Tech Heavyweight Showdown

We have an electronic scale in the PC Labs. We also have a lot of consumer electronics. Honestly, this whole thing was bound to happen, sooner or later. We asked the PCMag staff to bring in those pieces of obsolete technology that they just can't let go of—for one reason or other (sometimes it pays to work with a bunch of tech hoarders)—to see how they stack up against today's electronics.

Sure, the trend in the industry seems to be perpetually headed in the direction of lighter and more portable gadgets, but the results of our extensive testing (i.e. sticking gadgets on an electronic scale and then reading the numbers) were sometimes surprising.

The game itself is fairly simple—we've got seven rounds, each pitting one gadget against another. The heaviest wins (this is the heavyweight championship, after all).

1. Round 1: Apple iPad 1 vs. Etch-a-Sketch

Launched in 1960, the Etch-a-Sketch offered a primitive take on the tablet form factor. Despite the device's lack of apps, Internet access, and even a color touch display, the things sold like gangbusters and continue to be a retail staple. The Etch-a-Sketch's two prominent knobs control an internal stylus, which scrapes aluminum powder off of the display.

First released in April 2010, the Apple iPad eschewed the Etch-a-Sketch's scrape-based technology, in favor of a liquid crystal display. A radical difference, sure, but people apparently took to Steve Jobs's tablet, too.

2. Round 1: Apple iPad 1 vs. Etch-a-Sketch

Winner: Apple iPad 1 (1.55 pounds)
Loser: Etch-a-Sketch (1.25 pounds)

3. Round 2: Amazon Kindle DX vs. PCMag June 11, 1985

It's hard to talk about magazines these days without sounding like a cranky old man. "Remember when they were this big?" We took a trip down memory lane (read: the library of back issues that we have set up in the PC Labs), all the way back to those early issues of PC Magazine, which were roughly the size of a phone book (this particular issue was a whopping 364 pages).

Just to be fair, we put that quarter century old issue up against the Kindle DX, the larger device that Amazon introduced a couple of years back, specifically targeted at newspaper readers.

4. Round 2: Amazon Kindle DX vs. PCMag June 11, 1985

Winner: PCMag (1.28 pounds)
Loser: Amazon Kindle DX (1.18 pounds)

5. Round 3: Nintendo Wiimote vs. Atari Paddle

Before the Nintendo Wii revolutionized the way we interact with console games, there was the Atari paddle. Bundled with the Atari 2600 along with the more iconic joystick controllers, the paddle featured two buttons and a wheel. It was perfect for controlling Pong, the table tennis simulator that helped put Atari on the map when it was release in the early 70s.

Hitting store shelves just in time for the 2006 holiday season, the Nintendo Wii's motion-based game play cause the entire industry—and the world—to rethink the way players interact with games. The Wii was a massive success at launch, becoming the best-selling console in its first month. Following Nintendo's success, both Microsoft and Sony have released responses in the form of the Kinect and Move.

6. Round 3: Nintendo Wiimote vs. Atari Paddle

Winner: Atari Paddle (0.57 pounds)
Loser: Nintendo Wiimote (0.43 pounds)

7. Round 4: Nintendo Wii vs. Atari 1050 Power Supply

Back in the early days of console gaming, systems used to ship with a bonus game called "how far can you carry the power supply before breaking into a sweat?" Granted, it wasn't a very popular title, so console manufacturers eventually pared the things down to a much more manageable size. In fact, these days the systems weigh roughly the same amount as their predecessors' power supplies—well, Nintendo's do, at least...

8. Round 4: Nintendo Wii vs. Atari 1050 Power Supply

Winner: Atari 1050 Power Supply (2.94 pounds)
Loser: Nintendo Wii (2.89 pounds)

9. Round 5: Nintendo 3DS vs. Iomega Zip Drive 250 USB

Introduced in the mid-90s, Iomega's Zip Drive proved a massive success for the company, offering up storage capacities unheard of with standard floppies. In retrospect, the Zip phenomenon really feels like a transitional technology, having been fairly quickly eclipsed by writeable CDs and DVDs, and later the ever more portable flash drive phenomenon.

After releasing a seemingly endless stream of updates to its DS handheld, Nintendo finally offered a full refresh to its portable gaming offering with the Nintendo 3DS, a glasses-free 3D gaming system that made quite the splash when it hit stores earlier this week.

10. Round 5: Nintendo 3DS vs. Iomega Zip Drive 250 USB

Winner: Iomega Zip Drive 250 USB (0.54 pounds)
Loser: Nintendo 3DS (0.52 pounds)

11. Round 6: Apple TV (2nd generation) vs. Apple iPod (2nd generation)

Remember when 10GBs seemed like a lot of music? This second generation iPod does—and frankly, it wants to know why you need to carry 180GB of music around in your pocket at all times. Introduced a year and half after the first, the iPod 2G doesn't look all that different than its predecessor, but it was the first iPod that was compatible with Windows computers.

The second generation Apple TV, on the other hand, looks totally different than its predecessor. For starters, it's much smaller—Apple saved a good deal of space by removing the internal hard drive in favor of a streaming-only solution.

12. Round 6: Apple TV (2nd generation) vs. Apple iPod (2nd generation)

Winner: Apple TV (0.56 pounds)
Loser: Apple iPod (0.41 pounds)

13. Round 7: Motorola Droid (1st generation) vs. Kyocera QCP 6000 (Circa 2001)

The smartphone sure has come a long way in less than a decade. This "Palm-Powered" Kyocera seems to have more in common with the earliest cell phones—at least from an aesthetic standpoint. Though the flip-down keyboard, which reveals a larger stylus-based touchscreen, is pretty snazzy.

The first Android handset for Verizon is also a bit of a beast, thanks in no small part to its own moveable keyboard. Unlike the Kyocera, however, Motorola opted to have the keyboard behind the display, which is like the large touchscreen that's all the rage on today's smartphones.

14. Round 7: Motorola Droid (1st generation) vs. Kyocera QCP 6000 (Circa 2001)

Winner: Kyocera QCP 6000 (0.45 pounds)
Loser: Motorola Droid (0.37 pounds)