Blasts From the Past: TechSpot Staff's Favorite Tech of the Last Decade

[Julio Franco]

We asked everyone on the TechSpot team to think about their top 5 favorite tech items released in the last decade. This article is a collective list of those products (later on you can share your own with the community in the comments), so please join us as we go through our favorite tech from the 2010s: blasts from the past, that impressed us with their value for money, outstanding performance, or those feel-good vibes that they gave us!

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2023-blasts-favorite-tech-2010s/

 

[Uncle Al]

A friend of mine (not a bright one) nominated the Thermos Bottle. Of course I asked why on earth do you say that?!?! He said "because it keeps hot things hot and cold things cold" .... to which I said "so what?". His reply .... "How do it know?" .......

 

[QuantumPhysics]

IPhone 4s was my LEAST favorite phone of the decade. The real money was the iPhone 6 Plus when Apple 1st got the “big screen”. I actually camped out over night to get mine...first time I ever camped out for anything. Amazing story to tell about that one.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Glad to see Nvidia dominating the list of your favorite GPU. I stuck with Titan X and Xp over the 980 and 1080Ti...

The 2080Ti should have got mentioned since it single handedly dominated this entire generation of PC gaming.

 

[pencea]

Glad to see Nvidia dominating the list of your favorite GPU. I stuck with Titan X and Xp over the 980 and 1080Ti...

The 2080Ti should have got mentioned since it single handedly dominated this entire generation of PC gaming.

Monopoly is never a good thing for us consumers. Many of us want AMD to do well, and be more competitive with the higher ends. Competition benefits both companies and us consumers.

And yeah yeah we get it. You love Apple/Nvidia, hate AMD and consoles.

 

[Privery]

The real money was the iPhone 6 Plus when Apple 1st got the “big screen”.

Apple really pushed the industry forward with that phone

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Apple really pushed the industry forward with that phone

The iPhone 6 Plus was easily the greatest "device" I'd ever owned up till that point.

I got it with 128GB and was really lucky to get it considering the madness lining up for it.

I felt that once Apple got the big screen, the speed and fingerprint scanner of the 5S that they'd really reached a climax. 1080p recording and a great camera.

I made a video of a vacation in Seychelles that still looks great to this day.

Yes, they've improved the line with water resistance, 4K 60 fps recording, better camera, more speed and larger capacities, but I personally haven't felt any major leaps in technology as great as the leap from my iPhone 5 to the iPhone 6 Plus.

 

[Lounds]

William chose 660 as his first graphics card. William chose wrong, I brought a 7870XT (7930) off the bat of a techspot article in early 2013 as the best mid range card for 1080p gaming at the time.

 

[p51d007]

My FIRST smartphone, was the Dell Streak 5. A "massive" 5" screen, in the era of most phones having a 3.5" screen. When I first got it, most of my friends had iphones or the samsung equivalent. They would lay their phone over my screen and laugh that my screen, was larger than their entire phone. Why would you want such a HUGE screen. Ummm because I didn't want to squint, pinch zoom to see everything? And, because it is safer than the tiny 3.5 inch screens.
How is it safer? Because the thing is so large, there is no way I would even think about texting and driving, because you can't use it single handed.
NOW look at screens approaching 7"

 

[PEnnn]

Wow, 2 of my hardware items are included my 4790K and the GTX 970!!

And yes, they still work great no matter what I throw at them!!

 

[PEnnn]

IPhone 4s was my LEAST favorite phone of the decade. The real money was the iPhone 6 Plus when Apple 1st got the “big screen”. I actually camped out over night to get mine...first time I ever camped out for anything. Amazing story to tell about that one.

I just traded my 6S Plus for the 11. The 6S Plus was really a great phone, it pains me to lose it, but I am quite happy now with the 11.

 

[himindedlolife]

Solid state drive no doubt about it made the biggest qualitative improvement to my computing experience. My first one was an 80gb Intel X25-M I bought back in 2009 I think, long before SSD became mainstream. Showing it off to my friends was like living in The Future(TM)

 

[Lounds]

Solid state drive no doubt about it made the biggest qualitative improvement to my computing experience. My first one was an 80gb Intel X25-M I bought back in 2009 I think, long before SSD became mainstream. Showing it off to my friends was like living in The Future(TM)

Tbf I remember upgrading to my first SSD in 2011 back when it was about £1 a GB and being amazed at how responsive it made the OS feel and opening programs and games etc, after that I always recommended SSD's even to people with older machines and laptops to extend the life of them.

 

[BadThad]

"Some of us in the team no longer carry any cash..."

And some day you all will get burned. Over the years I've encountered MANY instances where you had to have cash or you weren't getting what you wanted. Example, pulling into some ad-hoc parking lot in a field for an event - no cash, no parking. Or when the power, internet or CC reader is down - no goods/services for you.

Always carry a little cash!!!!

 

[Cooe14]

The lack of an AMD HD 7970/GHz Ed/280X in the GPU section disappoints me greatly. No GPU in HISTORY has ever aged as well as Tahiti. You could have bought an HD 7970 brand new in 2011, and still be playing the latest games at good framerates & settings at 1080p.... NINE YEARS LATER!!! That's f**king insane!!! In modern titles/engines, it's literally like >2x faster than a GTX 680 these days on its worst days, and that much faster or more vs a GTX 780 Ti on its best ones (oh how freaking bad Kepler has aged....)

 

[s3thra]

My 3570k. Holy smokes that CPU was a good upgrade from my old Phenom - still powers my second PC today.

 

[neeyik]

The lack of an AMD HD 7970/GHz Ed/280X in the GPU section disappoints me greatly. No GPU in HISTORY has ever aged as well as Tahiti. You could have bought an HD 7970 brand new in 2011, and still be playing the latest games at good framerates & settings at 1080p.... NINE YEARS LATER!!! That's f**king insane!!! In modern titles/engines, it's literally like >2x faster than a GTX 680 these days on its worst days, and that much faster or more vs a GTX 780 Ti on its best ones (oh how freaking bad Kepler has aged....)

The 7970's problem was that it was the wrong GPU architecture for its time. In 2011, the amount of compute work in 3D games was generally quite low, so all that FP32 vector performance was going to waste. AMD kept sticking to their guns with GCN, correctly predicting the direction rendering would go in, but not judging the time frame properly.

 

[Bamda]

For me the iPad is the best tech to appear at my home. I love mine and use it hourly!