11.11 is China’s biggest sale day – potentially bigger than Black Friday! There’s tons of deals out there if you do your due diligence and keep in mind some of the techniques that sellers use to try and entice you to buy things that are not on sale.
There are some crazy good deals and coupons available this week for action cams. Gearbest is having their September sale and a bunch of sellers on Amazon are blowing out old stock since summer is over. If you’re looking for a cheap GoPro clone or budget action cam here are the best deals this week:
The Blue Yeti is one of the better mics for beginner Youtubers. In this video, I put it head to head with my old setup, a $5 LAV mic I purchased off of Amazon several years back. Surprisingly the difference in audio quality under a perfect setup isn’t that great.
The Firefly 8SE is a real 4K action camera from Firefly based on a Sony 12MP sensor. It is largely similar to last years Firefly 8S, but includes a few minor updates such as a touch screen and better audio. These improvements make it easy to recommend this camera over others at the same price point. It also includes a mic in the box, as an added bonus.
This speaker has decent sound and looks good. I compared it to my favorite speaker I’ve used in this price range (a UE Roll II that a friend owns) and found the audio in many cases was improved with slightly deeper bass and more volume. That being said with a design like this it is difficult for the speaker to produce the deepest bass tones (bass requires moving air and a flat body with a closed back does not have as much air moved) so if you’re looking for really low bass found in rap and some electronic music you’re gonna have to go for something a bit bigger.
The DDPai Mix3 is a 1080p dashcam based on a Sony sensor that promises excellent night video – and for the most part it delivers. This camera has noticeably better license plate legibility than many other 1080p dashcams in its price class. The built-in storage seems like an odd decision, but may make it easier for a user who does not want to buy extra memory. It also has quite a large battery.
The 8bitdo Zero is a tiny gamepad meant to replace on-screen buttons for phone games, that also works well for emulation. The build quality is pretty solid and the shoulder buttons have a nice click. Just keep in mind that this thing is TINY! It might not be the best device for someone with bigger hands. Also, it is missing some buttons compared to an Xbox controller, so don’t expect to play AAA titles on the go with it.
The Keeken N56 + HL01 is a dual dashcam kit that features two real 1080p video streams, an OV4689 sensor for the front and a Sony IMX sensor for the rear. This kit is pretty close to a replacement for the Viofo A119 front facing and the A119S rear facing, at a significantly lower cost. There are a few little issues with the video quality but overall it has been solid and reliable in my time using it.
This is a review of the Samsung Galaxy S9 camera (not S9+) after using it for a month. Is it really worth upgrading? Well, if you’re using a smartphone from the last 1 – 3 years and you’re still happy with it, I don’t see why you would. Many of the hyped features are things the average user won’t really notice or care about in day to day use. The camera is WAY better in low light but the old phone still holds solid for day time.
Since Lenovo is likely going to update this model for 2018, there are some solid bargains on this laptop if you don’t mind 7th gen hardware. It’s quite a capable device for work on the go, plus the flip screen and decent sounding speakers are great for media consumption. It doesn’t get too hot nor too loud while doing heavy tasks. There are some caveats that come with the price though: the potential screen issues and limited ports. Apart from that, this laptop seems to be great for day to day use, light gaming and media consumption.