I have a confession to make: I’ve never owned a digital camera. I’ve played around plenty with friend’s point-and-shoots, and I have picked up a DSLR on occasion too. But I never saw the point of paying US$300 for something my iPhone could pretty much do well enough. Now that summer’s coming up and the price of high-megapixel cameras is going down, though, I figure it might be time to pick one out for myself—on the cheap. Let someone else waste money, I want to know what’s good at US$150 and not a penny more. I’m gonna be picky: I only want a camera that can take shots that make me look like a photography genius while in truth I’m a photography dumbass, but still, the key is to keep the price down. I tried out five US$150-and-under cameras, and here’s what I found:
Tim Brom built this 26.25 gigaflop supercomputer from scratch, for only $2,500. Since then hadware costs have dropped, and it should now only cost you $1,256 to build the same machine. It’s called MicroWulf, and is based around four microATX motherboards. Each motherboard has its own dual core CPU and 2GB of RAM, and communicates with the others over Gigabit Ethernet. A complete list of hardware is after the link, if you’re tempted to build your own. [Oh Gizmo!]
Looking for some DirectX 10 action on the cheap? The guys at ExtremeTech are claiming Nvidia will release a sub $100 GeForce 8400 card on the 19th of June. It’ll come in 256MB ($79) and 128MB ($50) flavors. The cards will be clocked at 450MHz with a 400MHz memory clock. They’ll have HDCP support, but no HDMI (naturally at that price point). Either card you get will be a good deal so long as you’re not a heavy gamer. – Louis Ramirez
Cheap GeForce 8400 GS on 19th June [VR-Zone via ExtremeTech]
Totally against my will, the missus dragged me along to Bed Bath & Beyond a couple of weekends ago. (Insert whip-cracking sound effects, wise guys.) It was every bit as horrific as I’d feared—I must lack whatever gene enables some folks to swoon over Casabella all-purpose gloves. Oh, and I had to miss the Mavs-Suns game in the name of stocking up on overpriced cleaning supplies. Brutal, just brutal.
The day’s one saving grace came as we trudged toward the checkout line. To the right of the cash registers was a rack of low-end gadgets, of the sort you’d ordinarily find at an exceptionally raggedy Radio Shack. There was a USB minifan for five bucks (brand name: “Cool Breeze”), a host of Bandai-style LCD games, and quite possibly the flimsiest iPod speakers known to man. The cake-taker, however, was the Zadro iSing Shower Radio (pictured at right), which hits all the low-end high points. Shameless attempt to leech off the iPod‘s celebrity? Check. Using the “wow” factor of water resistance to mask otherwise craptacular craftsmanship? Check. Under a Hamilton? Yep—a lovely $9.99.
Now, absolutely no one goes to Bed Bath & Beyond looking for electro-dreck. These products were rather impulse buys, to be tossed in a shopper’s cart just before she pays for a bevy of pillows and spatulas. In other words, here was strong evidence that gadgets are quickly morphing into the new ChapStick.
And that strikes me as sort of a big deal.
