It seems like sometimes a company gets it just right with a product and they never do it again. As someone who is far more concerned with getting the most from my money than having the latest thing, I have a habit of gravitating towards older products, half of which have been discontinued.
For example: - My main speakers are a pair of SB-PF500s, which are 15 years old but sound amazing because they were supposed to replace an old Technics series. Got them for $75 in brand new condition with box from Craigslist.
-My mouse is an MX518. At least 12 years old but still one of the most comfortable mice I've ever used. Only 1800 DPI but I don't need much more. $30 new on ebay.
- My main receiver is a Denon AVR-1912. Not super old, only like 6 years, but still "outdated" despite having pretty modern features and great quality. $100 off craigslist because it was too complicated for the guy.
- I still use a Note 3 as my daily phone. I've had it over 3 years and only replaced the battery with an extended one. It is only just now starting to show its age with performance issues and I will likely not replace it until it breaks. Best phone I ever owned. $100 like new off ebay.
- I use a pair of Plantronics Backbeat 903+'s for bluetooth headphones. Consistent 8 hours of battery life, great sound quality, inline controls, nice range. $25 new on ebay.
- I still use an original Microsoft Sidewinder joystick. Had to rig up a weird adapter to get it through USB but it works great. Definitely not the best stick around and it'll get replaced with a Saitek eventually, but it does the job fine for now and it looks cool. $10 in a thrift shop.
I spend very little money but still manage to have nice things that last forever. I will never understand this fetish for having the newest thing regardless of quality. I realize I'm definitely not the only one who shops this way, so what outdated stuff are you guys using on purpose?
Bruh why is it so good. The finger contours are so comfortable. I don't know who the hell these people are that need like 4000 DPI but 1800 is more than enough for me.
Colton Torres
Mine's nearing 15 year now. It definitely shows some signs of wear and age but I don't see it dying anytime soon either. I liked the coating on the G5 better but it didn't hold up as well. Probably my most used item in my whole life overall come to think of it. Keyboards have came and went, but my trusty MX518 has always been by my side.
Julian Sullivan
I bought a new Intellimouse that came in a chinese print box, it's nice and simple for the price. Probably relatively cheap due to the RGB fetish and fashion conscience of modern computer users.
Are you on to ergo's yet? I want to try ergo boards
Julian Hernandez
Tsk, my Samsung Galaxy S2 is 6 years old. My Thinkpad x200 is what, 9 years old? Even though I actually bought it only 6 months ago.
Justin Collins
Well, obviously CRT & PDP in lieu of LCD, at least until somebody finally starts making gayman OLED monitors.
MIDI instruments, since compatibility runs back 3 decades, and functionality hasn't changed (if anything it's gotten more equal, since the actual synthesis is now done in software on your PC).
UPSs. Newer units seem to have wonkier hardware, while I've never had any of the old ones die on me, and I can keep getting new batteries as those wear out.
OEM keyboards are easily one of the main things that's been getting worse, and yet good ones will last forever. I'm still using an ancient Apple Extended II with an ADB adapter, for which the closest modern equivalent (Matias Tactile) costs hundreds of dollars new. I'm sure if I was a buckling spring fag, the situation would be even more slanted.
The only reason I'd ever get a new keyboard is if new features were introduced like analog keys or keycap screens, which of course they never will be.
Isaac Gomez
Expand on this. Do you mean little LCDs on the keycaps so they can be customized?
Sadly, something like this wouldn't be very useful unless it was thoroughly supported by software.
Bentley Hall
I have a Kinesis that's almost 20 years old. It has the old school DIN connector, so some years later had to get a DIN-to-PS/2 adaptor. Then later still had to get a PS/2-to-USB adaptor. Well at least now I can use this with anything from IBM XT to anything recent. Also no fucking Windows keys and other bullshit. I hated how those got added to later Thinkpads.
Joseph Bailey
$150, straight from the manufacturer. Not cheap, but not hundreds.
Using one right now. Unicomp still makes them, and they're in fact a bit cheaper than Matias.
Charles Reed
I am still using a Denon AVR-1705. I got it on sale when it was new. The tech has not changed since then, except that modern hi-fi and home cinema amplifiers/receivers all have shitty phone amps for some reasons. I am using "ancient" AKG K 601's and Sennheiser HD 201's, because they still work fine. I am also using an almost ten year old chink-pad, because it's still fine as an e-reader and nobody makes decent 10" tablets anymore.
