14 
Gadgets are expensive. It’s inescapable. You’re going to have to plunk down some cash for a really killer piece of kit. Sometimes it’s not worth it. But other times you wind up with essentially a digital life partner—a gadget you’re in physical contact with more often than you are with your loved ones, probably.
So what’s your most expensive gadget—computer, camera….phone? And was it massively worth the investment, or just a tragic miscalculation?
(No, vehicles don’t count, but other items could. Like, say, Joe’s life-changing desk.)
Image: Kevin George / Shutterstock
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The Wife…
I heard it’s way too expensive considering the processor you get in it.
depends on the hardware you plug into it
How exactly does that work again Julian?
i upgraded the firmware the other day.. seems to have improved on the noise level but i keep getting random errors when i try to connect my usb stick..
I’m sorry buddy. Possibly a virus?
Have you checked if the USB stick is the latest version 3.0 ?
Can it accept 3.0, or is it an old model?
I haven’t heard of any port that doesn’t accept all versions of USB sticks. :/
I’ve heard of fussy power docks in the backside though.
Need a upgrade…
Apparently you require 8.0 plus rather than 3.0
male to female ports are the normal but some setups accept other combinations
i was so ganna say wife/girlfriend GAARDDDD DYAAMMIIT!!!
If it doesn’t work, take back and ask for a refund! Just hope they don’t offer to recondition and return.
Electric hand warmers… most expensive because they’re attached to my motorbike.
My MacBook Pro 13″ is probably my most expensive piece of kit. I picked it up for £860 at the airport and I love it, it’s small enough to use on my lap, has enough charge for a whole nights work and powerful enough that I never get frustrated waiting for it. It’s my development machine, my photo editing suite, I play [older] games on it and it’s also my home recording studio. It wasn’t cheap but since I use it pretty much every day it was worth the investment.
After that my Galaxy Note II is probably the next most expensive, although I got it for free on a £31 a month contract. It’s massive and therefore better than every other phone that’s smaller than it. It’s completely replaced my iPad and I can take it everywhere, with data.
Biggest gadget regret: iPad, it’s just too big for everyday use and it’s too small to be used for anything productive. It is good for photo’s and the odd bit of music software though, so it is a keeper.
May I recommend an iPad mini? I had an iPad 2 a year ago and the mini is the perfect size for curling up in a comfy chair and getting productive or reading. Best gadget I ever owned.
Hovercar. it just gulps fuel.
You need to convert it and install a Mr.Fusion, that will help you save loads on fuel. Also you are not supposed to say car.
You stole my Nexus
q
No he didn’t. Now play nice or yo’ll get a smack.
God Dammit..
I woke up about 10 times during last night to refresh the page! I’ cranky.
You should see how much they are going for on eBay. I guess I will wait till they are back in stock.
Not true. In the case of the BTTF Delorean, Mr Fusion powered the time circuits, the engine still ran on petrol (hence the entire plot of BTTF 3). Yes, I’m a pedant.
Kudos. Thanks for the correction.
Yes but if you aren’t actually going to be time travelling you can use the Mr Fusion to power the car. mhatti3000 made no mention of BTTF or Deloreans or Time Travel so I’m afraid this is a pedant fail.
I’m not convinced. If that’s the case, Doc would have installed two Mr Fusions (one for the time circuits, one for powering the vehicle) surely?
Again, not completely true, in BTTF2, Mr Fusion also powered flight as well as the time circuits as otherwise Doc Emmett Brown would have needed to put additional rockets on for fuel storage like the old space shuttle program.
I’m not sure about that. We’d need to ask Goldie Wilson III how he goes about hover converting cars to be sure….
I suspect that he hasn’t a clue being just a Mayor.
That was Goldie Wilson. Goldie Wilson III was his grandson, who offered hover conversions in 2015.
I need to stop watching these films…
My toy minigun
[IMG]http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa302/happyal27/P040109_142401.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa302/happyal27/P040109_142501.jpg[/IMG]
Your [IMG] tags are no good here!
Also, that’s not a toy. That’s just a minigun! Can I have a go?
