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

[Saracen]

Oh, that is VERY difficult, because so many things are great, but in so ma y different ways. How do I rate a camera/lens to a kitchen blender to a domestic (living room) HD/DVD recorder to a colour photo printer to .... well, you get the point.

For instance, the purpose (for me) of camera/lens is largely about taking photos to print, so the printer is critical, but without camera/lens I'd have nothing to print. Chicken and egg problem.

[SUMMONER]

That would have to be either my Mpio FL100 MP3 player with 256MB flash storage + SD card expansion slot back in 2002 or my Google G1 smartphone around 2010.

Both were game changers as far as I am concerned.

Oh and of course my still functioning Samsung 830 SSD, that I bought after the OCZ Vertex 2E SSD went *poof* after about 12 months use.

[shayo7]

Logitech Z-5500 Speaker System - 12 years and works perfectly.

[Iain M]

Logitech Z-5500 Speaker System - 12 years and works perfectly.

Came to say these too

[=assassin=]

Logitech Z-5500 Speaker System - 12 years and works perfectly.

I've had some Logitech Z-2300 speakers since 2006, and they're still my main speakers now. Served me well, although it's only a 2.1 setup, so not quite as fancy as yours!

[philehidiot]

My medium range trap detector. Saved me from a couple of potentially embarrassing escapades.

That and my phaser. Great for starting fires.

[Tunnah]

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!

[Tunnah]

I've had some Logitech Z-2300 speakers since 2006, and they're still my main speakers now. Served me well, although it's only a 2.1 setup, so not quite as fancy as yours!

I bought a pair of Wharfedale Zaldek S1000 speakers from some dodgy guy going door to door nearly 20 years ago. Now all other speakers sound utterly gutless. I can cause an artificial quake with these buggers.

[big_hairy_rob]

Creative Labs 5.1 speaker set from around 1999... oh wait you said the last 20 years..

hmm, Logitec K120 keyboard...

[Man-In-A-Teapot]

For best purchase its got to be my i5-2500K. That said, my monitor pre-dates that by about 3-4 years as I decided to get a better than typical Viewsonic and its deserved its 'long service medal'.

[Saracen]

Creative Labs 5.1 speaker set from around 1999... oh wait you said the last 20 years..

hmm, Logitec K120 keyboard...

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 .....

[Percy1983]

Has to be my first PC from Tiny Computers, it had a PII 350mhz processor, 256mb ram and an 8.4gb hard drive.

Why this, it was the start of the never ending upgrade cycle which lead to the PC I own today.

PII > PIII > P4 > E4300 > Q9550 > i5-3570k

funny to look back
350mhz - 4.5ghz x4
256mb - 16gb
8.4gb - 8.25tb
ATI Rage Pro - RX 580

[fail_quail]

If Non-new stuff is okay: my ebay-sourced Thinkpad X220.

Only cost about £200 three years ago and turned out to be an ex-corporate laptop with maxed out upgrades (Fastest i7 CPU, best screen variant, upgraded Wifi card, internal 3g modem and so on) All i had to do was swap in a SSD.

I use it for tech support calls and when out and about. It's small, fairly light and built like a tank, suprisingly decent performance given it's age too.

[blokeinkent]

Hmmm, tough to narrow down the term "Great" as it can go several ways.

I guess an SSD (any of them I've bought) sounds silly to describe as great but probably one of the best transitions I've ever made in terms of tech having a daily effect. When I've booted/used systems at work that are still regular HDD it feels like I've wasted so much time tapping fingers on desk waiting for something to complete.

i7 6700K and Samsung S9+ were also huge game changers after many years in the wilderness with their predecessors.

Oddy I've just noticed the Logitech EasyCall Speakerphone - the oldest bit of kit I think I have still in use on a proper daily basis, purely as a speaker on my main PC when it's not being pumped through the TV...... to me that feels pretty great.

[g8ina]

Hmmmm, there are a trio of items I bought ages ago and still use daily :

My Kindle, 3rd ed with keyboard.
My iRiver H120 upgraded to 128GB HDD
My Sennheiser HD580

[ohmaheid]

Read more.

Cheap Chinese ipad clone. Used as a ebook reader. I must've read literally thousands of books on it.
Best thing ever invented...