GREATEST TECH HITS OF THE…. '00S
The gadgets of the noughties were actually rather nice
As we all emerged from our underground bunkers, blinking into the sunlight and contemplating a return to the dark ages, it dawned on us that we would never again be able to bank online, illegally download Radiohead's latest track, or book a cheap EasyJet flight to Magaluf. The Millennium Bug had bitten, and the world had descended into chaos.
Or in fact, it hadn't. It turned out that the timely computer error that was to plunge us back into medieval times was in fact thwarted by a lot of hard work from IT departments everywhere. Phew.
The 2000s then became tech's greatest decade. The continued rise of Apple, the emergence of Netflix, and perhaps most importantly, the birth of broadband changed the world and our daily lives. We were given smartphones, high-resolution video, and proliferation of choice, as the tech firms grew to be the giants they are today.
So, join us as we look back at the noughties, and especially at the tech masterpieces the decade unleashed, with fond recollection. These devices are the forefathers of the ones you own today, and who knows, maybe one or two of them are still in use.
XBOX 360 (2005)
While PlayStation gets the lion's share of plaudits for the last three decades of console gaming, it was the Xbox 360 that ruled the '00s. Having been released a year before the PS3, it gained a foothold in the market that would take years to match. It also had the best exclusive games, such as some of the greatest entries in the Halo series and Forza Motorsport – and bar the Red Ring of Death, it was also the better hardware option.
Launch price: from £209.99
The 2000s were great for entertainment, with a number of technologies arriving in the decade that would eventually change the landscape of TV and home viewing.
The advent of high-definition video also proved significant, and although it took a long time before the UK's broadcast services adopted it, both Virgin Media and Sky effectively helped sell new TVs to many thousands of Brits. Some of them even upgraded a second time when it became clear that Full HD (1080p) rather than HD (720p) would be the de facto standard.
Netflix launched its offshoot streaming service in the US in 2007, which was followed by LoveFilm with a similar concept for the UK in 2009. The latter was eventually bought by Amazon, and they set the tone for a flood of streaming services.
One British institution took a bit longer to embrace HD – the BBC: it wasn't until 2023 that local BBC News was finally broadcast in Full HD. Just in time for 4K to take off.
396388 01: Apple Computer Inc. unveiled a new portable music player, the iPod MP3 music player October 23, 2001 at an event in Cupertino, Calif. The device can hold up to 1,000 songs in digital form. (Photo Courtesy of Apple Corp. via Getty Images)
APPLE iPOD (2001)
While MP3 players first appeared in the '90s, Apple's entrance into the market didn't just help define the category, it became synonymous with it. The original iPod started with 5GB of storage – a huge amount at the time and capable of storing over 1,000 music tracks transferred from your Mac (or, later, PC). A 10GB model soon followed, and multiple generations remained popular until smartphones came along to crash the party.
Launch price: around £400 ($399)
Social media now permeates all aspects of our lives, but in the 2000s it was an intriguing newcomer. Facebook arrived in the US in 2004, and the UK a couple of years later, but remained relatively small initially.
Indeed, it was MySpace that dominated through the early to mid-'00s, having been the first social network to reach a global audience. Many a band or celebrity would have remained largely unknown if it weren't for MySpace. It had a wide reach and provided a platform to share information and interactions with fans.
But perhaps the biggest social success story of the 2000s belongs to YouTube. Founded in 2005 but purchased by Google just a year later, it rapidly grew into an obsession for many. At the time it was all memes and cat videos, but the platform always had more potential, and today it is arguably as important as any traditional TV broadcaster. More viewers watch YouTube through a smart TV than on mobile.
SAMSUNG BD-P1000 (2006)
Although Sony was the main driving force behind Blu-ray, the first commercially available player actually came from Samsung. The BD-P1000 was around £800 when it arrived and didn't even support 1080p (it was limited to 720p and 1080i), but it proved hugely successful amongst home cinema enthusiasts. There were only a handful of Blu-ray movies available at the time, but thankfully it was also compatible with DVDs.
