TechStuff Classic: Expensive Consumer Tech

And this was back in where I was just kind of looking around some of the most expensive examples of consumer technology to talk about what they were and whether they made any ding dang darn sense. Let's listen in. This is an episode in which I have specifically requested my co host do absolutely no research on the topic whatsoever. I got no idea what's going on? Yeah, you only

know what the topic is. That topic is expensive sumer technology because you know, we're ramping up to the holiday season and obviously you know you have to start looking at the people in your life and what sort of gifts you need to give them exactly. And I thought, well, what if what if one you and I were making the crazy kind of money that Beauty Pie is making

on YouTube? Because because as we record this, the day we record this is also the day that Forbes released what the top YouTube performers are earning, or what they guess they are earning. It's it made me question all of my decisions in life up to this point. But we are not making that money. But if we were making that money, and if there were spectacularly awesome people in our lives, maybe these are the sort of things we might look at in order to say you mean

something to me, Mr, Mrs Miss whatever. So. But I didn't want Ben to to know about any of these because I want to get his actual reaction. Plus, I'm gonna quiz him a couple of times, not really quiz, I'm just gonna get an idea, see if he can guess what some of these things are based upon the names. Now, some of them are evident by the name, so not all of them will be a guesswork. But I may have you guess occasionally what it might be, and then maybe I'll even ask you ballpark figure how much you

think it might might be. Let's let's do it. I love it, uh listeners. Just so you guys know, one of the reasons that I'm the best slash worst sidekick for Jonathan and this type of episode, it's because I am a notorious chief skate. I am personally offended. Car stuff listeners probably know this, but I am. I am

personally offended if I think something is too expensive. Now, also, in the interest of full disclosure, I was not aware of that when I asked them to do this, but it does make me very happy because it means that, even if everything else goes wrong, your reactions are going to save this episode. So I'm already upset. Here we go here. I decided to go with U with a real doozy first, and it's one you may have actually talked about on a different show, so that gives you

a hint already. Can you guess what the element? Palazzo Superior is element found so superior. I'm thinking it's a car very close it is an RV. Oh, well, come also know Well, it was just a guess, like one of those things like it might have been something that you and Scott have covered for car stuff. I should ask Scott if he's heard of it when, because I'm actually peek behind the curtain. After I do this episode

with you, right, I'm recording another episode after this. Scott's going to be my guest, so we're starting this episode late because Scott and I were in the studio earlier. Yeah, so it's just it's just a Jonathan, Scott and Ben like schmorg is bored there and as you're here, So that would make I guess it's the million something Ami goes now, right, So the element Palazzo Superior is an RV. It is known as the most luxurious mobile home in the world. It is also sometimes referred to as a

mansion on wheels. Now, I'm not going to make you guess how much this is, because it would you would just be unfair. This monstrosity. Well, let me let me explain what what it is first before I give you the what what the cost is. So the they the driver's compartment, known as the cockpit actually referred to as the cockpit, was inspired by the design of jets as

a panoramic windshield. It has an adjustable tent on that win she'll T I N T like, you can go to two different stages of darkness on it with a flip of a switch. The whole thing is made out of carbon fiber, so that means it's incredibly strong and incredibly light. And by incredibly light, I mean it's a mere twenty eight tons. Uh. It has seven hundred thirty two square feet of living space, which is sixty eight

square meters. Is it Is it okay? Is it street legal? Yes? Also, it's one of those things that it expands outward, so like you know, when you stop wherever you're you're going to stop, then you hit in. So in fact, when you put into camper mode, it nearly doubles its width. The normal width is eight point four feet or two point five five. When you expand it, it it goes to sixteen point four feet, so almost twice as much, and that's five ms of width as a rooftop deck. It

has radiant floor heating. It's got refrigerators, a wine cabinet, a coffee machine, a sink, a freezer, an ice maker, stovetop, a master bedroom with king sized bed, addressing, table, closets, and more. It has a sixteen square foot or one and a half square meter rain shower with light therapy features built into the shower stall light therapy, light therapy so you can give that nice blue missgoing. It has

two forty two inch televisions. It has onboard WiFi, satellite TV, a custom audio system, ambient light control and more, and you Ben Bolan can be the proud owner of an Element Plazzo Superior for the low low price of three point one million dollars for an RV an RVY. Okay, so is the WiFi service including do you get an I s P for the three point one million three point one million? All right, think about some of the homes in Atlanta there in the one to two million

dollars range. We're talking some pretty big houses along some very uh choice real estate, like along ponstantly An Avenue, for example, or along you know, along the Chattahoochie. You're gonna find some mansions there that are going to start creeping in around this three point one million, maybe even some that top out over three point one million. But that's a full mansion, right, This is a seven two square foot r V I. You know, I gotta tell

you I I live in a pretty small place. So well, I also don't pay three million, four But it also doesn't roll right, That's true. I mean with this, you could you your home could be wherever you park. Now.

It's interesting because I recently had a pretty frank discussion with a car stuff listener when I was talking about how as a kid, was always my dream to have an r V. Right, I thought I had this view that I would just live in this thing, drive everywhere and be cool and and food would magically appear in

the car and the gas would never be empty. But what I've learned from people were in the RV cultures is a lot more of just driving to a destination and camping, because people who like to drive don't really like to drive RV. No, there are monstrosities on the road. I imagine it has to be incredibly stressful because I mean, you have to I assume you have to have a

bus driver's license to even operate one. And then on top of that, you know, just just think about what it's like navigating through traffic with a regular sized vehicle. It's got to be a nightmare with something that large. Three millions. So, so, Jonathan, would you ever if Okay, so let's see you're on tour. Okay, all right, let's let's say that let's say I am somehow filthy rich would you be? Would you take one of these behaviorths as? Would you just go with a charter bus? I'd go

with the charter bus. Dude. First of all, you know me. I'm not a driver at all, so so the idea that's the appeal of this is lost on me. Um. But I would prefer to travel someplace and stay at a hotel than to go camp. I'm not a camper either. To have a driver, I would have a drive at this point, if you can afford this thing, if I'd reached that level of ridiculous uh luxury, I would have a driver. Yeah, I would, or or I would have a driverless car. One of the two would be one

of those things. And I just I want to be completely honest with you. I appreciate it, but don't don't get me this all right, I will mark it off the list. Well here, how about how about I hit you with this one. Alright, let' see if you can guess what this is based upon the name. Now, this is a little different from some of the others. A lot of the other ones I'm talking about are relatively new, but this is actually an old thing that has been sold more than once. So that I'll give you a

little hint. It's not going to be like a computer or anything like that. The protech Philippe Henry Graves super Complication. Ah, Yes, one of the most legendary, legendarily sophisticated watches. Very good, Ben Bolan. Yes, as absolutely act it was. It's a pocket watch and it was designed by the Swiss company Protect Filly in nineteen thirty three four Henry Grays Jr.

