What piece of hardware do you regret buying?

[Cracken]

Das keyboard 4, what a piece of low quality crap in a box

 

[Andy Jones]

HP Mini 210. If ever a device was not fit for purpose. 1gb ram with Windows 7? Wish id taken it back but this was just before tablets and I was going travelling.

 

[ypsylon]

Well not exactly piece of hardware, but Dimastech XL 3 bench.

What a piece of tat. Lacked threads on 90% of holes and fit was like a drunken ape trying to do eye surgery while wearing boxing gloves.

That was the last big one. I'm sure I could provide interesting list over past 25 years, but one is enough to be depressed over quality of some goods...

 

[Macgyver56]

A little surprised to find myself saying a Samsung Galaxy Tab S (10.6) tablet. There is a lot to like about the tablet, and I generally enjoy using Android, but the battery life on the Tab S was pathetic. What's the use of a tablet that needs to be plugged at least twice a day to keep it operating? I used it for a couple of years as my frustration mounted, and then finally got rid of it and replaced it with an iPad. Normally I don't prefer iOS over Android, but in this instance it was definitely the right choice. It's the difference between a Trabant and a Maserati.

 

[Zenodroid]

Acer computers and amd hardware. those are my regrets. yeah amd might be cheaper but its also a lot more unstable, and it has problems playing all games new as old. nvidia cost more, but works perfect on everything I throw at it.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Nothing PC wise. I wasted my money buying an Asus Nexus 7" tablet a while back, I wanted to see what all the fuss about tablets was and very quickly found out it was superfluous, but I don't buy any PC computer hardware on a whim. Everything I buy I've researched as thoroughly as I could. It eventually becomes outdated and I loose interest in it then I either throw it away, store it or sell it, yes, that happens but before it happens, I've got my money's worth from it.
The tablet purchase wasn't a complete waste of money either, I gave it to one of my grand daughters and it made her very happy which made made me very happy.

 

[Zenodroid]

Nothing PC wise. I wasted my money buying an Asus Nexus 7" tablet a while back, I wanted to see what all the fuss about tablets was and very quickly found out it was superfluous, but I don't buy any PC computer hardware on a whim. Everything I buy I've researched as thoroughly as I could. It eventually becomes outdated and I loose interest in it then I either throw it away, store it or sell it, yes, that happens but before it happens, I've got my money's worth from it.
The tablet purchase wasn't a complete waste of money either, I gave it to one of my grand daughters and it made her very happy which made made me very happy.

was it the 2013 model ? and lte or wifi edition ? the sad thing tho, is that the phones are starting to get the same size as that tablet.

 

[mrtraver]

For my first PC build, I regret overspending on the motherboard with features I never used and RAM that was too fast for my system to take advantage of. I could have easily saved $200 and applied it to a faster CPU and more powerful GPU.

 

[Gokuhouse]

Xbox One, after I bought it Microsoft updated it a lot which should have been fine but it slowed it down with every update. Playing Netflix and Hulu is actually more smooth on my really old Xbox 360 now.

 

[risc32]

Bought the kids a weird cheap android tablet from ebay. the specs seemed ok. it was to be used for games and youtube, but oh my dammit, it was terrible. worst piece of electronics I think I've ever had the displeasure of using. if you were to take it back in time and give it to someone in around 1990 they wouldn't even be pleased with it.

cyrix... hell , I bought a rage fury 32bit card that came with a demo. some demo, my computer could only dream of running that thing. more like a 5fps peak into the future of graphics.

 

[Trillionsin]

Normally if I buy something that just doesn't make sense, I take it right back.

I never keep stuff long enough to regret it.

second

 

[Trillionsin]

For my first PC build, I regret overspending on the motherboard with features I never used and RAM that was too fast for my system to take advantage of. I could have easily saved $200 and applied it to a faster CPU and more powerful GPU.

You live and learn. I made similar mistakes, but in the grand scheme $200 is a drop in the bucket. Glad it wasnt $2000! lol

The PC Case, and PSU I bought were horrendous... I'm not sure what my younger self was thinking, but things worked out. I gave it to someone who appreciates it, I sold the power supply on ebay, and so forth...

 

[Scorpionking20]

A second 1070. What a waste...2016 is the year sli died.

 

[Invizibleyez]

Dropped about $2200 on a 52" 1080i DLP TV about 10 years ago. While it still works, it doesn't seem like buying a TV for over $1000 makes much sense. I can get a decent 4k TV for under $1000 with HDR. I see rave reviews of newer OLED TV shows for around $2000, but I think patience saves a lot of money.

