What are the worst tech purchases you or your family have ever made?
I watched a video recently and wanted to know what other have bought over the years.
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An out of date, yet new, drawing tablet. Obsolete at the touch of a finger…
Anything Samsung. The appliances fail fast (TV & washing machine in my case), and the smartphones are constantly getting more and more enshittified (speaking as a long-time customer since the 1st Galaxy S all the way to S23).
Replaced my samsung phone with a unihertz Atom – Definitely not for everyone, but I love it. With samsung I’d gone from my phones never breaking to two phones that seemed to jump out of my hands and crack if you looked at them funny, so I gave up on the brand and looked for something small and rugged. I swear I could chuck the Atom off a building into concrete and it’d be fine. I do wish there was a newer version to update the software, but you get used to the older interface pretty quick. Hopefully Unihertz will go back to the atom series and make one with linux software, but I was thinking of just buying another and seeing if I can install linux.
I got a SG fe 20 last one. Moving to pixel.
Tablet - it was a middle ground that I never found a use for
If I’m out and about, I’m not dragging the tablet with me and will just use my phone.
If I’m home, I’ll use the computer.
I’m not saying that tablets are bad or useless, they just aren’t for me.
Same. Got a tablet when i changed mobile operator.
Only good use i found for it was to look recepies when cooking.
I actually get a lot of use out of my tablet, mostly for reading manga and comics. Sometimes for books too
Mother bought a pair of “light therapy” glasses many years ago from a Russian quack site. It was basically a pair of blacked-out safety glasses with ~8 LEDs for each eye and a button cell to power it all. All circuitry and wires fully exposed and visible. You’d set your program and it would cycle through different colors for a predetermined time. Also came with a knock-off Chinese iPod and some gas-station headphones, preloaded with “relaxing sounds from nature.” You were expected to lay there for 30 minutes with your eyes closed as it did its thing. This cost around 600€ in 2019. What an absolute scam.
During Covid I ordered a little screen replacement kit from a cheap Chinese company, and they said it was delayed due to Covid, so I was trying to be patient, but then the company disappeared. Unfortunately, I was too patient and the six months went by so I couldn’t reverse the charge. Only time I’ve ever gotten scammed, and I was pissed because I had even looked them up before I ordered and they seemed to have decent reviews until after and everyone was calling them out. I don’t know if they were legit then collapsed during covid or they put a lot of effort into looking legit with fake reviews. Lesson learned I guess.
- First generation Samsung Android Watch (Just plain useless)
- Asus Transformer TF101 Tablet (Bloated UI)
- Acer C720 Chromebook (a bit better after installing Xfce over ChromeOS)
- Fiio M11 DAP (it’s chunky and I just never use it)
Vr Headset.
Worth it to play Half Life Alyx and 3D Skyrim.
But was it worth $400?
Skyrim is terrible in 3D. I can barely hack and slash normally, and I’m supposed to do it while disoriented and facing the wrong direction. Even with my coward play style of sneaky mage with uncapped runes, it’s too much of a pain to do anything other than stare up at the sky.
I’m not sure if they count is a “tech purchase”, but I bought all new Samsung appliances in my previous home (washer, dryer, refrigerator, and dishwasher). The washer and dryer failed catastrophically within 6 months, the dryer drum cracked and shredded a whole load of clothing into confetti and the washing flooded my kitchen and ruined my cabinets (it was a weird house layout). The refrigerator just had random parts dying over and over (water dispenser, lights, sensors, ice maker) until it finally died at the year mark. The dishwacher made it nearly to year two before the control panel died and the replacement part was more expensive than an entire new unit. Never again Samsung!
We just moved into a new house and it has all Samsung appliances. So far so good but I’m concerned.
If you’ve ever made a cell phone or a TV I will NEVER buy your appliance.
Got “burned” by a Samsung induction stove. Never again.
Samsung used to be awesome up until, say, 10-15 years ago? Then they just got so big and quality just went off a cliff
I have a Samsung flat screen from 15 years ago, the thing is a tank and won’t die. A new Samsung flat screen is lucky to make it 5 years tops
I came in here expecting Samsung hate, and I am not disappointed. They’re like 13% of South Korea’s GDP, they should make shit that lasts longer than a year!!
You don’t get rich by selling something people only buy once…
That being said I have a Samsung oven that’s about 12 years old now and still works perfect aside from one element doesn’t trigger the “burner on” light, but the “hot surface” light still works, so I’m not overly concerned.
This is interesting to me… I’ve had two sets of Samsung wash and dryer, over the span of about 15 years now. Only replaced the first ones because I didn’t want to move them across country.
I found them easy to work on and get parts for general maintenance… maybe I’m just lucky?
Not sure if it qualifies as tech, but a hybrid water heater. Was twice as expensive, sometimes provided only luke warm water and finally the compressor gave out prematurely. Should have just bought a normal one.
What makes it hybrid?
Gas and electric components
Actually, this is not the case at least with regards to the one I owned. The “hybrid” part was that it had a heatpump attached that was more efficient that standard electric heating in some circumstances. Mine worked OK, so I wouldn’t put in my worst buys, but the electricity savings were definitely exaggerated by the sales rep.
All three different aux to usb-c adaptors I have bought…
The “best” one was the cheapest aliexpress one.They are generally pretty terrible unless you get a full on expensive portable DAC.
