Illustration: John UelandFive years ago this column began with a simple mission. To explore brave new technologies, to seek out new gizmos and gear, and to boldly go where no gadget column had gone before.

Now that mission has run its course: This will be the last Gadget Freak. So now is a very good time to tell you what I've learned about what makes a gadget truly great.

It was a typical Saturday morning, and my children were swinging nunchuks at each other again. Though my son and daughter go medieval on each other several times a day, I wasn't worried. They were just using the Wii.

The Wii's success is truly phenomenal. All but dead in the console race three years ago, Nintendo is now leaving Sony and Microsoft in the dust. (In July, Nintendo sold more Wii consoles than Sony did PlayStation 3s or Microsoft did Xbox 360s combined, The NPD Group reports.) The biggest reason, aside from its low price: its easily mastered, gesture-based interface.

Illustration: Edwin FotheringhamA quiet revolution has begun in our living rooms. Microsoft and Sony plan to overthrow your A/V receiver, DVD player, and set-top box, and replace them with one of their game consoles. This past spring, both companies unveiled movie download and streaming services that give them new-found credibility in the living room.

Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 both provide great game play with stunning graphics and the opportunity to mosh online with other gaming dweebs. But do these devices offer enough to nongamers to serve as the command center of our digital homes? I'm not convinced.

Illustration: Marc RosenthalPlasma is dead. Front and rear projection? Fuggeddaboutit. LCD has a few good years left, and then it's sayonara, baby. TV technology's future lies in tiny phosphorescent molecules.

Organic light-emitting diodes--OLEDs--employ a thin layer of organic material that emits light when electricity passes through it. OLED displays need no backlight, so they're ultrathin and flexible. They are also brighter, cheaper to manufacture, and more environmentally friendly than plasma displays or LCDs. Over the next few years, OLED will be coming to a boob tube near you, and later maybe to the walls of your house, or even the windshield of your car.

Illustration: Mark MatchoI didn't attend prep school with the Kennedys or schmooze my way into high society. But these days I'm feeling extremely well connected, thanks to mobile devices like Amazon's Kindle e-book reader and the Dash Express GPS.

What's unique about these gizmos is that they maintain a constant Internet connection, so I don't have to load a browser, wait for a connection, and then hunt down information on a tiny screen. They simply pull down data and present it to me when I ask for it.