Hey,
It’s Pete Matheson with a new issue of Experiments in Progress.
A lot of “budget tech” advice online is weirdly unrealistic.
People either recommend:
one expensive flagship and nothing else
ultra-cheap gadgets you’ll replace in 6 months
or setups that completely ignore how people actually use tech daily
So I started thinking:
If I had exactly $1,000 to build a full everyday tech setup right now… what would I actually buy?
💸 If You Have $1,000, This Is Exactly What Tech I’d Buy
This is the setup I think gives the best real-world experience for the money in 2026.
📱 The phone: used OnePlus 13 Pro
This would take up about half the budget immediately.
The OnePlus 13 Pro gives you:
excellent cameras
massive battery life
flagship-level performance
great display
fast charging
silicon-carbon battery tech
…and you can find them for around ~$500–600 now.
Buying last year’s flagship is becoming the smartest move in tech.
🎧 Headphones: Beats Fit Pro
I think the Beats Fit Pro are one of the most underrated earbuds Apple makes.
But for actual daily life:
they stay in during workouts
ANC is solid
battery life is good
they work well across devices
physical fit is excellent
A lot of expensive earbuds sound amazing for 3 days and then annoy you forever.
The Beats Fit Pro are the kind of headphones you actually keep using.
⌚ Fitness tracking: Fitbit / Google fitness trackers
Instead of Whoop, Oura, etc…
I’d probably grab one of the newer Fitbit / Google fitness trackers instead.
Because:
sleep tracking is “good enough” now on cheaper wearables
recovery data is becoming commoditized
and I don’t think most people need ultra-hardcore athlete analytics
“Simple + no subscription” is becoming more appealing again.
😎 The weird pick: used Ray-Ban Meta glasses
I think AI wearables are quietly becoming much more useful than people expected.
So instead of trying to squeeze a bad laptop into the budget…
…I’d probably buy a used pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
Because:
hands-free cameras are genuinely useful
voice AI works surprisingly well now
notifications on your face sounds dystopian… but is actually convenient
they’re one of the first “AI gadgets” that feels normal enough to use daily
This feels closer to the future of personal tech than most AI pins or standalone gadgets.
💻 Instead of a laptop… I’d probably buy a tablet
Once you add a good laptop, the entire budget disappears immediately.
So instead, I’d probably look at something like a used Galaxy Tab in that ~$200–250 range.
Tablets are quietly becoming much more useful again, especially for:
media consumption
travel
light work
second-screen use
note taking
browsing
emails
AI tools
casual editing
One of the biggest shift I see in tech right now:
Phones are becoming people’s “main computer” far more often than we admit.
⚡ What I’d Buy With $1,000 in 2026
If you had exactly $1,000 for tech right now… what would you prioritize most?
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This week’s episode gets into the less polished side of building a creator business: trying to save a tanking video after upload, losing creative control on sponsorships, chasing shiny new tech, and the growing question of whether AI tools like Claude completely change the SaaS landscape.
Losing creative control on sponsored content deals
If Claude and AI tools are starting to disrupt SaaS businesses
The psychology of “shiny new toy syndrome”
Why smaller brand deals sometimes make more sense than huge ones
Cutting production effort without lowering quality
and more…
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