Sorry, silly no [img] tags
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa302/happyal27/P040109_142401.jpg
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa302/happyal27/P040109_142501.jpg
Is that better? of course you can have a go, don’t do much, but you have have a play
Oh HELL yes!
You win.
Whooooooooo, What do I win?
Here, have another picture…. because Minigun, what why…
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa302/happyal27/P040109_142301.jpg
Sweet!
That’d be my rebuttal to just about any argument: “Uhh, yeah. So… I’ve got a minigun.”
Does a GPS count if it causes an idiot to drive into a river thus ruining the car (I’ve read loads of these stories!)?
Personally I guess a £1000 17″ laptop I bought 6 1/2 years ago (I just found the receipt) which I’m using as a secondary (spare) in my business so I guess that was good value.
Probably my 2009 Macbook 13″ Got it in Japan so the cost was cheaper than usual cos of a good exchange rate at the time
Though I did buy a 12″ PowerBook back in the day when Apple didn’t include Wifi or Bluetooth as standard (lolz) and that probably set me back around £1300. That is probably the most I’ve paid for a bit of tech I guess…
Both were excellent purchases.
about £2000 on my imac…
Are watches counted as gadgets
Nikon D7000 + lenses. Totes worth it: http://500px.com/magicguppy
I’ve had some fun in the last year and a half with that thing.
With those photos. . . totally worth it!
Thanks, man! If you didn’t have a star already….
No problem! From Scotland myself, and it’s photos like yours that really show off how awesome our country and its scenery actually is (and that its not always raining!). Keep up the good work.
Some fantastic shots there. Really want myself a DSLR, I keep looking at the D5100 and hovering over the buy button but the missus would kill me.
Yeah, the D5100 is a nice piece of kit. Probably not worth the strife from the missus though…. I thought that once Mrs Guppy saw how into photography I would become that she would come round to how much money I spent on it. I think she just resents it more now. …
£860 on my 13 inch MBP + £130 on an SSD, worth every penny.
A desktop computer I custom built myself and it was totally worth it
The Canon 5d mk iii – and an expanding collection of glass!
My transformer prime
My Dell XPS 17!
Cost £1250.
(Has been upgraded with 2 SSD’s so +£250, & will be adding more RAM soon)
I would have never been able to afford it, but it was bought for me as a deposit for a web design job.
65 inch LG 3D HD SmartTV
65 inch?!? Do you have a short man complex or something?
Possibly.
Nice. How is it?
It’s really good actually. Reasonably priced comapred to other options. Haven’t had a chance to juice the 3D properly yet, but I did watch the Wimbledon finals in 3D which was epic.
i blew around £5k on my home cinema setup. but thats not a ‘thing’
i guess the most expensive purchase bar a car were my B&W speakers at £2k.
Worth it?
Bowers and Wilkins usually are, I used to have a set of B&W bookshelf speakers, they were excellent
If I may chip in with a reply…
Yes, indeed. I’ve had my HT speakers/sub for 11 years. They happen to be B&W, but that’s not really my point; it being that the speakers have outlasted various generations of system. Which has ranged from 36″ flat screen CRT, 5.1, DVD to 65″ plasma, 7.2 and Blu Ray. With each upgrade in source, recording quality and amp; the speakers have been more than up to the job of revealing more information and atmosphere.
Buy the best speakers you can afford with a view to them lasting 10+ years, the rest will follow.
You’ve jiggled my memory. My Dad has the same speakers from around 10 years ago and to this day they still sound amazing, 5.1 Bose system, nice looking speaker’s, massive bass box, a CD playing head unit or whatever you want to call it, the only thing it need’s to last another 10 years is HDMI in/outputs.
MT-60, or did u go full size?
I’ve been eyeing up the MT-60′s for years, haven’t had the courage to splurge yet.
