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My top five consumer electronic items

Here are my top five consumer electronic items? What are yours?
Written by Andrew Keen, Contributor
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Okay, guys -- so some of you have had a few problems with HP computers in the past. I'm sorry (although I personally am not responsible for the reliability of either the Microsoft operating system or the HP hardware) -- I feel your pain and share your grief. But let's move now. Time to cheer up. Things can't be that bad.

So enough of this blogo-culture of complaint. It's Friday, reason-to-be-cheerful #1.. Let's make it a NO WHINING day. I want to celebrate some of electronic equipment I own that works 100% of the time. Here's my top five list:

  • My Toyota RAV4 EV. It's a fully electric car that we bought five years ago. We recharge it most nights at our house -- on a full charge it can do around 100 miles (enough to get me from my house in Berkeley to Redwood City and back). It has done 35,000 miles and we've never had a problem with its electric engine. This is a true convergence product -- bringing together the green movement with the automobile industry. For a brief and tragic history of electric vehicles, see the movie Who Killed the Electric Car.
  • My Arcam home-theater electronics. I'm a massive fan of this English high-end audio and video company. I've owned their beautifully designed (both externally and internally) FMJ A7 home theater processor, DVD 27 player and two sets of their seven channel F7 amplifier for five years now. In that time, I've had one problem with the laser of the DVD player which Audiophile Systems, the US distributor of Arcam, quickly fixed. 
  • My Vaio laptop computer. I own the VGN-A290 laptop that has worked like a dream for the last three years. I still have a working VAIO from 1998.  I have had one VAIO that died -- but that was after I dumped a bottle of Diet Coke on it. The VAIO's might not quite have the sex appeal of the latest HP gear, but they have, in my experience, been terrifically reliable.
  • My Audiovector loudspeakers. These hand crafted, magical loudspeakers are made by my friend Ole Klimoth, in the equally magical city of Copenhagen. They are the most musical loudspeakers I've ever had the pleasure of listening. I've had a pair of the S6's and M1's for five years and never had a squeak of trouble from their wonderful tweeters. The Audiovector might not formally count as "electronics", but they certainly bring my Arcam gear to life.
  • My iPod. Sorry to be so predictable here. But I couldn't live without it.

 What's your top five list?

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