The best gadgets are expensive, but so are plenty not-the-best ones too. And regardless of how “good” something is, its only worth as much as it does for you. The best useless machine is, well, useless.
What’s the most you’ve paid for a gadget that just didn’t cut it, either because it was overpriced, underwhelming, or just ultimately not your style? We all make mistakes, but some hurt a little more than others, especially in the wallet. But if you play on the cutting edge, you’re bound to get some nicks, right?
Image by Ryabitskaya Elena/Shutterstock
I've wasted a lot of money being an early adopter. However, the D-Link DSM-320 - the first media streaming box to become commercially available - holds a special place in my shit list.
It cost me $600... but NEVER worked as advertised. The Wireless G never had the bandwidth to stream even low-res video. Even when hooked up by ethernet, the chipset in the device couldn't decode video quickly enough to play more than a few minutes of video, before painful stuttering and buffering would set in.
It was a disgrace the device won Comdex (!) and was ever released to market.
That was also the last piece of gear I ever bought from D-Link.
As much as it burns to recommend something made by D-Link, the Boxee Box is actually really good. Admittedly I have it hooked up via Ethernet, but it streams 1080p .mkv files from my NAS no problems (files are ~10Gb).
I think it runs on an Intel Atom, or something similar. Very happy with it!
My very first laptop. Paid $4000 for it at a time where to buy a laptop, you had to pay that for the last 10 years... 6 months later, the standard laptop price was $2500... ouch. Turned out it was a bit of a lemon too...
I bought a genuine pair of Dr. Dre Beats, Studio Edition Headphones, when they were new. Cost me $800 and a lot of shame.
I bought one of these (http://www.hanvon.com/en/products/touchpad/touchpad_b10.html) for almost a grand back when Officeworks stocked them. Several months later the price dropped dramatically, and I'm pretty sure they no longer sell. Total piece of crap, don't know what I was thinking!
I'm still pretty dirty about the fact Apple is offering the MBP Retina with better specs for less money only 6 months after I got mine :(
$800 for a Hanvon BC10 touch screen windows tablet. I thought it would be better than getting a iPad, since it was a fully fledged computer. Turned out to be very hard to use. The Hanvon died some time ago - just wouldn't start up any more...Got myself a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 now, and very happy with it.
A guy at work has one of these and still insists we keep it running. 'Instant on' in just two minutes...
I remember a friend of mine buying a PS2 for $900. Next week they had the price drop down to $400. He was not happy.
As a O2 XDA Mini user from back then, i thought it would be splendid upgrading to the Samsung Omnia running WM6. What a load of crud that was. WM6 ran fine, but the phone it ran on was utterly junk. Now i avoid purchasing anything made by Samsung.
Buying a 64gb iPad. cost me so much and i really needed a physical keyboard so made most of my money back and brought a ASUS Transformer.
PlayStation 3 first-gen, the 60GB model. $999.
Last edited February 25, 2013 9:33 am
I think i have to disagree with you. I bought one for that price the first day it came out. And at the time it was a normal price and there was no significant price drop for quite some time. I still use it to this day, have not had one issue with mine and ive had 3 red ring Xbox's.
Still an awesome machine and my only blu-ray player in the house with the fastest load time. Also did an update to allow it to input 3D blu-ray's which was even better.
Mine died. Then I bought a second-gen 40GB model for $699. An even bigger step backwards. YLOD to this day.
~$500 for Vista Ultimate. No only was the OS a dog, but MS never released the promised specials and extras.
I paid $900 for an original model iPod back in early '02. Ludicrous price looking back now, doesn't work any more, I assume the battery's cactus. No regrets though, it was awesome back then.
iPad 3rd Gen.. I forget the actual price.. suffice it to say that I needed to really think hard about that purchase. I've never been an Apple fanboi and hated their closed systems and outrageous prices.. but now that I have it, I use it daily.. get about 4 to 5 hours use out of it every day and it does everything I bought it for.
I gave the devil (a.k.a Jerry Harvey) $496 for the Nexus 4.
I regret nothing!
When i was on a trip in the US I paid $100 USD for a solar charger for my phones. Didn't know much about them, was sold on the idea that the thing was small and could charge in the light during the day so that I could keep my phone alive in an emergency. Dud, didn't charge at all in the light and then I found it at an electronics fair in Singapore a week later for $8. Got wise and bought a better one with 6 times the capacity (but no solar) for $50.
I once bought an am/fm radio about the size of 2 thumbs. It was at a lismore supermarket at the checkout. The price? a whopping $4. I thought how could i possibly lose at that price! Worse piece of tech I ever bought. I immediately regretted my purchase after using it once and wished I had my $4 back. I laughed so hard at how sh*t it was that I got more than $4 worth of value in the end.
Last edited February 25, 2013 11:05 am
Wii u, where are the games... I knew this would happen, should kick my own ass
Original PSP - Thought it'd be cool, I was wrong.
30,000.00 AUD on one of the first plasma TV's.
holy crap! how long did it last? is it still around? how big was it? how heavy was it!
its early adopters like you that drive the industry though - kudos on having the cajones to drop that amount on a tv :)
:) It lasted 5 agonizing years, watching prices go down to 3,000 AUD :(
You win.
You also reminded me that I paid $6K for a plasma TV which wasn't even 1080, back in the day. Nowadays the same set would cost half a grand if that.
Vlad wins, I got a deal for you vlad, i'll trade you my $4 am/fm radio for your plasma.
$4500 for a toshiba T3100 laptop. 286 with 20mb hardrive, ms os6 and orange gas plasma screen. It was desribed as a space ship by some of my peers at the time as we could dial up buletin boards with the 9600 built in modem.
I bought a Palm Pilot Professional in '97. I don't remember how much I paid (600 I think) but it was a lot for a toy that I never really got much real use out of. The digitizer would never calibrate accurately even after I sent it in for repair.
I spent something like $800 on a 2 megapixal Canon IXUS V in 2000. But that was money well spent.
Palm Pilot Professional......sounds like a Fleshlight.
In 1987 I paid $1000 for a Sidecar for my Amiga 1000. This gave it IBM PC compatibility with a whopping 20 Mb Hard disk installed. It worked (sort of) was never productive and was a huge sea anchor.
$2250 for a 40' LCD T.V. You can get better now for $900.
Last edited February 26, 2013 2:59 am
If a CPU counts as a gadget, I paid over $1300 for P4 3.06Ghz processor.