The Great 'Which gadgets were your biggest waste of cash?' Hunt

snowleopard61

One gadget I do absolutely love, though I'd never have bought it (it was given to me, second-hand and refurbished) is my Panasonic hard drive recorder. It's just brilliant; completely user-friendly and idiot-proof.

Noghar

I am a gadget addict and often have to dissuade myself from buying a new bit of toot by reading all the 1-star reviews for it on Amazon.

Biggest piece of crap to date - definitely a juicer. 20 mins to make the drink, 30 seconds to drink it, 30 minutes to clean up afterwards. Apparently you can buy juice in cartons these days! Who'd a thunk?

Just to be awkward - I love my breadmaker, and so do my kids. 5 mins to set it up the night before, fresh bread all next day, without having to dress and go to the shops!

Asus Prime Android tablet - top of the range when it came out, hardly ever gets used, because I have an Android phone that's faster and less temperamental and gets 3g so works everywhere.

Any mobile phone, or PC peripheral, that has a unique proprietary charger instead of micro-USB. It's the mark of a product doomed to be obsolete in 6 months. (not including Apple, but they should be ashamed of themselves for changing their own standard so often.)

Electric crock pot. Dirt cheap, but a good cast-iron casserole on a tiny gas flame does the job just as well, takes up much less worktop, and takes far less cleaning up.

First MP3 player I bought from John Lewis for £150 - it would only load music through a totally buggy dedicated PC program. Utter rubbish.

Yes, as earlier poster, EVERY portable CD player I ever owned. Skipped with every step.


God yes, the pasta maker! Tried to make tagliatelle, and didn't enough space to hang the stuff up to dry! Used once, then of to Oxfam...

My God, this is depressing. I could do this all day.

Sensibility

Biggest mistake was a facial sauna. had sinus problems at the time, but found a bowl of boiled water with a couple of drops of eucalyptus in to be more effective!

paper shredder was cr@@. It was so temperamental and broke just after the one year guarantee. It found its way very quickly to the bin.

Jury's still out on my recently purchased coffee machine. Coffee is lovely but tabs and de-scaling tablets pricey. de-scaling also a faff.

My best buy ever was an iPad. Expensive, but I've had my money's worth out of it. Apps are cheap or free and I've many hours of entertainment out of it - don't know how I ever managed without it! I don't have children, but a close eye on them with any tablet is essential, it is made very easy to buy "gold", "toys" etc. on addictive games. PASSWORDS AND LOCKS ESSENTIAL!!!

ohbilly

The Blackberry playbook I bought was such a waste of time it kept freezing and just became irritating. Same goes for the orange san francisco phone I bought a few years back I gave up on that after the constant reboots and freezing

pulliptears

Can I add my quesadilla maker as well please? These are as rare as hens teeth in the UK but I managed to get my mitts on one. I was so excited! I was expecting this:



Sadly it would seem that the tortillas in the US are bigger than the ones in the UK, so they dont reach the edges of the machine....ergo they dont seal. The result is a tortillia/cheese/chicken mess glooping slowly down the sides of the maker

Genuinely gutted. Even today I look for big tortillas on the odd occasion I venture into a supermarket.

Mr_Toad

Sensibility wrote: »

Jury's still out on my recently purchased coffee machine. Coffee is lovely but tabs and de-scaling tablets pricey. de-scaling also a faff.

You don't say what sort of coffee machine you have but I'd hazard a guess you don't need expensive descaling tabs.

I have a fantastic bean to cup coffee machine, I love my coffee. I too am encouraged by the manufacturer to expensive descaler.

I use Oust descaler, a £1 for three sachets from Tesco.

My machine is over 4 years old and still as good as new.

Solarjunkie

Pulliptears - will this solve your tortilla problem?

225 g (8 oz) plain flour
55 g (2 oz) lard, cut into small pieces
1 tsp salt
120 ml (4 fl oz) hand-hot water

1. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the lard and rub it in with your fingertips until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in the salt, then add the water and stir well to form a smooth dough.
2. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 2–3 minutes. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for about 1 hour.
3. Divide the dough into 10 pieces and shape each one into a ball. Roll out each ball on the lightly floured surface, keeping an even round shape, to make a paper-thin disc about 15 cm (6 in) in diameter. As they are rolled, stack them up, interleaved with sheets of greaseproof paper.
4. Heat a griddle or cast-iron frying pan over a moderate heat until very hot. Cook the tortillas, one or two at a time (depending on the size of your pan), for 20–30 seconds on each side or until bubbles appear on the surface and they are lightly browned. As the tortillas are cooked, stack them up on a plate and keep covered with a clean tea-towel. Serve warm, preferably straight from the griddle.

pulliptears

Solarjunkie wrote: »

Pulliptears - will this solve your tortilla problem?

225 g (8 oz) plain flour
55 g (2 oz) lard, cut into small pieces
1 tsp salt
120 ml (4 fl oz) hand-hot water

1. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the lard and rub it in with your fingertips until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in the salt, then add the water and stir well to form a smooth dough.
2. Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 2–3 minutes. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for about 1 hour.
3. Divide the dough into 10 pieces and shape each one into a ball. Roll out each ball on the lightly floured surface, keeping an even round shape, to make a paper-thin disc about 15 cm (6 in) in diameter. As they are rolled, stack them up, interleaved with sheets of greaseproof paper.
4. Heat a griddle or cast-iron frying pan over a moderate heat until very hot. Cook the tortillas, one or two at a time (depending on the size of your pan), for 20–30 seconds on each side or until bubbles appear on the surface and they are lightly browned. As the tortillas are cooked, stack them up on a plate and keep covered with a clean tea-towel. Serve warm, preferably straight from the griddle.

I did try (and failed miserably) to make my own when I figured the problem out, but tbh the maker is bigger than a standard sized frying pan anyway so still wouldn't be big enough

But thank you
x

Sensibility

Mr_Toad wrote: »

You don't say what sort of coffee machine you have but I'd hazard a guess you don't need expensive descaling tabs.

I have a fantastic bean to cup coffee machine, I love my coffee. I too am encouraged by the manufacturer to expensive descaler.

I use Oust descaler, a £1 for three sachets from Tesco.

My machine is over 4 years old and still as good as new.

Thanks for your help - much appreciated.

cheapskate101

villager51 wrote: »

Bought a magnetic window cleaner that looked so good I bought 2. After trapping my thumb between the 2 magnets & finding that the windows just got streaky not clean I ebayed them at a loss!

I too bought one of these.. It has strict instructions not to put the super magnetic halves together.

After a complete failure at cleaning a window.. The outside one kept dropping off at the corners, brought it back indoors and foolishly put the magnets near each other....Clamp! And there was no way I could get them to part.

Had to wait until OH came home to use brute strength to part them. After a few minutes of grim determination and swearing, (some from me) they parted.

So I quickly picked them up to put them back in the box to return them .... and they viscously clamped to each other yet again.

I can still recall my OH's facial expression at my sheer stupidity as he wrestled with to part the magnets again. This time with Herculean strength.

Me? I cried with laughter....And I only have to recall the magnetic window cleaner to start laughing again.

So, although they are useless at cleaning windows, they could give promise to hours of family fun.

2. Electric meat thermometer with prong type thing.
Bought for Christmas turkey. Worked once on a trial run. Packed up on Christmas Day.



Best buys:
1.Simple Panasonic microwave.

Recently got one with around loads of cooking options..... I think I'd have had a easier time if operating the Hadron Collider.

Sent it back for a simple Panasonic.

2. Miele anything. Quiet. Last for ages.

3. I pad.

4. Long suffering OH says I pod.