Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The Price of Portable Technology

I picked a 11 devices I've used or have held personally and researched their release price and date. Using this inflation calculator, I came up with this table:

Release Company Device Initial Price Inflation Adjusted Price
1988 Sharp Wizard OZ-7000 $299.00 $512.00
1993 Apple Newton Messagepad $800.00 $1,109.00
1996 US Robotics Pilot 1000 $299.00 $383.00
1996 US Robotics Pilot 5000 $369.00 $472.00
1997 Psion Series 5 $599.00 $744.00
1998 Toshiba Libretto 70CT $999.00 $1,220.00
2002 Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 $499.00 $556.00
2004 OQO Model 01 $1,999.00 $2,135.00
2005 Nokia 770 Internet Tablet $359.00 $371.00
2006 Samsung Q1 $1,099.00 $1,099.00
2007 Nokia N800 Internet Tablet $399.00 $399.00






With that, I made this graph:
Click-pop for larger. I don't claim that all my research was correct as it was simply the result of Google searches on the devices, but it is interesting to see that the Nokia N800, with it's 800x480 color wide touchscreen, WiFi, and Bluetooth cost less (adjusted for inflation) than a 512k Pilot 5000 with a 160x160 black and green touchscreen. The 5000 didn't even have a backlight!

0 comments: