Question of the Day: What’s Your Most Expensive, Dumbest Gadget Oops?

12:00PM August 2, 2008 | Gizmodo US Edition

To many of us, our gadgets are like our babies: we bring them everywhere, they’re expensive, and we would go to great lengths to protect them. But just like babies, sometimes gadgets get dropped. The results are often tragic, and the guilt crippling. Maybe you haven’t drenched your new US$1600 keyboard in coffee, but have you accidentally plunked your BlackBerry in a urinal? Put your iPod through the wash? Has your adorable puppy destroyed your new laptop in a territorial gesture? What’s your worst, your most embarrassing, your most expensive or just your most ridiculous “oh, shit” gadget moment?


Comments

  • Jorgo

    August 2, 2008 at 6:19 PM

    Installing vista on my laptop, got fed up with it. Two weeks later i bought a mac… best decision of my life.

  • Joy

    August 2, 2008 at 11:33 PM

    I accidentally put a mobile phone through the spin cycle of a washing machine (I left it in my pocket) … then I accidentally dropped my Blackberry into a washing machine at the laundromat!

  • iBam

    August 3, 2008 at 12:48 AM

    i keep dropping my 16gig iphone, and it almost got run over today by a maniac on a bike.

  • monkeypuncher

    August 3, 2008 at 6:09 AM

    Being a budding electrician, I tried to install a pioneer stereo into my first car. Hook up the wrong wires. When I turned on the stereo, the horn of the car beeped and the stereo went up in a puff of smoke. Only $400 or so but a stupid mistake, entirely my fault.

  • Rob C

    August 3, 2008 at 6:17 AM

    I work dispatching tow trucks. Once, whilst talking to the police who were trying to organize a tow truck with us, I was juggling two phones, both with police on the other end.
    Long story short, in my fumbling about, my mobile ended up slipping into a hot cup of bad work coffee. When I eventually heard from that officer again, he said he heard rushing water, followed by a lot of bad words, and an electronic zapping noise.
    Luckily, I’d taken enough info for the trucks to get sent out. Not so lucky for my nokia. It got frazzled and is now an expensive doorstop… that smells distinctly of burnt coffee.

  • Alex

    August 3, 2008 at 6:13 PM

    Actually, had a “Gadget OOPS” just a couple of hours ago. Was a a reception for my cousin’s christening. We were sitting at our table and I gave my phone too my mother, she looked at the photo i was showing her and then accidentally dropped it into a bowl of chilli and oil. Lucky only the bottom got oiled and it still works, but it’s still secreting oil from the mini USB, power, and headphone jacks… Gross red oil!

    So, OOPS!!! Grr.

  • Jono

    August 4, 2008 at 12:02 PM

    Dropped my Sony Ericsson phone into a jug of beer twice in two weekends.. Both times it got drunk – started taking photos of everything and garbling its messages.. except the second time round it suffered permanent brain damage and now the mic is broken, making it a brilliant.. well not a phone anyhow.. Apart from that it recovered fine..

  • Alex

    August 4, 2008 at 2:10 PM

    Oh actually, I just remembered another doozy.
    Was in my 1st year of uni, brand new Ibook G4. Talking to a friend as I was loading all my books and shit into the car in the carpark, place Ibook on roof of said car, forget about it and then drive off to the other side of campus.

    Arriving there (still unawares, after navigating numerous speed bumps and roundabouts) and seeing a friend walking past I begin to stop to chat out the window to them. As I come towards this friend, he stops and points in horror at the roof of my car. “What the crap is that on your roof man?”. I stop, leap from the car and find my Ibook, in its scuba sleeve case, nestled (and a little wedged) against the radio antenna, right on the corner of the roof!!! Oh my Mac and I had a passionate make-up cuddle after that!!! LOL And I’m typing from the same Mac of Hazzard right now.

  • Chris

    August 4, 2008 at 9:49 PM

    Didn’t result in breaking anything but I was cleaning up and dropped a speaker a good meter right onto the middle of my 20″ LCD monitor that was lying face up. Luckily it didn’t break, going to be more careful from now on…

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