Would Buy Again - 2026 Edition

· 13 min read
gtd tools

Having less, but better, possessions makes you happier.

Invest money in things only where it makes a quality of life distinction. For me, that’s generally in things I spend a lot of time interacting with (eg. bed, office chair, laptop etc etc)

This is my “would buy again” list of items I’d immediately replace if needed.

(nb: I receiving no sponsorship or affiliate revenue on any of this stuff. Just here to help people out.).

In no particular order:

Would Buy Again

Apple Airpods 4

The Apple Airpods were a gift from a dear Apple Genius friend. I actually though I would not use them, but they’ve been amazing when travelling or working in noisy cafés.

Lightweight, zero packing space, great sound, connects to everything. On planes, these things are sanity saving with their noise cancellation, not just noticeably reducing stressful flights from the noise and chaos, but also letting me listen to sweet tunes while in the air (now if only Apple Music could get thier iOS client to play properly when not connected to the net). In fact, my sole complaint about them is that the charge on them only last about 4-5 hours. Leading to me waking up on long hauls and red-eye flights when the warning levels go off and the roar of the jet engines kicks back in.

Incredibly, popping them back into the half-hand-sized charging case for 15 minutes usually charges them back to almost full and gets me through most flights in Asia, though OMG I would pay good money for these lasting 20 hours like my Bose over-ears used to. Not quite as good as overear wear, but man, for the trade-offs these are a serious quality of life improvement.

Aeropress Go

I was likewise sceptical of the Aeropress Go when it came out (initial reviews were not favourable IIRC), but I have to say I feel those were unfair, and perhaps driven more by coffee purists/influencers than “regular” (ha!) people who just want a decent cuppa on the go.

The Go is the travel edition of the aeropress and while it’s got a few issues, it really allows you to take the very nice experience of making a morning aeropress in a compact form with you. If you’re a “digital nomad” and llike your coffee, you’ll love it.

The secret of the aeropress is it makes a good cup of coffee, every time with some decent beans. And there is something very nice about having a proper cup of coffee in the morning at your hotel when travelling (why most hotel coffee is awful, since it should be such an easy thing to fix, is utterly beyond me.).

The actual device is well thought out though the silly 10 filter paper carrying case is a rort (Needs to fit more papers - though thankfully uses the same size papers) and I would have preferred a non-plastic cup and a proper top seal (screw-on maybe) rather than a loose-ish rubber cap covering.

That said, it’s been surprisingly good and a compact way to make coffee from Canada to Hawaii to South Africa to Japan so far. I’d love to see them upgrade this to a more compact version for longer-term travellers like yours truly as mentioned above. Quite happy with it though. And it’s probably safer for the world I get my morning java.

Gateway eero Pro 6e)

A shockingly good router, firewall, and access point combo for your home setups.

Besides the dead easiest setup I have ever used for setting up my home network after getting my place wired, I’ve just been super happy with this combined router and firewall combo. Provided as part of my 10Gb/s internet monthly with QWest in Singapore.

Dead simple app to handle even advanced features like IP reservations and (!) port forwarding as well as provisioning a guest network for friends and dear enemies.

Seriously great piece of hardware and a really good companion app (that also tells you wen new devices connect to the network, “threats” defended against, and when the software on the router was updated - all of which is handy) and I will absolutely try to get one of these again when I’m wiring up when settling into my next new place.

Secret Labs Magnus Pro and Titan Evo

This pair stocked my home office when I moved back to Singapore.

The chair is excellent and ergonomic for any remote or office worker. Designed for hard core gamers actually, it’s one of the few chairs I’ve had that didn’t leave me crippled after long, grueling coding sessions or a full day of Zoom meetings. Heartily recommend it.

The desk is just really thoughtfully designed, if a bit pricey. About half the depth of a normal desk but with (overly fancy) nice electronics for controlling the height of the desk (personally, I adjusted mine to the height I liked and then turned it off, tough might be very useful for the walking desk crowd. I really liked the nice, textured and magnetically attached desktop surface which made the experience of the desk really nice.

