The best items of tech you have ever owned

[Richard Tarleton]

http://amzn.eu/chviPG7

http://amzn.eu/2DJEoww

Two of my favourite items also

Mine - a Kowa TSN1 angled telescope (with 30x eyepiece) through which I have watched many birds, common and rare, at home and abroad, over the last 30 years (most recently, a Snowy Owl on St David's Head and a N American Green Heron which turned up in Pembrokesire a fortnight ago). About £400 when I bought it, nowadays its equivalent new more like £2k.

[teamsaint]

Best tech ever invented ?

Aircon in cars has to be right up there. Saved me from hundreds, well maybe dozens of heat induced headaches over the years. Bought a car with it in as soon as I could afford one.

And also very high on the list of tech type inventions is contact lenses, gas permeable in my case. Bought them with my first proper pay packet. I bless them every day. Or at least I should.

Back to electro gizmos , electric toothbrushes are a wonderful thing.

However, on computer type things, as suggested by the OP, I really can't fault the two Kindle Fire 7s that we have had. Very cheap, very reliable, terrifically versatile, great on holiday or when other devices fail, and paid £35 each, IIRC.
Just about my only complaint would be that the later one has a volume limiting software, which has stopped me from using it more as a music player. But otherwise, wonderful piece of kit.

[Stanfordian]

Electronic ignition - I could never get on with chokes
Electric Kettles - when I had just started work one of the bosses would often say how efficient they were. Nevertheless he would place his electric kettle on the metal directly over the pilot light to partially heat the water.
Disposable cigarette lighters - served their purpose wonderfully well
My iPhone - so useful
Digital camera - I know some who still use film, blimey!
Electronic calculator - one colleague of mine in the early 1970s spent many, many hours making one from a kit. A few years later they were giving the away with petrol.
Radio - really could not live without one - much rather have one than television if I had to choose.

Don't own them but use them:
Escalators & Lifts - marvellous when they are working

[Stunsworth]

Leica M240 camera. It replaced a 10 year old M8. Before that my favourite camera was a Leica M6 film camera. I’d used various digital cameras, but returning to a Leica was wonderful, and the M240 is as good as I’ve ever used.

[cloughie]

My memory is almost full, but not as short as others on this thread, or maybe others are so young they cannot remember life before the CD. My first CD player has to be my best bit of tech. Hindsight shows it was not the best ever, but at the time how fantastic it was to have a machine which played music without degrading its software, nothing grinding a groove or stretching, breaking or jamming a tape. That mid 80s acquisition was the start of something new. My first CD was Solti’s Tchaik 4.

[teamsaint]

My favourite , if not necessarily the best, was my first reasonable hi fi , bought in a year off between school and University.

Wharfdale speakers, Amstrad amp, Garrard deck, the best Comet had to offer for £150 IIRC, which was about a months wages .

[Bryn]

My favourite , if not necessarily the best, was my first reasonable hi fi , bought in a year off between school and University.

Wharfdale speakers, Amstrad amp, Garrard deck, the best Comet had to offer for £150 IIRC, which was about a months wages .

Oh I well remember my joy at traipsing up to London to go to the original Comet outlet above a shop in Wardour Street to buy my first decent record deck, a Goldring-Lenco GL75. I still have it, up in the loft.

[teamsaint]

Oh I well remember my joy at traipsing up to London to go to the original Comet outlet above a shop in Wardour Street to buy my first decent record deck, a Goldring-Lenco GL75. I still have it, up in the loft.

...and the weekly full paged adverts ....

[kernelbogey]

Panasonic Dimension 4 combination microwave/grill/convection oven. I use it everyday for one of its funcitions, and it's still going strong after 25 years (and one service).

[Stunsworth]

Oh I well remember my joy at traipsing up to London to go to the original Comet outlet above a shop in Wardour Street to buy my first decent record deck, a Goldring-Lenco GL75. I still have it, up in the loft.

Still a respected deck today. They sell for more than you might expect.

[Bryn]

Still a respected deck today. They sell for more than you might expect.

I may well get is down, replace the idler wheel, give it a general clean up give it a new AT95ex and install it in a room away from my main set-up.

[french frank]

My memory is almost full, but not as short as others on this thread, or maybe others are so young they cannot remember life before the CD.

I had a Philips music centre with CD player before I had any CDs. I used to open and shut the tray now and again. First CD was Pascal Rogé playing Satie. Piano sounded sooo clear it was as if it was in my bedroom!

Now, my MacBook Air - the right size for working on, very light for carrying around, and battery life for what I want to do with it - 12 hours (haven't tested that, but it lasts for a long day's work).

[richardfinegold]

Speakers really ought to last forever, as all they really do is passively transmit current through an electrical field. Barring extremes of temperature and not being played at earbleed levels 30 years use shouldn’t be that unusual.
My very first CD player from Sony lasted close to 20 years despite heavy useage and changed how I think about recorded music forever

[Dave2002]

My favourite , if not necessarily the best, was my first reasonable hi fi , bought in a year off between school and University.

Wharfdale speakers, Amstrad amp, Garrard deck, the best Comet had to offer for £150 IIRC, which was about a months wages .

I have a pair of Wharfedale Goodwood speakers which should still work. They're not perfect, but at the time, and perhaps since, they go lower than many other speakers. It was only through listening on those speakers that I noticed the stage noises in Keilberth's recording of the Flying Dutchman. I have had to obtain a new driver for one of them though, as I think the suspension has gone on one speaker, and it makes a rasping noise from time to time. Like you I had the speakers from Comet around 1974/5.

[Dave2002]

I had a Philips music centre with CD player before I had any CDs. I used to open and shut the tray now and again.

Sounds like a furry animal, a burst balloon and a jar!