What Can $50 Buy at Taiwan's Craziest Tech Mall?

Tom's Guide

Who got the best deal? What would you buy in a place like this? Jason and Anthony from the Tom's Guide team took $50 USD and set out on a mission: survive and score in Guang Hua Digital Plaza, Taipei’s most legendary (and chaotic) tech mall. This place is packed wall-to-wall with gadgets, gear, parts, and mystery electronics, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed fast.  Could the crew find real, usable tech? Or did they be blow it all on useless junk?  This isn’t just a haul, it’s a budget tech challenge, so check out the full video to see how it went down.

Transcript

00:00Taiwan is the epicenter of technology. This guy gets it.

00:04And I'm here in Taipei coming to what is easily my favorite place on earth

00:08and also the weirdest and greatest tech store you have ever seen.

00:12Take a look at this.

00:13This is the Guanghua Digital Plaza, floor by floor by floor,

00:17of some of the coolest, most interesting and also weirdest tech you will ever see.

00:23So to prove this, I'm going to go into Guanghua

00:26and I'm going to find the coolest tech for under $50.

00:30That is $1,500 Taiwanese dollars.

00:32To make it even more interesting, I'm going to challenge my mate Anthony to do the same.

00:36Sounds good. Let's see what we can find.

00:38And then you're going to decide in the comments,

00:40who's picked the coolest tech?

00:41Things are about to get crazy.

00:43So this is the ground floor.

00:44This is very much like what you would expect at your average Best Buy.

00:47You've got like pre-builds, you've got laptops, everything going on around you.

00:51As a reality check, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking

00:55oh, everything's just going to be cheaper here, whereas actually it's not.

00:59The Asus Zenbook A14, that comes with a 512 gigabyte SSD, Snapdragon X.

01:04Over in the US, you can find that for about $999, whereas here it's about $1,100.

01:10So it's actually $200 more.

01:12You might think everything's cheaper, but that's not always the case.

01:14But this isn't the floor that we care about.

01:18Let's head upstairs.

01:21Don't worry, we've got plenty of escalators.

01:22That needs to stay in the car.

01:24This is the fun part.

01:25So the second floor is where things start to get a little bit more interesting.

01:29This is where you start to get PC components, CPUs, GPUs,

01:32also probably some of the rarest games that you can find.

01:35As a sim racing nerd, the moment that I see that there's a Moses store,

01:39that gets me a bit excited.

01:40But once you get in, you start to notice that they do so much more than sim racing gear.

01:46Obviously, you've got all the big wheels from Moses, as well as Thrustmaster,

01:50which I'm sure they're probably not too happy selling here.

01:52But also you've got all kinds of DVDs, films, really old PC games, fully multi-purpose gaming store.

01:59Switch, PC, one-key wake-up.

02:02I like the blue and the yellow and the red.

02:04You can never have too many Switch controllers.

02:06I think it's 37 with the conversion.

02:08I've got to have my back buttons.

02:09Oh, there's four of them.

02:10Perfect.

02:11Okay, this is definitely going on my short list.

02:13So I have a few things in mind based on that price point,

02:17but I'm going to keep looking at everything before I make my final decision.

02:21What did they do to Lotso?

02:22It's like, you know, like when he ends up in the dumpster in Toy Story 3?

02:26He got out though, but this would have been a more fitting end for Lotso.

02:30No.

02:30After what he did to all those toys?

02:32Third floor.

02:35And this is where you start to see some of the benefits being in a place that is very close

02:40to where all the silicon is being made.

02:42Come with me.

02:44Ni hao.

02:45So you know that RTX 5090 stocking issue?

02:48They're all here.

02:49They are literally all here.

02:52Over here is 1400.

02:55That becomes $4,672.

02:59There's, it's kind of gone up a bit.

03:03This electronics market and ones like it.

03:04You can get stuff that you can't buy anymore,

03:06like this limited edition Xbox controller.

03:09Can I get the price on this one?

03:10Oh, it's ample.

03:11No, it's sold out.

03:12Ah.

03:13Oh, it's the 20th anniversary.

03:15Yeah, yeah, Xbox fanboy.

03:16But what's most important here is the 30th anniversary PS5 controller.

03:22Is that really it?

03:23I'm asking the price.

03:24That's my buy.

03:25No way.

03:25That can't be it.

03:26$4,200.

03:28Damn it.

03:30On to the next one.

03:30So once again, more games for Windows.

03:35How did they not get that this was a terrible platform?

03:38I reviewed a power 8 controller just like this and I really like it.

03:41Special edition to go with Yakuza games.

03:44I would fall in your budget.

03:45Yeah, right?

03:45$12.90 is fine.

03:47This is on my short list too.

03:49If we can remember how to get back here.

03:50I see you might have something you like there.

