Rob Enderle’s 3 favorite products of 2012

Tech analyst Rob Enderle gets to play with a lot of gadgets, but these three from 2012 prove gadgets really can make life better.

Last week, I talked about all the products I wanted that didn’t arrive in 2012, or arrived half baked. This week, I’ll get a little more positive and discuss my three favorite products of 2012. Of all of the products I used and tested, these are the ones that generally go with me everywhere.

Kindle Fire HD

I’ve been a Kindle fan since the first one of these shipped. It’s just an amazing pleasure to have something with days of battery life, yet still light enough that I’m comfortable going through most of a book in one sitting. Last week, I read all five books in the Iron Druid Chronicles while traveling to visit Dell and Qualcomm. Plane trips go by quickly now, and if someone leaves me sitting for a long time waiting for a meeting, rather than getting upset, I appreciate the extra time to read the next installment in a compelling adventure. If I get up and discover I don’t have my Kindle, my heart nearly stops as panic takes hold – not because it’s too expensive to replace, but because I’ll be left with time and nothing interesting to fill it with. The Kindle Fire HD helps keep me sane (well, relatively), and it is one of my favorite products this year.

Microsoft Surface tablet

You have no idea how wonderful one of these new tablets is until you take it on a trip instead of a laptop. It gives me all-day battery life, near-instant wireless network connections, instant suspend resume, a touch screen, and Office. I do miss Outlook a bit, but the feather-light weight and incredibly long battery life has me often carrying this instead of my notebook. So far, it’s the only tablet I’ve found (that isn’t a notebook in disguise) that allows me to really leave the laptop at home. It has done wonders for my back by keeping my backpack light, and wonders for my piece of mind because I don’t sweat the battery life. I would have never thought that Microsoft could create something this good, much less with a first-generation. My other tablets must look longingly at my Surface Tablet and say “we are not worthy.”

Nokia Lumia 920 smartphone

If I could take just one product with me to a desert island (assuming it had phone reception), it would be the Nokia Lumia 920. In a pinch, this rather large phone can actually sub for my other two favorite devices. I’ve gone to dinners where I couldn’t bring my Kindle, so I’ve read the book I was reading on the Lumia instead. I’ve been without my laptop or Surface Tablet and still done real work on this not-so-little phone. The best part: It has the highest quality camera on the market. I have pictures that I wouldn’t have been able to take if it weren’t for this phone. Who knew I could enjoy a phone like this so much? It integrates with my car’s sound system so I can listen to tunes off of Slacker or my music library, works flawlessly with my headsets and car for phone calls, and it actually isn’t bad at all for movies and TV.

Looking forward to 2013

I can hardly wait to see the second-generation Microsoft Surface, given how wonderful the first generation is. While lots of folks live for the next iProduct, I kind of live for the next Kindle. But I’m really struggling with how you’d make a better phone, for my needs, than the Nokia Lumia 920 – so I’m especially looking forward to the next phones from that company. You know, 2013 is looking like it will be an amazing year for cool new products.

How about you, what were your favorite products of 2012?