Game Boy toughs it out

Jonathan Goddard|Metro13 April 2012

An iPod may be trendier, a laptop more powerful and a mobile phone the most commonly used.


But when it comes to indestructibility, the Nintendo Game Boy is the Terminator of the gadget world.

Former Army fitness instructor Geoff Wiseman tested five of the most popular gizmos to find 'hardest gadget ever'.

The challenges saw the devices being dropped in mud, being driven wildly in an off-road vehicle and subjected to a clay pigeon shoot and paintball fire.

Mr Wiseman, an ex-paratrooper, tested an iPod, a Nokia 7600 phone, a laptop, a digital camera and a Game Boy.

His helper was Tom Bailey of gadgets magazine T3, which held the trials for its 100th edition.

All five gizmos survived the first test - being thrown into in a boggy field in Wales. But then came a ride in an all-terrain vehicle at breakneck speed. When Mr Wiseman braked, the camera and Game Boy were intact but the phone, laptop and iPod were damaged.

Mr Wiseman then took the machines for a ride down a raging torrent in a canoe.

This finished off the laptop and the phone but the iPod still belted out The Beatles, the camera still took photos and the Game Boy was still playable.

An incoming text message brought the Nokia back to life as the gadgets were placed on a Land Rover bonnet - ready for a volley of paintball fire.

There was no miracle resurrection for the laptop, however.

As Mr Bailey used it to shield himself, the keyboard was shot to smithereens.

The now lens-less Pentax camera was next to expire but the Game Boy and iPod were still hanging on in there. Mr Wiseman aimed to finish them off with the final test - a clay pigeon shoot.

After the gadgets were launched he scored direct hits on the Nokia, the laptop and the iPod.

But the camera was barely damaged when hit and the Game Boy escaped being shot at all.

Game over arrived, though, as Mr Wiseman strode over to where the Game Boy had landed and shot it at close range.

But the gadget - first sold in 1989 - still won the title by surviving the longest.

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