from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are your best purchases in 2020?

by ayberk on 12/22/20, 3:55 AM with 100 comments

• by marcolussetti on 12/22/20, 7:50 AM

  An eReader. I was skeptical, but it's pushed me to move to reading more books and less social media. Still a long way to go to achieve a better balance there, but significant results so far.

• by longnguyen on 12/22/20, 5:50 AM

  Mi Laser Projector[1]. This projector is incredible

  [1]: https://www.mi.com/global/mi-laser-projector-150/

• by mraza007 on 12/22/20, 4:50 AM

  Remarkable Tablet. It has allowed my save paper and definitely worth buying it.

  It just makes things so much easier such as taking handwritten notes and sharing it

• by ambivalents on 12/22/20, 10:17 PM

  1) My dog. Does this count as hardware? :) It is not an overstatement to say he's changed my life.

  2) iPad + Apple Pencil. I can access the ever-elusive flow state by drawing/sketching/coloring with the drawing program ProCreate.

• by mparis on 12/22/20, 4:14 AM

  Fun: Rossignol black ops gamer 118 skis. They shred.

  Coffee: Kalita 185 pour over coffee maker. Inexpensive, high quality coffee. Also the porlex mini burr grinder.

  Software: IntelliJ Ultimate/Clion for rust dev. Historically a VS Code guy but jetbrains products are great when you have enough horse power to run them.

  Speakers: UE mega boom 3. Waterproof & great sound.

  Book: Victor Frankls man’s search for meaning.

  Food: Eggplant for this parm https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-best-eggplant-parmesan

  Charity: Donating to Wikipedia. We need them.

• by fy20 on 12/22/20, 5:30 AM

  A gas-lift monitor arm from Amazon (€30). I always find monitors too low, and I bend my head forward too much, especially when standing at a desk. This ends up causing me shoulder tension, or I end up slouching on the chair so the monitor is at eye level.

  Now I don't have any problems! I thought given it was relatively cheap (last time I looked half a decade or more ago they were closer to €100), it would not be very good and wobble, but it's rock solid. 10/10 would buy again.

• by poletopole on 12/23/20, 3:57 PM

  The new iPad Pro and magic keyboard. Look into Tailscale, it makes it incredibly easy for me to ssh into my mac or a VPS. As for apps for iPad, I highly recommend the following:

  1. Muse: awesome workspace app.

  2. Ulysses: best MD app hands down.

  3. Gladys: good clipboard.

  4. Kodex: best ipad code editor.

  5. Prompt: best ipad ssh client.

  6. Working copy: good git client.

  7. Kaleidoscope: diffing files.

  8. Jira: pretty well done.

  9. Documents: good for ftp.

  10. Copied: good for bookmarking.

  11. Goodnotes: best notebook app.

  I’m seriously thinking about selling my imac because I haven’t used it since I got my ipad pro. I think I’ll sell it and build a RaspPi machine, ha.

• by axaxs on 12/22/20, 5:09 AM

  Air Fryer. I was always the pessimist...it's just a convection oven afterall, right. Finally bought one and am a convert. We use that thing almost daily.

• by idiocrat on 12/22/20, 7:37 AM

  OTC Magnesium supplement.

  Life-changing event -- as my chronic nagging RLS has finally gone, and I can finally sleep like a baby again, after many years.

  I'm taking now ~1000 mg/day, for time being, self-medicated.

  I should have measured blood levels before and after.

• by benzesandbetter on 12/22/20, 9:44 AM

  1) Akai Force (sampler, looper, sequencer). Superb creative tool for making music. I've been recording/looping my djembe and Hang Drum into it. Thinking of picking up a Digitone soon and then I think my setup will be pretty complete for a while. 2) A couple AMD RX GPUs that I picked up second hand. 3) 50mm Nikon Z-series lens.

• by SeriousM on 12/22/20, 5:37 AM

  A decent bike with disk breaks

  The books "you, I and ReactiveUI" and "rx.net in action" - yet another Bible for developers like "clean code/coder/architecture"

• by string on 12/22/20, 9:04 AM

  Not sure this counts as hardware, but I finally bought a hi-fi and spent quite an uncomfortable amount on old Congolese records.

  I found the idea of spending so much on something so indulgent difficult at the time but it brings me immeasurable joy, so ultimately no regrets.

• by adiM on 12/22/20, 5:28 AM

  Boox Max 3, 13.3" eInk tablet. Bought just before the pandemic started and has been super useful in reader PDFs and writing notes, and even attending zoom calls(!) without any eye strain.

• by jdmcnugent on 12/22/20, 8:48 PM

  1. Roland fp30 digital piano - coming from a guitar background, learning the piano has made my music theory knowledge grow exponentially 2. Ubiquiti unifi home wifi - fun project to learn some more in depth networking 3. Synology nas - runs my pihole, Plex, and time machine backup 4. Charlottes web cbd / melatonin sleep gummies - way better than melatonin alone, feel great in the am

• by ralusek on 12/22/20, 7:32 AM

  Oculus Quest 2. It makes VR portable and accessible to normies, and allows you to connect to desktop if you so desire.

