Mine… My Xbox 360 slim only costed 129 euro back in 2012 and to this day still work like brand new, you would think that the disc drive would stop working but no. Never had the need of open it or clean it’s insides. Still great, I just don’t use it anymore since I feel it’s outdated and loading speeds are better nowadays.
Walked into the store on boxing week and saw a roku stick on clearance for $10. Used it for years until the remote died. Used the phone app with it for a while until i found another roku kit on sale for less than a replacement remote.
Dumb question, what is a roku, I thought it was a tv brand. I don’t own a tv.
A Roku stick is something you plug in a TV that has an OS you can use to connect to your wifi. You can then download different apps to launch different streaming services. This includes a Roku app/channel and also Netflix, max, Disney, Hulu, zues, prime, etc…
It’s a standalone “smart”.
If your old TV or computer monitor lacks a “smart”, a Roku stick is one of the cheaper ways to acquire it.
Ski goggles, and they’re still good. I got them like 10ish years ago after having to walk put in some serious sub-zero harsh January wind that was making my eyes hurt. $40, now my eyes are fine and my glasses stay nice and snow-free.
I’ve lived in Chicagoland all my life and sometimes the winters can get almost Minnesotan, so it pays to have some quality eye protection.
shoes
they lasted 3 years, which is about 12x longer than i would have guessed.
Got a set with a box cutter and a foldable knife a few years back for $7, haven’t really used the knife much but the box cutter has been used a ton. It’s really nice to just be able to replace the blade when it starts getting dull, and it has allowed me to use it for a lot of precision cutting for a lot of different projects, plus it’s really easy to fold or unfold so I don’t have to worry too much about cutting myself.
Never had the need of open it or clean it’s insides
its* insides
My nintendo DS lite. Played countless hours in it and it‘s still very good. Battery life is also still a couple of hours which is very impressive considering it‘s 15 years old.
My dslite sat untouched in a drawer for at least 4 years, booted straight up without me even having to charge it when I pulled it out. Amazing little device
Victorinox Swiss Army Knife. It’s still kicking. The amount of times I’ve used it, it saves so much time than looking for the proper dedicated tool.
A metal wallet. Definitely worth it if you don’t carry a lot. Mine is maybe 10 years old now or more.
3+ year old used Lenovo Thinkpads, these things are great if you need a budget laptop that’s not for gaming. A lot of companies lease them. When the lease expires you can get them very cheap because they flood the market.
General Military Surplus. We have a shop a few kilometers a way that sells surplus. They get in brand new stuff all the time. Still in packaging. It’s built well. Keep in mind military surplus isn’t just in the field stuff. Laptop bags, shirts, blankets, hats.
A pet. Worth every penny. Got my cat from a shelter, he’s been there for me through thick and thin. Gives great hugs.
I love my poncho liner lol, it’s perfect for a hammock blanket. I think it was maybe $5.
Heck my wife stole mine, I spent more on mine. Those things are great.
My wife did a cert class for data analytics and needed a work horse laptop. I bought her a used i7 Thinkpad from eBay.
It’s so damn fast… m2 drive 32 GB of ram it’s literally only limited in speed by the user input.
Just an amazing deal for $450
Edit it was a t14 gen 2.
I just got mine a few weeks ago and it’s so impressive. I bought it used for $150 and I can tell I’ll be using this for years.
I juuuust retired a t420s recently… off lease computers are absolutely the way to go for buying new to you laptops.
Toss in a SSD and a Linux distro… and you’re good for 6-8 years imho
Where would I buy a cheap thinkpad?
ebay is a good source though more expensive, places like marketplace often have decent deals, check out electronics recyclers and wholesalers, if you have any. Those are generally good places to look.
Amazon or Ebay probably. Sometimes you can find an electronic recycling place and just ask.
whats the interior of your wallet like. I like them but the interiors have been plastic and eventually break.
All metal with a nylon strap. Here is a link:
https://www.trayvax.com/products/armored-summit
That company makes a lot of different kinds of metal wallets. There are other brands out there as well. But, that’s why I use.
thanks. thats a neat design. I have been using the aluma wallet style and the interior tearing has been a weakness. This looks nice.
You can buy replacement wallet windows pretty cheaply if yours have deteriorated.
My first thought was some military gear as well. A scarf or travel utensils or bag or something. Actually even the gloves I got are probably over 20 years old.
Rescued pets cats be priceless, though keeping them fed and healthy and happy can cost a fair bit.
I’m still loving my iPod Classic. I got it a little Bluetooth dongle so I can listen via my hearing aids. I find iTunes beyond irritating though and am always looking for an alternative for adding music.
Back in the day, I installed Rockbox on mine. completely eliminated the need for additional management software, just drag&drop my music via a file explorer.
Ooo I haven’t thought of Rockbox in a long while!
