Published at LXer:

Which gadget are you most thankful for? Smart phone Laptop Tablet E-reader Other (tell us in the comments) It's that time of year when everyone pauses to be thankful. At opensource.com, we want to know which gadget you're MOST thankful for. Which device could you not survive without? Personally I know I'm 100% attached to my smart phone.  So you know my vote.

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The PC. Long live the PC.

Honestly, I don't think the laptop can still be degraded to "gadget" status.

My old Velo by Philips. Still have it. Still works.

Yes, I would say that a laptop and PC are not "gadgets" and should not be included in the poll. I suppose they assume that the PC is dead and does not need to be included. This is an assumption made by people who know nothing about computers and only know and like "gadgets". Gadgets are little, useless wastes of silicon.

A gadget is usually something that is small and portable enough to be carried around. So a laptop may be in a gray area when it comes to its gadget status, a PC is definitely not.
My favorite gadget is my cheap and simple MP3-player (no iDevice, nothing that is complicated, pure music playback) and i personally don't think that it is a waste of silicon.
The best thing for me will be my personal gadget when I have the time and money for the hardware modifications on my eeePC 701 (mass storage upgrade, case-mod to convert it into tablet form, touchscreen mod, ...) and after creating a modified Slackware to run on it.

I would vote for a camera if it were on there. It's true this is one useful gadget ... and yet it has been here longer than any of the other less useful gadgets.

mp3 player ... nah, I need no more noise. A CD player is what I would vote for ... but I have one in my car, so does it count as a "gadget" ?

You can clearly see that they omitted the useful gadgets on purpose. They want to focus on useless ones (except laptop). I would vote for netbook instead of laptop. A laptop is too big to carry efficiently.

In conclusion: Terrible poll.

So music from a MP3 player is noise, but when it comes from CD it is not? What about car radios with the possibility to plug in your MP3 player?

Many car radios now have mp3 support. Not that I would ever need it. Yes mp3 quality is low. I want lossless.

I would have to say my Android phone.

Sure it is tracking my whole life but it is nice. Will do about 90% of what my computer will do in the palm of my hand. Just love it!