I have promised myself a new camera sometime this year as a special treat. Not an SLR - because, frankly, my abilities are more than catered for with my trusty D70.

I just fancy having something a little more portable - but also something with a bit of decent image quality.

Anyway, that’s where I started - and my shortlist was down to the Canon G9 (general good reviews and lots of excellent use of them on Flickr), or the Ricoh Caplio GX-100 (because Bowbrick has one - and the 24mm lens could come in handy).

Now I’m having second thoughts - should I be trading a bit of camera quality for connectivity? In particular with this camera, it’s not just that I can carry it anywhere, but also that I can send stuff off to Flickr asap.

In other words - should I look for the best possible Camera with a phone attached?

Now, the immediate choice would be a Nokia N95…but it just feels like such a waste to have all that additional functionality and not use it (I’ve just gone to all the effort of swapping a phone+ blackberry for just a Curve..and I don’t want to go back)0

….someone told me yesterday that 8MP cameraphones are coming in the summer…

…decisions…decisions…

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For the last few months I feel I have reached gadget nirvana for the first time in my adult life. As someone whose gadget grave yard from the last decade is frankly an embarrassment in these landfill-aware times, I find myself in the rare state of not wanting for anything, thanks to my three step programme.

1. Ditch the phone, love the Curve

Three months I did something I’ve never done before - I replaced two gadgets with one. A rare act of consolidation as I got rid of my phone and blackberry in exchange for a Blackberry Curve.

This has worked for me - big time. OK, so the Curve, or possibly the sever it works from, has a tendency to randomly eat messages, but all in all putting everything onto one device has been a major strike for sanity.

Obviously, when I lose it, I lose everything. But we’ll deal with that when it happens.

2. Get your Google apps all working nicely

Google has really helped here - in particular with Google mail and Google reader that work just fine on the Curve. That means all my incoming information now lives on one device. Yippeee.

All that was lovely enough - but then Google delivered Google Sync which Syncs your Blackberry calendar with Google Calendar. This works (pretty much) perfectly, which means my assistant can edit my calendar using Lotus Notes, which syncs with my Blackberry, which now syncs with Google Calendar - which means I don’t have to use Notes to look at my calendar. This sounds phenomenally complex, but it’s actually made things much, much easier for me.

Something has gone badly wrong with Google Maps for me, though. It sends the whole device into a bluetooth tailspin. No matter, the curve’s own mapping system is actually pretty good - although I could really do with a voice driven sat nav for when I’m on my bike. But maybe that’s just being fussy.

3. Bring on the iTouch

Given our corporate set up, an iPhone was never going to be for me. But, while it’s possible to do audio and video on the Curve, it’s not really what it does best. So thank you for my Xmas present - the Touch, which is working a treat as an entertainment centre for my commuting.

Thanks to the work of sublime (but legally questionable) genius that is Handbrake, I can watch my box sets of blokish cop shows on the train home. (and there’s now quite a lot of people on the way back to Surrey each night doing exactly that…)

Now, there’s a fair bit that’s not quite right about the iTouch. You find yourself having to go back to the main menu a few too many times for the user experience to be truly elegant, and the touch-screen slider for the volume is a pain for those of us who don’t have piano player’s fingers.

In addition the battery just drains all too often.

The web browsing is great - but I never actually need it. But, for podcasts, music and video - it is frankly unbeatable.

How long can this state of nirvana last, I wonder? I’m already a bit pissed off that there’s now a 32GB Touch…but such is life.

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