I still have my SanDisk mp3 player for audiobooks. It feels more straightforward to use for that purpose and the battery lasts for like 3 days of listening and is lighter than my phone.
Oh man… I didn’t even think of flashing the old iPods I have. But now… I might seriously fix the one that I prepped for a SSD.
I got a racquetball for a couple bucks. I place it against the wall and use it to work out knots in my back and shoulders. Better than expensive massage therapy. Better than muscle relaxants except for the worst cases.
Simple reusable tie wraps. I haven’t bought any in years because I can just undo and reuse.
Skyrim for $3 on PS3. Best money I ever spent on a video game.
A shoehorn. It makes putting shoes on so much easier, and for just a couple of dollars. I’m perfectly capable of putting my shoes on without it, but I enjoy not having to.
A long full shoe horn marketed for old people so you don’t have to bend down just makes things so much more pleasent
I started using one because the back would always wear out (heel counter, I think it’s called) so the shoe horn has reduced that to nothing. Now the shoes wear out first, so I’m sure I’ve saved the cost of a couple pairs of shoes by now.
Plus I feel classy using it 😆
I feel classy using it
I have one of those long shoehorns that let me put my shoes on without even leaning down. It makes me feel downright aristocratic. (And it’s metal too, no plastic for me!)
I have one of those, shoes are on in seconds. My wife refuses to use it (various reasons) so she will struggle for a minute to get her feet in, walk down the apartment hallway still struggling, get to lobby and sit and fix the back of shoes. Maybe one day she will come around.
The gf made fun of me at first for using it, but now she does too, especially as she likes to take off her shoes without untying them. 😒
She brought home a metal one a while ago after our long plastice one broke, but this one already bent somehow. I keep bending it back, but it must be made of the cheapest metal possible because it keeps bending again. Still works, just looks stupid. I’ll have to ask for a quality one for Christmas. It does make me feel rather gentlemanly when I put on my work boots!
Ecco sells metal shoehorns that are a) cheapish b) nigh indestructible and c) long. It’s honestly surprising how massive those things are. Could club a burglar to death with one and not dent it.
- couch cup holder
- crockpot
- rice-cooker
I got an instant pot and it has completely replaced the rice cooker (I really loved) because it flat out makes better rice and it does it faster. Outside of a rice cooker costing less, there was just no other reason to keep it around from that point on.
White rice just takes a 1 to 1 ratio of rice to water, then 4 minutes at high pressure cooking and a 15 minute slow release and it’s perfect. All in under 30 minutes total time.
Safety razor: When you need to shave with a razor, these things work better than disposables and are cheap as hell to replace the blades for. Still on my original pack of blades from 10 years ago (got a gross of blades for maybe $20) and am not even halfway through - I might not ever have to buy blades again.
Bought a cheap 5€ safety razor some years back and liked it. I kept cutting my face, but I thought I’m just too stupid to shave.
Bought a 20€ razor later on. Turns out I’m not stupid, the 5€ one was just bad.
Came to mention Safety razors. I bought a £30 razor and 100 blades for £7 11 years ago. I’m about 2/3rds the way through the blades.
yeah I am not sure if I will ever run through my blades and I got them free to boot from my brother who moved over to straight razors.
A 100pack of astra blades… they just keep going and going! I suspect that they multiply inside that box tower that they come in!
Bruh fr. I got a 200 pack back in 2012 and I still have like 40 blades left lol.
This. I bought 500 feather blades for $40 (which is more of a steal than a deal) in 2013 and they will last me many more years
I have probably tried 3 dozen blade types, and Feathers and Gillette Yellows are the tops. Double the price of the cheaper ones, but absolutely a nice “splurge.” Decided to grow out my hair and beard for a while to mix things up, but I still have a big grab bag of blades for when I change moods again.
Even at double the price you still end up paying under $0.10 per shave - maybe $25/year - and that’s if you pay full price. A small fraction of what you’d pay for cartridges or disposable razors.
Yup, double edge blades are so cheap compared to cartridges. I got pretty long life out of blades too, so it got even cheaper.
100% this. Went all in and bought a really nice open comb handle to go with it, then stopped shaving completely a year or so later. Haven’t looked back.
E: I really did enjoy shaving with it, just got tired of shaving.
This was such an improvement bit only are the blades better but since they are cents each and not dollars I just get a fresh blade when ever it want to. Bought a pack of 100 for like 6 dollars a few years back and only recently had to restock.
Use some of the savings to get a nice brush and soap it will make a world or difference over the stuff in a can.
Yup. I haven’t bought shaving supplies since when I bought mine in 2020. Bought a bunch of shaving cream in sticks, a decent brush with a lather bowl, an okay handle with a bunch of blades, and I still have enough supplies for years to come.