It’s just a really well designed desk, particularly well-designed for small office spaces in Asia.

It did not make sense for me to ship it when leaving Singapore for parts unknown, but definitely looking at the same sort of setup when I settle into my next home. Excellently designed and built, I recommend it highly.

Arcteryx Fleece and Alpha Jacket

Yeah, pricey as heck but in terms of usability and foul weather protection, just being able to use them in absolutely every weather condition imaginable, these were my two most useful pieces of outerwear.

I particularly miss the Vinton fleece which Arcteryx doesn’t make anymore, but as a lightweight combo of layers to field any climate combo, have to admit these have been unbeatable. Both are now overdue for replacement (and the fleece ended up getting lost on some trip), so will be looking at grabbing new versions of these shortly despite the price tags and fact they were tailored for willowy people rather than ones with masculine chests and shoulders.

Macbook Air M1

I sadly surrendered this machine last year after a solid 5 years of ridiculously reliable service for Apple’s then-new M4 Macbook Air.

A 5 very full years of abuse has the battery showing signs of needing serious replacement and I’d trauma-dented one corner from an unfortunate incident with a Hong Kong patio, but the 16GB and 1TB fit out on this machine made me still feel like I was running the world from wherever I was slinging it out globally. Could I have stretched it another year or so? Sure, maybe. But my dear Apple Genius friend got into my head about it failing at some critical juncture while on the road, and it and some persistent reboot issues on the older iPhone I had gave me pause enough to purchase a new Macbook Air M4. I still like the M1 more though.

I still think this is the best laptop Apple has ever made, and despite the evolutionary improvements in their line this thing is still strong, and there is that part of me that wishes I’d replaced the battery and thrown Asahi Linux on it for use as a daily driver (in fact, if you are thinking of a Linux laptop and don’t want to go for the Framework 13 Pro or such, seriously consider a refurbed M1 or M2 as your machine. I know I wished M3s were supported with Asahi cause I think I would have gone that route rather than splashed out on an M4.) (Update: For $200-ish SGD, I replaced the battery on this thing and it’s reborn. Handing it over to a good friend for her nephews and nieces who need a machine, but quite honestly this machine would still be killer running Asahi or something even now.)

Lenovo M10 Portable LCD Panel

One of the big problem with nomading with a 13: laptop as your sole device is really, really needing a bit of extra screen real estate once in a while. I find you don’t need an enormous monitor (though, really a home setup with a 27" or bigger is better), but for certain tasks, being able to see more on a second screen goes a long way. It often doesn’t even need to be big, just… well, a second screen.

While some people use an iPad Pro for this, I feel this is completely crazy and just rationalizing conspicuous consumption. My solution, was a USB-C powered, lightweight, 14" LCD panel.

The Lenovo is lightweight, fits easily in a small backpack and while hardly a huge winner in resolution crispness space, gives a decent extra screen for “look at one screen - type on the other” type tasks. Has been super handy carrying around and vastly better just plugging in via USB than when I tried to use my iPad Air as a second monitor.

I think there’s a bunch of small improvements that could be had here, but overall, it’s a decent, cheap solution to a persistent problem, so would be happy to get the next gen when it comes out.

(nb: Definitely only for business or coding tasks. You don’t want to be playing games on this thing with its refresh rate.).

Minaal Carry-On 2.0 backpack

It took me a while to realize this, but I have literally had this backpack 9 years now. This thing has been an incredible travel companion from Santa to penguins and Hollywood to Bollywood. It’s shown virtually no signs of wear after 8 years and only started showing a little wear after someone ran a heavy immovable object into its top on a recent trip. This is precisely what I mean about paying a little extra for stuff that lasts.

So frankly, this bag is amazing and I endorse it in whatever bona fides I have at this point as a globe trotting world traveller on the road (arguably) for a quarter century.

