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Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

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Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#291

Post by pmiller2 »

jimmies wrote: post #8

Aesthetically pleasing: - The Palm Pre (1st edition). It is an absolutely amazing, brilliant piece of hardware (especially back in 2009) that fits just right in my hand like a pebble. The curved screen is brilliant to the eyes and to the touch. It also has an interface that is not cluttered and busy like shit in other mainstream OSes then, and now. But I mainly like things that are designed for ease of maintenance: -…

> 5 years ago, I even bet my roommate to pour a cup of water on a running Thinkpad. It survived.

Yeah, gotta love a laptop that has friggin' drainage holes in the bottom of it. :)

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#292

Post by kirrent »

doug1001 wrote: post #171

"technical friends" (which i believe was name given by the man who invented them, Ray Jardine). "Friends" is still the category name used by Wild Country, which i believe was the first shop to sell the devices. more generically, i believe they are known as spring-loade cam devices (SLCD). these simple devices transformed granite crack climbing from slow, rock-altering aid climbing that required pitons hammered into c…

In particular, the Black Diamond cams have a double axis which increases the camming range. It's a beautiful piece of gear.

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#293

Post by kifki »

taneq wrote: post #155
nunez wrote: post #26

Apple MacBooks are the best laptops that I have ever used. Nothing comes close to them. Even my Surface. It's a great device (by far the best Windows laptop/convertible available), but it misses on some details (light bleed on the edges, kickstand doesn't align all the way)

My old Snow Leopard MBP was pretty much perfect in its day. It's long in tooth now but with a new battery and an SSD upgrade would still be well and truly usable as a general web-and-email machine.

I still own&use one; I upgraded SSD and ram an it is still pretty ok for small web dev and internet browsing.

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#294

Post by mobiletelephone »

dcw303 wrote: post #209

The Casio F-91W Digital wrist watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W Keeps better time than a Rolex, and is a fraction of the price. Waterproof. Has an alarm, stopwatch, and timer; all things missing from traditional wind ups. Interface is easy to use and discover. The battery last almost forever. Now, if you're asking if it's aesthetically pleasing, that's a different story. But we were talking about design…

I have a couple of those for outdoor stuff. I find the straps quite uncomfortable.

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#295

Post by kalleboo »

zakk wrote: post #245
kalleboo wrote: post #174

* Chopsticks. One-handed eating is just convenient. * Palm Vx. At the time this thing has fantastic functionality (all that freeware!), the OS had great charm, and I still think it looks really handsome. * Sony Ericsson w580. One of the last really small cell phones before huge screens took over. And the slide mechanism was really satisfying - the ultimate fidget

Regarding chopsticks and one-handed eating: you could do the same with a fork, as long as the food is already cut in small bites, like Asian food usually is. On the other hand you cannot eat a steak with one hand, neither with chopsticks nor with a fork. I think that the good design is in the food, rather than in the chopsticks.

Forks don't work as well with certain kinds of foods. E.g., you can eat snacks like chips or cheetos with chopsticks without getting your fingers messy which is more difficult to do with a fork. Same with slippery food like certain kinds of noodles, and hard foods like some nuts.

There's just a certain simplicity and universality to chopsticks that appeals from a design sense... That said recently I've been into using a Spork which works great for some foods and is another interesting study in design...

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#296

Post by rjbwork »

apankrat wrote: post #67

Aeron chair. Aeropress. EIZO monitors - http://www.eizo.com uTorrent, the older versions. Dead serious about uTorrent. One of the best designed and engineered pieces of software ever. Everything you need, where you expect it to be, doing exactly what it should be doing, and nothing more.

Check out qBittorrent. It's a modern OSS version that is built from the ground up, cross platform, and inspired by those older versions.

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#297

Post by TeMPOraL »

jwolfhn wrote: post #141

Any Kindle model with e-ink. The utiluty and simplicity of design of these devices has enabled me to read almost every night before going to bed for the past 6ish years without loosing my place or holding the weight of a book (finally read War and Peace).

I second. The Kindle single-handedly increased my reading by like 6 - 10x. I commute with public transit, a lot, and an e-book reader is indispensable there. Many books I've read are big enough that I wouldn't bother carrying them around in paper form.

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#298

Post by AsyncAwait »

grandalf wrote: post #287

- My cast iron skillet. It's indestructible and once I learned to season it and cook with it, I prefer it over any other. - 15" Macbook Pro w/ Retina display, iPhone 7 - BNC connectors - The Xtrend Professional Rabbit Wine Opener. (Super cheap on Amazon and it has an incredibly well-designed mechanism) - The Mezlan Cordoba men's shoe -- high quality, no break-in needed, durable, fashionable. - Crocs -- indestructible…

> 15" Macbook Pro w/ Retina display

Superb build quality, agreed. but the thiness and insistance on staying quiet make it get extremely hot when doing anything remotely demanding, which is not a sign of good design.

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#299

Post by leonroy »

dbg31415 wrote: post #14
jameskilton wrote: post #11

Dyson vacuum cleaners. I have never once wondered "how do I do this?" when using my Dyson. From cleaning, to extensions, switching modes, and just plain using the thing, every inch of these vacuums is designed to the utmost degree to make them not only super powerful suction machines but also trivially easy to use.

Are you kidding me? These plastic toys break like 4 months in. Would never buy another one. Luckily I bought it at Costco so I could return it.

I have a DC02 (1995) and that's still working. Only thing that ever broke was the handle which cracked with time, Dyson sent us a replacement for about £15.

Also have a DC25 (2009) and that's been great too. Nothing broken or cracked, works good as new.

I will grant you - you can't treat a Dyson like a shop vac. Trundling it down the drive way to vacuum the car is a no-no. It'll probably break apart on gravel or flag stones but that's why I have a Dyson hand held :)

Re: Ask HN: What're the best-designed things you've ever used?

#300

Post by cJ0th »

* that classic Casio watch

Personally, I really like its look. Furthermore, its cheap and the battery lasts forever.

* Motorola Razr V3i

It just looks awesome! Unfortunately, the great design doesn't extend to its software. :(

* Roland JV-1080

This one is first and foremost interesting for its engineering achievement. It offers musicians hundreds of great, sampled sounds which are stored on a 8 MB ROM! They make up for the limited amount of material by skillfully layering samples and the application of DSP algorithms.

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