“It’s pretty boring again for you.” That’s what my dentist always says when I go for checkups twice a year. Ergo: I have healthy teethers. I use a crappy toothbrush, like most of you, and never really had anything to do with its electric cousins - until IFA 2024.
Together with my boss Mirco, I walked across the stand of Laifen, a manufacturer of electrical bathroom accessories. We talked to the employee there about electric toothbrushes and he promptly gave me the new titanium version. My first thought: “Woah, that feels great!”.
At that moment I realized again: Comparing numbers on a website pales in comparison to touching technology – and I would like to have this experience more often.
Love at first sight? Not always!
I am a pragmatic person. When I write a book or an article, it is with logic and knowledge; When I spend money on something, I make myself smart. Good values make me happy. After all, it’s technology, isn’t it?
The IFA taught me twice that having your fingers on the device can be worth much more than numbers on the screen.
In fact, I had a second “toothbrush situation.” with the Honor Magic V3. A similar situation here too. I had never held a foldable in my hand before, but the Honor phone immediately captivated me. Slim, modern and exciting, especially because it was a new kind of phone for me.
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Honor Magic V3 vs. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5
But you can also slowly fall in love with new technical devices, as my wife of all people proved to me – and she is not particularly tech-savvy. The lump should just do what it’s supposed to do and it’s fine.
We are flying to Japan in October. As part of this, we got her ANC headphones with good ANC and long battery life (the Yamaha TW-E7B) for the flight.
At first she was strange about the earbuds. She doesn’t listen to music excessively or wear headphones often, but the more she got to grips with the in-ears, the more she liked them and the more finely we adjusted them for her.
Almost every day my wife came home from work with a new insight.
- You can’t even hear people on the subway anymore.
- The music sounds great.
- The transparency mode is practical.
And now she always has the headphones with her. This is how it works.
From Zero to Hero
I had a very similar situation. Last year, when gaming handhelds were still relatively new, I wanted to get one too; I’ve always been a Game Boy kid. Aside from the Steam Deck, there wasn’t much choice back then. The Ayaneo Air Plus came across my hands as a test device – and I was extremely dissatisfied with it:
- Windows 11 as an OS got on my nerves.
- Ayaneo’s in-house software was buggy.
- Neither was adapted to a small screen.
- I couldn’t connect my Steam account.
I was full of joyful anticipation and then was bitterly disappointed. The result: Gaming handhelds were burned out for me…
… until fate threw a used Steam deck at my feet. Impulse buying isn’t good, but the price of the handheld was, so I bought it blindly. You can read the whole story in my column:
In retrospect, the Steam Deck turned out to be an absolute stroke of luck and I am very happy with the device because it suits me and my requirements. Not even the best spec sheet can give you this feeling.
My appeal: gather experience
I have good teeth, am a pragmatic person – and absolutely not a trade fair goer. However, my sixth IFA showed me how important it is to lend a hand, perhaps to avoid any bad purchases, see my experience with the Ayaneo Air Plus.
Of course, we should avoid impulse purchases and don’t lose sight of technical data. We don’t want to buy a pig in a poke, no matter how happy we are at first impression.
I have some good advicewhich has often helped me when I’m excited about a potential purchase: sleep on it the famous night. If something excites you at the local electronics store or at a relative’s house, let the feeling “happen.” If it still feels like wow the next day, feel free to grab it.
IFA in five minutes: These were the 6 most exciting innovations at the trade fair
Feel free to collect haptic experiences with the device of your choiceif you can. Pick up gaming handhelds from friends, try out gaming chairs if you can, check out a new TV in the store – or just walk through the IFA next year.
What recent achievement or purchase made you really happy? Write it in the comments.