Excuse the gratuitous ‘u’. I was in IM mode for a second there.
why my post not displaying? grr
sorry, had a mare at work today so only just got chance to check back.
mine are the 784 theatre. the sub needed an antimode to work better in the lounge though as i was limited for placement.
i also have some mordaunt shorts for the front width to make 7.1 which make the soundstage feel massive. my lounge is 3.5m x 7.5m but i have my speakers and TV on the long wall. so the width of the stage is about 5m!
surround rear and front height doesnt sound half as good. god knows why dolby and THX thinks surround rears should make 7.1. Audyssey and a few others say front width are much better as you can pick up the difference much better as our ears face forwards, not behind 
i have to matrix to DSX 7.1 though but it sounds awesome.
as people say, speaker evolution hasnt changed much in this time. plus with kevlar and alu cones they should last years. i have changed amps twice in the last 3 years. amps move at a frantic pace to keep up with the tech. speakers dont.
thought i would treat myself just before i got married
so she cant say ‘how much!’ as it was my money 
btw – tried the B&Ws with a denon amp and it was too bright so now have an onkyo 709 and it blows the denon away.
wtf? wont post the link to my avforums account to show the piccies. grrr. same username if anyone is interested.
links not allowed?
laptop, camera if I include lenses, but if I’m getting collective, music workstation and all the shite plugged into it and on it – God I need to simplify my setup. Is software a gadget?
PS.but then if we include software then I can name a few computer games that have cost me years.
my i7 3770k ivybridge computer
My Olympus E410 + lenses and small selection of camera bags. Not the most modern camera but I still really like the handling, even with my large hands.
Nikon D800 plus lenses. Just as well it pays for itself really
15″ retina macbook pro, had it since august, well worth it!
My Giz UK commenter account. One of these days it’s going to cost me my job
I thought it was your job.
That’s why It will cost me my job
Ahh, gotcha
My PC
£12,000 on my “starter kit” Kaleidescape System. Totally worth it.
Used to use my own XBMC based system before that, but Kaledescape “just works” and is smooth as butter.
What’s that?
It’s a movie server/system. Sounds simple, but trust me, I’ve looked at every option, and there’s nothing like this system out there…
http://www.kaleidescape.com
My Makerbot Replicator 2 3D Printer, it cost around £1,800 just a little more than my retina macbook pro
1500 GBP on my iMac & 479 GBP on my iPad 2
Fleshlight – 46 GBP.
You seem to like wanking allot.. i remember you talking about porn here once before
a lot*
And yes I do. It’s fun and healthy.
I AGREE ! LONG LIVE WANKING !
I’ll do my top 5:
Custom built Desktop PC ~ £700 (estimate not inc. monitors)
Canon 450D + Lenses ~ £700
iPad 3rd Gen 64GB – £559
Primary Laptop (Dell XPS L502x 15″) – £530 (ordered with a dell voucher code glitch that bought the price down from ~ £800)
Samsung Galaxy S2 – I didn’t pay much up-front but the contract soon adds up
Just bought one of these…
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/new-2013-lamborghini-aventador-roadster-revealed
Stupidly, I left the glue in the shop.
#24thscale
Probably be my 3/4 year old pc which i payed about £1200 for (Q9400 cpu, 4gb ddr2, 640gb hdd, GTX260 SLI+22inch monitor). Still running a treat! although i have since sacrificed one of my gfx cards for a 120gb SSD.
MSI GT627 15″ Gaming Laptop. Payed £1100 at the time (3 years ago). As an every day, all your needs computer? Fantastic. As a gaming machine? for about a year and a half. Will never be getting a gaming laptop again as they don’t age well IMO, will instead be building a PC.
I purchased a table for £1250 which many of my gadgets are sat on, it’s probably worth more than they are now…
Reg contact wise it has to be iDevices as others just don’t get used as much.
iPenisEnlargmentPump with retina display.
It was a total waste of money.
My main laptop, it was over £300, luckily it was a present.
Biggest spend on a single item is probably my Steyr LP10e air pistol at £1,400. It was totally worth it while I was shooting a lot. Not so much at the moment
Otherwise, my projector/home theatre setup would take the cake if you combine them
Thermomix. You can’t put a price on decent hollandaise.
Is it the TM31? That thing has been on my partner’s wishlist for years!
Personally, my stuff isnt worth that much – im quite poor:
My PC: Quad core Athlon II, 8 GB RAM – £360 with a £60 screen.
My phone: Galaxy Ace: £120
My Netbook: £200
Thats about it really