Josiah Russell
i think audio tech is logical exception, the improvements only happen incrementally in certain segments (balanced armature orthoplastic earphones, electrostatic headphones etc.) those akg are pretty close to neutral, good choice on that. it's a shame the company had to lay off it's engineers and only sells cheap rehashes these days because they tried for way too long to keep from outsourcing
Joshua Nguyen
Bought two of them on a flea market for a few bucks, I use one of them for my laptop, and the computer downstairs has one. Had to reshell my own one though, case worn down and got sticky.
My daily driver phone (since 2011!) has always been a Nokia N900, if my current one breaks i'll quit phones completely or just get a 6310i instead.
Robert Parker
Check out the librem 5 when it comes out
David Murphy
galaxy s2 with replicant seems worthwile too, right? although it seems to lag behind stock android quite a lot at this point, i wonder what that means regarding software compability and exploits
Alexander Sanders
I don't care about freedumbs, I care about the glorious keyboard this thing has, and Rockbox('s support for the Nokia BH-111 headset)
Noah Richardson
make the keyboard self-programmable. one switch and one knob on the back to control programming.
activate switch on back to enter setup mode. hold down a key and use knob to scroll through available "faces."
Dominic Ramirez
Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers.
Bought mine in 2009 shortly before they discontinued. Follow-ups were vastly inferior. So popular I could probably put them on ebay now and get more than I paid for them.
Ian Myers
Core2Duos and Quads are 10+ years old and still relevant. If you have 4GB RAM and good GPU from that time period, you're probably set for another 10 years. Come to think of it, I'd probably still be using my Q6600 had I not given it to someone else in need.
Nolan Butler
Can a C2D even handle firefox and modern websites?
Jace Clark
why would someone browsing Holla Forums use firefox?
Gabriel Peterson
Also Xeons of the same generation cost next to nothing and can be easily adapted for use with regular LGA775 mobos. Chinks sell them with adapters preinstalled.
< I need an i7 for faceberg Even a Pen4 can handle everything as long as you block all the irrelevant shit.
Jeremiah Evans
I have to cycle through 20+ floppy drives at my job, it's getting increasing hard as the years go by to replace them when they fail.
Anthony Wood
Yes, but you would want 2GB+ RAM. A 2GHz C2D is fast enough to play 1080p h.264, but it puts a strain on things because there's no hardware decoding acceleration. You could grab a shitty GTX 430 Fermi for that.
Tyler Campbell
3.5" floppy drives shouldn't be difficult to buy replacements for at all. Newegg still sells internals for $20 USD. You can get external USB floppy drives for slightly more.
Benjamin Thomas
What the hell do you do?
Daniel Martinez
i have a few of these.
Mice: the optical reissue of the best gayming mouse ever made, the Boomslang 2000.. for gayming purposes
far, far superior to the newer trackballs they've released. On my work pc
on my retro gaming rig. (insanely comfy and so, so beige)
Audio gear: Aluminum cylinder with a giant VFD, ethernet port and digital and analog out. No homekit, no airplay, no bluetooth. Plays music off any DLNA, UPNP or itunes compatible server, or internet streams either via the (still running but sadly largely unmaintained) directory or just plug your favorite stream urls into the presets by the web interface or by telnet. The best part is it's instant on. If you were previously listening to internet streaming, just hit the power button and the music starts playing within about 3-5 seconds. One new in box in case this dies and at least 3 smaller M1000 units also in storage.
More sophisticated competitor to the soundbridge, I have a few of these. Open Sores server software, so people are still writing in new features. They can synchronize also so a cheap easy way for whole-house audio. Also have a nice smartphone app. Radio models have a battery good for 6-8 hours of playback and wifi too. The Boom radios have killer sound in a small package -- i have two of these new in box in case the current one ever dies.
Connor Wood
Unfortunately good boards are getting hard to come by, DDR2 is becoming insanely expensive from non-chink sources and even currently running hardware is getting finicky.
get the board
threw the entire thing into the trash in disgust and bought an am4 board with an LSI ibm controller.
Brody Davis
MX518 checking in.
Bentley Davis
Main monitor for chans, text editing, and other screen reading is still my Sun Microsystems X7200A 1600x900 IPS monitor. I got it for 15$ when Hamilton Sundstrand were switching to OpenSuSe for their lab outside of Chicago.
Run a DNS-320L as a home NASbox. single core 32bit ARM but still works great with Debian.
