Each year, we set aside a budget to acquire and purchase gadgets so we can review them early and share them with you before you decide to buy them yourselves. It was no different in 2013 as we continue to deliver fresh and original content by buying our own gadgets.
Acer Aspire S7. This was our first purchase of the year — an 11.6-inch Aspire S7. Acer gave me a discount and a free extended battery and I’ve been using it for more than 9 months before the battery conked out. Fortunately, I got the new 13-inch Aspire S7 which was running Haswell and the battery life has tremendously improved.
Sony HDR C630 Handycam. We got this from Best Buy in the US so we could use it for Team Tech Squad when we went to Taiwan for Computex.
Google Chromecast. We initially bought two of these and got three more. It’s been one of the most useful gadgets in the house right now.
Canon EOS M. We’ve been using an Olympus OMD and Sony NEX-3F so we decided it’s time to get the EOS M. The price also went down from the original SRP so it was a good deal altogether.
Lenovo K900. This was the very first smartphone I bought for the year. It was powered by an Intel Atom so I was intrigued by the performance and the design. Only drawback is that it’s not LTE-capable.
Sony Xperia Tablet Z. The Xperia Tablet Z might be expensive but it’s worth it — sexy and waterproof.
Google Nexus 7 2013. One of our must-buys every year.
HTC One (Red). I already own the 64GB silver color but the red one is so enticing I just had to buy it too.
iPhone 5S. We had this bought from Hong Kong the first day it was available there. And it was very expensive, about 45k for the 32GB variant.
iPhone 5C. Along with the iPhone 5S, we just have to buy the 5C as well.
Microsoft XBox One. We had this pre-ordered from Microsoft.com and got it first week of December. However, the 110V problem delayed our review.
Go Pro Hero 3+. We already have the Go Pro Hero 3 but the Hero 3+ was so tempting we also got it.
iPad Mini 2 (Retina Display). We were choosing between the iPad Air or the iPad Mini Retina Display. We went with the latter.
Dell Venue 8 Pro. We got this around the Black Friday Sale last November. It’s the laptop-replacement we’ve been looking for.
27-inch Apple iMac. Got this around October and used it in the office. Still trying to get the review out.
NVidia Shield. Our latest toy from our Hong Kong trip a couple of weeks ago.
We also had custom-built a gaming PC that @paultan15 and I assembled and costs around Php100k although I only sent about Php50k cash and the other half was sponsored.
All in all, we probably spent over Php500k for the entire year just to get the new products ahead of time and review them for you (although some of the reviews are not yet out).
Do share with us in the comments which gadgets you bought in 2013.
Do u have a link on your 100k pc build? Im building my own rig for gaming and have a budget of 75k. Would be interesting to see your choice of parts. Thanks!