What’s your most useless gadget?
As a journalist who specializes in testing out electronics, you can guess what my office looks like. Scratch that — my entire home and garage is becoming a gadget graveyard, of sorts.
As a journalist who specializes in testing out electronics, you can guess what my office looks like. Scratch that — my entire home and garage is becoming a gadget graveyard, of sorts.
And because tech toys evolve at such a rapid pace, it’s somewhat amusing to scour through boxes to find a MP3 player that can store a whopping 32MB of songs, a Sega Dreamcast console (complete with the green foam-tipped microphone to talk with Seaman) and camcorder so heavy it should come with a certificate for a chiropractor.
And then there’s my enormous JVC VCR with large coloured buttons – a top-loading model, no less. Shamefully, I bought this one with pride.
Surely you, too, have received or purchased gadgets you thought were super cool at the time, but eventually were tossed into a closet, attic or basement, destined to a life of neglect and dust bunnies.
Um, you really didn’t buy the Flowbee from an infomercial, did you? Tsk, tsk.
Let’s hear it – tell us your favourite, most embarrassing piece of tech you own. Or dare we say it, still use…
NES. I love it. The old Castlevania games still rock.
I agree with Savannah!! I still play my NES!! My favourite game has always been the classic Duck Hunt with the gun!! But I now play all my NES games on my Nintendo Wii.
Needless to say the most useless electronic item i ever bought as an xbox 360. After a weeks playing it was boring i just left it there collecting dust. But ever since i got a wii i never stopped playing it.
I so agree with Katie, my favourite game has always been and will continue to be the duck hunt!!
my husband
All those useless gadgets in the closet gathering dust, are really future ebay antiques, just waiting to appreciate up in value!
If it still works, I'll bid $ three Canadian dollars! On the "JVC VCR with large coloured buttons – a top-loading model!"
My old compaq laptop running windows 95.
Man I use it even more than windows vista.
LONG LIVE THE 90'S
My husband bought a flowbee in the mid 90's and it's been the best thing ever! He used it though university and recently dusted it off to cut our kid's hair (age 2 and 4)- it does a WAY better job on them than any "real" hairstylist I've taken them to!
A Sony Minidiscman, it was supposed to be the next big thing, the salesman conveniently forgot to mention the just burgeoning MP3 scene that would make the MiniDisc obsolete within months.
Oh, I forgot, staying in the same tone as the last post, I also invested in two brand new APX film cameras that were smaller than 35mm point and shoots and film could be changed out mid roll for different lighting needs, these of course followed the same path as my Minidiscman a few months later with the widespread introduction of digital photography, now that i think about it that was a rather expensive year.
lazerdisc player a cd the size of a record what a waste!! now the only thing those discs are good for a frizzbbes or taget practice. can anyone say dvd?? lol
We also bought the Flowbee in the mid '90 and still have one to this day.. It works ! Now I have one that I use to groom my dogs. It doesn't matter if they are matted, it will cut an even amount of hair off and makes it easier to get the mats out. Never mind bringing them to a groomer, those people should be called "shavers" not groomers, because everytime you go to the "groomers" they shave your dog. try the Flowbee, it is available with a pet attachement. LOVE IT
USB vacuum cleaner
I still have an old road race set from the 80's
i have a sony walman casste player (size of a breadbox ) and also the first sony discman waiting till they are collectible ! yah right.
Fantom Fury vac – by the time I finish vacuuming and take the container out of the vacuum, I have to vacuum the vacuum and all the surrounding area!! So much for 99% of all the dust/dirt, etc.
I'm afraid to admit mine is a Pocket PC, I spent a ton of $$ on it, and not even a year old and I use my laptop/desktop way more than that. *eff* live and learn
A racing wheel for my xbox 360. it's impossible to use with accuracy, as is actually worse at steering simulation than the analog sticks on the standard controllers.
Useless is in the eye of the beholder. I have a tabletop pac man game, an old 'maze' type of electronic game from 1978, and an Atari 2600 system and lots of games. My wife … she'd call these useless. For me, it's more a guilty pleasure
I'd have to agree with an earlier poster on the game console. My PS2 I bought basically for a DVD player (the game console was a bonus) but now it collects dust because our 29.00 DVD player from walmart plays way more formats and our burner tapes our shows on TV. Now and again I dust it off when kids come over, but I don't know when I'll buy another console, not likely until my son grows up and wants one for himself.