Ever thought about why you love gadgets so much? And, more importantly, why you own the gadgets you own? Is it possible that the company who got your dollars did so because they had the most inviting image or the product that made you feel like you were a member of an elite? A disturbing thought and one that blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes discusses on the ZDnet Hardware Blog.

I don't have any evidence to support this theory, but I think Adrian may be wrong about one thing: gadget lust does exist for cell phones; it just doesn't exist here in the US because there are too many barriers to entry. First of all, most people haven't gotten used to the idea of dropping $300 on a phone, even if it does all of these cool things like play music, take pictures, access the web, etc. A lot of people I know who now have RAZRs, for example, got them after the price dropped to under $100. Second, all of those cool features are not only currently redundant, they're redundant and of a lower quality than stand-alone items like mp3 players, cameras, etc. and the poor battery life in cell phones makes them less useful than their stand-alone counterparts. Third (and I think this issue is the biggest problem), I get the impression owning a cell phone and making use of all of the peripheral things like downloadable content and data plans is much more expensive here in the US than it is elsewhere in the world, where cell networks are more advanced. Change all of those things and I think you'll see as much gear lust for cell phones as for any other gadget.