 

[Mr WW]

Oh, a lot.
Almost all 3D cards that I bought between 1995 and 2000. Put all my savings as teenager in it.
My expensive in 2000 custom build Pentium 4 PC with RDRAM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDRAM)
My HP iPaq voice messenger (smart)phone (http://www.gsmarena.com/hp_ipaq_voice_messenger-2561.php)
GoPro 4 : Works amazing but used it 3 times.
Traktor S4 Turntable: Works amazing but used it 3 times.
2nd Hand Macbook Pro 2011, bought as spare for 300€ so couldn't let that pass. Works amazing but used it 3 times.
...

 

[polord]

Apple-1

 

[ET3D]

I'm sorry that I bought an nForce based MB or my HTPC. I bought it because it was a cheap and small motherboard, but in the long run I would have been better served by an AMD chipset, because the nForce stopped being supported.

Edit: Some specifics about why it turned out to be a hassle:
- To upgrade to a 4TB drive I had to disable the nForce SATA drivers. Took me a long while to find out that it was even possible to use it. (That said, I've read that even for AMD chipsets the MS driver is recommended.)
- Upgrading to Windows 10 wasn't possible without installing a custom nForce driver (not the one available from NVIDIA). (Although I ended up reverting to Windows 7 for other reasons.)
- If I had an AMD based MB I could have used AMD overdrive and some other stuff.
- Couldn't update to the latest AMD AM3+ CPU's even if I wanted.

 

[Brock Kane]

My biggest regret was the Creative iRoar - $360 Way Way over priced!
http://us.creative.com/p/speakers/creative-iroar

This speaker is nice, sounds good, but being honest you can spend $100 on a blue tooth speaker that sounds just as good. I hate myself for spending $360 for it! I guess I thought that if it cost that much it must be better than the rest. I was WRONG!

Funny thing is, now I hardly even use it. Had it about 6 months, used it 5 times at most. Anybody wanna buy it? LOL

 

[p51d007]

Iomega Zip Drive

 

[rvnwlfdroid]

About the only things I can think of would be the Moto Zoom. Mostly because I did not use it as much as I thought I would. The second would have been the Note 7. Not because I did not like the device, I actually loved it. Just because of all the trips back to Verizon to deal with the recalls.

 

[Experimentongod]

A-MAX NAPA DAV310 => portable Mp3 CD player. Very cheap plastic construction and it was extremely slow reading and changing tracks. Ended up using it like four times and then sold it :/

Hercules DJ Console => as an external soundcard it's pretty good, but the buttons and knobs are garbage, you can barely DJ with that thing. It cost a LOT of money (about 300EUR if I remember correctly) and I barely used it

PS3 => honorable mention; I played a few hours of Wipeout HD Fury, so not a real regret

 

[TheDreams]

Also a Razer Nostromo

 

[Squid Surprise]

No real regrets, Sure I might do things differently on hindsight but we work with the knowledge we have at the time.

But if I had to pick my most frustrating purchase it would be the Dell XPS M1730 "laptop" which was too big, too noisy and far too unreliable for the cost. I ended up swapping the PSU, GFX card and DVD drive and even now part of the keyboard has failed.

I built a desktop the next year and that's been fantastic but I did initially cheap out on the PSU which lasted maybe a week. Once I spent the cash on a good one I never had a single hardware fault in what ? 4 years so far and counting...

Just ordered a Razer Blade Stealth and later will get the external graphics box, I do hope I don't have to come back here and update this

I'd mark my XPS 1730 as the single greatest piece of hardware I ever bought!! I got mine on Ebay for about $500 and used it for years until I got the Alienware 18... My wife uses it now, and it still runs perfectly... While I love my Alienware, the XPS is still my favourite...

 

[gcarter]

I guess it can be called hardware but not in the classical sense and that was buying Rover cars!

Had a Rover 600 and it just rusted like no ones business. Had a Rover 800 and was like driving a tank blindfolded! My misses bought a Rover 45 because it looked pretty and everything engine wise failed!

Curse you Rover curse you!

 

[captaincranky]

Yeah, I have a Samsung 22" 1680 x 1050 TN monitor, which I bought at a bit of a premium, due to the fact it has a "flip me to vertical" stand. Well, the viewing angle of TN is far worse than the trash it is with a horizontal display, and I never could either see anything off center, or get the excess green tint out of the piece of crap.

I replaced it with a Dell 23" 1080p IPS, which in and of itself isn't much to brag about, but it's a whole lot better than the Samsung, so I continue to endure it to use for cruising the web.

I have to say though, the Dell offers vertical orientation as well. It's ideal for coming to Techspot. More of the page on screen, means more posts can be viewed at once, yielding a lot more people to argue with at a time!(y)
.

Glad to hear others were turned off by the sealed HDD. The one S still cant have the HDD replaced. It's total BS

Couldn't you wrap your head around the fact that was the whole point of it beforehand? You know, before you cut them a check.