ZBoard

Nov 1, 2021

Although I’d always intended the WhiteFox to be the last keyboard I ever bought, my presence as The Verge’s resident keyboard weirdo has meant that I barely get to use mine anymore as I hop between newer models. But damn, it’s just such a nice keyboard. —Jon Porter Bose QuietComfort 20 earbuds When I first flipped the switch on these noise-canceling earbuds, it felt like stepping into another dimension. I hadn’t really had any noise-canceling tech until I got the Bose QC20 for Christmas years ago. Before, when it got noisy, I just turned up whatever headphones came along with my phone, and tried to make do. Now, I could turn down the outside world as well — and the soft tips were vastly better than the hard plastic I was used to. I’ve never been a huge audiophile, so I didn’t care that they were as bass-heavy as my colleague Chris Welch wrote back in 2013 ; I slowly loved them to death. They helped drown out the noise from my neighbors in the apartment with the paper-thin walls. They accompanied me through the rumbling New York subway on the hour-long trek to Queens where my boyfriend (now husband) lived. They shushed the roar of planes as I traveled to see my family scattered in different states. Along the way, I abused the heck out of them. They got tossed into the bottom of my purse, tangled around pens, scratched and bumped and jolted, and yet they kept working through it all. After many years, I noticed the casing was cracking near the charging port, and the coating on the wire near the headphone jack was splitting, but I kept using them until a recent Christmas when I was gifted a set of AirPods Pro. The new wireless noise-canceling earbuds relegated my old wired headphones to the bucket o’ e-waste in my pantry, where they now sit atop a heap of dead batteries. They didn’t stay with me forever, but they were great while they lasted. —Mary Beth Griggs Samsung Galaxy Note Out of all the many smartphones I’ve played with over the past 10 years, I’ve always loved the Samsung Galaxy Note the most. From the first time I heard about the first-generation Note with the S Pen in October 2011, I was hooked. The OG Note’s 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED display was positively monstrous. Journalists and consumers were falling over themselves coming up with new “phablet” jokes. (Is the Note a phone or a tablet or IS IT BOTH?) But what Note fans knew from the get-go was that a bigger screen also meant a bigger battery, and the Note was the biggest of all. Whenever my iPhone-toting friends ran out of power, I’d still have at least enough juice to get me home. Of course, the battery also got Samsung into a lot of trouble with the cursed Note 7 , but they were recalled before I could buy one. Since I didn’t (and still don’t) take many phone calls, I’ve always appreciated that the Note lets me do more than just consume content. I’ve been able to sign important documents, create a lookbook for my wedding, and annotate screenshots to provide remote tech support to my parents. I’m pretty sure I can’t say the same about other gadgets I’ve used in the past decade. If rumors are true that Samsung will retire the Note after this chip shortage, it’ll be the end of an era for me. But I might go back and buy a Note 20 Ultra to round out my collection. —Gloria Sin AirPods I am pretty sure I use my AirPods more than any other gadget I own. While I work, my AirPods basically never leave my ears. During the weekend, I use them to listen to music and podcasts while I’m on a long run or walking around the city. And now that the Nintendo Switch finally supports Bluetooth headphones , AirPods are my headphone of choice for after-work gaming sessions. Sure, AirPods don’t sound as good as other in-ear buds. But they’re just so damn useful. They connect reliably to my phone and computer, recharge quickly in their case, and are small enough to carry around in a pocket, meaning that I can immerse myself in audio nearly everywhere I go, with no muss, no fuss, and no wires. I was dubious of AirPods when Apple first announced them in 2016, but ever since I started using them, I’ve been a believer. —Jay Peters Surface Book 2 I have loved many things in life, but few can top the Surface Book 2 that I purchased for myself in 2018. But Monica, I can already hear the Twitter masses shrieking, the Surface Book is silly-looking, ridiculously top-heavy, and way too expensive. Sure, whatever. It’s also awesome. The most common criticism I hear is nobody knows how they’re supposed to use the detachable screen. First off: piano music. I am card-carrying Gen Z; I don’t own a printer