QOTW: What's your best tech purchase in the last 20 years?

[nar53]

For me its gotta be my Fujifilm X-H1 + Grip.

[Phage]

My motorcycle... It was designed in 1978....

Katana ? Gawd I've always wanted one of those. never had the money, but the old GPz was enough to scare it.

Difficult question, if I was to say the purchase which had the most impact, it would probably be my boss QC15 headphones.

I don't like Bose, I never have and I still don't, but when I was about to do a LOT of long haul flights, I stumped up the cash and bought them. The audio quality is decent, but coloured, but they are soooooo comfortable and the noise cancelling is excellent. They made many, many journeys that would have otherwise been rather uncomfortable, much more bearable.

There is a lot of purchases that have been good, but that's one I would do exactly the same, over and over and over again if given the chance.

This exactly - I do long haul to Australia every year.

[wozzawozere]

CompuCleaner - Electric Air Duster

[tygrus]

Audio-technica Pro-8HEMW : Head worn mic for speech recognition and Asus Xonar DG sound card.
A QNAP TS-877 R7 1700 16GB is on my wish list.

[Corpsey]

Oculus Rift.

Some of the immersion into some of the games I have is astounding. Definitely a massive improvement over monitor, keyboard and mouse any day

[johnroe]

My 2700K. When I bought my rig in 2011, it was an entire thing, when Sandy Bridge came out. However, when I got to Scan, they had sold out of 2500Ks, so I ended up settling for a 2500 rather than wait a week and it was the biggest mistake of my life. Not being able to OC, it felt like I left so much performance on the table, it annoyed me endlessly. When the 7700K came out I was planning on rebuilding the base system, but it was going to cost me £600+ for what amounted to a CPU upgrade, and I couldn't bring myself to do it.

So I bought a used 2700K instead. I paid £160, and it was an absolutely MASSIVE performance boost. I not only went from 3.5ghz to 4.8ghz, but doubled the thread count too. I've never gotten such a big performance boost for so little money before!

I'm still using one of those 2700K, with a 1060. I have no problem playing games that many complain about, so I don't intend to replace it.

[johnroe]

Ummm, current year 2018, minus 20, = 1998 and later. Last time I looked, 1999 was later than 1998. So the Creatives qualify.

I know we're all wishing we didn't have to live through another coupke of years of Brexit-this and Brexit-that, every time we turn a TV or radio on, but still .....

I just think everyone would have voted differently if they knew that Leave meant we'd be subjected to years of speculative whinging, but yes it makes the news predictable and therefore boring.

[Wolfclaw]

Intel Celeron 300A, price for the performance cannot be ignored !

[ddg3595]

I remember when I bought two 12MB Voodoo 2 cards back in '98 for a PC upgrade. Being able to run all of my games at 1024x768-if they supported that resolution-made me feel like was the king of everything (which I was :-)).

[aakash_sin]

Logitech MX518, 8+ years and counting
Core 2 Quad Q6600, Overclocked it
Kobo eBook Reader, switched to Kindle now though
Galaxy Note (1st Gen), revolutionary

[fail_quail]

For other things i'd add to this list:

1. A Razer Naga mouse.
Originally brought for use in WoW, but i'm now on my third incarnation after literally wearing out the previous ones.
There was a significant learning curve, but having a bank of 12 hardware buttons under your thumb is incredibly useful.
For most games it's very beneficial (it maps the number row or keypad block on the keyboard to that thumb-grid, so as long as you don't have a STUPID game with hardcoded keymaps, you can use it)
But oddly, i've often found non-game usage to be most useful. I have several different profiles for app usage, enabling macro keys for copy/paste/cut/new tab/undo close tab and so on.

2. A dedicated NAS. Shockingly easy to forget, as it's just always there, and always working. It's the backbone of my home network, originally specced with 3x1tb drives and now furnished with 3x3tb drives. Has suffered two active drive failures in it's lifetime but recovered the data with zero losses.
Was expensive to buy (a NAS and three large drives are not cheap) but i think it's paid for itself several times over in the many years i've had it.

[Saracen]

I just think everyone would have voted differently if they knew that Leave meant we'd be subjected to years of speculative whinging, but yes it makes the news predictable and therefore boring.

I can tell you for a dead certainty that not "everybody" would have voted differently, though I doubt anybody, on either side, would have voted for the subsequent process to be handled the way it has been.

However, that risks turning this into a Brexit thread, which it isn't, so can I ask everyone, please .... don't do that. If you want another Brexit go-around, start a separate thread for it.

[3dcandy]

I can tell you for a dead certainty that not "everybody" would have voted differently, though I doubt anybody, on either side, would have voted for the subsequent process to be handled the way it has been.

However, that risks turning this into a Brexit thread, which it isn't, so can I ask everyone, please .... don't do that. If you want another Brexit go-around, start a separate thread for it.

We have Brexit threads? I'm not sure now if I should read it...or leave it a year

[OilSheikh]

Intel i7-4790T: sips power but has the threadz when you need em,
Samsung ML-1210: been through so many toner carts, still ticking along with no fuss for my mono document prints,
Toyota Prius: Now at 153,000 miles, only major repair was some worn out wheel bearings 3 years ago, just passed MoT again with no advisories, still doing 55mpg on average.

My biggest gripe with the Prius is people on the roads take one look at your car and assume you are a cabbie! Why couldn't cabbies go for some French brand?

[Saracen]

We have Brexit threads? I'm not sure now if I should read it...or leave it a year

I'm not entirely convinced anything much of significance will have changed in a year, so ... does it matter?

We have had Brexit threads, though none actively for a while. If you (/shudder) want another one, oh well .... but not in here, please.

[OilSheikh]

My best purchase would have to be the PS2. It just changed the gaming universe for me.