Sometimes, you really should just spend a little extra
1 Earphones And Headphones
Forking out 200 quid for a couple of bits of wire with some tiny speakers at the end might seem excessive to some people. But others see expensive headphones as a worthwhile investment. Of course, most people don’t need to spend hundreds to get satisfactory audio. Even a £40 headset can do the trick. Just don’t go picking up a pair of headphones for a fiver and expect them to be any good. There might be a chance you get lucky and find something decent, but it’s far more likely they’ll make your favourite bands sound like they’re performing from the inside of a box full of blankets.
2 Mice
If you don’t use your computer much and you’re not a gamer, then you can probably get along quite happily with a mouse that costs about £5. If you want something that you’ll actually enjoy using, though, then you’re probably looking spending at least £30. That will get you something with useful features like DPI switches, user profiles and extra buttons. Most importantly, it will get you these things from a reputable brand, meaning the mouse won’t fall apart or stop working after a couple of vigorous Call of Duty sessions.
3 Laptops
Even though the netbook market has pretty much collapsed into nothingness, you can easily pick up laptops for around £150. That would be great if they weren’t almost universally terrible. And it’s not just the lowpowered processors, minimal RAM and low-res screens you need to worry about. You also have to deal with unresponsive touchpads and keyboards that bend when you press down on them. If you just do some occasional typing and web surfing, then maybe they’re worth such a small investment, but if you want to do more and you value your sanity, save up and get something better.
4 Flash Drives
This might sound odd, considering how cheaply you can get things up nowadays, but it doesn’t pay to be cheap when buying flash drives. Sure, you can get a 128GB drive from eBay for less than a fiver, but do you really want to? Well, that depends on whether you actually like keeping your files stored in an uncorrupted state or not. If you’re not going to be storing things for long, then maybe it would be worth getting a few cheap drives. Be aware, though, that if they do break for no reason, you probably won’t get a warranty like you do with some of the better manufacturers.
5 Routers
If you’ve signed up to a high-speed internet connection and you’re lucky enough to get anywhere near the quoted speeds, then there’s no point hooking everything up to a wireless router from 2004. Thankfully, most providers will give you a reasonably good router anyway, but some people like to use their own equipment. If that’s the case with you, just make sure that what you’re using doesn’t introduce a bottleneck and actually slow down your network.