and have no idea where I’d print something if I wanted to. My piano music lives on my computer. Prior to my purchase of the Book 2, I was doing all kinds of magic tricks to balance a 2013 MacBook Pro on my piano stand. No longer — I pop the screen off, and it fits perfectly. Second: carrying. Two-in-one computers are great, but they’re almost all too heavy to comfortably hold up as a tablet for long periods of time if you’re planning to use one to give a presentation, or just to walk around your kitchen with while waiting for water to boil (which I unashamedly do all the time). Even the Surface Pro 8 is close to two pounds. But the Surface Book’s tablet is a tablet tablet. It’s just over a pound and a half; it’s light. The magic of the Surface Book goes beyond its detachable screen; it’s the use cases that it uniquely combines into one. There is no other device on the market where you can run AAA games and carry it up to a keynote one-handed. Sure, you could buy a Razer Blade and an iPad. But I like having them as one thing. If I’m going on vacation, or going to a friend’s house, or traveling to a conference, I only need to put one thing in my backpack. It’s great! Finally, battery life. The Surface Book 2 has two batteries — one in the base, one in the tablet — and it never dies on me. I use it for hours every day, and charge it very occasionally. It’s great to never have to worry about bringing a charger with me if I’m going out to a coffee shop or on a day trip. My lifestyle has adapted so much to the Book 2’s battery life, I’m at a bit of a loss for what to buy next (because the Surface Laptop Studio’s lifespan just doesn’t cut it ). If not Microsoft, I hope another company will find a way to replicate this. —Monica Chin Logitech PowerPlay mousepad There is something undeniably cool about having a top-tier wireless gaming mouse that you never have to plug in. Logitech’s Powerplay system just works. You plug a $120 mouse pad into your desktop, slot a small, silver-dollar-sized disc into your Logitech mouse of choice, and you’re done thinking about cords and charging for good. Clarke’s third law states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and wireless charging feels like it to me. I personally own several bags that are full of charging cables that I’ve collected over the years, cables that will almost certainly, eventually, end up in a landfill. Then I think about all the gadget fiends I know and how they’re probably in a similar position. When was the last time you saw someone on Star Trek looking for a charging cable for their tricorder? If we can get wireless charging to a point of ubiquity, we’d save a substantial amount of e-waste, or at least cut down on the number of friendships that get ruined because SOMEBODY stole SOMEONE’S iPhone charger (you know who you are). I know we’re a long way off from being able to charge our devices simply by walking into a room, or being able to eliminate outlets altogether. But wireless charging belongs in more stuff, and I’m excited to see how we apply it in the future. —Alice Newcome-Beill Pebble Time Round Let’s face it — most smartwatches are just beepers on your wrist. Apple figured out how to turn them into a fitness device. But the best alternative to the Apple Watch? Pebble. Support for Pebble devices officially died in June 2019, and there still hasn’t been a smartwatch like it since. The Pebble Time Round was the first time I could wear a smartwatch without it drawing attention. It didn’t look like a smartwatch at all, where other wrist devices stood out and made a statement whether you liked it or not. Almost every day, I would go into the Pebble watch face store on the app and find a watch face that fit my mood, wardrobe, or interests at the time. Pokemon Go was huge, so I had a Pikachu watch face. If I wanted to go retro, there were dozens upon dozens of watch faces to choose from. And the buttons! Side buttons just make sense for a watch . Easy to control with gloves or wet hands. Intuitive to how watches have worked for decades. Fitbit bought Pebble, then Google bought Fitbit. But somehow there still hasn’t been a smartwatch with the sleek and functional design of the Pebble Time Round. Why? —Andru Marino Toshiba Satellite Radius 12 I am a bad gadget owner. I have a tendency to drop or otherwise (unintentionally! inadvertently!) abuse phones, laptops, and any other gadget that has the misfortune of coming into my orbit. Whatever the electronic equivalent is of a brown thumb in gardening, that is what I have. I try to avoid buying the newest iteration (I know, I know) of phones and computers, because