technology journalist where I would endlessly flit from demo to showcase to product launch. Whether via bike or skateboard, I was everywhere in Manhattan, taking in product spiel after product spiel. I walked away nauseated from early 3D demos, and world-weary after witnessing 20 different iPod docks from a single company, but there's one company that never failed to impress: Pioneer.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

For some reason, turntables bring out both the best and worst aesthetic impulses in manufacturers. The most expensive record players are often horrifying mishmashes of glass, metal and ceramic, as subtle as a jeweled crown, screaming to be noticed. Meanwhile, cheap record players have an ability to veer into "toy" territory very quickly — and will likely destroy your records and ears in the process. Luckily, there's plenty of great design to be found in the mid-range, and there's one particular shining star in this regard: Rega Research.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

Still, it speaks to the longevity and perfection of the HD2's design. While latter day iterations have skimped on materials (and innovation), the HD2 was a no-compromises halo device built from metal and the finest software Taiwan could muster. It seems like the last time HTC poured all of its energies into a clear-cut flagship, but as HTC is currently doing some soul-searching, those glory days might be returning.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

There's no scarcity, artificial or otherwise, to the PlayStation 2. Over 150 million PS2s are floating around in the world, collecting dust or spinning up for one more game of SingStar. There isn't really a definitive PS2, either. The original and the slim version (pictured) are almost equally iconic, and the "same" $299 console that helped popularize the DVD a decade ago still sells in the millions at $99 a pop. While the original PlayStation got Sony's foot in the door, and the PlayStation 3 continues the legacy, the PlayStation 2 is the essential of the trio. Sony's decision to drop PS2 compatibility early into the PS3's lifecycle helped cement that, and the PS2's incredible library of games has made it worth keeping around.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

For anyone who has ever argued over mechanical-switch and buckling-spring keyboards, made the hard choice between vi and Emacs, or manually reassigned a capslock key to control: this is for you. The Happy Hacking Keyboard, built by Fujitsu, and relatively unchanged since 1996, takes a decades-old Unix-style layout, strips out all unecessary fluff (silly dedicated arrow keys, for instance), and marries it with an only-from-Japan ultra-minimal design. It's composed of "Topre" switches, which combine a coiled spring, a rubber dome, and a capacitive switch, for easy-to-press keys and a patented "bounce." For added cred, you can get blank keycaps, and if you really want to get technical, you can flip some DIP switches to reassign keys to your preference.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

If you thought phone operating systems were polarizing, ask an audiophile about Grado sometime. Grado is the handcrafted, Brooklyn-made headphone holdout, up against competitors who make cans styled more like robots than sensitive listening devices. Grado's GS1000i pair is the company's ultimate art-not-science blend of style, performance, and comfort, with lightweight, oversized mahogany earpieces that would make your dad jealous — and sound that anyone with a discerning eardrum would kill for, if they haven't already dropped a grand on some sleek Sennheisers. The "open" design that Grado swears by, which leaks sound in and out in exchange for clarity, means you won't be wearing these on the subway or even in the office. These are sprawled-on-the-shag-carpet-in-the-basement sort of listeners. Treat them well.

Status Symbols are devices that transcend their specs and features, and become something beautiful and luxurious in their own right. They're things that live on after the megapixel and megahertz wars move past them, beacons of timeless design and innovation.

Price: $7995