4 pointless PC components

Have you ever come across something in a store window or on an online retailer site that makes you think “but why would I buy something like that?” With so many countless ways to waste your hard earned money, there are bound to be some PC components that make you question whether they’re seriously for sale; and here are some of the best:

Transcend 2.5 inch 8GB half size SSD

An 8GB SSD? What exactly is the point of an 8GB SSD? According to the marketing, these credit card-sized SSDs are for smaller Notebooks, netbooks and portable electronics. Great, the 64GB version sounds perfect for my ageing netbook, and the 16GB or 32GB ones can be used as a dedicated page file system drive if you absolutely have to have one. But an 8GB drive? For the price of one you can buy yourself more RAM to offset the need for a dedicated page file drive, and how exactly will you function with just 8GBs of storage on the go? I’m not sure there is a point to the drive, no matter how cool it is.

Transcend 8GB SATA SSD

Thermaltake e-Sports Challenger Pro

Right, so this keyboard looks pretty cool and has a long list of features that gamers want. It has media keys as well as red backlighting to make individual keys easier to spot. It has macro keys and it’s relatively affordable. It also has a 6,000 rpm cooling fan that feels like a winded aardvark is blowing at your fingers through a straw. Why does it have that last feature Thermaltake? WHY? Thanks for solving a problem that was already addressed by a range of hardware including desk fans, air conditioners, and open windows with a piece of hardware that doesn’t actually doing anything other than stick out of your keyboard like an adventurous carrot.

Thermaltake challenger pro

Kingston 256GB USB 2.0 flash drive

A 256GB flash drive is enough to make anyone do a double take. Cramming so much information into such a small space is impressive, in fact you can almost understand the close to R5,000 price take. Almost. But what really bugs me is that for all the engineering that has gone into this piece of portable storage, Kingston decided to slap a USB 2.0 interface on the drive with a maximum write of 10mb/s and max read of 20mb/s. This means it would take over 7 hours to fill the drive up with information, compared to the 30 or some minutes it would take to fill up Kingston’s USB 3.0 version of the same drive (which costs just a fraction more).

Kingston datatraveler 300

Gigabyte Krypton / Razer Ironclad mousepad

Both of these mouse pads and indeed all mouse pads that cost over R400 should be listed here, and should be ashamed of themselves. Do these mouse pads make me coffee? Do they beyond reasonable doubt double my in-game performance when compared to mouse pads costing half as much? Do they charge my mouse? Do they save polar bears or hold the secret to world peace? If the answer is no to one or more of the above, the mousepads, those who made them and those who buy them should be ashamed of themselves.