I’ve become very risk-averse and instead wait to acquire expensive electronic devices only after they have been thoroughly vetted by more adventurous and knowledgeable peers. One of the rare times I did stray from my self-imposed gadget rules was a few years ago when I left my miserable day job for a (brief) stint as a full-time freelancer, and I needed a new laptop. I got a Toshiba Satellite Radius 12 . Reader, I absolutely loved it. It was the most substantial computer I have ever owned, from its chunky form factor, its impossibly heavy weight, its mostly useless ability to convert from laptop to tablet, its beautiful touchscreen, and its squishy, backlit keyboard. I should probably not do product reviews. It was too big to reasonably fit into any normal-sized shoulder bag (so I got a bigger one, obviously), and it was so heavy that after lugging it around all day I usually had a sore neck (yes, I am saying the thing I loved was literally a pain in my neck). It was beautiful, and it could tolerate my abuse more than any other device I had ever owned, as if it knew I didn’t mean it when I dropped it on the subway or spilled water (OK it was wine) on its keyboard. Eventually, the hinge that let it convert from laptop to tablet wore out, and damaged the power socket which was located impractically close to the hinge so I could no longer charge it, despite the valiant efforts of the guys at my local uBreakiFix shop. I still mourn this laptop’s demise — and I have not been able to part with it completely, so it occupies an obnoxiously large spot on my bookshelf. I was saddened when Toshiba announced it was getting out of the laptop business because it meant I wouldn’t ever be able to find a suitable updated version. I will never forget you, Toshiba Satellite Radius, you big, dumb, beautiful mess. —Kim Lyons ZBoard Pro The ZBoard Pro wasn’t the lightest, or the sleekest, or the fastest electric skateboard. It wasn’t the easiest thing to learn to ride. The small company that made it was around for just a few years before vanishing into oblivion. But the experience of riding the ZBoard Pro still kicks around in my brain more than any other electric skateboard — more than even the many smooth, quick trips I’ve taken over the years with the category-defining boards Boosted made before it went out of business . The original ZBoard was a beast — 25 pounds of wood, metal, and electronics sitting on relatively enormous wheels. That was part of its charm. The ZBoard Pro could tackle the toughest sections of New York City’s streets, which is no small feat. Rocks, sticks, and other debris can spell quick doom when you’re on a skateboard, more so when it’s motorized. And yet I remember enjoying the snap of branches that dared sneak under the ZBoard Pro’s chunky wheels. That feeling made it worth lugging the colossal board around (and the built-in handles helped, too). What made the ZBoard special was that you controlled it using pressure-sensitive footpads embedded in the deck. It really, truly, took some getting used to accelerating and braking by shifting my weight. But the beauty of this control scheme was that it made riding the ZBoard eerily similar to riding a snowboard. For most people, I think Boosted’s hand remote is still the best electric skateboard controller made to date. I always thought ZBoard’s approach was more fun, though. Boosted gets all the credit for establishing the electric skateboard market, and creating the best product. But the ZBoard Pro arrived on the scene at nearly the exact same time. In another universe, maybe the roles are flipped. In this world, ZBoard only made it far enough to develop a second-generation board (smaller, lighter, but with the same control scheme) before it flamed out. Some people who preordered that newer board were lucky enough to get theirs, but most, it seems, never did — a shame, because the original board was truly unique. —Sean O’Kane HTC Evo 3D I’m pretty sure I’ve included this pick in at least one other list over the past 10 years, and I don’t care. I loved this phone. Not for the gimmicky 3D screen. Or the fact it came preloaded with Seth Rogen’s The Green Hornet. Or because it was arguably another forgettable Android phone running version I-don’t-even-remember. Why did I love this phone? It had a very good button. The Evo 3D came with a two-stage camera shutter button. (And since there may be people at this point who have never used a traditional camera, a two-stage button works like this: you press it halfway to activate autofocus, and then all the way to snap the photo.) It was a perfectly-placed, circular metal button on