The Best and Worst Tech We Spent Cold Hard Cash on This Year

​As the editorial team of a tech site, we see a lot of gadgets and gizmos come and go. Occasionally we write about them. But actually parting with our cold, hard cash?

We've rounded up some of our best and worst tech purchases of the year—the money well spent, and the impulse buys that seemed like a good idea at the time but ended up disappointing.

As you can tell, we're not exactly extravagant; it's the little everyday things that most made an impression. Phones and laptops dominate our lives, and we fret over optional additions—headphones, chargers—like you might over supplies for a well-loved but very demanding pet.

At bottom, the list perhaps says more about our own caprices than the tech itself: One of us nominated his cheap earbuds as his 2014 favourite, while another said hers were the worst. Staff writer Kaleigh loved her iPhone because it's great; senior editor Brian hated his because it's great. And Motherboard's editor in chief is just really enthusiastic about a charger plug.

Best: Estes microdrone

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I honestly don't buy a ton of technology (actually, I just don't buy a lot of anything, mostly out of laziness) but once in a blue moon I will fall for a gadget. I fell for one at the end of last year at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials in Miami. I was wandering around the engineers' garages looking at robots, and some guy on one of the teams had a microdrone, a little Proto X which is only $40. It's like a robotic bug.

I crashed mine a million times by March and it gave up its little robo bug ghost, but by then I became aware of the upgraded version, which is a little microdrone with a tiny camera you can get for about ​$60. Just be careful where you buy it: some places will try to sell the drone separate from the controller. The fun-to-dollar ratio is unbeatable. I will never get tired of this thing. It's also a good way to practice before trading up to a larger, more expensive drone.

Worst: Bookman bike lights

These things look really neat—they are just simple small boxes with a single large button—and they affix with elastic, so they're super quick to put on and take off your bike. My boyfriend got the same pair and we rode around with them for months. One night we were biking up Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn when I realized the lights were worthless—they were practically invisible from 20 feet away. Anyway, these things are a little tren​dy now, but it's form over function. I went and bought some ugly bulky lights that are bright as hell. I don't wear a helmet so I want people to see me.

Best: Sony earbud headphones

One of the only pieces of technology I have purchased this year, these headphones both fit in my ear without ever falling out and play music, which satisfies my two needs. They also cost $12 and are sold at virtually every drugstore or bodega in New York City, which is huge, because I lose headphones, and everything else I own, at a very fast rate. Without music I am amongst the people and that is a place I hate to be. I have these either in my pocket, laying in bed with me, or in my ears twenty-three-and-nine-tenths-hours-out-of-the-day, with a brief respite while I'm in the shower. WHAT A DEAL.

Worst: HTC One M8

This phone is cool and it's good, but is it so much cooler and more good than my last phone? Not really. It still takes pictures that are good but not great, I still have to put it on airplane mode when I get out of the subway just to reset the signal, the battery still dies too fast. I still have extreme anxiety whenever I load a video or something because I'm worried about going over my data plan limit, which I know is not HTC's fault but come on.

The speaker is louder which is great but whatever. I don't think it responds well to water, which I'm unwilling to test, but I suspect as much from having it blast music while I'm in the shower and dripping water on it. It won't connect to wifi at my office, I have to shut down half of my apps to get Plants Vs. Zombies 2 to open most of the time. It's a phone and it works, but when the hell is someone going to make a phone that's AWESOME?

Best: Macbook charger adapter

I love my work laptop. It's thin, light and fast, and is the best computer I've ever owned. It's not the best piece of tech I bought this year, however, because Vice paid for it. Thanks Vice!

The problem with this wondrous machine is the fact that taking it home for the weekend requires lugging around a charger that's bigger than the computer itself, and I hate all those loosey-goosey wires snaking around and just touching EVERYTHING in my bag. Gross, I know.

The thing is, I have a couple old Macbook chargers at home, but they didn't work with the new-style connector that Apple invented just to sell tiny converters that cost $12 from the local brick-and-mortar. For months I resisted spending this money for a hunk of metal with two different-shaped indentations on each end, lugging a charger as I meandered around town like some sort of jackass.

But that's changed. Two weeks ago I bought one of those adapters, and my life is measurably better! What great packaging! (I actually thought "Oh so this is why tech writers like Apple so much" to myself.) What a strong magnet, which hooks onto the old charger plug with a convincing, you're-never-going-back-to-the-old-computer-again thunk!

Cutting the cord has freed up a number of new bag options that I didn't have before, and I can stroll down the street, laptop in hand, looking like a guy who DOES THINGS, rather than some shitbird futzing with a cord in a grocery bag because I forgot my backpack at home. This thing rules!

