Photos Latest Purchases Thread: v2.0

I didnt need a controller but i mean look at it !!! They also did it where the gold was black but it just popped more on this

 

Old fire tablet was stolen by my latest ex, so bought another one. Also 50% off so why not. Makes reading e-books easier on the go (read: can hold this thing with one hand)



About 450 good books on the thing now, custom formatted by yours truly

 

I've been meaning to get into audio books for years but still never have.

 

Lots of stuff booked for my Christmas and new years in the US! Went a bit mad and booked first class plane tickets out there! Few days in New York, then Christmas in New Haven, then to an airb&b in Vermont for a week! After the utterly insane year I've had it'll be amazing to get away!

 

@Voice is a good bugger. Straight up text to speech with few quirks: bit monotone and will read page numbers etc

 

A 4-pack of Moto Tags (They're Motorola's version of Airtags, but work on Android phones)

EDIT - And some new walking shoes for my trip. "Breaking in" has already begun.

 

We have ordered a pair of Framework 13 laptops for my wife and me.

We will let you know what they are like when they arrive!

 

Nice one, I am really impressed with what Framework have achieved, 3 sorts of laptop and an amazing SFF desktop.
The desktop is obviously not as modular because of its system constraints, and is not cheap, but still has plenty of Framework DNA .
I look forward to hear how you get on with them

 

I must admit I did not think that they would last as long as they have, but clearly they are getting some traction in the market.

Although they are a bit expensive for their spec, I hope the repairability will make up for it. My wife and I have gone through a number of laptops over the last decade because they failed for dumb reasons: power socket broke, power plug broke, screen hinge broke, the letter A key snapped off, a screen developed dead pixels (once) or cracked (twice), batteries needed changing (four times). And I'm not rough on my hardware. Each incident required disproportionally expensive or unobtainable replacement parts and/or complex surgery to fix. It all adds up in the end, and it is wasteful.

My next mobile will probably be repairable also, although my Nokia XR20 is rolling with the punches nicely. The Fairphone looks OK, but the HMD Skyline is remarkably sleek, well specced, cheap and repairable too.

 

Oh this one passed me by. What did they they do? I saw Omarchy and hyprland in general and figured it wasn’t for me anyway but would definitely avoid if they are taking a right turn.

edit bit of googling found me this eventually, can’t believe something like this was so hard to find relatively speaking, and even then it was just about how it’s worrisome that Vaxry was banned https://drewdevault.com/2023/09/17/Hyprland-toxicity.html

 

My other half is a Twitch Partner and got there largely under streaming ungodly amounts of Sims 4. When they announced that Trump-in-law was buying it with the aid of his “lovely” Saudi backers bribers grifters influence-peddling-shitbags friends she similarly went no cash for fash. Which I wholeheartedly agree with and love that shortened saying.

 

Well, that's disappointing to hear. Is there any corner of the computer world that has not been infected by fash misogynists?!?

 

MNT Research looks very good (I don't mind the bulk; love the solid 90's aesthetic and raw aluminium), but shipping seems uncertain and my wife needs a laptop now...

Unfortunately the StarLabs does not look much easier to repair than our HP X360 Spectres, which kind of defeats the point. Especially since I do not have my workshop set up yet.

This is all very frustrating.

 

Well... that sure cheered me up... This blog post was a particular "highlight"...: https://jakelazaroff.com/words/dhh-is-way-worse-than-i-thought/

Like the look of these, but I don't really know much about their ability to deliver. The devices are pretty chonk, but you can't have razor-thin and fully open & repairable/upgradeable hardware...

Do like the look of some of these. Not particularly enamoured with the performance prospects of the N200 chip in the entry-level 'StarBook 7', and I'm most definitely not keen on the ~£1,400 barrier to entry for an Intel 'Core' model. Do rather like the look of the 'StarLite' convertible, but: I've read some 'not good' feedback about the build quality of the keyboard; the battery life seems quite low for a $currentYear device; and I'm similarly not enamoured with the N350 CPU option. The 'StarFighter' is far too chonk, even if I was prepared to pay the entry price.

Not really an option that interests me, because I'd have likely tried it myself by now. But boy did I go down a rabbit hole with this one. Second link I found on $searchEngine was a 5 year-old reddit thread entitled 'Minifree is shutting down, permanently', with a link to the website. I had to dig into archives to find a copy of the site as it appeared at the time, basically saying "The finances are borked and unrecoverable, I'm trying to refund as soon as I can'.

So... as you say, I think: temper your expectations.

Not sure what I'll do, personally. The ol' ex-corporate Thinkpad route has served me very well in the past, but I'm getting a bit tired of the lacklustre display options. The range of available options for these machines is usually quite wide, but more often than not the businesses that have recycled the machines from their fleet will have originally opted for the most basic screen. Buying second-hand, you can never guarantee what sort of screen you'll get. Upgrades are sometimes a possibility, but it usually involves a lot of research, dodging potential compatibility minefields, time, and patience. As much as I ideally want something I can repair and upgrade, I also ideally want something that doesn't involve a whole project just to get working well.

I'm almost tempted to just throw my lot in with Apple and get a recent-gen Macbook Air. On every single Macbook I've ever used, the screen has always been the absolute standout feature, usually followed by battery life. I've been pretty blown away with what can be achieved on Apple Silicon; my work Macbook started the day around 0720 on ~80% and only dropped to ~30% by the time I left at ~1530. If not quite literally an "all day" battery, it's at least more than a working day. The screens on Air models isn't quite as good as the Pro models - lacks high refresh rate for one - but in terms of brightness & colour gamut they're still damned impressive.

But there's absolutely stuff all you can do inside a modern Macbookm, Apple have been actively hostile to end-user repairs/upgrades, and have been the single biggest force driving disposability in technology, so.... [shrugs and gestures vaguely]

 

I’d love to 3D print a case for one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/Touchscreen-Stretched-Portable-Computer-Monitoring/dp/B0DFW5H1SK/ or maybe it’s 12.9” sibling by the same people and a RPi 500 16GB, and a usb battery bank!