Help me spend $300 on Amazon!

[Xenoterranos]

I'll keep it short. By bank FUBAR'd my "member rewards points" thingee, and long story short , I cashed out all my points to the tune of ~300$ in Amazon.com gift cards.

The problem?

I have no loving clue what it is I want. The choices are almost endless!

So I have come to you, oh wise tribe of techitude, to seek guidance.

Things I have:
Crappy 1gig samsung mp3 player that freezes after about 20 songs.
Laptop that's kicking the bucket in bullet time, so while I know it's on it's way out, it's still like a year away.
A Sprint "Upstage" phone - because it was the lesser of various evils. (I honestly didn't know about it's mediaplayer side when I picked it out...I just really liked the phone side...and completely "flipped" when the guy showed me what it could do.)
A very nice gaming PC that I'm happy with.

Things I'm interested in:
Ipod Touch (wifi + jailbreak+ssh = drool; but then again, I'd have to hack it to get what I really want out of it)
Zune (30 vs. 80 vs. 4?)
Xbox 360
Wii
Sony Ebook reader (That new one Ars just did a review on)
Asus Eee PC
Wacom Tablet


Not Interested In:
iPhone
regular iPods
Zune 8
Spending more than 100 out of pocket (ie, not more than 400 total)

Any Other Suggestions? Seriously, I've never had the privelage of "having" to spend 300$ at Amazon. Amy suggesstions would be much appreciated.
What would ya'll do (I get to use "ya'll", I'm actually from Texas).

 

[JohnAn2112]

Xbox 360 FTW!

 

[RandomFool]

Depending on your gaming preferences I'd go with either a Wii and Mario Galaxy + some other games or the Xbox 360 bundle(comes with Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance).

Myself I've got a Wii and love it but I'm buying a 360 next week for Rock Band, Halo 3, etc, etc.

 

[Big Fat Fish]

I would go for the Xbox 360. It will get you the most enjoyment out of the items you mentioned.

 

[zig3695]

a set of five gallon bubble bags. with the $60 or so youd have left over you could buy some jack d. and a few beers to boot

 

[ultimatebob]

For $300, you could probably buy 3 Zune 30's. They're dirt cheap now!

How about putting the rest towards a new laptop or cell phone?

 

[DaveSimmons]

I almost impulse-bought the Asus eee today while I was buying some parts at Newegg. I don't have any need for a full-size laptop but it looks like a perfect living room subnotebook PC. I think I'll at least wait to see if I get in on that $299 laptop for Amazon's black friday deals though (go and vote for it, wii, and the HD-DVD player).

I'm tempted by the eBook reader too, but Amazon is coming out with their own soon so you should wait to compare. Amazon might have a much better selection of ebooks to buy since that is a core part of their business.

Don't pay more than $99 for a Zune, that's the price at Newegg.

 

[KeithP]

Being this close to Christmas, if it were me, I would probably just use the cards to buy presents.

-KeithP

 

[ubercaffeinated]

Originally posted by: KeithP
Being this close to Christmas, if it were me, I would probably just use the cards to buy presents.

-KeithP

good idea.

or, let me play devil's advocate. if you want, break down and get the ipod touch. i love it. i feel like i'm carrying around a piece of advanced alien technology. jailbreaking it takes about an hour or so, but incredibly worth it especially if you have an obsession with tweaking things. i got the 16 gig, but honestly, i think the 8 gig is more than enough.

some of it's down sides:

-5 hour playtime continuous for video. people say this is pretty damn good for a screen of it's size, i do believe the psp video uptime is around the same.

-you have to convert video files using a video converter of some sort.

-even though it's an ipod, it's not something i'm willing to just stuff into my pocket. it's a pda/mobile entertainment system, so i kind of baby it. i use a iclear case on it, but i still haven't found a best way of carrying it around without worrying about damaging the thing, even though i'm told it's quite robust.



also, i'm not sure why you wouldn't get the iphone. if i wasn't a verizon customer, i would have been all over the iphone.

 

[MyThirdEye]

Wii, the new super smash brothers comes out in Feb

 

[Xenoterranos]

The Results are in!!

It was a _very_ close tie between the 360 and the ipod touch for a long time, and then a charity bug hit me.

For about 3 second I considered spending a good half of it on Childs Play.

Then I remembered that I'm poor, so I donated a few bucks and settled on the...
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Xbox 360!!
(The Pro bundle to be exact,)
I am a little disapointed that mine is not a new falcon (lot number is 733!!! / Build date is ON Oct.24th!!...talk about CLOSE)

To be honest, I really wanted a wii, but alas, there where none to be had on Amazon for under 400 (wtf?).
Awesome rockband reviews tipped the scale in favor of the 360.

Oh, and total out-of pocket cost after splitting 50/50 with the S.O. = 60$.
I wanted 1 day shipping so I forked over an extra 20 on top of that. Why? Because I am a consumer whore.
Gotta love Amazon.

Thanks everyone for playing. I really wanted to be a part of the discussion but life intervened, and thus I only just was able to get back to post the results.

 

[RandomFool]

Congratulations.