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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.

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jonskillings.jpg
Jon Skillings Editorial director
A born browser of dictionaries and a lifelong New Englander, Jon Skillings is director of copy editing at CNET. He honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing tech publications back when the web was just getting under way. He writes occasionally, on topics from GPS to James Bond.
Expertise language, grammar, usage Credentials
  • 30 years experience at tech and consumer publications, print and online. Five years in the US Army as a translator (German and Polish).
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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"