Obsolescence-Proofing your High tech gadgets

It used to be that you could just walk into an electronics store to check out some high tech gadgets, buy whatever you wanted and just leave unmolested. That isn't how it goes anymore. These days, there is such a minefield of offers and special service plans that you get propositioned about. If you took all the offers you got, you would probably walk out having paid twice as much for your TV or anything else as you would if you just bought the thing by itself. It kind of reminds people of the hard-sell that they encounter at car dealerships. Which isn't surprising - both kinds of retailers operate on the thinnest of margins.

When it comes to making a profit selling high-tech gadgets, retailers like Best Buy have discovered something that really seems to sell well these days. At a higher profit margin than high tech gadgets. They like to sell you a kind of a guarantee against obsolescence. Best Buy for instance, calls its plan, Future Proof Your Technology. The plan is, that if you subscribe to the deal, after several months, when the product you buy seems to have lost its technological edge or been superseded by another model, the store will buy the product back from you at a specified price. It's supposed to make people feel good about not having to throw away a perfectly good gadget just because it’s been rendered obsolete. The electronics stores feel that a plan like this can help sell more high-tech gadgets as it psychologically makes consumers feel more confident about buying right now. All stores need to do is to sign up a few suckers. It'll do their bottom line a lot of good.

For people who love having the latest toy at all times, on the surface, the deal seems to make a lot of sense. You pay $800 for the latest laptop today and subscribe, for $75 extra, to a buyback plan that promises you that in a year, you can bring it back and you'll be given a voucher for $300 on your next laptop.

Let's go over why this is a bad idea. To begin with, you pay sales tax three times on the same purchase. When you return your product a year later as a part of your buyback deal, they test it to see if it's in good condition. If they decide that it isn't in great condition, they give you less money or nothing at all back. And oh, did you remember to read the fine print that says that you don't get anything back if you don't bring the receipt or if they decide that your device isn't in good condition? Does anyone know what the appeals process is?

Not to forget, that you only get store credit (and not cash) when you bring your high tech gadgets back. Now that is it real trick; they're locking you into buying from them forever and tricking you into never exercising your rights to shop around. You could work around this problem by going to a third-party buyback company like tech forward. They'll just give you a check because they don't have a stores to give you store credit.

A Hi Tech Gadget or Two to Tame the Outdoors

Adventurer-1, Mother Nature-0

Summer is right around the corner, most people's plans on what to do then involve the beach. Unfortunately, many of those plans involve no activity that is more adventurous than watching videos on iPads on the beach. Seen this way, iPads and iPhones do become great examples of outdoorsy hi tech gadgets. But that's not the kind of outdoors gadget that we have in mind today. For those who really want to take the outdoors by the horns and really experience it, the kind of gadgets you get are not only useful, they are full of features you couldn't ever get to see on a merely mortal iPhone. So when did the manufacturers suddenly realize that there was a market to be served in action oriented gadgetry? There's a simple answer to that. They realized that when they found that the general consumer electronics market was dropping off every year at an unbelievable 10%. When you target a niche segment, you get to charge higher prices. That's always a welcome way to go.

So what kind of action do they make gadgets like these for? Do you love fishing? No, there isn't an app for that (or is there?). But there is a high-tech gadget with a sonar that will help you zero in on where to catch is. How about waterproof MP3 players between that like it wet and wild, or wearable video cameras for surfers that can really take you to the center of the action? Let's look at a few of them now, shall we?

Let's start with that intriguing hi tech gadget for the angler - a market of 50 million people, by the way. Sonar devices have become reasonably popular over the last couple of years. Beam your sonar under the surface of a river, a lake or even the ocean; the sound waves go deep down, and a screen you hold in your hand displays a proper image of what lies down there. They usually cost anything upwards of $100, depending on how powerful they are and how large the screen is that the show you the picture on. Of course, electronic bait and battery-powered reels are a lot of fun. But it's really something else to have high-tech gadget that will actually map it for you. Talk about an unequal contest for the fish.

Wearable cameras are the biggest thing in outdoors gadgetry these days. The Looxcie, for instance, a wireless camera you wear on your ear and that has a solid 5-hour recording capacity in a form that's about the size of your little finger, is a great little innovation. But it isn't truly outdoorsy. Because it isn't weather proof. For that, you have a bunch of great products that sell for no more than $400, that are waterproof, shock resistant and that come with suction cups. These are really inexpensive products like the $300 Liquid Image camera that comes strapped to a scuba helmet. It gives you high definition video of everything you look at with commendable color accuracy.

There is much more to be had in the outdoors hi-tech gadget world. For instance, there those who say that you haven't really swum until you done it with crystal-clear audio slamming away at your eardrums when you are underwater. It's all about the taming the outdoors