Well, if I'm going to do a review of the year, it had better be right now because there's only five hours of 2011 left.
Things were a bit lean on the gadget front this year, mainly because I bought the ultimate gadget in June, a new house! We had been talking about moving for some time, but we finally decided to bite the bullet and go for it. We weren't prepared for quite what a massively time-consuming (and to be honest, stressful) thing this would be, but it's done now and we're settled in nicely.
Other than that rather expensive purchase, I managed to acquire a new Xbox 360 Slim (after the other one suffered a rather drawn-out demise). It's a much more sleek unit than the old one, and having 250GB of storage is a bonus. It has also proved its worth as a decent media player too, as I've been using it as a stop-gap DVD player and media streamer in the lounge.
I also got a second Apple TV for the bedroom, and I also got round to migrating my iTunes library onto an external hard drive to free up space on the iMac. I've been upgrading a lot of my music to Apple Lossless, and ripping a lot of DVDs, so having the extra storage has been pretty much essential.
Other than that, in November I retired the HTC Legend and managed to finally get my hands on the Gadget To Rule Them All, an iPhone 4. This is, it goes without saying, quite the most magnificent thing in the known universe and why I didn't get one sooner is beyond me. Obviously, I considered the new iPhone 4S but ultimately it came down to money, so the 4 ended up being the better deal. iOS5 is excellent, and it has already become indispensable.
The final gadget acquisition of 2011 was an Apple Magic Trackpad for my birthday just a couple of weeks ago, and like all Apple gadgets it is superb - it really takes advantage of Lion's multitouch features, and now I've got used to it I can't see myself going back to a mouse any time soon.
And I can't let it go without saying that 2011 was a sad time for the gadget world when we lost Steve Jobs. We won't ever see another quite like him.
So goodbye 2011, and let's hope 2012 is filled full of gadget-goodness for you all. I have my eye on the home cinema conversion for starters - let's see how that one pans out!
