“I like to think of Batman and his utility belt: How many electronic devices do you really want to have?”~ John Jacobs, in eMarketer

Perhaps 2k10 should be dubbed the year of gear, since we’re toting around more digital gizmos in our pockets, bags, and vehicles than ever before. Mobile phones are nearly standard but we also see each other carrying cameras and Kindles, netbooks and laptops, iPods and voice recorders, Nintendo DSs and camcorders, and soon even wearable GPS locator devices and dedicated mobile mini TVs.

Handheld consumer electronics are marketed to a diverse connected class: those living (or aspiring to) “a mobile lifestyle” (what AT&T once called the mLife in an expensive series of adverts culminating in a Super Bowl spot). Portable digital entertainment, prosumer, and communications tech is targeted to students, seniors, and pretty much everyone in between.

At the top of the gadget universe is of course the cellphone, something many folks cannot bear to part with. According to a 2010 Pew Internet survey, consumers feel that mobile phones are the greatest technological invention of the decade—responsible for radically improving our quality of life. Respondents ranked the cell phone as a (slightly) more important, progressive, and positive digital innovation than social networks, e-mail, and e-commerce.

To date, approximately 25% of cell phone sales are smartphones but research shows that a majority of consumers plan to replace their cell with a smartypants phone this year.

By all rights, smartphones should have been the end of gadget juggling. Superphones like Google’s NexusOne, RIM’s BlackBerry, the Palm Pre and the iPhone are convergence technologies—in addition to the standard voice function, they are all-in-one handheld computers bundling digital cameras, mp3 players, voice recorders, GPS, camcorders, and are ready to be loaded up with games, ebooks, videos, music—and almost any other app you can imagine. So why are we still toting around so much single-function (and often seemingly redundant) hardware?

Obviously dedicated purpose-built gear is likely to deliver far better quality screen resolution (for reading ebooks), and digital imaging functions (photography and video). Likewise, handheld gaming on the iPhone is a huge trend, but it’s not the same experience as the DS. But it’s not always lack of production/performance quality that makes us collect and carry multiple gizmos.

Rapid, planned obsolescence drives purchase decisions—so that last year’s model doesn’t have the same features as this year’s upgrade. Social shopping also plays into how we collect gear—since there is pleasure is purchasing the same tech toys that your friends have. And consumer holiday traditions are another factor shaping consumption patterns—when every imaginable electronic widget is promoted as perfectly suited for everyone on your gift list.

Acquiring ever more gear, gizmos, and gadgets keeps the internet meme of whatsinyourbag going strong. On Flickr, a staggering range of people have tagged and shared more than 4,000 intimate and artful snapshots of the tech we tote.