2013 was a great year for technology. As is the norm with the technology industry a lot can change in a few short months and 2013 was no different. The writers of the Caribbean’s premiere technology blog have chosen their individual choices for the best gadget of 2013. Do you agree with any of the choices? What is your choice for the best gadget of 2013? Share your thoughts in a comment below or tweet us @Geezam.

Kemory Grubb – Associate Editor

For 2013, my gadget/technology of the year is the Oculus Rift. Even though this devices hasn’t been released in it’s final retail consumer form as yet, with a plan release in the later part of 2014. The beta developer units has been meeting or exceeding the expected performance and quality of everyone. The promise of the Oculus Rift is the dream of immersive virtual reality in video games. It has been promised since the early 90’s… remember the Nintendo Virtual Boy? The Oculus Rift is delivering that promise.

Lindsworth Deer – Associate Editor

I mean like wow! Digicel launches its own smartphone, the DL600, which was basically a Digicel Branded Alcatel One Touch S’Pop on Thursday May 30th 2013 as per Kelroy’s article Digicel to launch Affordable Android-powered 4G Smartphone in May. It got the treatment on the Geezam blog and I wrote extensively about it on my personal blog. Why this is the Gadget of 2013? ‘Cause it’s the first smartphone of its build quality below US$200 packing the latest version of Google Android, that of course that the time being Jellybean. But more than that is that the DL600 may have jumpstarted the smartphone revolution in Jamaica.

Then Digicel went and upgraded the DL600 to the new DL700, basically another branded Alcatel budget smartphone, but this time a Alcatel One Touch Pop C3. In so doing, they made the DL600 and DL700, the must-have gadget for Christmas 2013, based on Google Searches being conducted by Jamaican in November 2013. It’ll be a must have for the rest of 2014…assuming there’s a DL800 in the works for the Summer of 2014. Throw in those ever popular Huawei Mediapad 7 Tablets and those US$50 Chinese knock-off and we may have a Steve Jobs “post-PC Era” Revolution as explained in How the Apple iPad killed Ultrabooks, Printing and the Mouse as the World Rediscovers Tablets on our hands that started Christmas 2013.

Horace Cunningham – Associate Editor

The best tech Gadget of 2013 is difficult to pinpoint as the year was filled with major advances in the console front, PC and tablet front and the smartphone front. I however have to put the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 as the best tech gadget of 2013 due to it’s raw power and the benchmark it has set for the future of smartphone. This smartphone, with 3GB RAM and a 2.3 GHZ Dual Core CPU, possesses more computing power than many low end laptops, which will allow it to adapt to usage methods never before seen. We may see future smartphones replacing low and mid range pc and laptops in the future, will a smartphone owner needing to only carry a charging port, his phone and a tv out to always have his computer available with him. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has set the benchmark for the future of smartphones.

Kelroy Brown – Editor-in-chief

To me the best tech gadget of 2013 was the Playstation 4. Sony won the mind of gamers and beat Microsoft at every turn when it came to marketing the PS4. it shows that they learned their lesson with the PS3 by launching before the Xbox One, being Cheaper than the Xbox One and ditching proprietary technology such as the Cell processor of the PS3 for a more standardized architecture that had many game developers rejoicing and most importantly launching outside of their home market of Japan first. The Ps4 launched to critical acclaim breaking various sales records and by the start of 2014 millions of PS4s had found homes in the living rooms of gamers in the western hemisphere. Now that the install-base is secure lets hope 2014 brings some truly epic games.