Cheap chinese Android tablet that was supposedly 8-core 16Gb ram. It’s an absolute piece of shit, I think my S4 has more juice. It’s a paperweight now after the Ali seller disappeared.
fuck samsung!
Their appliances are garage. They aren’t even overpriced, they shouldn’t exist because of how big of pieces of shit they are.
Interesting! Our washing machine is turning 10 this year, hasn’t skipped a beat, yet.
They should be parked on the street for how garage they are!
you park your garage on the street?
Easily 1000% my Samsung TV.
Each update somehow makes it slower, it always loads up whatever the Samsung TV app thing is before it will do anything with a menu so you can get out of it, I believe it requires a Samsung account before it will allows you to do anything, and every now and then it locks up so hard that I have to factory reset it to get it to work again.
I refuse to buy anything from Samsung ever again.
Ah, there’s the problem — you connected it to the internet. I’ve had decent experiences with Samsung TVs, but I just plug them into an apple tv and let the box do the work. I’ve had to see their UI on a couple occasions though and yeah it’s trash.
same with my LG. I never connected it to the internet directly. I chose instead to plug in an rpi
Last TV I had (besides my current CRT for retro games) I used an RPi 4 (later upgraded to the 5) for a media center and a steam link (purchased for $1 during a bundle sale) so I could game off of it from my desktop. I did also have a Chromecast but honestly with a wireless keyboard I would have been fine with just the steam link.
That’s a software issue and user error. Don’t use the “smart” features is rule one for a consumer television.
I bought a Samsung for the display not the interface. I’m not sure if I’ve ever really even seen the built in interface, maybe when I initially set it up.
Not a shill, but I honestly love my Samsung TV. I took it out of the box, plugged in an HDMI cable to connect it to my PC, and use it as a monitor. I’ve never connected it to my wifi, so it has no internet access. I’ve never had to enter my Samsung account info to use it.
I love my Sony. Iirc, it wanted Internet for initial setup, but I unplugged the Ethernet cable soon after. It just works and displays what I want without issue.
My girlfriend brought a tcl roku special when she moved in. That blinked a very bright white LED unless it was connected to the internet. And now whenever I turn it on, it screams and displayed a fucked up picture from my media device until I go and use the “restart tv” option.
Fucking POS.
Similar experience here. Good panel, solid colours, good angles and handles sunny rooms well. However, TV OS’s are one of the most asinine things to exist though. Never connect that thing to the internet if you can help it and it’ll work great.
Same, no account, no internet connects to my steamdeck and works perfectly
I heard turning off Samsung live tv and removing the app helps the performance tremendously, I have yet to try it as my wife for some reason is willing to tolerate a menu that takes over a minute to navigate one click at a time so she can keep the live tv feature, it is unusable to me
This is standard Samsung TV behaviour.
I had one and never again. Friend only just got one a few months ago and already loathes it.
Every consumer TV is subsidized by the advertisements they (plan to) put on it and your data they’ll sell. I bought a mid-range Samsung TV last year, used it for TV, movies, gaming, and I love it. But I haven’t connected it to the internet, I use a separate device I can easily discard if need be. Not blaming you because it’s counter-intuitive, but you can’t update consumer TVs. They know it will live in your… living… room for several years and want to make money off displaying ads. Do you really think they’ll update it to be less intrusive and show fewer ads so they make less money!?? Obviously, I just guessed right; I’m not a genius, nor do I have precognition. I’ve even heard stories about TVs connecting themselves to open networks, but I’m not sure sure I believe them…
Why oh why is your Samsung TV still connected to the WiFi? I kicked mine off WiFi within three months of getting the device and I’ve used it for four years now and it works like a charm!
If you haven’t already done this: wipe all the apps and run the cache-cleaning or whatever it is in the system menu. That should get it back down to where the memory and storage aren’t at 100% and fixes most of the problems. I’ve kept my 2017 Samsung usable that way. Also, if you have a pi-hole you can set it to use that as the DNS and block the advertising domains, retaining most of the smart functionality without all the crap.
We have one of the Samsung frame TVs, it’s a nice TV, it fits a specific need for us in a bit of a weird spot in a bedroom where a regular TV would look out of place.
But man is the software trash. It’s laggy, a lot of the apps seem really poorly-optimized, and half the settings are just randomly unavailable for no apparent reason.
And since I had to install a box in the wall to hide the one connect box behind it, I kind of don’t want to use it with another streaming device, something about putting too much stuff in that box kind of rubs me the wrong way.
I got a Google TV box and disconnected my Samsung TV from the internet. A week later I got an email about how connecting them helps me because it sends the data and my preferences back to Samsung.
… It sends thousands of information pings each day.
I bought a Wii U. It had some good games at the time, but Nintendo’s strategy over the last 10 years has just been to rerelease those games with better performance and new content. I wish I’d just waited.
Dude, a WiiU is worth it for Nintendoland alone. Throw in the Windwaker remaster and you’re set. I don’t think you lost out 😎
It’s also a Wii with HDMI.
We just found and resurrected our Wii U, the kids play it more than the Switch now.
It’s a fine retro game console especially when you mod it but it definitely didn’t live up to expectations
Movies for my PSP. A lot of them.
With how easy it was to jailbreak/mod the PSP was awesome for on the go everything
I guess they had a burn-on-demand rental service in Japanese convenience stores, that’d be about the only way I’d watch UMD movies.
