How many gadgets does a girl need?

In the olden days a woman needed a Kind (German for 'child'), these days a woman needs a Kindle (Amazon for 'eBook reader'). Those are very practical little devices which can live for a month without being charged, an utterly useful feature for a device when being owned by a scatterbrain, and apparently they can store more books than I ever would be able to read during the rest of my lifetime. This enables considerable reduction of handbag size and is very much appreciated. The turbo version which comes with its own reading light and some electronic wizardry allowing internet access in the remotest of regions - have to see it before I believe it - only weighs a bit over 500 grams, so it significantly reduces the amount of back pain from carrying several books on a long haul flight.

However, Kindles only work black and white, while the modern woman might want to have the colour experience of the all mighty internet and taking full advantage of a gazillion applications on her iPhone when attending to the sapid cappuccino at her favourite coffee place... or even when at home. I now once in a while am catching myself checking dates and emails on this pocket device while curling my hair rather than switching on the computer. But then...

See, there are those occasions for which the iPhone screen is just not big enough. One eventually is meeting the darling girl friend for a nice chat in town to plan the shopping trip ahead and for that, of course one needs online catalogs and maps. Aw... if I would have my iPad now! We could see things in proper detail and could easily decide whether or not it is worthwhile making our way across London to get hold of this lovely pair of heels.

At the end of the day after having exhausted ones budgets, when all the shopping is done and one is on the journey home, still too hyped up to be able to concentrate on reading, with all those wonderful thoughts sitting in the brain... wouldn't it be lovely to just quickly update the blog and to let the world know what a wonderful day one had? The last of the evening sun comes shining right from behind while the train is rattling along, mind is floating... fingers aren't.

The beautiful shiny screen of the iPad which is so appreciated when watching movie trailers and catalogs is really rather useless with light shining onto it and the admittedly rather big keys of the keyboard are nevertheless painted on the screen. Every shaking and rattling of the train makes the fingers slip, typing blind is not an option. Now it would be wonderful to have my pretty, blue, little netbook at hand. How easily would I have transmitted all my thoughts to the world.

In the meantime the initially shrunk handbag has grown to a backpack while my carrying capacity for shopping goods has been reduced to a minimum. That is why I ususally travel together with hubby, the most important gadget of them all.