Who was a banker at the time. And Henry Grays Jr. Was in a bit of a competition with another gentleman whom you've also I'm sure talked about on car stuff, Uh, James Ward Packard. Oh yeah, is it? Wait? Is it? This is a competition to have the most complicated watch. Yes. They were constantly trying to one up one another with their various luxury a coup trement, and watches were one

of the ways they were kind of showing off. And so Henry Grays commissioned protect Fillip, the Swiss watchmaker company, to build the world's most complicated watch at that time. It took three years to design and five years to make it. Now keep in mind this is before computer assisted design. This is all human design, right woe. It's made of eighteen carrot gold, and it's considered to be the most complex pocket watch that was made without computer

assistance ever, and it has twenty four different functions. Uh. And here are some of the functions that are included. It keeps time number one. UH. It gives you the time of sunset and sunrise each day. It's mechanical. This is all mechanical. Yeah, this is pre digital nine. It has a perpetual calendar on it, so it has the mechanics in it to keep accurate what day it is. UH. Has days of the month, days of the week, and has a stars chart. It has phases of the moon

charted on it. It has a stop watch. It has a thirty minute recorder meaning it will go off after thirty minutes, and a twelve hour recorder as well. It has chimes and the original price tag. But it was sold Okay, this is just the original price tag for Henry Graves was fifteen thousand dollars. Now we have to adjust that for inflation. So in today's might that be about two hundred two thousand dollars That, my friend, would be a bargain based upon what people have actually paid

for this thing since then in auctions. Yes, so Southby's got it in auction and they sold it twice. In fact, the first time they sold it was in July when Chic Saud being Mohammed being Ali al Tani of the Qatari royal family purchased it for a cool eleven million dollars. First off, pronunciation thank you. Secondly, I am profoundly offended. Well, watch. He did have to return it because he had he incurred so much debt that he was he was forced

to return it to Southby's. Yeah, so then Southby's sold it again in two thousand and fourteen for twenty four million dollars. South of Bees are they are they going to work with us? It's just like this, yeah, yeah. So now it is a one of a kind. It is the world's most complicated watch, pocket watch that was made by human alone. Um, so there are some elements to it that you realize, all right, well this is not just because you know, this isn't just a brand

or just one of many of this thing. This is a one of a kind thing. But a lot of people have said clearly the value of this now is

in the perception of that thing, of the owning. This makes me special, makes me part of this story, right that the fact that I have the money to spend on something like this, it's like a status thing certainly far beyond it's intrinsic value, which is hard to first of all, whenever we talk about value, it gets all kind of whibbly wobbly anyway, right, because it's just whatever we put in stake, like what we think of, like what would I be willing to pay for this thing? Um?

And then the more down that rabbit hole you get, the more you realize everything is a lie. So escalated quickly. So here's a here's another one. Let's see if you can guess what this is. Because you've done really well. You you've got the super complication, which blew my mind that you knew that. So how about the Ver two pure jet red gold, pure jet red gold. Now jet red gold would tell you some of the features of this thing. So what is it? Is it a mobile? Pe?

Oh my gosh, Ben Bulling two for two so far, Yes, the Ver two pure jet red Gold is a smartphone. Can you guess how all right, it's nine the million dollars range. I'm going to knock that out, But can you guess how much money this this phone? Michael? Now, this is not a one of the kind phone either. This is a phone that if you had the money you could buy it, and then if someone else had the money, they could buy it too. Well. I remember remember hearing about this one and again again Scouts owner.

I did not do any research. And to be fair, they make a line of luxury phones, so you may have heard about one of them. This was the most expensive one I could find, right now. Yeah, that's what I was going to say, because all I all I know is um that they look kind of ugly. Yeah, I'm just I'm not gonna I want to be honest. I'm with you on that one. But there I'm gonna. Oh, I'm so bad at this. You know, watching prices right used to It's tough send me into anxiety attacks, it

is it? Two dollars nowhere near that crazy? All right, go down by, go down by an order of magnitude. So yeah, very close. But still I'm you know, just for a second, that's that psychology of comparative pricing. I was like, oh, that's great, let's steel. I'm let's order him for the office. We should all have office very two pure pure jet red gold phones. Okay. Yeah, Now, there have been obviously some ridiculous like one off electronics devices where people have just like swarf ski crystals and

diamonds and stuff. But this is this is one where you can actually like this is a line of phones. Like, if you wanted to go and get an iPhone, you get an iPhone. If you want to drop nineteen thousand dollars in the air, two pure jet red gold, you could. So I know you're all crying out. What makes this phone so special? Right? Ok? It's an Android phone, so obviously it's already worth way more than an iPhone, although it is running Lollipop and not marshmallow at least right now.

It is made of titanium, and it has red gold detailing is an actual red gold on it. The power buttons red gold, the volume controls are red gold. Yeah, like the buttons themselves are made of gold. Um. It also has black ceramic as part one of the materials, and sapphire crystal screen and quilted jet calf leather on the back and sides of the phone. So when you say pure jet red gold, the red gold obviously for

the the accents, and then the jet being the calf leather. Uh. That leather, by the way, is hand crafted and quote sourced from the European Alps. End quote from the European Alps. Yeah, that's why it's so expensive. You gotta send people all the way to the European Alps to get the leathern Okay, wait, do you think that's worth it? Well, I mean, clearly, the cows and the European Alps are living a much

better life than cows anywhere else. Right, so if you're gonna get leather, you definitely want to get them from you know, I don't think it's worth it if you If I'd probably totally freak out and try and say, like, everyone needs to get like every mattress that's in a five mile at radius and place it around me so that if I do drop this, it's not gonna shatter and I'm not gonna be out twenty k uh. So here's some other stuff it includes. Each handset is actually handmade.

