The 5 most beautiful gadgets of all time

          Gadgets aren't always the prettiest of things, which is why they're often relegated to the undersides of desks or the backs of TV cabinets. But that doesn't mean gadgets can't be gorgeous. These are the gadgets that wrap their electronic innards in beautiful bodies.

1. iPhone 4/4S 

The iPhone 4/4S is Apple's mobile masterpiece - a flawed one, certainly, as Antennagate demonstrated, but a masterpiece nonetheless. Jonathan Ive's redesign of the widely imitated original iPhone introduced new materials, new construction techniques and the brand new Retina display, and the overall result was a device that was as beautiful when it was switched off as when it was switched on.The iPhone 5 may be thinner and even more cleverly engineered, but to our eyes the 4/4S was the phone perfected.

2. Nest Thermostat

No, we haven't been eating suspiciously ripe cheese again: we genuinely think a heating controller is one of the most beautiful gadgets around - and not just because every other thermostat we've ever seen has been soundly beaten by the ugly stick.

Designed by Tony Fadell, the iPod designer The Economist brilliantly called "the Podfather", the Nest isn't just about the industrial design: its easy, effective and attractive software is a big part of its appeal too. We wish all home electronics were as pretty as this.

3.Sony AIBO

Pretty much anyone can design something lovely, but how about loveable? That's much tougher, but Sony's engineers managed it with AIBO (Artificial Intelligence Robot), the cute robots it made from 1999 to 2005.

Some AIBOs were more successful than others - we prefer the Simba-esque "lion cub" design of the ERS-210 to the trying-too-hard "sinister-looking puppy dog" ERS-311 - but at its best an AIBO was a gadget that you could genuinely fall in love with.

4. Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus speakers

Beautifully designed or over-designed? Our money's on the former: those jaggy bits aren't just for show, but to absorb and tune the sound from the aluminium tweeters.

B&W reckons that the Nautilus speakers are "the very pinnacle of technological innovation to which all others must aspire" and that it hass created "as near as possible, the perfect loudspeaker," and you can have a pair of your own for just £55,000 (around AU$80,228 / US$84,463). If your budget's a bit more modest, B&W's Zeppelin Air will set you back around £500 (around AU$729 / US$768).

5. Macbook Air

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."

By : Muthiyana Cantya Puspita - 125150200111077