Are sizzling gadget sales cooling off?

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for other products to maintain consumer electronic sales momentum for at least a few more years.

"It would surprise me that you would find a dip in the market," Bhavnani said, noting the revenue growth from people replacing their televisions with high-definition models. "Many people would certainly consider upgrading their audio system or their digital camera along with their television."

Forester's Schadler said he believes consumer adoption of broadband, home networking, HDTV, camera phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, laptops and digital video recorders over the next five years will stay healthy.

"That doesn't feel like the party's over from a consumers' perspective," he said.

Intel and Texas Instruments are two companies that are very bullish on the growth in gadgets of all shapes and sizes through the next decade.

During his keynote at Intel's developer conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said industry growth is "back" with technological advances in PCs and other computers fueling shipments to record levels. Intel is also pushing past the PC with lower-power products Otellini said would lead to a new category of ultra energy-efficient "handtop PC" devices.

"We are rethinking and retooling our efforts to bring people digital content on any device that they want, when they want it and where they want it," Otellini said. "From my perspective, technology should be ubiquitous."

Texas Instruments is currently touring the globe with a host of high-tech gadgetry designed around TI's semiconductors and related technology.

"Take anything where the content is digitizing and you will see where the market will be growing," TI CEO Richard Templeton recently told CNET News.com. "Now that broadband is wired to 25 percent of the homes in the world, people are looking at different devices that they would like to connect with. That means great growth for us."

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I have only one of those gadgets

I only have a digital camera. I have no plans on aquiring a TV that will be outdated next year. I have no desire for the horrible interface of the ipod. Most gadgets have been poorly designed, in fact I long for my older nokia phone over this newer samsung I just got (AT&T went bye bye and Cingular started degrading signals until upgrade to gsm.,)


So yeah I'm done with gadget world.

[Filip Remplakowski]

WTF

Out of all the interfaces i've used for portable music players the
iPod's is the easiest and best especially with the clik wheel since all
your controls are done by one thumb which is how it should be, as
for the nokia i just got the 8800 and the interface is quite bad
compared to the sony i had earlier + the battery lasts a day on
standby, even if i have a spare battery i'm returning it

[R. U. Sirius]

You can't be serious

The iPod has the worst interface? Man, what on gods green earth are you smoking?

[Mendz]

It'll be worth waiting...

... for an ultimate device which is a true PC, phone, camera, media player, radio and TV in one the size of your palm and fits in your pocket.

[Filip Remplakowski]

Devices that

do everything don't do anything well, think about it using a mp3
player and using a camera. they are used in two different ways,
think of how you hold each device, now add a mobile phone and
a pc with video playing capability, which will be on a tiny screen
since a mobile phone has to be small to be practical, now
consider battery life and then an easy to use interface to make it
work. I'd prefer to have a computer where you can plug your
gear into (or use wireless) and integrate it with all your software
with out getting drivers. Doesn't seem like any company has
done that really well... oh wait apple has. I switched recently
and have not looked back at the mess (mess: a top of the line
sony vaio with xp pro, not some dell or crap brand pc) i had
before.