So while you could buy one and I could buy one, assuming we came across, uh, they might not be identical because they are handmade. And this way it's very similar to luxury items like a Bentley, Right. You know, that's one of the attractions of these luxury cars is that they're made by hand, so they're not identical one to the next. Um, the ring tones? All right, this is gonna make you roll your eyes. The ring tones were

composed and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but seriously, is the Is the lso that hard up? Yeah? I guess so. I mean, like between doing stuff for John Williams and ring tones for the Bear two Pure Jet red Gold whatever they How do you get how do you con pose a ring tone? How do you don't know? How long is it? It's probably just the same ring tones that you hear on every other phone, just done by a full orchestra. Wow, do do do Do? Do Do? Do? Do Do Do? Do?

You've seen thirty Rock of course, right, yes, it seems like a Tracy Jordan's Yeah, I got the London Sympody Orchestra to play my ring tone, Liz Lemon, that's real. Yeah. So beyond that, it also comes with an eighteen month subscription to a concierge service, which provides twenty four hour assistance and gets you things like recommendations for things you should do while you're in a city, as well as priority booking for different events, including sporting events, concerts, shows.

This I had heard about, because apparently it's far beyond what you would typically think of as your hotel concierge or something, as in, they'll also get you into they'll shut down some luxury or oh yeah, yeah no, Yeah, you can get completely like personalized exclusivity to two different events as well. And also it puts you into a list essentially of folks who get invited to exclusive events.

So you might end up, like if you're if you're the kind of person who drops the sort of chatter on a on a phone, you might end up finding yourself on the invite list to some pretty fancy suares. So then if you're networking, okay, here I'm gonna I might not do this for everyone. I probably won't. It's maybe the only time I do this to justify the price.

If you have a career that requires networking right with the in the rarefied air of the upper spheres of let's say you want to you know, you want to to charm some high level executives or producers of film or television or anything along those lines. Shore, Yeah, then then this would be a fairly reasonable investment if it gets you in the room. Yeah, it's an ugly phone, but it'll it'll get you, it'll get you in there.

Um yeah, it's also it's also the text specs of the phone put it behind other more common smartphones on the market. Uh, that's not. It's not like top of

the line performance. It's not. It's not. It's not flagging way behind, but it's nowhere close to Like if you went out and bought a brand new smartphone in the regular like four to six hundred dollar range Samsung Galaxy six, Yeah, something like that then, or the latest Nexus phone anything like that, because we're talking Android, you know it, that would actually outperform this phone. However, it doesn't come with

that concierge service. So um. And also, you gotta keep in mind that that phone is totes common, whereas the fair two phone is a thing of luxury. We'll be back with more expensive consumer tech. But if I'm going to afford my expensive consumer tech, We're gonna need to take a quick commercial break. So good, so far. Let's try this one. No, this one's got a hint in

the name. I love how your your eyes go up every time we get to a new one, Like it's like this is just gonna there's gonna be a point where this show just makes a turn for the worst turning back. Yeah. No, this was pretty easy because just think of the first word, acapella fair on Excalibur. Acapella yep, acapella fair on Excalibur. What what kind of tech would that be? A microphone speaker? Speaker, It's a speaker, actually,

set of speakers. Uh, they're made by hand. Okay. They are seven ft tall and wait one thousand, three hundred sixty four pounds apiece, and they cost four hundred fifty five thousand dollars, theas the ones that look like seashells

if you were to strip away the outsides. Yes, really, yeah, okay yeah, why did they cost some because they supposedly have such amazing fidelity that it feels and this is from the manufacturer as if you're being caressed by the sound or or that's what I thought, or if you turn it up that it could knock you over with the intensity of the sound. Um. Yeah, here's the thing. Here's the thing, and and this goes way back in

tech stuff lore. Chris Pallette and I did an episode ages and ages ago about the myths of audio fidelity, and largely we were talking about cables in that sense us exactly, Yeah, the do those high price cables? Are they actually worth it? Do they have of greater performance? And the answer is not really detectable by human ears. Like you might be able to hook up some very supersensitive sensors and quantifiably say yes, I'm getting better performance,

but it's not perceptible. The same sort of thing with these speakers really are not these speakers in particular, but speakers in general, is that once you get to a certain level of performance, it really is impossible for a person to tell. Like if you were to a double blinded test where you put a person in a room, the person ministering the test doesn't know which says speakers are in that room. The person taking the test has

no idea which says speakers are in that room. And if you were to repeat that over and over, you would likely see that people would not be able to tell the difference beyond a certain level. Now that's not

to say that there are there aren't bad speakers. There are and there are good speakers, but but the plateaus at a point, like at least as far as human experience goes, there's a diminishing return exactly, so okay in that case then, and not to I'm just being honest here again, and sometimes that will make me sound like a rude person. But are you telling me people are paying almost five hundred thousand dollars for something they literally

are incapable of appreciating. It's quite possible and not unheard of. I mean, you know, especially when it comes to speakers and sound systems. I would I see. I think some people pride themselves on the concept of being an audio file, that they appreciate sound, and somehow they appreciate it more than most people do, perhaps even the vast majority of people. Um, and as part of that, they want to cater to that that self image, you know, this idea of sound.

I love the effective sound and I totally get this. I mean, I love music right, and I definitely understand people who said, uh, they preferred older means of of listening to music to m P three's because for a long time, first of all, MP three is a lossy format, mean you're you're losing some information whenever you make that

type of file. But those those conversions have gotten better and better, plus their other lossless formats out there, where digital is no longer I think a meaningful distinction from analog. So saying so, I would go that far as to say if you if you do things correctly, you should not be able to tell the difference. And there's also

a psychological aspect though two people. It's it's like, uh, some people will make to your coffee a certain way, and just because that there's something comforting about that, they feel that it is the superior method. I would argue very much that that things like listening to vinyl records has a bit of the ritual involved, right, and that ritualistic experience provides that sense of comfort and familiarity. So if and I do that, I mean, I've got a

collection of vinyl at home. I'm I'm talking about this like as someone who I appreciate that experience, and that's part of it, right, It's not just the sound, it's not even not even necessarily related to whatever the record is. It's the experience of putting that all together. And I think there is a value to that. And obviously digital doesn't really I mean, there's not really a comparison where you push play on a touch screen and the music place.

