Top 5 Purchases

Every gear head should take stock. 2006 list of my best purchases of the year:

 

1) Nikon D200 digital SLR. An upgrade from my now aging but still able D70. It’s fast, powerful, a thing of beauty. Amateur point & shooters should get the D40 body with the 18-200VR lens. Anyone serious, get the D200 throw on the 85 F1.4 and fire away.

2) Lenovo X60s laptop. Thinkpads are THE laptop, bar none. Built like a brick, powerfull, simple, no annoying lights and crap. And that beautiful Thinkpad nipple in red. I hate trackpads. Dual core delicious.

3) Sonos music system. The perfect way to add music to your home. Plug into the wall, plug into some speakers, go. The wireless mesh network, great remote, and excellent interface makes Sonos the only way to go. Pickup a large NAS and your whole music collection is available in every room. It’s doesn’t get any better.

4) The 27 piece All-Clad stainless set. While the Wok is a little large for our stove, the rest of it works perfectly. I might have gone with the smaller 15 piece set as it’s less to store in a NYC kitchen, but  you can’t go wrong with good cookware. I dropped the Global knives off at Westpfal for a needed sharpening so the new kitchen is shaping up.

 5) The 37″ Sharp Aquos for the bedroom. It’s a nice set, good colors, the blacks aren’t so bad for an LCD and neither is the motion blur. Off-angle viewing doesn’t matter as it’s directly in front of the bed. 1080p is nice if I ever set up a HTPC on it but otherwise, a solid bedroom TV for wall mounting. Not all Sharps are made by Sharp but the Aquos is generally a good set.

 Next, the top 5 worst purchases of 2006…