The Tech Thread

[Gally]

I always have tech thoughts and come across cool things.

I've been contemplating getting another tablet for a few years. We bought an Amazon Fire tab for Luca to watch on the plane when we went to Mexico like 5 years ago.

We always just put it back in the drawer and forgot about it untill the next trip/holiday.

Now he's older the Amazon tab isn't good enough for my tech impatience so I had been considering my options. I hate sharing tech, fingers are never clean enough, apps everywhere. Just a jumble sale of s**t.

I've had an iPad Air 2020 for years and it's incredible really considering it's footprint. Not much it can't do. I wanted an iPad mini actually as I felt I didn't use the tablet enough due to size... But then they released iPad mini 7 and still has a shitty screen so my only oled 120hz options were iPad pro or Samsung.

Led me down a rabbit hole and instead of an iPad mini I bought an utter bargain Samsung Tab S8+. 12.4" Oled. 120hz. SD card slot. Slim bezels. Slim design. Epicness. Double the size of the iPad mini! 😂

Forces me to use two apps at once and media consumption has just leveled up when I use it! It's only two years old still as smooth as.

Anyone have some cool tech that they thought was a great but?

New headphones technics az100 also immense. See headphones thread. Paired with a Samsung s24 Ultra. See phone thread! 😂

 

[E30kev]

If only there was a whole Tech Chat section to the forum dedicated to this….

 

[Cookie]

We have an entire sub forum that you've posted in before you goon 😂

 

[dann2707]

You've had too many eggs in a cup today you

 

[Gally]

Literally found the phone section and thought that's weird. 😂 I thought a thread for random stuff would be good!

Oh and I also want a new soundbar. The Samsung q800 seems to around the level at. Really wanted that new Sonus!

 

[seb]

I have the orginal sonos soundbar.

It sounds incredible.

But the sonos app is probably the shittiest app i have ever used.

Due to being quite old no airplay and no software updates to enable it.

I also cba buying an updated one as they cost £££££

 

[ChrisR]

Robot vacuum and robot mower we’re game changers for me 😂

 

[Flat Eric]

Literally found the phone section and thought that's weird. 😂 I thought a thread for random stuff would be good!

Oh and I also want a new soundbar. The Samsung q800 seems to around the level at. Really wanted that new Sonus!

I've got the Q800 soundbar and highly rate it!

 

[seb]

Robot vacuum and robot mower we’re game changers for me 😂

I’m so dubious of vacuum robot… it actually works? Seem so f**king expensive though

 

[Gally]

It's the stair thing that annoys me and also it can't fit into the same spaces as my hoover. 🤷‍♂️ Robot lawnmower though... Then again you need to empty!

 

[Gally]

I've got the Q800 soundbar and highly rate it!

Thanks mate! Will do some more research but I think it's the right one looking so far.

 

[ChrisR]

I’m so dubious of vacuum robot… it actually works? Seem so f**king expensive though

I bought the cheapest one with the lidar mapping on Amazon when I bought it 2 years ago, more to give them a try and planned to buy a ‘better’ one if it was half decent. Still got/using that one 😂

Amazon.co.uk

Whilst the app is a bit s**t, once its setup it’s all good and does a decent job.

Downstairs is mostly hard floors and keeps on top of the muck/dust, and I drip it upstairs to do the carpets up there.

Still need to get in some of the corners/stairs with a handheld, but not as frequently needed.

The mopping isn’t terrible, don’t do it often and it takes f**king ages it’s quicker to just whip the Vax floor cleaner out.

Worth it for the time saving of doing it all for me. The app is awful though.

 

[ChrisR]

Robot lawnmower though... Then again you need to empty!

No emptying

The mower cuts a teeny tiny bit off the top, goes out every couple of days, the tips of grass are just left they are so small.

 

[Gally]

No emptying

The mower cuts a teeny tiny bit off the top, goes out every couple of days, the tips of grass are just left they are so small.

Cracking idea! The size of the back garden in my last house was one of the reasons I wanted to move, it was monstrous! Took me a whole day at the weekend to do the garden and it grew like fury! The wee guy was still quite small so not ideal spending a whole day just tidying the garden up every two weeks, felt a waste then I was back at work on the Monday! One of those would be ideal!

 

[ChrisR]

Exactly, the time spent f**king about sorting the garden is time I didn’t/don’t have with a little one.

Mr robot goes out and does his thing every other day and keeps it cut (about 250sqm of grass, not huge by any stretch).