It's not the same thing as taking taking the sleeve out of a cover, and then the finalist of the sleeve and then placing that on the platter and moving the needle over. And if you guys don't know what I'm talking about, you need to look at a turntable. Although those have come back. I mean, everyone knows one of those technologies. I used to joke about. Ask your parents, but now a lot of people know about it. Thousand dollars. All right, well let's let's let's up the anti four

and dollars. That's that's chicken feed. Yeah. So so the next one is going to be a television telling you straight out the name of the television is the Stewart Hughes Prestige HD Supreme Rose. Addition, what is that? Like a bad Google translations. Stewart Hughes would be the company. The Prestige HD Supreme Rose Edition is the name of the television. So it costs two point to five million dollars. It's a TV that cost two point five million dollars.

Might as well just get the element that point that has two TVs in it. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Okay, so what do we get sell me on this? All right? It's a television. So it's not even not even it's not even ridiculously huge, right like you were expecting it. Oh, it's going to be like a hundred and seventy three TV and it's fifty in television. Um, it's got twenty eight ms of eighteen carrot gold in the frame and that's that's primarily Yeah, that eight kilograms. It's more than

fifty pounds of gold. What is this obsession with putting gold on things that don't need gold? I guess it just means that your TV, even as it becomes obsolete, is still insanely valuable. The frame is studded with seventy two one carrot diamonds. Uh. They're also a sunstone and amethysts in that frame between the outer frame and the screen. So imagine you've got like a frame, like a picture frame.

The screen is in set. So this would be almost like the mat of a of a if you were looking at a you know, a framed picture, you know that has the mat surrounding it. Well, the mat would be made out of alligator skin that is hands sown to the frame. Uh yeah, hands. So it just seems like such a left field the idea they're creating the TV it's Stuart Hughes and they say something, can you kill an alligator? Could that? Can we do that? Can we kill an alligator? UM? I my own personal opinion,

I think it's hideous. I think it's hideous. I almost I wish now I what I really wish I had done, and it's a regret that I'm going to have to live with. I wish I had printed out pictures of each of these things so I could hand them to you after I explain what it is to get your reaction on those. But I mean, this is an audio podcast, so there would only be limited value in that anyway, right for the for for you guys listening, but also that would probably increase the likelihood of me cursy. We're

gonna have a lot of bleeps in this episod. But the Stewart Hughes Prestige HD, which is Prestige HD, is altogether supreme Rose Edition. You go check that out, listeners and take a look, and you tell me if you think it looks beautiful. I said that it looks like the Hearst Castle of television. And if you've ever been to Hearst Castle, you know what I'm talking about William Randolph Hurst had way more money than he had taste. He just if he saw something that he liked, he

bought it and he put it in a room. Whether it went with everything else or not. He would go for baroque. Okay, that's a terrible UM. One of the TVs I was going to mention, but I decided ultimately not to because if you do a search for most of television is one of the ones that pops up pretty consistently is a Panasonic television that's a hundred and fifty two inches. But I didn't necessary. I didn't want to include it in this because I'm specifically talking about

consumer technology. The Panasonic one fifty two inch plasma display is really intended for businesses. So for like a big company that wants to have a huge screen on a big wall, that kind of thing. Yeah, or or even just as a prestige thing for the company whatever, you know, but it was or maybe it's a media company and they want to be able to show off the stuff they do. Um, but it's a five hundred thousand dollar display that's a hundred fifty two inches. It's a plasma display.

So I don't really think of that as a consumer product, which is why I didn't have it as an official one and it no, but here's here's an actual TV that you can buy as a consumer. Um. It is one of the most expensive consumer televisions out there that is not bedecked with jewels and is the Samsung you in one zero five S nine B. That's the way TVs are these days. The original m s r P for this was two hundred sixty thousand dollars, more than a quarter of a million dollars for this television when

it when it first came out. Right now, though, if you go to Samsung's page, act quickly because it now lists the suggested retail at one dty nine thousand, nine nine cents. But you can scoop it up for a mirror one nineteen thousand dollars nine and so so just under one. Oh, we're back in the game, saving thirty thousand right there. And by saving that thirty thousand, you can go and then buy that Virtue red Gold phone.

And I like, we can go. We'll have to take our TV with us to the exclusive party, yes, exactly. Just look, you know I'm rich because I also have this monstrosity. It's a hundred and five inch television, so this one is significantly larger. It's four K Ultra HD. It's a smart TV with built in WiFi. And this is the one that is a bendable screen where you you push a button and the and the screen bends inward. It curves inward. Yeah, it's pretty nifty. That explains to

me some of the appeal. And then I have a question to I was wondering about this, and I'm glad you went to t VS. This is something that our listeners are probably wondering as well. Is there also a diminishing return with um, you know, four K with the quality of video. That's an excellent question, I would argue yes. However, it's dependent on a couple of different things. The size of the screen, because the larger you go, the higher the resolution you need in order to not have that

quality degrade. So if I have a if I have at TV and it's at seven twenty, that might look great to me, and I might think, all right, well, I'm gonna go to a much larger TV. Let's go, I'm going up to sixty inch television. But now I want to have uh, two K or four K screen, probably four KSE screen because two K really didn't go anywhere, but a four K screen you would be able to

tell the difference because it's sharper, and it's bigger. And if you're especially if you don't change how far away you're sitting from the screen, like if you're seeing just as far away from your sixty inch as you were your forty inch, then uh, you know, the bigger it gets, the more likely you're going to detect any sort of

problems with quality. Uh. But that being said, if you are looking at like or at least for me, I have found at c E s where you would presumably tune these televisions to be high performing, you know, so that you really attract people. I have looked at h D t vs next to two K, four K, eight K sets and at an equal distance and using equal sizes. It's I can't tell any Like I can't really distinguish

between them. Like if you had covered up the labels and didn't tell me which one was which, I probably wouldn't be able to identify them. If I got really close, I could because the closer you get, the more you can see what you can tell the how how good the resolution is. But again so it depends on screen size,

how close you're sitting, and also just calibrating your TV. Uh, if you, if you have someone professionally calibrate your television so that it's going to give you the best experience in whatever environment you are in it, that makes a huge difference. I have not done that, but I did

not mostly because my room I'm in. The light changes so dramatically because, uh, the where my cable hook up is is near a big window, like a floor to ceiling window, and even with window treatment on that some you know, a lot of sunlight will come through in the daytime and at night it's totally different. So it would be hard to calibrate it in a way that would be satisfying for both experiences. So I just kind