Launch price: around £800
APPLE iPHONE (2007)
Where would we be without the launch of the iPhone? Although some mobile devices had already been dubbed smartphones, the original iPhone brought a multi-touch screen and apps to the sector – things that were truly revolutionary and unique until the HTC Dream was launched as the first Android phone a year later. Apple's iPhone 3G followed in 2008, embracing the new network standard at the time, and the rest is history.
Launch price: £269
MOTOROLA RAZR V3 (2004)
The most important and popular ‘smart' phone before the iPhone was the Motorola RAZR V3. A clamshell handset with external and internal displays, the third-gen RAZR sported a camera and decent web browsing – albeit in text form. Multiple V3 models followed, but they all seemed to suffer from the range's biggest Achilles heel – appalling battery life. Many owners ended up with separate chargers at work and at home, just to keep the phone operating all day.
Launch price: around £500
BLACKBERRY BOLD 9000 (2008)
While there were other BlackBerry phones in the early part of the 2000s, they were largely used as work phones. But that all changed when the Bold launched in 2008, which coincided with increased consumer interest in social media and messaging. Its QWERTY keyboard made it stand out from the iPhone, while the smaller form factor to previous BlackBerry models meant it became something of a fashion accessory, not just a phone.
Launch price: around £500
DYSON DC16 (2006)
James Dyson's British tech brand had produced many a vacuum cleaner before, but the Dyson DC16 is the one that altered the way many of us clean our homes today. That's because it was the first cordless Dyson cleaner, and although it was a handheld only – for upholstery and in-car use – elements of its design can still be seen in many a Dyson and rival alternatives today.
Launch price: £129
AMAZON KINDLE (2007)
Where would we be without a Kindle? Reading an actual book, probably. Still, e-paper has proved a wonderful display technology, and the Kindle brought it to the masses. Few ereaders have deviated from the initial concept: resolutions have improved, storage has grown, and we now get a backlight, but the original had a keyboard, which is something we could do with on more modern models.
Launch price: from £109
PLAYSTATION 2 (2000)
Even though DVDs had arrived in the '90s, it wasn't until 2000 and the release of the PS2 that they suddenly became the standard for home movie playback. Sony's console was not only a great games machine, it was also one of the most affordable DVD decks on the market and found its way into living rooms worldwide. That was great for Sony, but also the DVD industry, which took off in a big way soon after.
Launch price: £299
SANDISK MICROSD CARD (2004)
Without the microSD card, smartphones and cameras would likely have ended up having to use clumsy external storage, or larger internal storage that would have increased their bulk. SanDisk's first commercially available microSD card had a maximum capacity of just 128MB – it was designed for phone use, although you'd barely fit one image on it these days.
Launch price: around £90
TESLA ROADSTER (2008)
Being the first road-legal electric car to run on lithium-ion battery cells, the Tesla Roadster is arguably the most important sports car of the noughties. It was also the first electric car capable of travelling for over 200 miles on a single charge, and effectively put Tesla on the map. The Roadster styling was effectively retired just a few years later, but it can arguably be called the vehicle that changed the world – not least because it unleashed Elon Musk upon it.
Launch price: From $98,000 (around £73,000)
YAMAHA YSP-1 (2004)
The Sonos Arc of its day, the Yamaha YSP-1 was one of the first sound systems in a bar form factor. It contained no fewer than 42 digital amplifiers feeding individual speaker units, including two subwoofers, and as each speaker faced in a slightly different direction, it was capable of bouncing audio around a room. This gave the impression of cinema-style surround sound from a single unit, and set the blueprint for bars to come.
Launch price: £800
NINTENDO WII (2006)
As Xbox and PlayStation duked it out to be the console king, Nintendo swept in with arguably its most important games machine yet – and the public went bananas for it. The Wii was quite unlike anything before, with a focus on motion gaming and family play. It became Nintendo's most successful console to date, and the reason why many of us still have a Balance Board lurking at the back of a cupboard.
Launch price: £179.99
HOMECHOICE (2004)
Although its customers were limited to parts of London, HomeChoice deserves its place amongst the TV pioneers. That's because, like Freely today, it delivered the UK's major TV channels – plus the likes of Sky Sports and Movies – over the internet. And although the quality wasn't the best, it was groundbreaking at the time. It still exists as part of TalkTalk TV, having been bought and rebranded a couple of times.