  Also, guns. I'd never shot a gun before this year, and now I own a bunch. They're tight.

  And an XSR700. Moved to Colorado this year, and the is no comparable way to taking in nature than riding a motorcycle. It wasn't my first bike, but it did reinvigorate me.

  Subnautica. If you haven't played, you should.

• by ramenstor on 12/22/20, 5:22 AM

  Monitor arm. Provides great functionality and flexibility for my computer usage.

  Surface Pro 7. Such a lovely piece of engineering. Great lightweight laptop, although the tablet mode of Windows 10 needs some love and care from Microsoft.

  Nvidia Shield. Great device for streaming media. There were always limitations with using the LG WebOS and the Shield made all of those go away.

• by jelliclesfarm on 12/22/20, 4:57 AM

  Tractor. Another one.

  All I wanted for 2020 was autonomous farm machinery..an Ag robot for small acreages. Maybe in 2021.

• by hutattedonmyarm on 12/22/20, 7:33 AM

  1) Valve Index. I had been waiting since the original Oculus for VR to be ready-ish, and I’m glad I hopped in now

  2) Affinity Photo and Designer. I rarely use them, not enough to throw money at Adobe and they’re good!

  3) iPhone 12. The 6S was more or less broken

  4) A libro.fm subscription to get away from Audible

• by orloffm on 12/22/20, 1:22 PM

  1. Garmin ForeRunner 245 watch. It's actually a _watch_ and it doesn't feel like a wrist computer. Plus, the notifications work amazing, and all training-related things are awesome. Software updates over the year brought very needed improvements.

  2. Garmin Edge 830 bike computer. Also wonderful piece of engineering, again feels like a thing and doesn't add any overhead to rides as a phone with Komoot or some other app does. Now I'm thinking that a non-sensor-screen 820 would be a better choice.

  3. Mountain bike, Ghost Kato 7.9 2019. I'd go for full suspension next time for sure, but it still opened a whole new world of unpaved roads around the city for me.

• by admissionsguy on 12/22/20, 6:28 AM

  I'm surprised to discover that except consumables and books, the only non-digital item I have bought this year has been the XP-Pen Artist Pro drawing tablet I will give my girlfriend this Christmas Eve.

• by xupybd on 12/22/20, 8:38 AM

  A pug puppy. Cost me 2.5k. I judge the value of a purchase based on the improvement to day to day life. The joy that has come from that little puppy to bothy wife and myself far outweighs any other purchase this year.

• by danielscrubs on 12/22/20, 8:36 AM

  Microwave with air frying functionality from Samsung. It’s really, really convenient. Making gratin without preheating is a game changer.

  Robot vacuum cleaner. Going for a run and starting the cleaner midrun is quite nice. From cleaning every three weeks to twice a week helps my nose.

  Apple Watch, using it instead of the phone cut my phone addiction in half. You can’t be addicted by the watch and it has Spotify, calls and maps, so I never worry about leaving the phone at home. Also makes family time more social.

  All these products I was skeptical about first (this is just a toy...) but I’m actually using them heavily!

• by syedmeesamali on 12/23/20, 11:59 AM

  Ender 3 V2 3D printer. The feeling of creating a tangible compares with nothing else especially when you can quickly prototype anything and just make it literally come to life. Second would be Nano 33 BLE Sense.

• by bergie on 12/22/20, 8:47 AM

  1) Unlimited LTE plan. Allowed us to work from our sailboat for the five summer months of the Covid lockdown, and will likely provide for the same next year (I'm not assuming going back to the office anytime soon)

  2) Pressure cooker. Since we're cooking every day now, this makes a lot of meals faster and easier. Saves a lot of fuel when cooking on the boat as well

  3) Pantry full of shelf-stable foods. We test-provisioned for longer boat trips at home last winter, which was suddenly extremely useful when Covid hit and panic buying emptied shelves in stores.

• by peapicker on 12/22/20, 6:33 AM

  1) Flexispot standing desk & standing desk monitor arm

  2) Wobble stool for the in-between standing and sitting height at my standing desk.

  Between 1 & 2 my back health is so much better it is hard to believe. My old home office furniture was horrible. Best investment I made early in the 9+ months now working from home.

  3) Elektron Model:Cycles FM Synth. Making happy bleep bloops.

  4) Almost to the front of the line to order a Concept 2 Model D rowing machine to lose my 'covid 19' pounds I've gained whilst isolating - set to order on Dec 30.

• by diweirich on 12/24/20, 5:49 AM

  38" Ultrawide with Thunderbolt 3. Got rid of a ton of wires and the ugly hub on my desk. I no longer deal with random glitches that require restarting my computer to fix. It's just one seamless screen that makes my desk look clean and uncluttered. With one cable it charges my laptop while docked, provides audio and video, and carries USB signal from any USB devices plugged into the monitor (just a dongle for my keyboard/mouse). I'm in love with it.