of mediocreate. No, I hopefully this uh, this amazing piece of television technology will calibrate itself or have someone that I almost said someone that comes with it. Like you open up a box and some some poor person is just like you know, hunched over inside the box, like all right, I'm ready to calibrate your te exactly, and then you give Darby a sock and it goes off

on his way. Um. Also, it can upscale images, so in other words, you can look at something like HD content and turn it into ultra HD content and it just does it by kind of interpreting what the missing pixels would be. So it's not perfect, right, Upscaling has never been perfect, but it can be very good. It seems interesting, Yeah, but I don't know if it I frankly, you know what, I'm not swayed think of it by it because it sounds like only the edges of the

screen bend. It beens in towards you. Yeah, it's not like you can wrap it around a column or something and have like a circular television or something, in which case that would be a steel Yeah. Yeah, that's that's not it. All right, Well, here's your next one. The like a M nine P edition Hermes Serie Limited Jean Louis Dumas or dum if you prefer, what kind of

device do you think that might be? Will you say, we see the name like an M nine P edition Hermes Serie Limited Jean Louis duma Like a yeah Hermes, like I spelled that by the way, I may be mispronouncing that it's l E. I c A. I think you may have stopped me. This one's a tough one. Just Hermes made me what I guess if it was a bag, but it's it's not, which makes me think

of the Saturday Night Life sketches exactly exactly. I'm brecky. Okay, I'm just gonna take a Probably it's probably her is actually so I'm so ghosh, I'll take a I'll take a shot. Ghost is such a weird word because people who know the word ghost are inherently not gosh. I like, I like where you're going. Okay, okay, so sorry, that's just some business for me to try to cold read you. Um, and I'm not giving anything like I know it's not working very well. I'm gonna say a few things and

see if you blink. Uh. Now, you just gonna have to give a guess, all right. Um? Is it a laptop? No, it is a point and shoot camera. I should have known, like I should have known. Yeah, it's a point of shoot camera. It's digital camera, so it's not not a film camera. Uh. And it costs fifty thousand dollars. It's a fifty dollar point and shoot digital camera. It has calf skin leather that has been handsome um comes with multiple lenses that are cased in analyzed silver. It's very

very I mean it looks beautiful. You look at you look at and you're just like, well, that is a work of art. But still fifty thou dollars for a point and shoot can I'm just glad it doesn't have a bunch of gold on it. No, it does not have a bunch of gold on it. So, however, if you want to talk about a bunch of gold, how about the Nintendo WE Supreme which is covered in twenty two carried gold? Why two thousand, five hundred grams of twenty two carried gold? Why the front buttons are made

out of diamond? Oh okay, oh that's different. That's crazy. It works, right, it does work. There are only three of them in existence, and it costs two pounds sterling, which if you if you were to convert to the U S dollars about four dred sixty five thousand dollars for an into NOI also done by Stuart Hughes, the same company that did the Ridiculous Tea, So they switched

the alligators. Get this is just for TVs. Yeah, no, there's no alligator skin, which is weird because you know, you could have done like Yoshi's Revenge or something and packaged it an alligator skin. Yeah, you should be under I'm just seeing them now going this, we need something else? Can we kill an alligator? You know, we just meltdown some more gold. Someone go to the alps. Yeah, they're they're actually um there. They've also done the same sort

of thing with other consoles. But apparently, according to their website, this is the most expensive video game console in the world, the Nintendo we Subreme. You know what this This might date you and I, but do you remember, um, the Neo Geo, Yes, where the actual game cartridges were like several hundred dollars. Yeah, I was so. I was so envious that, and my parents let me try to pitch them on getting one, and I tried my best to justify how this would be an investment for our family.

If you don't know, the Neo Geo console so like the original consoles cost you know, a hundred bucks or more depending on what you were looking at, but Neo g O was way more expensive and the the individual games were way more expensively. The individual games cost more than other video game consoles. Yeah, no, kidden, and they had. But it was that it was almost the same thing we're seeing now in microcosm, because it was the exclusivity

of it over the actual the actual merit. Which makes me want to ask, is that with the with the WE, it's just the we, right, There's no nothing in the specs that's different. It can't. It doesn't like upscale it to HD, it's regular. I wonder it probably wouldn't be possible in this age, but what if there was some exclusive video game content that only came like the most the most rarefied Elite DLC, the Sextual. It makes me think I almost included it for this um this podcast,

but I forgot. Actually, but when the iPhone first came out, in the app store first opened up, do you remember that there was an app where you could buy a jewel for like or something like. Yeah, it didn't do anything. It was just to show that you could blow a thousand bucks on on an app. Oh man, I was you know, I was wondering if that was going to come up in this podcast. I really I thought about doing it. I just forgot to add it to the list.

Most these are the things I looked at were really consumer electronics as opposed to an app that gets added onto an existing product. Yeah, I see, well, well this is okay, so far, so far, right now, um, right now, I'm torn. I'm trying to think of what which of these things I would pick if I could only pick one to have, And I'd love to hear what you think about it too. At the end. Okay, yeah, it

sounds great. Yeah, at the end, we'll we'll discuss which of these ridiculous or extravagant or luxurious items we would want for ourselves. That sounds good, all right. So the next one, this one you mentioned laptop, you guess laptop on the last one, this one is a PC, but a desktop PC, the Zeus Jupiter. It's a PC that costs It's a PC. Yeah, it's not even it's not even a really strong one, especially compared to today's standard.

I suppose it's handmade. Uh close. It's plated with platinum, but it's a pecatum and studded with diamonds and light can come through and the studded diamonds make make constellations on the case. So when you turn the computer on and the light comes through, it looks like there's like a Ryan there, that kind of thing. That's yeah. So it's has an until three giga hurts E six eighty uh fifty core two duo CPU, only two gigabytes of

d d R two memory, a terrabyte hard drive. So obviously if you were to compare this to like a A A even a lower upper tier gaming rig, it that would blow this thing out of the water. Yeah, this was originally announced prior around two thousand nine like that, but as far as I can tell, there has not been another computer announced personal computer mind you announced that

is more expensive. Now, That's why I wanted to say, like, these are expensive toys, they may not be the most expensive, because honestly, trying to track that down and verify it is really tricky. For all of these, I wanted to go to multiple sources to make sure, preferably going to the the primary source, which is where I found out about the fair two phone, because the original one I had on that list was only ten thousand, two hundred dollars, and then I found there was a model that was

more expensive than that. We've got more to say in this classic episode of tech stuff. After these quick message is here's one that that I actually knew about before I did this list, And it's not It's nowhere near It's not in the same ballpark as the other stuff we've talked about. Okay, so not thousands of dollars. But did you hear about the game Steel Battalion? Yes, for the Xbox I may be thinking of a battle me thing. Yes,

that's it. It was. It was a max simulator. You had a and the reason why it was expensive, by the way, it was it was two D dollars, which actually today you look at video games like say Rock Band, not that expensive. But if you were to look at Steal Battalion, it was a two game for the Xbox.