Worst: LED bathroom light

The bathroom power plug in my old-ass apartment only receives power if you flip the light switch on, which makes a regular nightlight impossible. Turning on the actual bathroom light in the middle of the night is a recipe for blinding insomnia, and the bathroom has no window, meaning zero ambient light. In short, I'm usually left peeing in a dark closet while half asleep, and it sucks.

To remedy this, and because I was already buying crap on Amazon, I bought the cheapest possible version of one of those LED tap-it lights you find occasionally on late-night television. Actually I bought three, because it was cheaper to buy three shitty ones instead of one nice one. Now, I can't tell if it's actually bad or not, because I've never gotten around to buying AAA batteries to power it—it's been like six months and I still haven't found myself in a battery store with reasonable prices—but the thing sure does FEEL like the worst thing possible.

Best: Moldovan leather hat

My favorite piece of technology that I spent money on this year is a faux-leather hat I bought in Moldova for $15. It is lined with some sort of fur, and has flaps that have been innovatively fashioned to descend over my ears. It does a better job of keeping my head heated than any hat I've ever owned. It is a serious advancement in personal head warmth.

Worst: iPhone 6

No, I'm not going to complain about oversized screens or bendability—the problem with the iPhone 6 is that, for me, it finally collapsed that fragile boundary between phone and PC, probably incontrovertibly. I was on a train, tapping away at LTE speeds, when the phone was just a couple days old. I found myself, for the first time, instinctively editing and loading a Motherboard article onto our content management system by touchscreen. It was slower, yeah, but not overly painful. I could, and did, do it. I published. Then I moved over to the HipChat app and discussed editorial strategy with the rest of the team. It was seamless.

And it was official: I could work, effectively and efficiently, from anywhere. I realize this ambivalent revelation has arrived long ago for many, many Blackberry-toting execs and technophiles, but my heart sunk. The device, already an engine of anxiety with its email notifications, status updates, and news ticker, had finally evaporated any distinction between work and 'normal' life. It was more symbolic than anything: There was no longer a space or mode that was distinct to either; both would coexist seamlessly, inevitably uncomfortably, from now on.

Now, like so many others, I'll have to think about ways to disentangle the digital crush, and wonder listlessly if my privileged, tech-abetted life is bringing me more stress than benefit. Damm you, iPhone 6, you glorious piece of all-consuming technology.

Best: iPhone 5S

I wish I could point to a really cool, unique, niche piece of tech that I bought this year, but the truth is the best device I bought was my iPhone 5S. For the past five years I had been using a Blackberry and put off upgrading because I was precariously employed (and I liked the keyboard). But in January this year, my lemon of a Blackberry finally gave in—the screen literally fell off of the phone—and I was forced to shell out the cash for a Big Girl device. Despite the fact that nine months later Apple came out with a newer version, rendering my shiny new toy obsolete, it is obviously my most-used and most-cherished purchase of the year.

Worst: New York Times Opinion app

I downloaded a free trial subscription to the New York Times Opinion app. I'm a huge fan of the NYT Now app and had hopes that the Ops app would help me sniff out new and interesting columnists. But, it was dull, predictable and didn't offer me anything I couldn't easily find through Twitter or other means. If I had remembered to cancel my subscription before the monthly fee was taken off my credit card, I wouldn't have paid a dime for it. I cancelled a day after they charged me, telling the operator I never, ever use it. She sounded sympathetic. Turns out I wasn't alone, because the Times scrapp​ed the app just a few months after it launched.

Best: Portable phone charger

Like most people, I'm embarrassingly dependant on my phone for the most basic of daily tasks. But my iPhone 4S is getting on in years, and seems to be losing battery life at an increased rate, often spontaneously shutting down when the power icon still shows plenty of charge.

And so it is that the best piece of tech I bought this year was to make up for the failings of another. Ahead of a trip overseas, I panic-ordered one of those remote chargers that you can plug your dead phone in to revive it. I now keep it in my handbag and it's already saved my ass a couple of times. Seeing as I outsourced my navigational skills to Google Maps before my brain had chance to develop an actual sense of direction, a dead phone on a night out in an unfamiliar city can be a frankly terrifying prospect.

I no longer have to worry about re-charging my phone before heading out—as long as I remember to charge the charger when it's out of juice too, that is.

Worst: Cheap headphones

It's my own fault. I always buy the cheapest, shittiest headphones. My reasoning is because they always break after a couple of months—so I've actually bought my worst piece of tech several times over in the past year. Almost immediately after purchasing a new pair (and spending several agonising minutes attacking the impenetrable packaging with scissors to get them out), they look like this: a tangled mess, with knots in the wires getting tied up in other knots until they're about half the length they started out as.

Eventually, the connection between wire and earbud gets twisted a step too far, and I'm only hearing music in one ear. Then the purchasing cycle begins again. Next year, I'm resolving to invest in a decent pair. And take better care of them.