Ever seen those pages in GQ where an anonymous author shows off their Swiss watch, designer hold-all and diamond encrusted phone as part of their ‘Travel Essentials’ package? Well with Le Web coming up just around le corner, we’ve done the same – for our tech belongings.

Luke

When it comes to my conference tech gear, I tend to opt for a lighter bag, as opposed to cramming every available space with tech like some people. Starting with my 12.1 inch HP Compaq notebook, which I tend to alternate with my 10 inch EEEPC when heading off to conferences. However, when I’m spending long amounts of time blogging, as is the case at Le Web, I like to opt for the bigger slightly larger screen and keyboard, even though I sacrifice battery life. I have my Windows Phone 7, with an old Windows Phone (in case the other slips out of my clumsy fingers), a good pair of headphones, a USB stick, spare memory card and flip camera with requisite gorilla pod, which covers all my storage, photography and video needs. Apart from my notebook power cable, the only other thing I need to carry around is my handy little travel power adapter, which has four USB plugs in the back. To round things off, my ‘offline tech’ kit… Moleskine, A good pen and my moo cards. The only thing I’m missing is my travel adaptor to actually power it all…

Spooner

I always travel light so my tech needs to be able to multi-task for me. Laptop of choice is a Lenovo tablet with an i7 processor. It gives me 5/6 hours of life on one charge which is usually enough for a day’s eventing. For keeping in touch I carry my trusty Windows Phone 7 which lets me record audio (no need to carry a dictaphone anymore) and the video quality is good enough for short video pops if required. A headset allows me to make VOIP calls and I drop a USB HD camera on top for capturing images and video of talks. Of course, plenty of storage and backup space on USB discs which also carry some of my music. What you can’t see in this pic is my Cannon DSLR because I was using it to take the photo. For the quiet times, a copy of .net and Wired.

A-Robb

My hub is my Asus Eee netbook (running Windows 7 Ultimate) – the battery is a good 6 hrs and I run Windows Live Essentials on I’ll blog with Writer, check out social network updates on Messenger, edit photos using Photo Gallery and sync all my files using Mesh (hence no USB stick). This is garnished with my conjoined Arc twins – the ergonomic mouse and slick keyboard – I tend to type a lot so when I’m sat in a hotel doing email it helps to have such finger-friendly devices. Seasoned with a privacy screen so no one peeps over my shoulder trying to get the latest Microsoft goss… (although this does make you look like you’re staring at a blank screen so be prepared for funny glances). If I could listen to music 24/7 without any awkward social repercussions I would, hence my trusty 80GB iPod Classic and Shure earphones to keep the white noise out and the smooth bass in. For dessert, lashings of hot Ubelly cards to share the love. Not pictured: HTC Mozart Windows Phone 7, which aided the photography process.

The newest addition to the family

This one’s going to be shared between the group: a Slate device running Windows 7. Slates in the market so far have really been predominantly a consumption device – I check the news, Facebook, stream some video, download songs, maybe play some games. But the reason we’re excited about the Windows 7 device is it lets you do the stuff you’re used to, on a slick device. I can do work email, edit documents, save items to USB just as I normally would on a PC – that combination of content creation + consumption makes this a great little device.

We’re off to Paris here – are we missing a trick, any other devices we should consider?

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The Gadget Show is back on our screens, kicking off on Monday 1st Feb with a show featuring everything from clothing that keeps you cool, Sat Nav phones, dune buggies, 3D TV and eBooks. The show was even more of an homage to (read, copy of) Top Gear and Brainiac than the last series – I think the male presenters must have been to the Jeremy Clarkson school of presenting during their break.

Amid the regular reviews of ultra thin TV’s (good times) and eReaders (bad times – I’m an eBook luddite), one actually sparked my interest. The team chucked an ioSafe Solo USB Rugged Hard Drive out of a three-storey window, blasted it in fire and dropped it into a swimming pool to test the manufacturer’s claims that whatever you put inside would survive*. “This is great!”, I thought. Having fallen victim to the draw of possessing beautiful yet flimsy hardware – I slipped on some ice and fell on the bag that housed my lovely brand new Toshiba Portege R500 Notebook – I’ve changed camps and for the time being am choosing function over form.

My colleague James O’Neill used to work for RM who made huge bulking great computers. Although you might have needed 4 people to lift it, it would only break whatever it was dropped on, whereas its competitor the Spectrum would break if you so much as looked at it the wrong way. Sure, I like my gadgets to look pretty, but they have to do what I expect them to do, otherwise I quickly lose interest. The gadget show looks pretty – it’s slick, the presenters are well groomed (I hesitate to say good looking but then I’m a girl,I reckon Suzi has quite a male following) – but the substance is lacking in substance.

After all that, and despite the obvious advertising inference, growing up with the Generation Game and Crackerjack makes the gadget giveaway horribly compelling. I had a two second fantasy where I won the lot and sat wallowing in the middle of a roomful of toys. I’ve succumbed and entered, which might spell the end of my desire to put function over form…

*For anyone that’s interested, the ioSafe Solo survived being thrown out of a window and being torched but not being thrown into a pool. So don’t take it swimming.