It was the most expensive game for the Xbox. And the reason was it came with this controller that had forty buttons, so it was like it was like a panel that had two joysticks on it, plus a whole bunch of buttons and switches and three pedals that you would control with your feet. And it was a mech simulation game where you were simulating being the pilot of a mech. And uh I never got to play it. I never saw it. I don't know anyone who had it.

I'm so jealous envious of the people who have that. Though. I wanted to play that so bad. When I heard about it, I thought, well, that sounds really cool. And they also reminded me of h I think there was like a virtual reality um video game arcade type experience where you could go and and do mech battles like it was like it was like six on six type MEC battles or whatever, but it was a custom made experience where you went into the you know, you had

to actually go to a place and play it. It wasn't like a home game thing, but this was something that made me think, this is about close to that experiences you could have in your own home. Uh. For comparison, though, the rock Band three complete set, if you wanted to have everything from rock Band three was three sixty dollars, and that's because you had the game, the drums, two guitars,

a microphone, plus the keyboard controller. The current version of rock Band rock Band four that just came out, is less than that. They don't have the keyboard controller anymore. It's still more than two hundred dollars, but it's not three D sixty and still the time when it came out, it was the It's set the precedent for something like that. Uh, I'm gonna stick with video games. Talk about we're gonna go up another notch to a very expensive game, a

Resident Evil six Platinum Edition. This was only available in Japan. Okay, okay, it's more than three D sixty dollars. That's D dollars for a game. Does it please tell me the box is not made of platinum. No, but it comes with a leather jacket replica of the character Leon Kennedy's jacket in the game. Yeah, so it came with a leather jacket, but I won't I won't spend D dollars on a leather jacket either, unless the leather jacket is actually made

out of gold. I mean, I am overjoyed. Yeah, after all we've been through together that it is not coded in precious gems or metals. Man, you're gonna hate the next one. Well. Well, one other thing I have to mention about the Platinum edition is that it also came with four phone cases modeled after Resident Evil characters. So, I mean there's where you make up the value all right, so we're getting to the most expensive video game of all time, although it's only because of the packaging. I

don't know this the grid to Mono. Addition, it's a racing game for the PlayStation three. It cost one thousand pounds sterling, which is just under two hundred thousand dollars. Because it came with a supercar. Oh. The supercar was a custom made b a C Mono back Mono and had a max speed of a hundred seventy miles per hour and it went zero to sixty miles and two

point eight seconds. Okay, that I feel like it's worth it. Now, if you're gonna if you're gonna drop a hundred ninety three thousand bucks on a video game, at least it came with a supercar. It also included a p S three just in case you didn't have one, So that was also added, and you got you got custom made racing gear that you could work. Yeah, this is this is one of my favorites so far. Okay, good. Yeah, that's because it's not just the game, it's it's it's

a great deal. It's a package deal. Now now I'm going to kind of move on into because you know, we talked a lot about consumer tech with like entertainment and stuff. I wanted to finish out with something a little more down to earth. I thought we'd talked about something like kitchen gadgets, kitchen kitchen stuff, kitchen consumer tech. Now we know that appliances and major kitchen purchases can

be pretty expensive. For example, the lack Corn New Grand Palais stove range costs a starting price for one is three dollars for the cooking range, just for the It includes both a gas oven and an electric oven, so this is why it's like two of these. It's like two regular range stoves like next to each other. It has a lava rock grill, electric plates, stovetop, and it's made by hand from cast iron, steel and brass with porcelain enamel. It looks it looks very uh, I mean,

it looks very fancy. I wouldn't want it doesn't appeal to me. It's not my my style. But the one that that that was in the picture was like this, this beautiful color of red with gold embellishment and like the like the handles for the range top or a gold and that kind of thing. And I've it was pretty, but actually I guess it was technically brass not gold, but I thought it was pretty, but I I it wasn't the kind of style that appeals to me. Is it a French company? Yes? Is it? You know? Okay,

this is just a very very brief thing. But a side note. One of my friends when she was living in New York I she was doing well, and you know, it's not that easy when you move into New York as a young person to make enough money to live there. So she tried a couple of different jobs and the jobs she ended up working at for a very long time was a place that only sold bespoke door knobs. That was their entire business. That's that blows my mind.

And then there could be an entire business around that. Yep, yeah, talk about cottage industry. I mean apparently it worked well. So she would just ride the trade in the Manhattan every day. It's sell these door or project manage whatever. So it's just strange because this this company, it sounds like they might just be artists, and yeah, yeah they they They focus on making the sort of luxury high end kitchen appliance of specifically ranges. And though you could

do so much other stuff. Well, how about a refrigerator. I'm I'm okay. There's a different company though, is the Mennghini at Adamanti refrigerator? Actually I guess it's at a Deminty at a Deminty. Okay, I'll buy. What does it do? It keeps food cold. It's a regerator. It actually looks like an armoire. It doesn't look like a refrigerator. It looks like a big piece of furniture and has three three um doors and a couple of porthole cabinet type things.

So there's actually a pantry, a refrigerator, and icebox all incorporated in this thing. So when you look and it looks like you know, you know, like cabinets that have the kind of slatted doors. Okay, it looks like one of those, except when you open it, it's a refrigerator insight as opposed to a closet or wardrobe or something. But it definitely looks more like a piece of furniture

than your typical refrigerator does. And obviously this was more about creating a sense of style for someone's luxury home. Sure for someone who doesn't who wants to look as though they are above the common for someone who I think I can almost certainly guarantee you has never cooked a darn thing in their lives. They have people to do that for them. Yeah, Or how about the Hammocker double espresso machine that's only eight thousand dollars dollars? Okay?

