tech reviews and videos
Reviews of compute equipment and PC accessories.
This A95x is a good value TV box bundle, with fast processing and a nice keyboard. The 1GB ram version will work best for users who plan to watch TV, movies and install limited apps, but as with any TV box I advise spending a little bit more for a 2GB/16GB version as there will be far more space to install apps and better performance overall.
I owned this TV box for about a month before reviewing it. For that month it worked fine, but it suddenly stopped functioning. It turns out that the soldering around the power port had failed, and the power port separated from the board. This is likely due to heat. For this reason, I could not recommend this TV box despite its great performance.
I’ve drawn with a half dozen graphics tablets and I can say the Huion H610 is among the better I’ve used. The pen pressure works great, with decent weight variation. The tablet has a modestly rough texture to it, not exactly like drawing on paper but not smooth either. It reminds me of drawing on my old Wacom Intuos 2 in terms of handling – and that’s a good thing. The only parts that were difficult was the driver install.
In a world of shady USB-C connectors, it’s nice to know which cables won’t fry devices. The Blitzwolf cable is fully USB-C spec compliant and is also on Beson Leung‘s recommended cable list (he is a Google engineer that is reviewing 3rd party USB-C cables to inform the public which should be avoided). All of my tests checked out too: the cable successfully negotiates the correct amperage based on the device it is plugged in to and passes CheckR tests. The cable is correctly advertised as a USB 2.0 cable, so it is better for charging than data transfer and it does charge at full speed. Insertion and removal of both ends is smooth but firm and the cable is decent build quality. The red braided length is a good stiffness and the cable ends are a strong aluminium. I would recommend this cable as a spec compliant charging cable that looks quite good.
This keyboard is one of the better feeling (non-mechanical) keyboards I own, with fast and accurate key response. It is similar to a high end laptop keyboard, with a slightly smaller than average key layout and springy feedback. I can type significantly faster with this keyboard then I can with the other wireless keyboards I own due to the response of the keys. Unfortunately the touch pad kind of sucks.
The Gatekeeper is a simple device to lock and unlock a computer based on proximity to the USB receiver. It works well enough.
The Satechi Bluetooth gamepad has a similar look and feel to an Xbox controller. The button action is springy and the response of the triggers is great. I tested the controller with some playstation emulators and it worked great. After mapping the keys in the application it was just like playing the game on a real console.
VR is still in its infancy and there are a lot of kinks that need to be worked out. I was all excited to receive a VR headset, but alas… On the surface, the Telmu VR headset is a nice offering, with a substantially better build quality than Google Cardboard (cause it’s made of plastic, who’d’a thought?), but that’s where the good things end. This headset is significantly heavier than cardboard and borders on downright uncomfortable on my face.
The Volutz Equilibrium Micro USB cables are by far best cables I’ve gotten my hands on. The quality is evident from the moment I received the package.