Launch price: around £14.99 per month
ARCHOS AV320 (2003)
One of the very first portable media players capable of video, the Archos Jukebox Multimedia came with a whopping 20GB hard drive and 3.8-inch colour screen. It could play MPEG-4 files and would allow up to 40 hours of content to be available at the touch of a button. You had to supply your videos, but being able to watch your favourite movies and shows on the move was a revelation back then.
Launch price: £549.99
NINTENDO DS (2004)
Even though it could have continued to refresh its Game Boy family, Nintendo opted to shake up the handheld market with something totally different. Inspired by its own iconic Game & Watch electronic devices, the DS added a second screen and clamshell form factor, plus a touch display to interact with. It proved a masterstroke, with more than 150 million units sold across iterations across 10 years. And that's not even including the 3DS.
Launch price: £99
T-MOBILE SIDEKICK II (2005)
The first Sidekick to arrive in the UK, the T-Mobile Sidekick II featured a form factor quite unlike anything else on the market at the time. The central screen slid upwards to reveal a full keyboard, but you could keep it shut to use the device as a conventional phone. It was a chunky beast that barely fitted into a pocket, but funnily enough weighed less than an iPhone 17 Pro does today.
Launch price: £50 + £30 per month contract
VIRGIN MEDIA TV (2007)
Cable TV was already in operation in the mid-to-late '90s, from multiple providers. It wasn't until Virgin Media was formed through the merger of Telewest and NTL that a major rival to Sky really found its feet. Its main selling point was a TV service that didn't require a satellite dish, so could be delivered to buildings that didn't allow one. It was also the first provider to offer HD TV services in the UK (as Telewest).
Launch price: £40 per month for TV, phone, broadband and mobile
APPLE MACBOOK (2006)
It seems crazy to think that Apple's first MacBook didn't arrive until 2006, but before then the company had named its laptops PowerBook and iBook. The first 13-inch MacBook was seen as something new when it arrived in 2006, made from polycarbonate and fibreglass, and in a white finish. A MacBook Pro model also launched at around the same time with an aluminium build, something followed by just about every other device since.
Launch price: from around £750
SONY XEL-1 (2007)
The world's first OLED TV had a mere 11-inch screen with a 960 x 540 pixel resolution and a price ticket of an eye-watering $2,500 (around £2,000). It looked more like a portable monitor than television set, but did carry with it the boast of being the thinnest TV yet – measuring just 3mm thick. It was more a proof of concept than a full product (although you could actually buy one), but strangely Sony was slow to capitalise after, with rival LG being the first to get a larger OLED TVs to market.
Launch price: around £2,000
Greatest tech flops of the… '00s
HD DVD (Born 2006, died 2008)
While the likes of Sony and Panasonic were readying Blu-ray, Toshiba opted for its own HD format – HD DVD. It worked in a similar way, with the same size of disc, but players were not cross-compatible. HD DVD discs also offered lower capacity than their Blu-ray counterparts, with some movies requiring owners to swap discs halfway through. Very few companies supported it, Blu-ray had won, and HD DVD died just two years later.
Launch price: from £450 (for the Toshiba HD-E1 player)
ONLIVE (Born 2009, died 2012)
Without OnLive we likely wouldn't have Xbox Cloud Gaming or Nvidia GeForce Now today, and we definitely wouldn't have Sony's cloud gaming service as part of PS Plus. That's because the PlayStation maker bought OnLive's technology for its cloud gaming platform in the 2000s. It was revolutionary at the time, but the slow broadband speeds back then just couldn't handle the streams effectively, and latency was a real issue.
Launch price: £70 for the OnLive box
MYSPACE (Born 2003, died 2019)
MySpace was initially hugely successful, being the first social media network to reach a global base and attract more than 100 million daily users, but a number of failed acquisitions and relaunch plans saw it crumble. Things could have been so different had owner DeWolfe managed to buy Facebook in 2005, but it felt the $75 million fee was too much. And for that alone, it deserves to sit among the biggest flops of the period.
Launch price: free to use