So why this is the thing that I've noticed there? And this goes back. It's strange that there's a common theme here about comparative happiness or perception, because I didn't know that there is this niche of incredibly expensive espresso machine. Yeah, I um, it's funny, well just incredibly expensive anything, right, Like you'll find versions of stuff that the price is ten times or more what you would find in the

general consumer version of that thing. And often, like you start looking at you think, are what sort of stuff sets this apart from the consumer version, like the regular consumer version where you would go to like a best Buy to go and purchase this or buy it off online off Amazon or something. Often it's the handmade part that tends to be one thing that because it becomes this thing that's made by artists as opposed to made

by a machine. And there's there's a definitely definite perceived value in that someone someone dedicated their time and skill into creating this thing. Um. Whether or not that makes it valuable to you another question. But it shows that there was care given to the creation of whatever it was. UM. And I think, I think again, status is a big deal.

I don't think that most of the things we're talking about here are working at a level, uh, noticeably higher than what you would get in the normal consumer market. Like their objective performance is not superior exactly. I would say some of them, maybe you know some of them. You're talking about stuff where it's on the cutting edge of technology, sure, right, like the supercar gonna go faster than your general car does. Though you can buy one

of those separately without the game for significantly less. Well yeah, I mean like twenty dollars less. That's significant. That's a very two phone right there. So this espresso machine in particular is topped with a copper dome on top of which purchase a brass eagle uh and it includes that this one. Okay, I I love coffee, alright, I'm not an espresso snob. I don't like I'm not a big espresso fan, but I do like coffee. But there's certain things in this that really appealed to me as a

tech nerd and as someone who likes coffee. Has a microprocessor and it that controls exactly how much water is allowed to flow through the grind, so you can you can tailor make the strength of your espresso through a touch pad two exactly what you want, and it controls it to the drop. So that sort of precision. Now you can argue that making coffee is not like precise chemistry, right, it's not because the quality of the bean is going to change, and how old the bean is that's going

to affect it as well. So it's not like chemistry experiment where you're going to get the exact same result every time, assuming that you follow the right protocols. But I like the idea that you can at least have the illusion of control in your life. I need that. Then I need the illusion of control. I hope, I hope. That's their motto. Yea. Also it's it's a little hefty. It weighs eight three pounds. So then I wonder, so this is really for I guess these people will be

pro sumers at this point. Yeah. It actually said, well, it's funny because it's it's really designed to make like high volume amount of espresso. So you would imagine that you would see this more in like a high end coffee shop, like a boutique coffee shop type place. But as I was looking at it, because I was talking about it can make, you know, I forget how many cups of espresso within a couple of minutes it was. It was crazy. It was a lot more than any

human would need to drink. But it said it also could do uh uh one cup serving deals like the little um pods espresso pod. So with the scales, Yeah, with that, you'd say, well, I guess if you if you really wanted this, you could get it. But I almost didn't include it because I thought it was a little closer to pro sumer than consumer. But uh but you know, as a coffee lever, I had to add something.

And you know, I remember somebody talking about this, this art of coffee tasting just a stranger when I was out on on Thursdays. I go to the bar across the street from here and do the cross word because I'm living on the edge, and there was some guy who was an expert in coffee and he was telling me about how how difficult it is to control those variables, and I really I think there's a market. We had we we hear it how stuff works. That one time

had a guy from bat Doorphin Bronson. Yeah, yeah, it came in and did the whole thing on coffee tasting as well. That's a local roaster here in Atlanta that makes crazy good coffee. Um final item on the list not not huge. I didn't I didn't want to do like the build up to the biggest, biggest, biggest. This is actually comparative, comparatively speaking to most of the things modestly expensive. The Blend Tech Stealth blender. This is one

of the latest blenders on the market. Okay, it does not have any like platinum case or diamonds, none of that, none of that stuff. So it's based upon its design and performance alone. It is priced at two thousand dollars for a blender. Does the sound of a blender bother someone that much? It in fact does have the sound control enclosure so that you don't hear the blender sound. Yeah yeah, it's actually called a sound enclosure. That's what

they call the sound enclosure. Has a fifteen amp motor touchpad controls and as a USB port, so you can upload or download up to thirty six custom blend cycles. So if you want to make something by first like going super fast and then slowing down or whatever you can, you can you can tinker to your heart's content. That

just seems so unnecessary. It seems like it would take more time to do that than to just hit a button for a second then hit a different But it seems like you wouldn't really see any results from that for the first five years. Then if if you, if you make enough money where a two thousand dollar blender seems like a prudent expense, you don't have time to push buttons. You know what, This should be my opening to ask for a raise. I should go, guys, we

spend a lot of time pushing buttons. Yeah, or you or you go and say, listen, I can't even afford to buy a blender, don't you just you don't say which blender? All I want is a watch, exactly. I have my eye on this one watch. Well, still got some more expensive consumer tech to talk about, I suppose, but we're gonna do that after we take this quick break. What's funny is when I started looking at this. I also looked at things like the most expensive smart watch

on there, which is nothing. It's like six hundred bucks, seven hundred bucks something like that. When when after you've been looking at that antique watches or luxury watches that have super rare materials worked into them, a lot of the electronics just doesn't even come close to the same expense. Because well, I mean, you think figure it, You're like, well, the unless you've got something crazy going on inside, those electronics are going to be very much the same from

device to device. So that's not going to dictate how expensive your your gadget can be. You have to look at other things, like the actual material it's made from, right. Yeah. And it's an interesting thing too because although clearly I'm not on board with this put gold on everything movement, I understand that in some parts of the world that's very very popular just because of the entrance value of the material. Yeah. Well, we've covered everything that was on

my list. Obviously there's tons more we could talk about, but I'm having trouble picking one. Yeah, you gotta pick one that was your idea, I know, man, I'm cursing past it also doesn't help, but you as much because you haven't seen pictures of these things, maybe one or two you might say pictures. Um, is the element ugly? That's my first question on the outside, the element Palazzo. Um, I'm not crazy about it, but you guys, I'm watching

Joona did across the table trying to be fair. Well, I'm trying to I'm trying to pull up an image of it. One thing is that whenever I see images of this thing, they all look like artists renderings. I don't think I've ever seen an actual picture of the thing itself. Um. But here, I'll turn this around. It looks kind of what a little weird and futuristic, right yeah? No, um yeah, I Uh, Like I said, I've only seen artists renderings or like, uh like these little c g

