Gear of the Year 2012

2012 is done. It’s in the can. It’s a wrap. The martini take is finished. Blah blah blah. Lot’s of new equipment came out this year, as it does every year. Fun fact: the sun rises in the morning, and goes down at night. You’re learning a lot in this post. This is good. Here’s my list of the top gear for 2012.

1) The Sony RX1

First things first: this camera is absurdly expensive. It’s a little tiny camera that costs $2800 US dollars. Insane. That said, this camera is just plain old awesome. A 35mm full-frame image processor, a fixed f/2.0 Zeiss lens, 1080p video at 60 fps. Sick. While Sony has had its troubles lately, their camera designers are leading the industry. Rumor has it that they’re working on a full-frame mirrorless interchangeable camera system for 2013. If that’s true, Sony may well hold the top spot again next year.

2) Steve Jobs’ Yacht

The gaping void left by Steve Jobs was partially filled by his boat in 2012. Steve personally put about six years of work into designing this dream yacht, and sadly, it wasn’t completed until the Fall of 2012, about a year after Steve left the stage. Like the RX1, it’s insanely expensive. We’re talking 105 million Euros expensive. She’s a beauty, though. It’d be fun to stand at the bow, skeet shooting with a shiny stainless-steel shotgun, having a butler hurl RX1’s high up into the air to be shot.

3) Panasonic GH3

Admittedly, I have a soft spot for the Lumix GH series of cameras. I’m a proud owner of a hacked GH2, so it’s not surprising that the new GH3 made it on my list. With its magnesium alloy weather-sealed body, it’s certainly bigger and badder than the last generation. But the real appeal of this camera for me is its 1/8″ stereo headphone output. DSLR’s that featured headphone outputs were the really exciting story of 2012, for A/V nerds like myself. Headphone outputs could be found on the Canon 5D Mark III, the Nikon D800 and the Sony a99, all of which made their debut in 2012.

4) New York City’s Spacecraft

Originally completed in 1976, the Space Shuttle Enterprise really has no place being included in a “Best New Gear of 2012” list, however, it’s good fodder for a blog post, so screw it. In April 2012, the Enterprise was flown into NYC, enroute to its new home at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. I was in the city that morning, but unfortunately, I was oblivious to the flyover, and my face was tucked deep into my cubicle in Midtown when Enterprise was careening overhead.

5) iPad mini

Packing nearly identical specs as 2011’s iPad 2 (with the exception of its 7.9″ display and Lightning port), the iPad mini debuted in October 2012, and will likely forge on to become the most popular tablet computer in 2013. Its screen geometry is distinctly more square and spacious than competing tablets like the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD, with their rectangular 16:9 screens. The mere fact that the iPad mini is less than half the weight as the larger 9.7″ iPads means that it will be a winner. Admit it. You want one.

6) Aereo

Analog TV ended in the USA in June of 2009. The trouble with DTV is that you’re either getting a perfect, crystal clear HD picture, or nothing at all. There is no static. If you aren’t getting a strong signal, both the picture and the audio drop out completely. I am a cable cutter. I use Netflix streaming on my Apple TV, and I watch regular television with an amplified antenna. It’s an okay setup, however, the signal drops out pretty regularly. In the analog days, if your TV signal had errors, you could at least hear the audio through the fuzz, and keep following the program. DTV is far worse in this regard. In February of 2012, a new service launched called Aereo. The basic idea is this: you rent an antenna from Aereo that’s in another location, you can then stream its feed on the Internet, through a computer, tablet, smartphone, smart TV, etc. Aereo isn’t a piece of gear, it’s a service that takes the place of a faulty piece of gear. I haven’t signed up for Aereo, but I think it’s really interesting, and it’s something I consider. Amplified antennas simply don’t cut it.

7) GoPro HERO3 Black Edition

Most of the stuff that I’m picking for this top ten list are pieces of gear that I actually want, and the new GoPro HERO3 Black Edition is one of them. Action cameras have been getting better and better every year, and the HERO3 is by far the most advanced. It’s capable of 4K resolution, and it has built-in Wi-Fi. A free iOS app lets you link your iPhone with the camera, giving you control of its settings, and letting you preview the live view of the camera on your phone. It would be fun to have to attach to the outside of my car, to capture the insanity of driving in NYC. I would also have a blast playing with its time lapse modes. If you want just a little sampling of what these cameras can do, check out this post of mine from 2011.

8) Justin Bieber’s Robot

The above image explains much of what is wrong with the universe in a single shot. Back in January, child star Justin Bieber is hired by a toy company called TOSY to visit their booth at CES 2012, to help launch their new dancing robot toy called the mRobo. Bieb reportedly got paid over $100k USD for his brief appearance, which only required him to hang out in their booth for a few minutes, and to hold a wireless mic up to the robot’s speaker, which, unfortunately, was located in the android’s crotch. Today, nearly a year later, the mRobo is still nonexistent in the US marketplace. Yes, the TOSY mRobo is probably the worst piece of gear of the year. But, the above image from The Verge is just too weird to omit.

9) MacBook Air

When the MacBook Air was first announced back in 2008, I thought it was lame. At the time I was hoping Apple would release a powerful laptop that converted into a multi-touch tablet, much like the Windows 8 monstrosities that are being released today. As the years rolled on, the MacBook Air got more and more impressive. First it got a tough Unibody chassis, then it got a Thunderbolt port. This year it got two USB 3.0 ports, and it could come installed with 512GB of flash memory. In 2012 the MacBook Air finally became the computer that I want to use. If I were to buy a new machine today, it would be a 13″ MacBook Air, without question.

10) Samsung Galaxy S III

I am not a fan of Samsung. I don’t find their products to be interesting, intriguing or at all original. I rooted against them in their legal battle with Apple this year. There’s just something about Samsung that I find deeply unsettling. That said, there’s no question that the Galaxy S III was the “it” phone of 2012. Many of my friends starting using it in 2012, and I saw them on the street in NYC just as often as I saw iPhones. People went into mobile phone stores, played with the various phones on display, and an overwhelming majority of them chose the GS3 as the one they wanted. That’s why I included it on this list. I personally still think it’s lame. I mean, just the name alone is annoying. GALAXY! Woo!

Honorable mentions:

Pretty much all of the cameras that Sony put out in 2012 were beautiful. The NEX-6 and the RX100 are both standouts. I couldn’t make a blog post like this without mentioning them. If you’re in the market for a camera right now, you could buy either one blindly, and you would be totally happy with your decision.

I hate to admit it, but the world of audio gear was unexciting in 2012. One piece of gear that caught my eye was the MOTU Track16. It’s a premium desktop audio interface in the vein of the Apogee Duet 2. The thing I like about the Track16 is that it’s a single, somewhat affordable piece of gear that I could buy—which would replace about four pieces of gear that I currently own.

Thanks for stopping by and reading this post. I plan to do a lot more in 2013, so be sure to check back. Happy holidays. Happy new year. I wish you all happiness. Samsung too.