Bitcoin Forum

I've got 0.5BTC to spend. Are there any miners worth buying at this price? Thanks.

No, you don't have enough btc to buy any reasonable miner.
You can add more btc and buy Antminer S3 from the manufacturer, Bitmaintech.
https://bitmaintech.com/productDetail.htm?pid=00020140630025130637RV8OhOwt06BC
Additionally customs duty applicable when its delivered at you location.
The S3 comes without a power supply unit and so you need to buy a one PSU, ATX or Server PSU.
The S3 consumes 340Watts as per specs but need to add a safely margin of 20% to 25% so it becomes 425.
Also keep an eye on the efficiency of the power supply.

The other option you have is to get some shares in hosted miners.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=708199

Update:
Going for S1 may not ROI if you are buying a new good Power Supply Unit and your S1 is not really cheap.
S1 sales already over and can't buy new S1 now.
I will not recommend buying an old S1 selling as new/old/used.
Always try to buy from the manufacturer directly.
Research well before investing on a miner. You may try good calculators like https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator .
There are bad calculators too so beware of them.

If Bitmain go back to single orders for the S3s, that would have to be your best bet but you would need a little bit more still.
I think your best option is to look for an S1 if your absolute limit is 0.5 BTC. Even on ebay you can pick up S1s fairly cheap, although you really don't want to spend any more than $100- $120 each.
 
A lot depends on your location obviously.

Edit,  great advice from ALLCOINMINER above.

S3 seems like the best deal right now but I am waiting for s4 or 20 NM chips..

If you only have 0.5 you should consider going in on a group buy or just not mine for the time being. You could get 3 S1s for that price but the amount of profit compared to the work/risk is really minimal.

Thanks guys for all the good replies. I've been thinking down the line of shares and some of the offers here look good but just a bit cautious being an Avalonshenzen victim. My best bet I think is to save a little more and try to get a single S3. I've got plenty of spare power supplies. EBay in my opinion is too expensive for buying miners. Good place to offload old miners though!

Your option is wise to get an S3. There will have many coupons flying soon for S3.
Keep in mind to buy direct from the manufacturer also keep away from any pre-orders.
This will be a reference for you. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=314402.new;topicseen#new
Also, never buy on any confusions. The mining hardware will always be here for you to buy.
If not S3 there will be many other in the future. So no need to rush and buy when you see clear cut ROI.
My first gpu mining rig was at a luge loss then, I never lost on any of my mining hardware especially on those from BitMainTech.

I've never lost on miners either. Was just the Avalonshenzen bastard that stuffed my investment. At the time of the Avalonshenzen scam I'd just sold all my miners and had the choice of buying 3 S1's from Bitmaintech or 4 of Avalonshenzen's. Very much wish I'd gone the other way! I lost BTC4 to that scum.