Ask HN: What's a Purchase You Regret?
No synthesized answer yet. Check the discussion below.
Two guitars, never got to learn them.
iPads and surface, pads don't seem to be that useful to me.
Got a cheap early model second hand to see if they were worth it, eventually the battery failed and popped the screen out. Got a brand new one to treat myself after the pandemic and… the only part of the UX that doesn't feel bad is the main screen.
It's, at best, a laggy remote control for apps running on my phone, and I haven't even charged it in over a year now, let alone worn it.
I'm also currently experimenting with no credit on my phone, so I can recieve calls and SMSes only, not send any message or browse unless I'm near WiFi.
The mini-PCs are vulnerable to graphics errors in some video games that can perma-brick them. Many people ran into this issue with Starfield and one specific multi-beam gun turning their mini-PC into a paper-weight.
For cooling I get a desktop sized HEPA filter unit and remove the panel on the mini-pc that permits access to memory/nvme. Enough air will get past the memory/storage sockets to cool the CPU.
I have a plan to replace my 5 year Samsung phone to the newer one. The reason is that no internal storage left.
In general, it's just not a trustworthy company.
My X1 Carbon gen 7 used to do that too. Go into your EFI setup and change the sleep mode to be Linux-compatible (or at least not Windows-specific), regardless of the OS on the machine.
I would like to give credit where due, but while I'm fairly certain that I read this solution here, I can't recall exactly who pointed it to me.
Other things; it really did not play well with the 5.x LTS kernel of slackware 15, poor performance all around but switching to slackware current with its 6.x kernel solved that. KDE also used the GPU which decreased battery life but was still good, certainly better than the Windows that it came with which had abysmal battery life. I think the DEs also played with the CPU governor, at least with KDE, seem to recall that it reved up to full speed long before it needed to but don't quite remember.
Overall, love the X13, especially the 16:10 screen ratio, but I think the G1s had a 16:9?
Edit: With the DEs my X13 also goes into a half awake state when you plug it in when suspended. Generally not an issue but it will stay in that half suspended state until the lid is opened and then reclosed which means if you just unplug it and toss it into your bag, it is still in that half suspended state and will eat the battery. Another thing which I never investigated because I don't use DEs.
> cheap rubbish car
Something for $1,000-5,000. It's a gamble buying this type of car. It's either going to be a gem that was well-maintained by a senior, or an absolute nightmare of tow-trucks and repairs.
> okay-ish car
$6,000+. Car comes in decent shape, is clean, ready for the road, but is still in midlife. You can probably get at least 5 years out of it, most likely more, but things will start breaking.
> good car
Brand new car. Minimum $15,000+. Can last a lifetime, depending on how much you drive and how well you maintain it.
Best option is to save up ~$10,000 and get something decent outright.
It's incredibly hard to convince them though.
-----
Apple Homepod
-----
Bought it years ago since i was in the Apple ecosystem and I wanted an easy way to play music, set timers and add items to my grocery/reminder list.
I also knew state of the art in LLMs was picking up so I was willing to overlook how bad Siri is.
Flash forward to today:
- Siri is still a pile of garbage
- It only recognizes my voice despite my wife having an iPhone and being part of the household
- Sometimes doesnt save the timer
- Only recently did it get Spotify integration through my phone
- Still cant give it multiple items to add to a list at once
-----
Google Home
------
Started strong then got progressively worse with each update until it could no longer do basic tasks like timers + reminders
-----
GoPro Hero
-----
Housing failed on my first use and they refused to honor the warranty.
-----
Quest 3
-----
Amazing device! But I wanted to use it for a virtual monitor and all the software was terribly buggy.
------------
Worth stating my favourite purchases in the last little while that make me happy every time I use them.
- XREAL One Pro (Amazing for a virtual display)
- Kindle
- Apple Watch (Perfect for waking me up but not my wife)
- iPad Air (Second display + drawing)
- Macbook Pro M4 14' (A portable beast)
- Moccamaster (Simple machine, great coffee)
- Toyota Tundra 2010 (Likely will run longer than I live and theres no touch screen in sight)
- Yeti mug (hot drinks all day)
- Hydroflask (cold water all day)
- Timbuk 2 Parker (Best daily use + light travel bag Ive had in awhile)
Also, pretty much any board game expansion. They usually add complexity without improving the fun of a board game.
I wanted to combine my MacBook, my notebook and my books to reduce my pack size, since I travel a lot.
It spent a full 24 hours doing software updates. Then I realised that nothing kills the joy of sketching like the file save dialog when you want to close the app. It was also a lousy laptop and a bad ebook reader. I returned it on day 2.
I got an iPad Mini instead. It's one of my favourite objects.
I'll tell you why; the Pixel watch manages to combine all the disadvantages of a fitness tracker and a smartphone. Now I have to log in to my watch, the display is too small to read anything on, and I can't increase the font size. The Android fitness app is a walled garden inside a walled garden, and I still can't transfer my metrics to Sheets.
Another regret is my first Apple computer. A 2014 Mac Mini that replaced that Asus laptop. 8GB of ram and the slowest "hybrid" HDD drive. I hated using it so much until I figured out how to boot it off of an external SSD. Then I started to understand why people like MacOS.