03:52Like is a strong word.

03:55Love delivery and love in login.

03:59A bonafide classic.

04:01You're not going to ask for the price of that?

04:02Absolutely not.

04:04Like I know this is a challenge to find the weirdest things but I am not walking out the

04:08store holding that.

04:09This is the fifth floor.

04:11Now we're cooking.

04:12That's something.

04:14So you've got your three sort of like classic throwback consoles.

04:16So you've got the Super Nintendo, you've got the little Famicom and then you've got the

04:21other Super Nintendo, Famicom, but these is where it gets interesting.

04:26You've got an original PS1 and the Game Boy Advance SP in I think purple because I'm

04:33colorblind in purple.

04:35Splendid.

04:36You're colorblind?

04:38Yeah.

04:38Oh wow.

04:39I didn't know that.

04:40I feel like I heard that one before but I'd forgotten it.

04:42How much?

04:43They're all in the simple.

04:45Oh okay.

04:46They're all in the simple.

04:47All sample.

04:48Okay.

04:49I'll go with that controller.

04:50That's pretty good.

04:50You think of that controller?

04:52Yeah.

04:53I keep trying to find stuff and every single time I go to a shop they're like oh it's not

04:58for sale or oh it's a sample.

05:00You are looking at very old stuff.

05:01I'm feeling really bad now because I opened this video saying like oh it's the weirdest

05:05place on earth and you can find some great gadgets and then I'll walk in and I can't

05:09even walk out of anything.

05:11So I'll be honest guys.

05:13Really struggling with this challenge.

05:15Not because there isn't cool tech.

05:16The problem is trying to find anything that A fits within my budget or B

05:20that they're willing to sell but if there's something that has always been on the edge

05:25of my mind thinking I might be interested in that.

05:27So one of the bits that you've been noticing is there's been a lot of 50 series cards around

05:32here but since I'm a bit of a collector I'm going to do them one better.

05:36I'm going to buy the old and very terrible Inno 3D N210 with one gigabyte of video memory.

05:45Bear in mind that most games now require over eight.

05:48I'm pretty sure that if I was to put this into my PC it would melt but I gotta have it.

05:53Fingers crossed it's in stock.

05:56Okay.

05:57So they've got an MSI 1 in stock and this is quite the piece of history.

06:02This came out in 2009 and they're still selling it.

06:06Nowhere else would you find a 16 year old GPU for sale.

06:13Looks like I'm doing it.

06:15Granted it's 15 years old but I did it.

06:18That's all that matters.

06:22Brilliant.

06:23Your boy just bought an NVIDIA GPU for less than $50.

06:30This challenge is mine.

06:32I think we're gonna, we're gonna go with this one.

06:39I can't find anywhere in the US so it might be, you know, Taiwan, Asian exclusives.

06:44I reviewed another Powerade controller, similar features, and I love that dragon on the front.

06:51Hey Jason, can I have some money?

06:54Can I have some money?

06:57So as you can see, we found our picks of gadgets for under $50.

07:09Let's go unbox them.

07:10Right.

07:11Okay.

07:11Show me what you got.

07:13Limited edition Powerade controller.

07:16Okay.

07:17For like a dragon.

07:18No one ever thinks they can get a GPU for less than 500 bucks.

07:22How about less than 50?

07:23It is a shockingly good performer with one gigabyte of GDDR3 memory.

07:30And most importantly, it's so cute.

07:34Look at it.

07:34It seriously looks like a kid's science experiment with a little cable.

07:38Yours might look good, but I'll actually be able to use mine at home and on the 14-hour trip back.

07:44At least with mine, I can play modern games.

07:46Oh.

07:46Are you telling me this can't play cyberpunk?

07:49Definitely not.

07:50Yeah, yeah, yeah.

07:51That's pretty cool and all.

07:53I'm saying it's passive-aggressively, but how much did you spend on that?

07:55Literally just under 50.

07:57So like 14?

07:5849.

07:59So I got this for $1,390 Taiwanese dollars, which is a little bit closer to like the $40 mark.

08:06I actually saved money.

08:08Are you going to build a computer around it?

08:11My computer will probably blow this up.

08:14What do you guys think?

08:15If you had $50 to spend in a place like this, which one would you get?

08:19Go ahead and let us know in the comments.

08:21And who knows?

08:22We might turn this into a bit of a series.

08:24I've been Jason.

08:25He's been Anthony.

08:27And I'll speak to you guys soon.

08:29Bye.

08:30Now that is one of the best monitors you can buy right now.

08:34So it's VGA to HDMI, just in case you wanted to keep a hold of that old-ass cable.

08:39How much?

08:40No, sample.

08:41Not for sale.

08:42Okay.

08:42This guy can talk about his fancy controller all he wants.

08:47But I think I want this.

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