I computer graphics style things. Wow, that's um. If you want to look this up, by the way, folks, in order to do it, you need to know how it's spelled, because it's it's spelled in a jerk way. Element is spelled with two m's. It's E L E M M E N T and then palazzo P A L A Z Z. Oh. Um. Yeah, I don't find the design to be that appealing. But if if that's if it meets your desire for the r V of your dreams,

that's fine. I just I need I need to have. Basically, I want the idea of the house without the commitment the house. Right. Also, if you know, if the po po are interested in you, you can pick up and move to a different jertiction that's true and and blend in seamlessly. Yeah, okay, um yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna know damn it, you know what. I know what I'm leaning toward. But go ahead, I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna

double down. I will take the element. Okay, alright, so three point one million dollars we will charge you on your way out. Um. I you know, I've reached a point in my life where I don't really want to acquire more things necessarily, Like the idea of buying more stuff doesn't have a lot of appeal to me. In fact, my wife and I we tend to save our money for experiences like a trip to someplace or well, we

did something that was fantastic. We rented a a small cabin, modest cabin, not super expensive that was multiple bedrooms and invited some of our friends to just hang out for a weekend in the Georgia Woods. That was great, Like, I was like, this is what I want to spend my money on. Our these kind of experien aarance is because stuff doesn't really bring me joy anymore. I reached I just reached the point where I'm like, well, where

am I gonna put it? But if I had a house that could accommodate it, I have to admit that the the refrigerator I mentioned is pretty nifty. Like I I like that the design actually did appeal to me, so um, that one would be the one that I would probably go with. It's not like it's um, it's not like it's it's uh super like jaw dropping lee fancy, but um, I like it. So I'm gonna show you a picture here, and that part of it too is yeah, that's what the outside looks like. So right, so that's

the outside. Let me show you what looks like when it's all over. You're about this because I think it's pretty Oh whoa, that's pretty right. Just got a sense of scale there too, Yeah, it's huge, that's fantastic. It's yeah, it's it's it's like, folks. Since you can't see for this one, if you want to look it up, let me spell it out for you. The menonghini is m E n E g h I n I and the era demni is a r R E d A M E n T. I look that up. It's about the

width of like three regular refrigerators next to each other. Um, and the doors open outward. Uh, and you've got you know, it's just it's gorgeous. It looks very nice, And that's something that appeals to me on a level where I'd say, all right, I could go in for that if I had crazy amounts of money and a house that could hold it. My house is not of a size where that that would not fit anywhere in my house. So I was just thinking, I don't know, when we go on a road trip, I'm not sure if it will

fit in the element. Yeah, we might just have to strap it to the rooftop deck all of class. That's what our vanity license plate will say. Yeah. So this is a lot of fun. I mean, it was one of those things where I just thought, let's do something kind of silly for the upcoming holiday season and look at some of the some of the excess that you can find in consumer electronics. I wish that people more people could go to c E s to see the

ridiculous stuff. You see a lot of. Yeah, and that's the stuff that's fun to either make fun of or to just you know, kind of gawk at or whatever. But it's it's one of those deals where you're gonna see a lot of stuff that's all going to kind of blend together, right, like lots of lots of legitimately gorgeous electronics. But they there's tons of them, like tons of TVs, tons of stereo systems, that kind of stuff. It's when you come across something really unusual that you realize, well,

this is special. It may not be something that appeals to me directly, but it's different enough. And maybe it's crazy expensive, which is always fun. So uh wait, wait, wait, wait, yeah, when are you getting the fridge? Sure? Well, when when you and I are on that Forbes list of highest

paid YouTubers, then maybe at that point I'll start looking around. Oh, in the meantime, can I just want to make a suggestion you don't want to talk over with you, but uh, listeners as always thanks thanks for having me over as well. I just want you guys to know no pressure. I think I can speak for uh for both of us here, Johnson Um, if you have a used copy of Steel Battalion and you would like our mailing address, we will

give it to you. I mean cool. We'd have to track down an Xbox, but apart from that, I'd be totally down with it. Like I don't have my Xbox anymore. I got rid of that. I've got the three sixty and I've got the Xbox one, but I don't have the original either. We should have held onto those, but we we had one for the office. I have no idea where that one went. I think someone took it. Probably. Yeah. We our office before we moved to where we are now.

We had an area called Area fifty one in the office, and that's where all of our games and goodies and toys and stuff were. Here's the thing, folks peak, behind the curtain it was there was like a ninety nine nine chance that you would not see anyone from the editorial side of the business in that room unless there was a meeting. The sales and marketing people, however, broke that football table at least twice. I always felt like that kind of thing was a trap. Yeah, exactly, like

this is here for you. And then if you actually went into all right, let's just uh did not meet expectations. Oh man, that that was cool though, But yes, seriously, if you're not using Steel Battalion, it's been one of I'm so glad you said when one of my childhood dreams to play that game. I would love to hear from our listeners if if any of you have played that game, if you owned it, what your what your perspective was on it. Was it a good game? Was it?

Was it worth the two? I would argue that if you have really fun groups of friends, that something like rock band is certainly worth the money because of the experience you have, the shared experience you have with your friends playing together, Like there's there's something really compelling about that. And I don't have people over at my house, so I have never I've gone to other places where they've had it, and I've had fun playing rock band, but I never have anyone over at my house. I've never

bought it. I just love how you've made your house sound like the Forbidden City or something. Don't come to my house. And that wraps up this classic episode about expensive consumer tech. Obviously, since twenty fifteen, there have been plenty of other examples of expensive technology, some of which were, you know, gimmicks, some of which are just pure status

symbols that don't really have any inherent value. We could do a whole subsection on the n f T phenomenon connected to this, but yeah, maybe I'll save that for an upcoming episode, maybe maybe around the holidays, to uh talk about new expensive consumer technology stories that I either find fascinating or aspirating, or maybe some mixture of the two. In the meantime, if you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach

out and let me know. One way to do that is to download the I Heart radio app is free to download, free to use. You just navigate to the tech Stuff portion using the search bar. Then you can leave a message using the little microphone icon. It's a voice message up to thirty seconds in linth letting me know what you would like to hear on the show. Or you can reach out to me on Twitter the handle we use as tech stuff h s W and I'll talk to you again, really soon. Text Stuff is

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