the side of the phone with a 2D/3D photo toggle button next door. And it felt so good to press. Did the phone take good photos? Of course not. We’re talking about a 2011 Android device. It produced hot garbage by today’s standards. But… that button. I’ll never forget that button. The Evo 3D’s shutter button wasn’t just interesting because HTC dared to do something different as devices began converging on anonymous rectangle design. It was legitimately useful. Despite today’s advances in image stabilization and software processing, I still don’t feel totally comfortable having to tap the screen of my phone to take a photo or to tweak the focus. The genius of the shutter button on the phone was that you could hold the phone steady with two hands while still being able to manage focus and pick the right shot at the right time. Smartphones are incredible these days. They do so many things so well that improvements from year to year have become painfully incremental. But even the most advanced iPhone is still missing something. Give me that button. —TC Sottek Tile For my entire life, I’ve been losing things. In the last few months, I was tested for ADHD and found out my memory is less reliable than a bargain-brand cassette tape. But for nearly four decades, the only thing I knew is that I don’t know where anything is. If I put it down, it disappears — and in far too many cases, my wallets, keys, electronics, and other items vanished for good. After I had to replace everything in my wallet, again, a few years ago, I bought a couple of Tile’s Bluetooth trackers and the problem stopped. Even for me, completely losing an important item is rare, but getting stuck in the house because I can’t locate something important is an everyday struggle. Tile pretty much ended that, too, as suddenly my wallet and keys can speak up to announce their locations, even if the app’s ability to narrow down their hiding spot via wireless signal is questionable. Better yet, the Tiles themselves can find my phone, wherever it might be, like in the freezer, behind the couch, or outside, somehow. I’ve tried some other solutions I liked, too, but Tile’s the one that finally solved it for me. I think there are negatives to consider about the impact of tracking devices, whether made by Tile or others, when it comes to increasing waste and managing our digital footprint. Now there are some Tiles with replaceable batteries, but it’s not every model, and it doesn’t do much for millions of older units already out there. With the release of ultra wideband trackers, range and precision are increasing to a whole new level, highlighting privacy and stalking issues that haven’t been fully addressed yet, too. It’s also annoying that Tile locks important features like unlimited sharing and location history behind a subscription — but I really can’t overstate the amount of time saved and peace of mind that these little trackers bring. —Richard Lawler Fuji X100T I’m a video director and photographer here at The Verge, so it’s no surprise that my favorite gadget in the last decade would be a camera. But it might surprise you that it’s not a full-frame or medium-format behemoth, or even a massive cine camera. Rather, it’s Fujifilm’s tiny, retro-style, fixed-lens mirrorless camera — the Fuji X100T. Technically, this camera leaves a lot to be desired. The processor and the sensor both feel outdated. Noise handling isn’t all that good at higher ISO. Its fixed, non-removable 35mm-equivalent lens is a bit soft at f/2.0. There’s technically a video mode, but not much reason to use it. Fujifilm’s software has also improved greatly since this camera was first released in 2013. All these things are kind of missing the point, though. For me, this was the camera that brought me back to loving the actual process of taking photos. Initially I was just looking for a secondary, lighter, non-intrusive camera to carry with me daily. I was won over by the X100T’s absolutely beautiful retro design, its hybrid EVF, its ability to simulate the colors of retro film and its deliberately restricting nature. I was totally sold on the idea of becoming the next Robert Frank (still waiting on that last part to happen). But it did change my approach toward photography, made me slower and more deliberate with how I compose my images. It was the camera that convinced me to switch away entirely from my trusted Canon 5D Mark II (which I still kept for sentimental reasons) to mirrorless. I don’t use the X100T as much as I used to, but I bring it every time I visit New York City: There’s something very special about shooting around the city in the black-and-white