• by thiht on 12/22/20, 10:51 AM

  - MacBook Pro 2020. This is my first personal Apple device (I already had a MacBook Pro 2019 for work) and I love it. It's expensive but really has a nice premium feeling and UX. The only comparable non-Apple ultrabook on the market was the last XPS 13 but it was actually MORE expensive than the MBP.

  - Jabra wireless earbuds. I was skeptical at first but they're amazing.

• by ulfw on 12/22/20, 9:05 AM

  Macbook Air M1, 16GB, 2TB. Sold my hot, noisy, always-fan-running 16" MBP for it that was in no way faster and way less portable (obviously).

  Kudos to Apple for the fast and successful transition of their own and third-party software to M1. I'm 90% native already, mere months into the transition.

• by cpach on 12/22/20, 8:57 AM

  Eero 3-pack (mesh wifi system). A used Macbook Air from ~2014. A piano. A shirt of decent quality. A good pair of sandals. Another linen dishcloth for the kitchen.

  I can’t remember if I bought any new software this year, but I still pay every year for Evernote. Despite its warts I get lots of use from it.

  (^_^)

• by BjoernKW on 12/23/20, 12:45 AM

  1) Gazelle Tour Populair bike

  2) Røde NT microphone

  3) Elgato Key Light

  4) Logitech C930e webcam

  5) Dell 27" U2720Q display

  The Tour Populair is fantastic for getting around in the city.

  Items #2 to #5 are enormously useful to me, essential even, since a large part of my business consists of consulting, mentoring, and workshops.

• by drodil on 12/22/20, 9:06 AM

  Tregren T6 kitchen garden. So relaxing to see things grow without putting too much effort in it.

  Valco headphones. Price-quality wise the best you can get.

  Roborock S6 maxv. Damn convenient especially if you have furry pets.

  1Password. Finally got my passwords under control.

• by rubicon33 on 12/22/20, 6:21 AM

  - Apple Watch (Nike edition. Using it to help me move more, and so far it’s working)

  - iPhone 12. The 5s was showing its age.

  - Oculus Quest 2 (want to move more when gaming)

  - TempurPedic pillow

  - Serta iConfort 4000 plush mattress. About time I invested in sleep.

• by lmedinas on 12/23/20, 2:08 AM

  - MacBook Pro 2020 Apple M1: This laptop is simply amazing. It replaced my iPad Air 2 as my goto device to browse or have some quality time. I even reduce my gaming time to use this computer.

• by Pyrodogg on 12/24/20, 4:33 PM

  New office set-up for working from home. An adjustable height desk, an anti-fatigue mat for standing, and also a new office chair for sitting.

  Also received my Remarkable 2, which I'm quite enjoying.

• by mech422 on 12/22/20, 5:02 AM

  I guess for me, it would be: ODroid H2s - I love these! Artillery Sidewinder X1 3d printer - just got this but having a ball with it!

• by adultSwim on 12/22/20, 6:05 AM

  Banjo

• by unwantedchild on 12/22/20, 8:37 PM

  E-drums Roland TD-1DMK and Headphones Bose QS35. It's good not to give up on hobbies even if work drains you hellishly.

• by adighe on 12/22/20, 9:32 AM

  Dreame D9 Robot Vacuum cleaner - Saves a lot of time and it's fun watching it run through the house.

  OnePlus 7TPro.

  Nedis WiFi Smart LED Bulbs.

• by kodon on 12/22/20, 5:59 AM

  Used golf clubs. It's a great game!

• by brudgers on 12/22/20, 5:13 AM

  Brompton H6L with -12% gearing.

• by kristianp on 12/22/20, 6:01 AM

  Nintendo Switch, I'm impressed by the quality of the hardware.

• by 1996 on 12/22/20, 5:59 AM

  RK2020 (Odroid Go Advance) portable console to play dreamcast games

• by interactivecode on 12/24/20, 7:35 AM

  Wellies , walking our 9 months old pup with dry feet is priceless

• by hkyeti on 12/22/20, 6:49 AM

  Treadmill deck, game changer. And a mini instant pot

• by jbirer on 12/23/20, 9:59 AM

  a 100$ Samsung Galaxy M10. It just does everything I need for a smartphone and the battery lasts days.

• by tgvaughan on 12/23/20, 8:44 AM

  A fastmail subscription and a domain.

• by oumua_don17 on 12/22/20, 9:00 AM

  1. Remarkable 2

  2. Jarvis Laminate Sit stand desk.

• by motyar on 12/23/20, 3:53 AM

  Land lot

  and

  iPhone 7

• by catacombs on 12/22/20, 5:10 PM

  > 1) Apple Watch. I have been moving a lot more since I got my watch. I also check my phone less often now.

  Yikes. That's more digital tracking when a simple, "dumb" watch can do the same thing, without harvesting your data.

  "But...but... muh health data!"

  Some watches have internal pedometers that don't constantly send your health information to a trillion-dollar company.