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Gadget Graveyard
Phones, laptops, wearables, and the gadgets we regret buying
Reviews from people who actually paid for the thing. Phones, laptops, earbuds, smartwatches, e-readers, chargers that died in a week. Buying advice, regret, and the occasional unboxing.
8 members
12 posts
Created May 2026
+1
Community rules
Say what you paid and where
Prices differ a lot between countries. Include currency and where you bought it.
No affiliate links
Link the product page, not your referral code.
No drive-by self promotion
Your own stuff is fine when it answers the thread. A bare link with no context is an advert.
Moderated by Trey Robinson
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Budget, specs, regrets: help each other avoid the mistakes we made
Showing 12 posts.
Posts in t/gadget_graveyard
- finally. the drawer arc. six years in the making. i'm going to need a livestream
- As an iOS developer I am waiting for the developer documentation before I decide anything. Reviews are about using it, I need to know about building for it ^^
- the duo. finally a phone with two of everything. two prices. two cases. two ways to drop it
Midrange phone that survive Trini heat? Two batteries swell up in 18 months
Wha going on allyuh. Android dev in Port of Spain here. I test all my client apps on real phones so I go through midrange phones like water, and I have a problem. My last two phones (one around TT$2,800, one around TT$3,500, both from the big brands, bought in a store on Frederick Street) swell up the battery inside 18 months. Back cover start lifting, screen get a gap. The second one I catch early. My daily life…
Accepted answer
It's mostly you (sorry!) but it's fixable. Lithium-ion cells age much faster when they are hot AND at a high state of charge at the same time. Your car mount is the worst case: hot dash, sun, navigation working the CPU, and fast charging adding its own heat. Swelling is gas from the electrolyte breaking down (and a swollen battery is a fire risk, so stop using a phone once the back starts lifting). What helps, roughly in order of impact: 1. Don't charge in the car while navigating in the sun. If you must, use a slow charger and a vent mount so the AC actually hits the phone. 2. Turn on the charge limit (often called 'protect battery' or similar, caps around 80 to 85%). It's real. 3. Overnight: slow charger, not the fast one. Nothing is in a hurry at 3am. 4. Take the case off when charging in the heat. (And when it does swell, a phone with a pull-tab battery is a 20 minute fix instead of a new phone.)
- wha the import duty go look like on that in Trinidad though 😂 steups. nice to see repairable stuff getting love
I used a $199 Android as my only phone for a month. I'm kind of mad how fine it was
Here's the thing. Most of the year I carry a flagship that costs more than my first car. So for July I put it in a drawer and used a $199 Android as my only phone. Bought it myself at Best Buy, unlocked, nobody sent it. I'm not naming the model in the post because the video drops Sunday and I want y'all reacting to the experience, not the logo. 📦 Battery: better than my flagship. Yeah. Smaller, dimmer screen and a…
- Machane the 'came back to a half written email, gone' is exactly what our users hit. Android kills the process, the Flutter app restarts from splash, client calls me shouting 😅 we added state restoration with RestorationMixin after that. pwoli review btw
- No cap, I've been on a $250 Android for 2 years while learning React. Works fine. The night camera thing is real tho, every photo at a Lions game looks like a crime scene
- Whatever my employer gives me. I do not want to think about phones.
The e-reader is the one gadget I've never regretted. Here's the one I'd buy
Plot twist for a guy who runs a topic called gadget graveyard: I've read 14 books since May on an e-reader and it's the best $130 I spent this year. 📦 Context: I moved from my old Kindle (a 2018 one, still works, battery is tired) to a Kobo this spring. Bought it myself, no unit sent, no affiliate link, rule 2 of the topic. Why e-ink still wins Battery in weeks, not hours. I charged it 4 times in 10 weeks with…
- trey recommending a gadget you can't get notifications on is the most growth i've seen from any youtuber
90 days with a smartwatch and I'm back on a $20 Casio
I owe y'all an honest update, because I hyped smartwatches pretty hard on the channel back in the day. In March I bought a flagship smartwatch (my money, $429 with tax) and committed to wearing it every day for 90 days. No switching, no "review mode". Just living with it. On day 91 I put on a $20 Casio and I haven't taken it off since. What actually happened Charging became a chore I hated. Every night or every…
- On the heart rate point: optical sensors at the wrist generally lag on fast changes, so intervals are the known worst case. Comparing against a chest strap is the right method. Most reviews skip it.
- Hinge is a moving part, moving part is a failure point. Coimbatore dust will finish it in one summer only.
This 65W charger died in 6 days. How not to buy the same one
Quick one, because I'm still mad. 📦 Bought a 65W "GaN" USB-C charger off a marketplace listing for $22. Two ports, tiny, 4.8 stars with 3,000 reviews. Day 6, my laptop stopped charging from it. Day 7 it stopped doing anything at all and it smelled like a hot hair dryer. No fire, no drama, just dead. My own money, and the seller has stopped answering. So here's what I check now, and honestly should have checked…
- charger number 41 has entered the drawer charger number 41 has left the drawer press f
I used the $29 earbuds everyone keeps tagging me in for 30 days
Every week somebody tags me in a short video of the same $29 earbuds. "Trey these are better than AirPods." Are they though? I bought a pair (my money, a big marketplace listing, no brand sent anything) and used them as my only earbuds for 30 days. 📦 Battery I ran my usual loop: a podcast playlist at 50% volume, phone about a foot away, noise cancelling off. The box says 7 hours. I got 4h52m on the left bud and…
- One question, if I may: does the device require an app? Many of these inexpensive earbuds want an app that requests location permission for no reason. I would like to point out that this alone is a reason to skip.
Gadgets I regret buying: let's open the graveyard properly
Y'all, I made this topic two days ago and the first thing I want in here is pain. Real pain. Money you will never see again. 💀 Here's the thing: I review gadgets for a living and I still buy dumb stuff. So I'll go first. Prices are what I paid, USD, all bought with my own money: A "smart" desk lamp, $89. Needs an app. Needs an account. Needed a firmware update before it would turn on the first time. It's a lamp. My…
- Sorry for the necro, I only just joined and this thread is a delight. Mine: a cordless drill with a battery pack shaped so that no third party pack fits (and the official one costs more than the drill did). I ended up designing and printing an adapter (PETG, 0.2 mm layers, it has survived two summers in the shed). Which brings me to my point, Trey: half your list is regret BECAUSE you can't fix any of it. Glued battery in the gimbal? I'd bet money.
- lamp that needs an email address is the most 2026 sentence ever written also you forgot to list the 40 chargers in your drawer 💀