film simulation mode. —Vjeran Pavic MiSTer FPGA retro console I’m not sure if my growing obsession with classic video games over the last 10 years is a byproduct of the steady, unyielding passage of time, or if it’s a byproduct of some truly incredible advances in retro gaming technology… so let’s go ahead and agree on the latter and move on. From HDMI mods on everything from the NES to the Dreamcast, to the incredible clone consoles from Analogue, the retro gaming faithful are truly blessed. But there’s perhaps no greater blessing for me than the MiSTer project. Like I explained recently , “MiSTer is an open-source project designed to recreate the functionality of classic PCs, arcade games, and consoles as accurately as possible,” and it does this using FPGA (field-programmable gate array) technology. “While traditional CPUs are fixed from the point of manufacture,” Sam Byford explained in his own MiSTer story, “FPGAs can be reprogrammed to work as if they came right off the conveyor belt with the actual silicon you want to use.”  While I still cherish my IKEA shelf full of consoles and my shelves full of games, I’ve increasingly found myself firing up my tiny little MiSTer when I want to play a classic game. While I can use an HDMI display, I most often default to the warm, irradiated glow of my Sony PVM CRT coupled with, well, almost any controller you can think of. I play Gunstar Heroes on the Sega Genesis core, or recently, TMNT on the Game Boy Advance core. I have an emulated 486 running everything from Doom to Loom. I have a hardware-accurate NeoGeo clone running games in crystal-clear 240p, truly a future that my 1990s teenage self could only imagine. Every week there is something new happening in the world of MiSTer, from new cores to cases to controllers. The MiSTer’s vitality encourages me to take the occasional break from whatever new release I’m playing to spend time with its progenitors — pausing Metroid Dread to pick up the GBA’s Metroid Fusion, for example. But to my surprise, over time, I’ve found my attention falls more and more often to the MiSTer. —Chris Grant iPod classic 160GB Sometimes, all I want to do is listen to my music in peace without seeing a trillion tweet notifications and new emails. That’s when I miss my iPod classic the most. With my iPod, if I wanted to shuffle through songs before falling asleep, I didn’t even have to look at the device. I could close my eyes and rely on actual buttons and the iPod’s comforting scrolling sound to shuffle through music. Now, I have to confront my phone’s blue light just to skip songs. Instead of being an escape, music sometimes sucks me back into doomscrolling. I’m cheating a little bit with this entry, because the last iPod classic model came out in 2009. But I hung onto mine until at least 2014, when I moved from Southern California to New York City. Coming from a place with very little public transportation, the sound of subway cars’ clanging low-key terrified me when I first arrived. I could drown that out and pass the time during my commute with my iPod — without draining my phone battery, or having to rely on data, or finding underground Wi-Fi to stream songs. I didn’t realize I was lugging around a dinosaur until another commuter told me one day that he hadn’t seen an iPod like mine “in years.”  I should have taken it as a compliment. As The Verge’s environmental reporter, I write about what a nasty problem e-waste is. The most eco-friendly choice you can make when it comes to picking a device isn’t buying a greener new device — it’s generally to keep the one you have until it’s dead . My iPod is, sadly, lost — probably in some box of sentimental crap I lug around with me whenever I move apartments. I can’t pinpoint exactly when or why I stopped using it. But if I ever find it again, I’d love to give it another spin. —Justine Calma Google Glass I think most people would consider Google Glass to be an abject failure and certainly not worthy of my Gadget of the Decade. But not me. I think it’s a clear winner. Not because it was great (it definitely wasn’t), not because it was a brave attempt by Google to make a truly revolutionary device (though it was), but because it made me think differently about my approach to taking pictures. Glass wasn’t just another iteration of a smartphone camera; this was a computer that you wore on your face! Which, of course, turned out to be not great from a self-esteem or privacy point of view. The Google Glass Explorer Edition was announced in 2013. I immediately signed up and went to Google’s showroom in Chelsea Market in New York to part with my $1,500 to buy