8 devices we’ll never buy again
Some purchases just aren’t what they used to be. Four Computeractive writers reveal the gadgets they’ll shun in future and the replacements they’ve chosen instead
What I’ll never buy again
A laptop without a disc drive
Daniel Booth, Editor
I love playing music on my laptop, but hate paying for streaming subscriptions. I used to solve that dilemma by playing CDs in my laptops, but my past three machines have lacked disc drives. I’m probably fighting a losing battle, but I’m hoping never again to buy a model without one.
And what I use instead
Modern laptops with disc drives are rarer than a successful Evri delivery, but there is one – Fujitsu’s new FMV Note A77-K3. The slight catch is it’s only on sale in Japan (see www.snipca.com/57874).
I did find some ancient UK laptops with drives, including Lenovo’s ThinkPad E570 (£1,077 from www.snipca.com/57876) and HP’s Zbook 17 G5 (£800 from www. snipca.com/57877), but I didn’t want to pay that much for a machine that would merely be a glorified CD player. It made more sense to pay less for an actual CD player – FiiO’s DM13 (£139 from www. snipca.com/57879, pictured right).
It makes CDs sound great, even the scratchy ones from the 1990s, and can rip them too. It’s portable with a great battery life, and connects to my Sony speakers via Bluetooth.