Several years ago, I purchased a Clevo N151CU laptop with the idea that I'd gradually upgrade the RAM, storage, and other bits. After my keyboard failed, I found it difficult to find replacement parts. The whole point of the Framework laptop is that it is specifically designed to be modular. It come in kit form, is easy to disassemble, and is (reasonably) well supported by an ecosystem of manufacturers and makers. I splashed out on the larger Framework 16. Again, I only bought one stick of RAM …
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I was recently asked to review some motion sensitive LEDs. Not usually my thing, but they charge via USB - so why not! It has the most bizarre product description I've seen: Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentAlways nice to review a gadget which comes with a reminder of your own mortality… pic.x.com/wGJYcWCVyJ❤️ 9💬 3🔁 014:46 - Wed 07 October 2020 I think it is trying to say that if you leave the room the light will extinguish. Anyway, this is what it looks like: Four columns of LEDs - two a…
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The good folk at Seeed Studio have sent me a Rock Pi S to review. Since the original Raspberry Pi came out, there has been an explosion in Single Board Computers - but this one is special. It is miniscule - almost dominated by the Ethernet port. And the specifications are ridiculously good - considering this thing costs US$10 + postage. 256MB RAM USB-C power Ethernet 26 GPIO pins Another 26 pins for voice/audio (I2C, PCM, TDM, PDM, SPDIF, and HDMI ARC) And, of course, it runs Ubuntu! …
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I review a lot of tech kit. It is amazing just how bad the consumer experience is when you have a brand-new box in your hands. It can be as simple as difficult to open packaging, to the existential horror of a poorly translated manual. The first time a customer holds your product in their hands should be a moment of joy. Something to reinforce the notion that they have been wise with their investment. I'm going to walk through an example of a poor unboxing usability, in the hope that it will…
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Can a mouse ever be worth £100? Yes. Let's get that out of the way. If you spend all day working with your hands, you owe it to yourself to give them the best possible equipment to protect them. For me, that's a vertical mouse with re-mappable buttons to help prevent RSI. Over the last few years, I've purchased several Evoluent mice. They've kindly sent me their latest model so I can write a Linux guide for it. Look It's a Daft Punk Helmet of a mouse. Chrome and matt black plastic and …
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I've just bought an LG 360 - at £150, it's one of the cheapest dual lens cameras on the market. This an excellent bit of kit. Easy to use, impressive results, and an app which works pretty well. A single click button to take photos and videos, recording audio in surround sound, and perfect for uploading to Facebook or YouTube. Unlike most of the kit I review, I paid for this myself. I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who wants to get started in spherical photography. You can …
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The good folks at Ntonpower have sent me this utterly ridiculous, and fantastically over-powered USB charger. It has ten frickin' ports each one capable of delivering 2.4 amps. So, what's it like? Straight up, it looks like a plastic toast rack. It's a chunky beast, but surprisingly lightweight. You won't have trouble lifting it, but it stays firmly in place. Round the other side are 10 USB ports. Well spaced out, not too cramped. It might be nice if they lined up with the rack, but…
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I've been sent an Omega2 Plus from Onion.io - it is a $9 Linux computer with built in Wi-Fi, Made for IoT. The obvious comparison is with the Raspberry Pi - and the ultra-cheap Pi-Zero. The Omega2 has a few advantages. It has a (small) amount of built in memory - so even if you don't have an SD card to hand it is still usable. WiFi is also built in - only 2.4GHz, but good enough for most purposes. Arduino compatible. A whole range of expansion boards. It runs Linux Embedded Development…
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We're entering a golden era for small-batch artisinal hardware. Anyone with an idea and a modicum of talent can build hardware and get it shipped around the world at a reasonable price. Enter "The ReSpeaker" - an open source alternative to Amazon's Echo. It promises ultimate hackability, speech recognition, and IoT control, wrapped in a cheap single-board design. ReSpeaker is an open modular voice interface to hack things around you. Let you interact with your home appliances, your…
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I've been trying to find the perfect Linux laptop. I need something small, light, powerful, and with an ergonomic keyboard. Hmmm... Perhaps I don't need a laptop. I could use a tablet and my new Bluetooth keyboard... Enter BQ's Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition. It promises the Ubuntu experience in a convenient tablet package. I wanted to love this tablet. But it is so unbelievably bad that I'm returning it for a refund. Unboxing It all starts pretty well. OK, a few usability issues. These…
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I love my keyboards. I mean, I have an unhealthy obsession with them. I spend a lot of time typing and the cramped keyboards which come with most laptops and MacBooks just don't cut it for me. Their poor ergonomics leave my wrists in pain. For years I was a devotee of the Microsoft 4000 Keyboard. It's a big old beast - and that's its main drawback; it's just too large to carry around. It could also do with an integrated USB hub if it's going to take up one of my precious laptop ports. So…
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As regular readers know, I've turned a BLE Beacon into a wireless business card. Physical Web used the Bluetooth beacon standard to continually broadcast not an ID number, but a URL. If you're in my proximity, you can grab my contact details. The one problem with the beacon I have is that it has an exposed button. Every time it got bumped in my pocket, the token would emit a couple of shrill beeps and set itself into config mode. After a couple of months, the CR2032 battery died. …
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