one. When it came to selecting the color, I opted for the Shale model as the one least likely to make me feel self-conscious. Unfortunately it didn’t work. As soon as I stepped into the street I felt like a complete jerk. I felt so conspicuous that I soon gave up wearing Glass just for the hell of it. Instead, I became interested in using it as a still and video camera. I found taking photos without looking through a viewfinder or at a screen meant that the images were always slightly off from what I was expecting; it was like shooting with an extreme, exaggerated parallax. Being unable to accurately compose the photo, I was really just shooting a best guess. And I liked that. Of course the quality and resolution of Glass’s camera was bad — even for 2013. But to me that wasn’t the point. I liked the limitations. I appreciated that Glass forced me to think differently about how I was taking pictures in ways that using a smartphone never had. Yes, Google Glass was ultimately a failure as a consumer gadget. But it has had a lasting impact in how I think about new technology and the art of taking photos. —James Bareham A finger magnet For about half the past decade, I had magnetic powers. I don’t anymore. It’s a long story. I got a magnet implanted in my finger back in 2012. The minor surgery was fairly common among DIY biohackers : fans of physical augmentations like RFID chips, implanted headphones, and other futuristic “upgrades.” And it’s one of the most delightful things I’ve ever done. There is nothing in the world like being able to physically feel the fields around speakers and microwaves, pull loose screws from their housings with one finger, and impress strangers by performing minor telekinesis with paperclips and bottle caps. Unfortunately, this didn’t last . My working theory is that a coat of scar tissue slowly insulated the magnet until it couldn’t function; this is backed up by some advice from biohackers and also the permanently bruised swelling that’s bloomed on my fingerpad. I acknowledge that might sound off-putting, but I promise it’s painless. Almost. I’ve got no practical reason to keep the magnet now, just nostalgia. There was a brief period where emerging tech felt exhilarating, transformative, and within ordinary people’s control. For me personally, that period feels long gone. It’s been nine years; I’ve watched a lot of cool-seeming innovations flop or backfire or concentrate in the hands of a few companies that used them irresponsibly. Magnet powers and microchips are now the stuff of pandemic conspiracy theories — I can’t even joke about having really been magnetized, because I’m pretty sure someone would take it seriously. The thing is, though, I’d do the surgery again without hesitation. I still consider getting another magnet, although you can’t easily swap a new implant into the same slot, so the threat of running out of fingers stops me. I browse Dangerous Things to see if there’s anything neat I could get stuck under other parts of my skin. I want a fully implanted low-maintenance compass so very badly. Lots of biohacking was never as high-tech as its proponents made it sound. But there’s something satisfyingly grokkable about its tiny, discrete pieces of hardware. And these days, in a complex and vastly networked world, casual fun feels hard to come by. —Adi Robertson 30-inch Apple Cinema Display  One of my favorite gadgets is also my oldest, faithfully serving me for over 16 years. I purchased Apple’s 30-inch Cinema Display with an incredible (for the time) 2560 x 1600 resolution for about $2,300 way back in early 2005. I didn’t need it, I wasn’t even employed at the time, but I wanted it. So, I bought the behemoth primarily out of spite at a very difficult time in my life, when things, I thought, would bring me more happiness than experiences. It’s now the single oldest piece of consumer tech in my house, yet I still use it every day. I feel pretty good about that in a culture and industry that promotes overconsumption as a virtue. This Cinema Display was my only monitor when I began tech blogging on a PowerMac G5 back in 2005, it was there when I helped launch The Verge in 2011 from behind a MacBook Pro, and I’m looking at it right now as I type these words into my new Mac Mini. I wrote my first paid article on this monitor and it was here that I edited videos of my wedding and the photos of my daughter’s birth. Such intimate longevity has created emotional attachment, making it more than just a display. It’s a 30-inch totem that represents the through-line of my professional career and family life. How could I ever give it up? —Thomas Ricker