The 10 most beautiful gadgets of all time

Ive describes Rams' work as "consistently beautiful, so right and so accessible", and the T1000 is one of several Rams designs that have inspired Ive's work at Apple: you can see Rams' T3 radio in the iPod, and his LE1 speaker in the iMac. The design may be nearly five decades old, but the T1000 still looks stylish and contemporary today.

8. Macbook Air

The 10 most beautiful gadgets of all time

Can traditional computers get any prettier than the MacBook Air? Judging by the rest of the PC industry's response, the answer appears to be no: the Air is one of the most widely imitated laptops the tech industry has ever seen.

As our own Paul Lamkin put it in our review, the design "has become a classic, a blueprint for contemporary technology done correctly, and an inspiration for the ever-increasing Ultrabook brigade."

Read our MacBook Air 2012 review

9. Lito Sora electric motorcycle

The 10 most beautiful gadgets of all time

Designing electric vehicles is hard: if they're too bland, too out-there or too cute then customers will be bored, frightened or appalled - and that means they'll stay away in droves. We don't think that'll happen to Lito's Sora electric motorbike, which should finally start shipping this year.

Rather than nicking ideas from sci-fi movies or copying existing racing bikes, Lito has created a high-tech motorcycle that looks like an old-school bruiser. It can be yours for around £30,000 (around AU$43,771 / US$46,080).

10. Gibson Firebird X

The 10 most beautiful gadgets of all time

Gibson isn't the only iconic luthier making electronic guitars - Fender's been slapping circuits into its Stratocasters too - but we love the way the Firebird X takes the wonderfully odd looks of the famous Firebird and adds a dollop of digital delights including robot tuning and onboard effects.

It's a shame that the actual guitar isn't as good as its looks and price tag (£3,299 - or around AU$4,814 / US$5,068) suggest: MusicRadar reckons you'd be better off with a non-digital Gibson.

Read MusicRadar's Gibson Firebird X review

Carrie Marshall
Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.