How To Embrace New Gadgets

Gadgets are curious things; in principle, they’re just chunks of metal that often don’t do anything that’s even close to essential, but in practice they can become cherished companions that you take with you on jet-setting journeys the world over.

Common ‘flight bag’ companions include MP3 players, portable games consoles and, of course, smartphones, and after a few holidays with these close to hand, it can feel odd to face the prospect of letting them go.

So how do you deal with upgrading from one gadget to its successor? There’s only one good option, and that is to truly embrace the change, and say goodbye to your old tech with a smile on your face.

Games Consoles

Handheld games consoles have been holiday essentials for many tech-heads ever since the first Nintendo GameBoy was released, and there have been plenty of generations since then.If you now own a Nintendo 3DS, it could be time to sell your old Nintendo DS, which you can easily do online to add to your funds for buying 3DS games for your new console.

While you may no longer play your DS since the 3DS landed on your doorstep, somebody else might love it, and selling it to a reputable dealer lets you know it will be sold on to a good home.There’s no reason to hang on to consoles if you never play on them, so be realistic – and even if your favorite title is exclusive to the old platform, there may be an even better sequel available for your new device.

Smartphones

It used to be very difficult to switch from one mobile phone to another, with the laborious task of transferring contact information, calendar entries and old text messages and photographs manually from one device to another.

Nowadays, smartphones that run the same operating system should be practically seamless, as much of your profile information is stored online anyway, so simply log in on your new handset and watch as it restores your contacts, calendar and so on from the cloud.

Your manufacturer may be able to provide you with a contacts transfer tool even if your device is not cloud-enabled, which backs up your information to a PC or laptop via USB, and then restores it to your new handset in the same way.

Transferring data between different manufacturers’ devices can be more of a challenge, but as many of us now use third-party online services for much of our communication, even that might not matter as much now as it used to do.

MP3 Players

Finally, MP3 players shouldn’t be too much trouble to upgrade from one to another, as the music stored on them is rarely locked to the device.Make sure the contents of your MP3 player are synchronized with your laptop or PC, and you should then be able to synchronize back from the computer to your new media player, putting your full music collection at your disposal on the new device; you may be able to simply transfer the internal memory card across on more basic devices.