How to get the tech you want on a budget

A hefty price tag can be a turn-off for high-end tech, but dig a little deeper and you can find some great features at a budget price.

Everyone wants the best of the best, but no one wants to shell out Kardashian money to deck out their homes with the luxury items of their dreams.

The good news is if you know what you’re looking for, it’s possible to enjoy some of the same innovations behind those expensive gadgets, but instead of dropping the equivalent of a house deposit on a pair of speakers, you can pay less than the price of an iPhone screen repair.

LG WK7 (RRP $299) and Meridian Audio speakers ($87,500)

LG’s latest smart speaker offers some expensive technology for a lower price tag.

Unless you own a Jaguar, a private yacht or have the budget for a $250,000 home cinema, you probably haven’t heard of Meridian Audio. Their handmade, super fancy audiophile speakers have been bought by the likes of billionaire CEOs and Saudi princes.

But they’ve also worked with LG on their latest range of smart speakers, integrating some of their technology to make the whole thing sound better.

The WK7 is handy as a dedicated smart speaker in the bathroom or kitchen where you might want to ask recipe questions and listen to music but don’t need something so fancy.

And the $87,500 Meridian DSP8000 speakers don’t even have the Google Assistant.

Alcatel 3 ($279) and Samsung Galaxy S10 + (from $1499)

The Alcatel 3 is not as fancy as the Apple, Google or Samsung flagship phones, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good.

Fun fact: if you drop your Samsung Galaxy S10+ and need to repair the screen, it will cost $350 through Samsung. In case you need to raise your eyebrows any further, if you drop your iPhone XS Max and just break the screen, that will cost $518.95 to repair.

Enter stage left the Alcatel 3. It’s a full-featured smartphone complete with dual rear cameras, 5.9-inch HD+ display (with minimal notch), 8MP front facing camera with flash, Face Key unlock and a fingerprint scanner.

Basically, this is a way, way better phone than you would expect for the price.

Alcatel’s screens are made in the same factory as a lot of screens for other, much more expensive phones, so Alcatel get a discounted rate because the factory is owned by their parent company.

Is it as good as one of the Apple, Google or Samsung flagship phones? No. But, it’s about 75 per cent as good for less than 20 per cent of the price.

Ecovacs Robotics DEEBOT 710 ($499) and a live-in maid to vacuum after you

A live-in cleaner will cost you more.

Cleaning is boring and time-consuming. While the rich can afford Niles and Jeeves, you’ve got Ecovacs. Sure, there are robot vacuum cleaners for $1500 that will clean your home with military precision, but if we had the budget for that, we’d have bought a cordless Dyson already.

The DEEBOT 710 has a lot of the same or similar features of its more expensive DEEBOT siblings but for less than $500.

It creates a map of your home, which sounds creepy, but just means you can tell it via the app where you want it to clean. This is particularly helpful for when you knock something over in a way that moving will spread it, so you can just go into the app and summon the vacuum cleaner to your location. If you don’t have your phone on you but do have a smart speaker, you can also give your robot vacuum cleaner voice commands, which can give you the illusion of having a robot who exists purely to keep your home clean, and isn’t that the dream?

Beyerdynamics 880 Edition (RRP $319) and whatever expensive headphones celebrities are endorsing this week ($500 plus)

The consumer version of these professional headphones will set you back less than plenty of more popular name brands.

You see paparazzi photos of celebrities wearing cool-looking headphones all the time. Whether they’re Beats or some other pair of headphones with brand recognition, there’s a chance the already extremely rich person has been paid to wear them.

However, if you watch a feature on someone recording in the studio or see a rare picture of famous musicians actually recording their albums, you’ll see that most of them are wearing beyerdynamic DT770 headphones. They’re the headphones people like Justin Bieber, Hayley Williams and Lil Wayne wear when sound quality matters above all else. You just don’t hear about it.

Although a pro-grade pair of headphones wouldn’t work for everyday use on low-powered devices like phones, beyerdynamic do have a consumer-grade version you can use at home — the 880 Edition. They sound amazing, are comfortable to wear and are designed to last forever with replaceable parts (unlike the more expensive and plastic popular headphones).

It’s not quite a 50 per cent upfront saving, but given how much longer a pair will last you, the savings will just keep adding up.

The author flew to London as a guest of LG.