By Joe Svetlik
20 Coolest new gadgets with retro chic
Hottest new kit that looks like it has walked straight out of the 80s
Hottest new kit that looks like it has walked straight out of the 80s
TRIM stands for Tone Ringer Illuminated Model. First made in '65, this is a classic dog and bone, of the kind you can imagine your mum using to arrange a trip to the disco on her space hopper.
Price: £35 | Wildandwolf.com
A balls-out slab, ripped from a decaying cabinet in a closed-down Margate seaside arcade, replete with more buttons than you have fingers and the kind of build quality you just don't get anymore. Works with any computer or games console.
Price: $200 | Xgaming.com
This ten-meg camera dispenses instant, 2x3-inch prints like the classic Polaroids of yesteryear, ready to be shaken, like a Polaroid picture. It's now done via the magic of ZINK tech rather than pack film.
Price: £130 | Polaroid.co.uk
Make like Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote and pair a classic typewriter keyboard with your PC, Mac or iPad. You can type on paper and screen simultaneously, and turn your own typewriter into a USB one via the DIY Conversion kit.
Price: From £47 | USBtypewriter.com
Two-player Atari arcade action on your iPad? Complete with joysticks? Sign us up. Snaffl e the Atari's Greatest Hits app, and you've got up to 100 classics at your fingertips. Missile Command! Centipede! Yars' Revenge! And 97 more!
Price: £41, app £5 | Expansys.com
Yuppies used this on the way to work the morning after a heavy one on the Hoffmeister. It's powered by two AA batteries, so you can keep it in your office drawer/Cortina glove compartment. Couple with a mobile the size of a brick .
Price: £18 | Braun.com
The classic 80s timepiece is back, with a stopwatch, daily alarm, and calendar. An After-Glow feature keeps the screen lit for a few seconds after you release the light button.
Price: £45 | Casioonline.co.uk
In the same transistor-punk spirit as the above, this plugs into your iPod Touch or iPhone, and converts dusty old cassettes into MP3s right on the device. Dig out those Biro-scrawled mixtapes full of Wang Chung B-sides and get nostalgic.
Price: $80 (£50) | Hammacher.com
Feast your eyes on one of the most beautiful turntables around. The minimalist chassis hosts a tonearm with an innovative friction-free magnetic bearing so it'll ride across smoother than Roger Moore sidling up to a busty Russian spy.
Price: £1,220 | Clearaudio.de
The tech inside may be bleeding edge – Bluetooth aptX for better-sounding wireless connectivity, noise cancellation, an amp, plus a control wheel and mic for hands-free calling – but the brown-leather-'n'-metal styling is straight from the set of an early 80s sex comedy.
Price: £400 | Denon.co.uk
If you get wet at the thought of a Donkey Kong kill screen, these are for you. They're made of carbon fibre, with anodized aluminium pixels joined by stainless steel rods and toughened glass tops.
Price: £TBC | Igorchak.com
With its shagadelic body, this wouldn't look out of place in the hands of Austin Powers, baby, yes. A smaller version of Fuji's X-Pro1 hero cam, it has swappable lenses, a pop-up fl ash and an OLED viewfinder that can only be described as “groovy”.
Price: £629 (Body only) | Fujifilm.co.uk
A digital picture frame for people other than your parents, this Android cube fl ashes up snaps taken with Instagram, becoming a live canvas for your fake-aged hipster memory snippets.
Price: £TBC | Instacube
This olde worlde dock lets you make calls from your smartphone using its olde worlde handset. Just be prepared for plenty of calls saying, “It's the 80s, they want their phone dock back.”
Price: £30 | Firebox.com
Press any number on this, and keys will light up in sequence to show you the time – so 2, then 4, then 9 would be 2:49. Hit the # key and the date flashes up. Confusing, yes, but life was a lot tougher in the olden days.
Price: £60 | Red5.co.uk
This 18-meg rangefinder shoots purely in black and white – you can't get much more old school than that, short of using one of those massive, handheld fl ashes that go “Boof!” when fired. Photos make up in detail what they lack in colour.
Price: £6,120 | Leica.co.uk
Don't let the Champagne Supernova colour scheme fool you; this is a thoroughly modern, multi-room audio streamer. The speakers are wall-mountable, like a majestic stag's head.
Price: £2,500 | Linn.co.uk
In the 90s, Neo Geos were strictly for Ritchie Rich, Mustapha Million and Lord Snooty but now, you can get one with 20 games for about £80. A “Gold” edition that plugs into your TV is also incoming.
Price: £175 | Neogeox.com
Ah, brown leather, how we love you. These cans go in more of a 70s direction than the Denons, with MusicSeal tech providing newfangled noise isolation. Accessorise with a splash of Brut and ferociously flared terylene strides.
Price: £90 | Philips.co.uk
Philips has been making radios since the 1920s, and it's gone back to the 50s for this classicstyled dock. Chunky dials feel reassuringly retro, while two 10-watt speakers give enough sound to fill your chintz-strewn, pastel-coloured house.
Price: £TBC | Philips.co.uk