I fully plan to buy a new one as soon as this thing wears out (as it derserves to).

Fantastic bag. Great company. Take my money, please. I’ve used this to digital nomad now for years and it’s been basically faultless (I’d ask for a Bag of Holding feature though that may be a but much… =] ).

Would Not/Could Not

Sadly, both of the “don’t buy anymore” things on the list are about companies evolving their service or product offerings to make things less useful, less robust, and more expensive to their customers. This weird customer hostile positioning of companies is only possible with monopoly concentrations of power and not enough competition, so well… start some competitors, people.

Kindle Paperwhite

Amazon has just been doing inreasingly customer hostile things. Ridiculously high book prices (despite the cost of book production falling), lock ins to the device, this idea that somehow you are “renting” a title from them rather than owning it, and now the inability to back up your library, and increasingly fewer ways to get non-Amazon purchased titles into your Kindle.

The device itself is a nice reading experience, but I can just no longer support their customer hostile positioning any longer nor their philosophy I’m a cow to be milked rather than a customer to be won. Much like many people, will be either jailbreaking this puppy but most likely looking for another ereader.

Fitbit Inspire 3

In general, Google’s purchase of fitbit has lead to more me-too catchups with Apple and other fitness trackers (Google’s latest version seems very Whoop-like), and I have to admit to being disappointed to a company looking to gouge everyone for upgraded services they can sell us around premium monitoring, rather than all-in the purchase price.

I’ve run numbers on what it takes to run services for my own products with “all in” pricing. The economics are solid so I see many of these services plays as things which should be included but companies have decided to charge for because investors like the monthly SaaS model juice to keep those valuations and profit margins high.

iPad Air M2

OK, I’ve tried. I really have, but I still do not get the point of an iPad.

I guess if you are just consuming content it is a fine device, but as something for making or being productive, I’ve just never been able to get past the restrictions of iOS.

Maybe it’s because I have a tendency to use my own tools rather than packaged apps, and fewer SaaS products (as well as avoiding “content creation”), but my attempt to get an iPad as a way to consume more astrophysics textbook and for taking lecture notes ended up being a fail compared to just typing latex at high speed for formulas.

Sure, I can see the point if you are a digital artist and it is your canvas (ProCreate seems like the bomb and I’ve seen some amazing things from artist friends), but this is the third iPad I’ve had and still struggling to get any real use out of it (I bought it, I told myself, as an experiment in academics.). In any case, I will likely give this refurb at some point, but upset at the fact it just didn’t help me get things done

Sonos Playbar

Sadly, while I loved this product and it ended up being an amazing companion to the poor sound on the previous TV I had, simply buying a decent, modern TV these days ended up having shokcingly good sound ended up doing the trick for me (an LG QNED65 btw).

So, sadly once I returned to Singapore, this ended up just staying in the closet still wrapped in bubble tape.

Fin

I wish all my stuffs were things I’d enthusiastically buy again. One thing I notice though, is that the things I tend to be loyal to the longest and brand-wise are generally those things that are well-made (even if pricier) and that stick to their guns. For example, it took quite a bit of work by Amazon to ruin the Kindle for me (I’ve had multiple versions) and for Google to make me give up on FitBit. Which always makes me wonder about the drive behind companies to ruin perfectly good products and brand loyalty for short termism.

What should be clear looking above, besides things I heartily endorse you get for yourself if you’re in the market, is that I am in need of some recommendations for some new, new stuff: eReader, a linux laptop (perhaps a 2in1 convertible), fitness tracker, and probably some new recommendations for a number of things that no longer are made by the companies that created them. So, would love pointers from people if you’ve got strong opinions on things I should try that you love on those fronts. .

I hope my “Would Buy Again” revisited list has some recommendations that excited you or helped cement a purchasing decision. I’m always curious to hear how it’s gone for people or hear more about what may have worked for you or other things that have made a huge difference for you. Feel free to mention me as @awws on mastodon or email me at via email hola@wakatara.com.