Alongside flawless functionality and a great user experience, the best gadgets are the ones with outstanding design elements. Here’s a look at some design-forward gadgets that will bring gear-lust back into your life.
B&O Beolit 15 wireless speaker
Reminiscent of vintage transistor radios, the BeoLit 15 Wireless Speaker from Bang & Olufsen has a feature set that is anything but old-fashioned. Designed by Danish designer Cecilie Manz, it stands out with its anodized aluminum grill smoothly wrapped around the speaker, and its full grain leather carry-strap. It’s a real powerhouse, featuring four active drivers and two passive bass radiators, driven by dual Class D amplifiers, and delivering 240 watts of peak power. The device’s rechargeable battery has a playback time of approximately 8 hours wired (4 hours airplay), and is capable of simultaneously charging iPhones, iPads or other connected devices.
Price: Rs. 69,900
Sennheiser Orpheus Headphones
In 1991, Sennheiser created Orpheus, one of the best headphones you can buy. It has revisited Orpheus, albeit without the constraints of practicality and with just one aim: to create the absolute best headphones. While the jury is out on its world-beating performance, we have to admit that the headphones feel luxurious, with a beautifully sculpted aluminum body and a side helping of leather. They are designed to work with the included DAC and tube amplifier, which are seated in a glass housing, on a block of Carrara marble, producing a phenomenal (claimed) 8Hz to 100KHz frequency response. Some 6,000 components make up each Orpheus, and it takes an entire day to assemble each unit.
Price: £30,000
Master & Dynamic ME05 Earphones
A small New York startup called Master & Dynamic is stirring things up in the audio market, and their latest ME05 earphones are a thing of beauty. Precisionmachined from solid brass — a material widely recognized for its unique acoustic and aesthetic qualities — and hand-finished, the ME05 Earphones feature 8-mm Neodymium drivers and deliver a rich sonic experience.
Price: $199
Leica Q
Beautifully engineered Leicas have long been the most desirable cameras on the planet. The Leica Q, with its unmistakable clean lines, smooth surfaces and the formal minimalism that Leica product design is known for, is a fixed-lens camera with a full-frame 24 megapixel sensor in a compact body, a built-in 28mm f 1.7 ASPH lens, lightning-quick AF, a 3.68 megapixel electronic viewfinder, plenty of physical controls for manual operation and a new Maestro II processor for burst shooting up to 10 fps. It’s everything we dreamed Leica would make for street photography.
Price: $4250
Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond Speakers
Last year, Bowers & Wilkins completely redesigned its flagship line of speakers, the 800 Series Diamond. The series includes the 802, 803, 804 and 805 models, and features a new cabinet with a front and sides formed of one continuous curve, held together with a spine of solid aluminum. According to B&W, the curved shape in front allows sound to be dispersed better. It also makes the new series look sexy as hell.
Price: Rs. 5,95,000 onwards
Polaroid Snap
With its Snap Instant Camera, Polaroid puts the fun and spontaneity back in photography. The new camera is the perfect blend of nostalgic Polaroid instant photography and sleek modern design. It’s small enough to fit in your palm (and, more importantly, your back pocket) and is completely ink-free. Storing 32GB of photos on a Micro SD card, the Snap gives you several dierent shooting modes, including colour, black and white, a vintage Polaroid and “photo booth”, and it instantly prints full-colour 2×3” photos on ZINK (zero ink) paper.
Price: $99
Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
If there’s one thing Sony is known for, it’s making gorgeous gadgets. Sony’s Experia
Z5 Premium is one heck of an attention-grabbing phone, with a stunning 5.5-inch 4K Ultra-HD display, a 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, a 23 MP camera with Hybrid Autofocus
and a power button with a fingerprint sensor. The front and back panels of the phone are made of Gorilla Glass, and the sides are glossy black-coated metal. Oh, and it’s waterproof.
Price: Rs. 57,990
LaCie Chrome
The LaCie Chrome is a $1,100 external SSD designed by Neil Poulton. The elevated form is homage to a 1935 bronze statue by Constantin Brâncu i, one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century. The Chrome’s enclosure is hand-assembled, then chromed to a flawless mirror polish. Forged from solid chromed zinc, the stand securely docks the drive with powerful neodymium magnets.
Price: $1,100
Apple 12-inch MacBook
This is what the future of laptops looks like. At under 1kg in weight and just 13.1mm thick, it’s the thinnest and lightest MacBook ever — and its drop dead gorgeous. This new MacBook boasts a 12-inch Retina display with edge-to-edge glass, a re-engineered keyboard, an all-new Force Touch trackpad that allows for personalised sensitivity, a USB-C port and a speedy Intel Core M processor that sips so little energy that the system generates very little heat, so no fan is required to cool the computer — it’s completely silent. Available in silver, space gray and gold.
Price: Starting at Rs. 99,90
