Mobile PC - Features - The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time

Mobile PC - Features - The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time Not sure what these guys were smoking, but the "APPLE POWERBOOK 100 circa 1991" took the top spot.

Whether they're strapped to our belts, sitting on our desks, or jammed in an overstuffed closet, we absolutely love our gadgets.

So it wasn't exactly easy coming up with the definitive list of the 100 best gadgets ever unleashed. In the weeks we spent debating the entries, tempers were flared, fingers were pointed, chairs were smashed over heads, and feelings were hurt. But we emerged, like Moses from the mountain, with the world's most authoritative ranking of the best gadgets of all time.

But let's lay some ground rules before we get started. What defines a "gadget" anyway?

• It has to have electronic and/or moving parts of some kind. Scissors count, but the knife does not.
• It has to be a self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device. The flashlight counts; the light bulb does not. The notebook counts, but the hard drive doesn't.
• It has to be smaller than the proverbial bread box. This is the most flexible of the categories, since gadgets have gotten inexorably smaller over time. But in general we included only items that were potentially mobile: The Dustbuster counts; the vacuum cleaner doesn't.

In the end, we tried to get to the heart of what really makes a gadget a gadget.