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Toughest gadgets on the planet

Every once in a while, a game device or a cell phone lives on and on, well past the expiration date on the longest imaginable extended warranty.

Jon Skillings Editorial director
Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
Expertise AI, tech, language, grammar, writing, editing Credentials
  • 30 years experience at tech and consumer publications, print and online. Five years in the US Army as a translator (German and Polish).
Jon Skillings

In ads for its watches years ago, Timex coined a slogan that we dearly wish would apply to each and all of our gadgets: "Takes a licking, and keeps on ticking." Sadly, that's not the case, and too often we're buying a new electronic gizmo to replace a not-so-old gizmo that gave up the ghost way too soon. Except sometimes.

Every once in a while, a favorite gadget lives on and on, well past the expiration date on the longest imaginable extended warranty. That's the subject of an item on the U.K. version of Crave (a CNET Networks cousin of News.com), where editors and readers alike offer up gear--from a Sony MiniDisc player to the Nintendo Game Boy--that, surprisingly or not, endures.

Read the write-ups and see the pictures on Crave UK: "Bombproof gadgets: Our most trusty technology"