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What's something you regret buying?

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macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 29, 2003
2,448
1
West Coast
What's something you've purchased - preferably in the recent past - that you totally regret spending your hard earned money on?

This has to be something you went out and bought, either in a store or online, not something that was free, was gifted to you, you traded for, etc.
 
Rocket Chef. I couldn't even give that thing away to my worst enemies and I have many to choose from at that.
 
That Russian mail order bride. :D

No, wait, wait... I meant to say that external USB drive enclosure which did a fine job of silently corrupting filesystem data during the initial copying of data to it. (I was able to determine it was the enclosure doing the hanky-panky and not the drive itself.) I threw away the worse-than-useless drive enclosure in the trash because I didn't want to risk some other poor sucker being stuck with it.
 
A Mac Pro as a student. Could NOT afford it, but didn't let that stop me :(

Edit: D'oh, this was many years ago, it was a Powermac G5.
 
Either my iPod mini back in 2005 or the iPod Video I bought once I filled it up a year later. I should really have just bought the iPod 4G in the first place, or looked into bumping up the memory in my mini.

Either way I spent about £200 more than I needed to, especially since they both still work :rolleyes:


And now I'm remembering the designer shoes I bought last year, wore once and haven't even brought to Austria with me. Aaargh
 
electroshock said:
No, wait, wait... I meant to say that external USB drive enclosure which did a fine job of silently corrupting filesystem data during the initial copying of data to it. (I was able to determine it was the enclosure doing the hanky-panky and not the drive itself.) I threw away the worse-than-useless drive enclosure in the trash because I didn't want to risk some other poor sucker being stuck with it.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I've never heard of that before. May I ask what drive enclosure it was? Were you backing up your system or just data?
 
Rt&Dzine said:
Hmmm, I've never heard of that before. May I ask what drive enclosure it was? Were you backing up your system or just data?
Click to expand...

Everything -- was a 750 GB drive I was copying data to. The enclosure was some no-name thing from SE Asia for about $15 -- which was my mistake. :D Lesson learned: pay a few extra bucks to get something from someone better known. Unfortunately, don't know what make/model it was because I threw it out in a fit of anger a few years ago and permanently eviscerated everything related to it in my memory. :)

I was seeing a few subtle but odd errors pop up during the transfer and then found major filesystem damage when checking the disk afterwards. Repaired, try again. Same results (but damage in different places). So I took a closer look at the raw sectors of the disk. What I found was very interesting: it looked like under some circumstances, it was writing out a bunch of NULLs in part of the sector. Removed the drive, put it in an internal drive bay, reformatted and recopied data, and had no further issues. Years of problem-free existence ever since. Same with the USB cable used (and tried different cables during troubleshooting, too).

Conclusion: FAIL -- likely there was a bug with the internal USB controller portion of the drive enclosure, probably timing related or something really funky and pathological. I decided the manufacturer could find some other sucker to beta test their shipping products. :D
 
Regrets

Western Digital 500gb desktop harddrive - Is loud and isn't usb bus powered.

Xbox 360 - No HDMI port, loud as hell, not as good as PS3 imo.

Guitar Hero World Tour - What was I thinking?

Logitech MX3200 Bundle - Mouse is great but keyboard really sucks.

White Macbook - No backlit keys; should have got a Mac Mini because I don't need the portability and am more productive with a mouse than a trackpad. Also don't have enough space on desk to fit a Macbook, Speakers, PS3 Slim and Monitor.

KRK 5" Monitors/Apogee Duet/M-Audio Firewire 410/Rode NT1a/SM57/SM58/Mic Stands/Cables - Would prefer Logitech speakers with a large sub and a USB mic like the AT2020USB.

M-Audio Q40 Headphones - Sound good with great bass but too tight on my head; no way to fix this. Sony MDR7506 fits nicely but not as much bass.

Ibanez Bass - Would prefer using Spectrasonics Trilogy because its easier and get better results.

Taylor 110e - Excellent acoustic sound, but lacks bass because of the spruce top.

Yamaha Classical Guitar - Sounds great but has bad intonation.

Fender Strat - It does sound nice but am more creative on an acoustic like my Seagull S6.

Boss GT10 - Sounds the same as Guitar Rig software.

Don't Regret

M-Audio Key Rig 49 - Great keyboard and does the job.

Seagull S6 - Excellent acoustics and bass.

PS3 Slim - Amazing console, great exclusives and quiet operation.

Sony MDR7506 - Great headphones for the money.

Logitech Z540 4.1 Speakers - Amazing sound for the price.

D-Link Wireless N Router - Never lost connection once, and is as fast as wired.
 
electroshock said:
The enclosure was some no-name thing from SE Asia for about $15 -- which was my mistake. :D Lesson learned: pay a few extra bucks to get something from someone better known.
Click to expand...

I learned this same lesson the hard way once with a 2.5" enclosure.

In electronics, there's a lot more difference between the cheapest and next cheapest of something than the most and second most expensive.
 
Sony S-350 Blu-ray player. Not that its a bad machine or that blu-ray isn't a good medium but i wish i had let it mature for maybe another year or two before i got into it. Not enough films out yet and the ones i want are either really expensive or i already have them on DVD

leekohler said:
A cell phone. Bought my first one today. I hate it already.
Click to expand...

Wow really? You've never owned a mobile before?
 
My MacBook. No backlit keys. I thought the screen would be enough to light them enough. And I find myself typing in the dark far more often than I thought I would. But Im still happy with it.
 
brianr19 said:
White Macbook - No backlit keys; should have got a Mac Mini because I don't need the portability and am more productive with a mouse than a trackpad.
Click to expand...

Well... you could always buy a wired or wireless USB mouse that you like and plug it in. That's what I do for my MBP. (I've got nothing against the MBP, but I prefer a 3 button mouse or 3 button trackpad of some sort -- neither of which the MBP has.)
 
Just to echo what others have said-

I've had about 4-5 phones since 1999 and most of them were needless. I love gadgets but I only need a phone to ring people. Something like an iPhone wouldn't go wasted because of all the extras you get with it, but I've bought phones just because I wanted a colour display or because it had a good MP3 player built in. NO! Wasted a good couple of hundred there.

An Xbox. It's... okay. I'm an avid gamer and work in the industry but every time I buy a home console I'm reminded that I prefer handhelds. The Wii's been fun but I'm struggling to find an Xbox 360 game that I can really sink my teeth into. This gen is just the last gen but with more cutscenes and reduced gameplay. I don't like the cinematic direction they're going in :mad:.

Also: contact lenses, DSLR camera when I just needed a regular camera (still can't use it properly), unibody Macbook, Gibson SG (preferred the Yamaha 112M I sold for fundings), iPod Mini. Probably loads more.
 
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