Photos Latest Purchases Thread: v2.0

I... I did not need to know that.

 

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/desks/desk-computer-desks/malm-desk-oak-veneer-art-80214158/

Needed a bigger desk to fit the 30" screen I just got!

 

Hope you're not clamping a monitor arm to that, most Ikea desktops are card-reinforced hollow core.



My plan is a couple of their "Alex" drawer units and a chunk of kitchen worktop

 

This is quite a common approach and works really nice. Their Karlby desktop is solid MDF.

I can't tell you for certain but from the weight of the top, the top at least is solid. The side panel might not be.

 

One good thing about ikea I guess is they do actually tell you what it is made of on the website.

 

Shame IKEA discontinued the GALANT range, they were awesome. Mine must be four or five years old and is every bit as solid now as when I bought it. I know they brought in the BEKANT as a replacement but they're not as configurable as the GALANT range.

 

For £50 (plus delivery) I got an office desk from the local British Heart Foundation; it's in perfect condition with no scratches, marks, or gouges and it's a solid 25mm of veneered chipboard. Bloody massive thing, to get a similar sized desk in Ikea or similar would have easily cost at least triple what I paid. Complete with a set of drawers and adjustable feet .

 

Before we moved house last, we had an amazing charity shop over the road from us that had a fantastic furniture section. They used to get ex-display stuff from shops like IKEA and sold them for bargain-tastic prices. Our dining table is from there, as is my office chair. The guy from the shop even helped me carry the table up the stairs to the flat!

 

I work for the BHF (the money is crap, but it's a nice place to work), and I reckon I've spent at least £1k on furniture from our shop in the last year, including the lovely oak desk I'm sitting at now.

 

Thought I would give this a punt...



I've been delighted with the Shield, however the lack of Dolby Vision, Atmos and refresh rate switching on Netflix is a bit of a drag, as if the lack of colour space switching in Plex. I also understand iTunes is supposed to be the best there is when it comes to 4K movies. I'm not replacing the Shield for now, but will run them side by side for at least a bit.

 

I saw a Louis Rossmann review in that. He loves it.

 

I think AvE has looked at it too, I don't think it went down well.

 

I know, I know.

I have never particularly cared for Apple's way of doing things, and my ownership of Apple products, though limited, has left me nonplussed
- A pair of iPod Classics. Decent bit of hardware, not a fan of iTunes software. Spent their life as in-car jukeboxes, so limited direct interaction.
- An iPad Gen 1. I won it. I used it for a few months. Found it obtuse to use anything other than Apple's services, didn't care for it, got rid.
- An iPhone 6. It was work issue (i.e. no cost to me). I used it for almost a year until I grew tired of Apple's particular way of doing things, or not letting me do things, and reached into my own pocket to replace it. It is now on full time duty as a Sonos remote in the guest room.

Upon researching a few limitations with the Shield TV (Dolby Vision in Netflix, auto refresh switching in Netflix/Amazon, colour space switching in anything) and the best platform for 4K films (turns out iTunes has both the best selection and price by far, who would have thought), the Apple TV kept coming up.

It surprises me that I'm saying this, but it's really good. I always assumed an AppleTV would just be a portal to Apple content, but all of the streaming apps (apart from google Play) I use are there, Plex direct streams 4K, display mode switching works exactly as it should, Dolby Vision present and correct. The only thing the Shield has going for it for my uses now is Atmos support in Plex, and access to my content on Google Play. Whilst I'm certain the latter will never make its way across to Apple TV, Atmos is coming next month, or so they say, and that includes Netflix as well.

 

When it comes to Apple products, I feel like there's a little more leeway with the TV thing.

Apple products are, IMO, very good at specific things - They "just work" because the market seems to be (In my very judgemental opinion) people who don't give a flying toss about doing anything even vaguely interesting that doesn't coincide with the Apple Mandate on how you should do things. So a device bought with the intention of just watching video content, if it covers the requirements you've got, isn't so much of an irksome suggestion.

Although, there are often the goofy designs they throw out. But the Firestick remote isn't winning awards for design in my book, either.

 

I'm inclined to agree with your view on Apple in general - it's a lot easier to "just work" when you lock your devices down to limited capabilities and a closed ecosystem. If you don't know/want/need anything more, then it's great, but it didn't do it for me. Even in light of the tightly controlled hardware/software combo, I had issues on my iPhone where the processor would go into overdrive for who knows why, fleecing the battery and making the phone uncomfortably hot in the pocket. A backup-reset-restore didn't resolve it, and it was a reset and start from scratch that was needed. When it started doing the same thing again after a few months I decided if I was starting from scratch again, I'd do it on an Android phone.

I'm not much of a fan of the fire stick, though using them on two "casual" TVs (bedroom and kitchen). If it wasn't for the fact that the fire stick is dirt-cheap and tiny, I wouldn't be.

The fire stick is how I would have expected Apple TV to be: throwing Amazon content down your throat at every step, with limited differentiation between prime and pay at that, and treating third-party platforms as a second class citizen. It surprised me on Apple TV that there's none of that at all, much the same as a Shield. iTunes Movies is simply an icon on the home screen like any other with no special treatment.

 

I get a bit of a bad rap within work for flat-out hating Apple devices. Which, for the most part, I do. They're entirely not what I want or need out of a product and I feel like someone was smoking a lot of meth when they wrote the prices down. That said - There are specific applications where they are the right choice. Unless it's an iPhone, those have no place anywhere anymore. Yes, I accept that they sparked the smartphone race, but they've done very little actually worth noting (IMO) since then. Although, this is coming from a man who would go back to his V3 Razr in a heartbeat. What a phone that was.

The Firestick is only in my possession because it's so cheap its nearly free, and because with Kodi on it, it accesses my NAS for about an hour a night just fine.

You do surprise me that the ATV isn't shoving iTunes this-that-the-other down your throat, though.

 

It's the lack of YouTube on the fire stick that I find a real drag, particularly in the kitchen. Amazon's little spat with Google is so ridiculous and anti-consumer... if I thought life without Amazon was possible, I might even consider boycotting them.

 

I didn't even know Google and Amazon had had a falling out. Tbh, I never really use Youtube, so it's never occurred to me that it's not on the Firestick.

Given how much stuff is sold on the Amazon market place, I'm not sure an online shopper can realistically get away from them anymore.