 

[Andy_con]

I purchased the brand new dji mavic 4 on the day it was released, paid for the upgraded controller as well. Whole kit was 3.5k

Amazing bit of technology

Was on a job weekend and the controller started to crash, drone would come back and land on its own luckily. Got to a point where it wouldn't even start up.

So the £1000 controller has had to go back to dji 😒😒😒

So i now have an expensive drone sat there i can't use until I get the controller back

 

[Oggy997]

@Gally you should really get the q990 over the q800, it's worth every penny. Can be had for c£450 most years of you leverage deals.

I've got the 990c and it's f**king awesome

 

[Gally]

@Gally you should really get the q990 over the q800, it's worth every penny. Can be had for c£450 most years of you leverage deals.

I've got the 990c and it's f**king awesome

Only you can get a q990 for 450!!!

 

[Oggy997]

Nah mate, if I hear its on again. I'll let you know. Think it's usually October

 

[Gally]

Thanks! Would love to look at something like the q990!

 

[Oggy997]

The 930 was £400 apparently (I'm banned, so don't bother with Samsung any more) , but my mate will give me a shout when the 990s are sub 500 again, I'll let you know.

 

[Flob]

How the f**k did this happen?! I was in the motorbike thread lol.

I thought you were taking the piss! 😂

 

[Starlet_gt]

I thought you were taking the piss! 😂

I don't think I've ever been in this thread before!

 

[Gavin.]

Middleton portable speaker with powerful sound & stylish design | Marshall.com

Experience the ultimate in portable sound with our loudest Bluetooth speaker, Middleton. Connect multiple speakers to immerse yourself in your favourite music.

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This thing is awesome, went listening to loads of Bluetooth speakers the other weekend and this one stood out by a country mile. Better than the Bose, Sonos, B&O, Sony offerings at a similar price point.

 

[McGherkin]

I never thought I needed an iPad/tablet, but a couple of years back a family member’s iPad was going spare so I had it. It’s actually pretty useful being better for pretty much everything than my phone but more transportable than my full on laptop. I did, however, wish it was running Windows so I could, for example, plug it into the car to do some tuning, or play my old games natively rather than trying to use Steam Link over a crappy network connection.

I did consider netbooks as I still remember the teeny tiny ones we had at school, but the issue was somewhat forced when the LCD died on the iPad last week.

So I hopped online and had a look, and eventually landed on the Microsoft Surface Pro. Tablet, running full version of windows. Great. But I balked at the price, which for a new one is well over a grand by the time you buy a keyboard, and for what I wanted it for not worth the cost.

So I wondered if CeX had any. Turns out they did, a 2023 Surface Pro 9, 12th gen i5 with 256GB storage. For £530. Even buying the keyboard separately and buying a 2tb SSD to swap into it (easy job) would work out far cheaper, so I bought it.

It rocked up and holy chit it’s never been out of the box, literally brand new. 5 years warranty from CeX too.

Initial impressions are great, it’s not going to match my laptop in graphics horsepower but easily plays NFSU2 and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, the screen/speakers are as good if not better than the iPad it’s replacing, there’s two thunderbolt 4 ports so no problems using USB and charging simultaneously, oh and it runs Windows so you can do anything without silly restrictions. Really happy with it so far.

 

[Oggy997]

We bought a surface pro 3 because we had $2k cash spare in 2015, in hawaii.

Since then we've had:
Sp3: x2
Sp4: x1
Sp5: x1
Sp7: x1
Sp8: x2
Sp9: x3

And I just bought a sp10 (?) the business spec with an Intel processor,, as they went to snapdragon.

Honestly, as a two in one, it's unbeatable, she has rdp for work configured on hers and so she can go on holiday/back home and only take the surface, still work and do her own personal stuff.
Wouldn't be without one.

 

[McGherkin]

How have you bought so many? You keep breaking them or something?

 

[Oggy997]

That's between two of us, she's broke 3, I've broke 1, but this new one is Ram related, the 9s we have/had are 8gb jobbies and we've started to need more.

 

[McGherkin]

Fair enough then. This one's definitely going straight in a case.

 

[Flob]

I bought the original Surface when I did a degree and it was brilliant, back then Microsoft had realease One Note and it was a game changer for me.

 

[CrippsCorner]

I've had Surface Pro's since the first in 2013! Big fan. Latest I have is the 8 I was planning to upgrade again this year but not sure about the recently revealed ones... nice colours but a little more limited and hard to get for under a grand brand new now.