Are you a gadget freak? Find out!

Image: The Social Freak
Photographs: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

Get Ahead reader Kashish Dhanjani speaks out his mind on various types of gadget freaks he has encountered over the years in response to our invite (below).

Kashish, who is currently working with Tata Communications as Assistant Manager for Enterprise Commercial Operations, has done his post graduation from International Institute of Information Tecgnology, Pune.

Definition of a freak: A person who has withdrawn from normal, rational behaviour and activities to pursue one interest or obsession.

Gadget freaks are a complex personality; there are various characteristics to their demeanour, let's explore some of the types:

1. The Social Freak

If you've ever been in love, you will remember the times when you related each aspect of your life to your romance. From the fresh smell of wet grass to your promotion, from the little mishaps in your life to the catastrophes -- the first thought would be of seeking the person you love.

Well, in the case of a gadget freak, it will be his man-Friday device -- A Phone/ PDA/ Tablet he carries everywhere and can't live without.

He will access his blog, Facebook page and his Twitter account to show his friends that latest funny thing he experienced on the way home or how he felt strongly about the sorry state of affairs in his city.

You can identify such a freak based on the urgency with which he announces the arrival to his holiday destination.

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Reader invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

2. The Hardware Junky

Image: The Hardware Junky

How many times we've seen men getting carried away drooling about that latest car and its increased bhp or women fantasising about the latest spring collection in Cosmo!

For a hardware junky, it would be the number of pixels added to the next version of the iPad, the advent of dual-core processor phones and tablets or how his 'cablewallah' has now offered him an extra mbps of bandwidth at the same cost that excites him.

The pure thrill of increased capability he holds in his hands is what makes his world spin.

A junky can be identified based on how eager he is to ditch his existing device to upgrade to the newer one, whether he needs the increased power or not!

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3. The Passion Monger

Image: The Passion Monger

Do you have almost all products of the iX range, or put stickers of your favourite notebook brand to cover the existing one? You, my friend are a passion monger!

We have known the brand loyalty, which Apple enjoys over most of its competitors. Apple lovers are ready to pay double for the same hardware and non-standard software, wait in lines for a night or two when a new product hits the store, and despise the thought of owning rival products.

Some go as far as judging your personality based on whether you stand for their brand or not, some may get sleepless nights if there was a report of the company top gun sneezing.

This cult status is achieved by continuous innovation, challenging standards and delivering on promises.

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4. The Learned One

Image: The Learned One

This guy is the tech torchbearer of his peers. He loves staying up to date with the latest information and releases.

His homepage will point to a tech blog, he spends hours watching videos of the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) or MWC (Mobile World Congress) coverage, and will make his nearest electronics retailer a second home.

He gets a high when his friends and relatives seek advice from him for their next phone or laptop. His prophecies come true regularly; he warns of it not being the right time to buy the hardware you are eyeing since the next version was announced just last night, phew!

Aren't you glad you asked him!

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5. The Architect

Image: The Architect

An architect is a visionary. He strives to achieve a balanced ecosystem in his gadget universe. For someone who owns an Android phone for personal use, Blackberry for professional use, an iPod for music, an iPad for reading, movies, surfing etc., a wi-fi HD media player for watching his favourite movies, a PSP for gaming and lest we forget his PC!

Almost all devices listed above can achieve the basics for you -- surfing, checking e-mails, listening to songs and telephony.

The architect will set up his devices to stream his media directly from his laptop to his media player; access his laptop homescreen remotely through his iPad, use the Android for the apps and portability and Blackberry for speedy communications.

All in all, he has a reason for each device being there, and justifies it by running most of them simultaneously!

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6. The Tweaker

Image: The Tweaker

Jugadu, keedamaster or as they say in the Queen's language -- the tweaker!

The tweaker will spend hours trying to run multiple operating systems on his PC (Win7, Ubuntu and MacOS anyone?); and will try to upgrade his phone from the existing firmware to a newer release -- supported or not!

His sense of fulfillment comes from pushing his device to do something it wasn't intended or designed for, he prides himself in taking up challenges and reporting to the developer community of his findings.

These are the truly gifted addicts; junior tweakers like myself follow their instructions on various forums to get the same results and elevate our freak positioning :-)

Check out: The all new Gadgets and Gaming page

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To conclude

A gadget freak may have one of the above dominating characteristics, but will have traces of all the other types!

The appetite for gadgetry is mostly insatiable.

You bought that latest laptop with a dual core processor and are the king of the world for the next few weeks, then you start thinking -- do I need a better Internet connection to make use of this prowess?

Once you have that you start looking at how your PC is falling behind with all the junk you downloaded and if you had a quad core processor with double the RAM life would be simpler.

You are a freak and you are addicted, but you need not be sorry, for you are simply contributing to evolution.

Check out: The all new Gadgets and Gaming page

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