Can’t remember when I bought my de razor, but it was old even then. And it’s the quick and convenient trapdoor type. I rinse and flip the blade after each shave as it only takes a few seconds. It even came with a travel case. Flea market price range, I think, well under 10€.
I have a big stack of blades I ordered from somewhere as well and they’ll last a while.
If you don’t already do this, drying off your blades can make them last even longer.
My steam deck. Mine is still less than a year old, but holy shit I’ve been using the fuck out of mine. Worth every penny.
I have a switch is it still worth it to pick up steam deck? Tbf I don’t really use the switch all that often mainly game on pc
Yes. Barely touch my switch, use my steam deck all the time. For me it’s the library that makes the difference. Switch is just the switch library, while the steam deck can play just about anything a PC can play + just about any emulatable consoles (including the switch). I’ve actually been slowly downloading ROM versions of my switch games so I can play them on my steam deck. It sucks not to have the online capability or being unable to sync my saves with my switch, but meh.
Absolutely. The Steam Deck is a gaming PC, but handheld. The iGPU in the Deck is approximately equivilent to an RX 580, for reference.
I barely got much usage out of my switch but the Steam Deck has been well worth it. I like the customizability, ability to emulate, bulkier build that feels more like holding an actual controller, and larger game library. I love playing rogue-likes on it like Hades, Slay the Spire, and Balatro. Really good combination for quick pick up and play sessions.
It’s definitely worth it. Since you game on PC, you already have a library of games for it, and steam sales frequently let you get games for pennies on the dollar.
Steam Deck was so good, it made me question if I should ever buy a $2000 gaming PC again.
I’m currently on Year 6 and was considering getting a new graphics card. Then Steamdeck came out and found I didn’t even need it, since I barely play games that require that level of power.
Oh and I’m currently playing Elden Ring right on my big screen TV with my Steamdeck and it looks great.
Ye. I still need an expensive PC for stuff like VR, 3d modeling and game dev, but it’s replaced my main PC for most games. Hell, I don’t even really need an expensive PC for the shooters I enjoy because most of them are either old or indie stuff that’d run on a $300 PoS from 10yrs ago. However, it’s definitely made me question the necessity of a gaming rig in this day and age. The convenience outweighs the visual downgrade by a long shot.
I do have a few things I wish the deck had, such as:
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The ability to define and bind touch-screen gestures (like binding a two-finger pinch gesture to the scroll wheel to zoom in). The touch screen is a bit useless outside of using the keyboard. It’d be nice if it had more utility.
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The ability to pick a cloud-storage provider to use for automatic 3rd-party game sync. It sucks that I can’t play a non-steam game on my deck and then resume on my desktop or vice versa.
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An AMD-compatible version of DLSS or a DLSS capable processor. FSR is great, but let’s be honest, DLSS is higher quality.
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The ability to suspend games to disk. Linux supposedly has this ability via CRIU, but they’d have to implement it. The ability to save-state like a console emulator would be sick.
However, I’ve been in love with my deck since I got it.
The ability to pick a cloud-storage provider to use for automatic 3rd-party game sync. It sucks that I can’t play a non-steam game on my deck and then resume on my desktop or vice versa.
Admittedly it’s a bit of manual tech fiddling involved, but you can accomplish this by using network shares and some careful scripting. For example, I’ve got both my desktop and steamdeck with a launch script configured in Lutris on both. The script symlinks a network share path to the appropriate save game location for each game before running the game. Granted you have to figure out where each game wants it’s save to be stored, but that’s not too difficult once you get used to it.
Fiddly and nerdy for sure, and not for the non technical, but it’s pretty nice, I’ve found! Would be even better if there was some more automated solution though.
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I don’t use mine a ton because I have a good gaming PC at home, but when I’m out for a while, I take it with me. It’s taken the place that my Switch and my laptop used to occupy, and I’ve barely touched either of those since I got my Deck.
Definitely don’t regret the purchase.
I have a good gaming PC in my living room. Still I find myself on the couch with my steam deck very often.
I’ve found myself using my deck way more than my PC. I’ve barely touched my PC since I got my deck because it can run most of the games I want to play, either natively or via proton/wine. Granted, most of the games I’ve been playing recently are either slow-paced and can be played with the deck controller (like The Sims 2, or OpenRCT2), or are better on a controller than m/kb (like animal crossing or mario).
I definitely still have things I still need my PC for, either because they won’t run on my deck (VR stuff), are difficult to play on a deck (mainly shooters), are more suited for a physical keyboard (filling out forms), or the deck can technically handle but doesn’t have performance to do it well (like 3d modeling or game dev). However, my deck has become my main PC when it comes to games.
I definitely prefer to play on a bigger screen.
Can you connect a steam deck to an external screen? (Genuine question.)
With a USB-C to hdmi adapter or a dock, you can.
