Hardware

Hardware. It's the physical objects we use every day, interact with every day; yet it's often overlooked. At work: stuck with ugly, barely acceptable hardware, at home: stuck with hardware that, whilst functional; doesn't quite fit what you want. With hardware being the physical technology we touch everyday, theoretically it should be one of the most personal parts of your life, as its function certainly is. However, it often isn't, is it?

I have a strong belief that the hardware we use every day should be personal, beautiful or functional, if not all three. If I have to interact with and use an item every day, I should be able to enjoy using it. This will be a collection of the hardware I use that I enjoy using, that feels at least somewhat personal, that looks beautiful (if not beautiful, I think it looks cool) or all three.

iPhone 14 Pro

The iPhone I own. Not the newest model, I know, but it's what I have and it's a capable device still, has a 120hz display, looks nice, has a pretty good camera and is powerful enough to do everything I need. Topped off with my dbrand grip case, it feels pretty personal too. With recent iOS updates and the customisable skin on my case, it feels personal to me, combined with how personal a smartphone is by default, it has my whole life on it and I don't mind this phone being what carries that out, it's not super flashy like the newest iPhones, it just works. Not what I'd purchase today, but it works for me now and it certainly isn't worth buying the 17 Pro.

Daisy One

My everyday headphones. Created by a new Californian startup, the Daisy One headphones feel great, sound great (to me at least, as someone who isn't an audiophile) and look beautiful. They are easily the most comfortable headphones I have ever worn, with the memory foam headband and earcups (which are magnetically removable, by the way). They are on the heavier side, but that adds to the premium feel for me and they certainly aren't as heavy as the AirPods Max. But the main selling point is certainly the design, a great industrial design with aluminium (yes, I'm British) and Composite (which looks just as good and reduces the weight). They are built to last, which is great as someone who likes to throw their stuff around and they are nice to use everyday. But I actually really like their unique feature, Still Mode (which I really thought would be a useless gimmick). Still Mode introduces a set of relaxing soundscapes recorded around California, from 5-minute breathwork by Joshua Tree to Brown Noise from Yosemite Falls, they are well thought out and truly relaxing tracks of audio, built into the headphones: no need for a phone, just the headphones. And I haven't even mentioned my favourite part of the headphones yet: the dial. A truly physical metal dial that ticks all the boxes: it's satisfying, beautiful, smooth and yet weighted to the perfect degree, an all-in-all great piece of technology for the everyday user, competing with the likes of the AirPods Max, for £365, not £500. You can find it available online here. (I personally have the Pacific colourway)

B&O Beoplay M5

My room speaker. Made by the luxury audio brand, Bang & Olufsen, it truly is a beautiful addition to my room and it sounds just as good. It has all-around sound that perfectly fills my room and really makes listening to music feel like an experience. A beautiful (and huge) physical button as the entire top of the speaker, which presses down to play/pause/skip, rotates to turn up/down the volume and adds a extra layer of physicality to the speaker, allowing you to stay away from the phone or the (somewhat questionable) B&O app, they are definitely an audio company, not a software one. No longer sold as it is older now, but speakers don't age like other technology, it's still a highly capable, and beautiful piece of tech. You can view it online here.

M4 MacBook Air

My everyday work laptop, again, not the newest model. The MacBook Air is the perfect device for work, a productivity beast, without the weight and without the bulk that comes with a typical productivity beast (especially on the Windows side), it's a sleek masterpiece of engineering and the M4 chip does absolutely everything you could need from a productivity machine, let's keep in mind that this is a productivity machine: not a gaming machine, that's important in this case. It stays cool, even without the fans, looks sleek, works well and macOS is (in my opinion, remember) the best desktop OS for productivity. Linux is too unfriendly for the average user, Windows is unfriendly to, well, all users (despite its great app support). Overall a great laptop, despite not having the latest fancy M5 chip, it works well, as do all of Apple's M-series MacBooks and other Macs.

Custom-Built Gaming PC

Not quite as beautiful or sleek as something like the Daisy One or the MacBook Air, but I love my Windows PC, it's incredible for gaming and does absolutely everything I can throw at it, it really is my everything machine. MacBook by day, PC by night. My PC sports a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which truly is a beast, the RTX 4080, 64GB of 6000MT/s DDR5 Corsair Vengeance RAM (which is worth a fortune nowadays, thankfully I bought it back in 2023), a 4TB Samsung M.2 SSD, a 850W Corsair PSU and a TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI Motherboard, which whilst less stylish, does look pretty sick for gaming. The CPU is cooled by a 360mm AIO and everything else is able to be cooled by air, creating overall a powerful, yet not completely huge gaming machine. It certainly ticks the "functional" box in my mind and it does feel personal, having built it. (just wish Windows wasn't the only real option for me) The parts were sourced from SCAN UK, which you can find here.