The 'Look What the Postman Brought Me' Thread - Technology Edition

[Strudel]

And to think I actually moved out of shot anything I thought might be incriminating. I hadn't thought the tissues would be. I'm more sophisticated than that; there's a towel out of shot down to the right.

The tissues are actually because I'm allergic to pretty much everything in life, particularly dust, so I'm constantly sneezing.

[Snowy]

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[Alan]

Just treated myself to one of them there new fangled Apple Watch 4's to replace my first generation model. I really just wanted a waterproof model so I could go swimming had have some music in my ears. Nearly bought a used Series 2 but ended up going all out becuase I'm daft.

Going from the first gen to this... Siri is way quicker. First gen would take a good 5-10 seconds to analyse what you said and get a response where on this model its just as fast as on the phone. Everything is way snappier, apps load up quick, menus never hitch (though it was rarely a problem before) and music populates instantly. The battery is much better getting me the best part of two days versus the originals low battery warning at every bed time. I also really like the autosync of podcasts to the watch. The new screen is very nice and if anything I think it might be a touch too big now but not overly so. Apparently the smaller model has more active screen area than the large model of the previous watches so the small one might be the one to go for.

All that aside its kind of not worth the upgrade from even the first gen one beyond waterproofing. I mean, a few seconds extra on siri and slightly slower response isnt a deal breaker nor is the battery lasting the whole day. Its fairly incremental and the first gen one is still a great watch.

Now what I really like though is this e-sim shit! I absolutely love that I can just leave my phone at home and I have most of the communication functionality on the watch. Maps/phonecalls/texts/music/podcasts etc.. all the major stuff is right on my wrist no matter how far away my phone is. Even email kind of works though its a bit fiddley. Theres a perfectly usable twitter client and skyguide even works on the bloody thing, AR mode and all! The majority of this stuff does work on the Series 3 through which I would probably have went for instead knowing everything I know now. Its not without some irritants but overall this is a step towards what I have always hoped will be a thing where your watch is the brain of your phone and you just have a series of slave screens of whatever size (from 4" to 12"+) that all run off the same brains.

A bit of a downer is the ECG stuff doesnt work outside of America for the foreseeable future. So no detecting my defective heart

[Drarok]

I upgraded from the series 0 to a series 3, and felt it was night and day. I wasn't that fussed by it when I had the 0 and might not have bothered replacing it if it broke, but since the upgrade I find it's way more usable. I still find Siri noticeably and significantly slower than the phone, I wonder if the step up to the 4 is large enough to notice a difference. It's just slow enough to be irritating when I'm using it to control the lights. Walking down the stairs, raise watch and say "turn on the living room", and they'll still only turn on a second or two after I arrive.

Oh, and the raise to talk feature? Such a great idea with woeful delivery. When it doesn't work you feel like an absolute idiot. Bring watch up, say a thing… nothing. Insta-rage.

[Alan]

That’s true, I went back to hey Siri after 5mins. Also the watch app store is such a bag of shit, finding decent stuff is like trying to find a good app on google play. No categories, no real feature visibility (can it use esim data/complications etc..) and even complications are hard to decipher since you cat tell which specific complication style it works with. I also don’t see why e wry app doesn’t have a quick launch basic complication. Also complication is a dumb name!

Like I said, it has its irritations. -_-

[Drarok]

Complication is the proper term watch makers gave to any additional features on a watch that aren't just "what's the time", so it makes sense, even if it is a pretty weird name.

[Rusty]

Haven't had a blood vclot since christmas I've been pretty lax in any exercise. Getting out of breath pretty easily. I couldn't face my normal cycle into work so I bought an e-bike from Halfords (second cheapest as the cheapest didn't have a frame that fit me - being 6'4")

Only had 2 commutes so far, so approximately 25miles in total. One with minimal and one with full assist. Guess what one I prefer
Although even with full assist it cuts out at 15.5 mph and it's all me from then on, so I definitely have a thigh burn as I do tend to cycle fast.

It's brilliant arriving at work not being a sweaty mess. According to Strava the ride in rises in height from sealevel to 400feet. It's all climb.... the ride home is awesome though as it's all downhill.

For those interested, the actual bike I bought was a Carrera Crossfire-e (mens).

[Snowy]

Bought myself an M2 drive, or the Samsung MZ-V7E1T0BW 970 EVO 1 TB V-NAND M.2 PCI Express Solid State Drive, Black to be precise.

I was getting a bit miffed with some of my loading times, and found out about M2 drives and that my mobo supported them. This is the quickest I could get for my mobo, and after a teensy spot of faff getting it recognised am now up and running. Installed Warhammer TW2, an absolute monster for loading times, and it just flies through them now. Happy Snowy.

[Drarok]

[…] 970 EVO 1 TB[…]
This is the quickest I could get for my mobo

Really? If it supports the Evo line, surely the Pro would also work, and be just that tiny bit quicker?

I've only got a 500GB M.2 drive in my PC, I wish I'd splashed out on the 1TB. I've got room for another one, so if they come down in price later in the year I'll probably drop another 500GB or a 1TB in there.

[Snowy]

I went on a mate's knowledge, I know the square root of zip about these.

Maybe I could have got something a wee bit faster, but it is a huge improvement over what I was experiencing and will take that

[elgaucho]

Bought myself an M2 drive, or the Samsung MZ-V7E1T0BW 970 EVO 1 TB V-NAND M.2 PCI Express Solid State Drive, Black to be precise.

I was getting a bit miffed with some of my loading times, and found out about M2 drives and that my mobo supported them. This is the quickest I could get for my mobo, and after a teensy spot of faff getting it recognised am now up and running. Installed Warhammer TW2, an absolute monster for loading times, and it just flies through them now. Happy Snowy.

ooh i got one of these last year - absolutely amazing, but i wasn't thrilled about the buying price. Still... it is nice having that much space on an ssd!

[DjchunKfunK]

Got myself a 2060 Super so I have an Asus 970 going spare. I'm going to put it up on ebay but if anyone would like to buy it before I do I would take £70 for it (plus P&P). It's only a few years old and even comes with it's original packaging!

[Sly Boots]

One of these arrived in the post this morning:

https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/xbox-one/con ... al-edition

Got it free by swapping our broadband to BT, even with the BT Sport app included in the package (which you needed to get the Xbox) we're still paying the same per month we were paying to Plusnet before, so happy about that. A small (25%) bump to our internet speed as well.

So, after 40 years on this planet, I finally become a dirty console gamer

[Rusty]

Sell it and but a nice graphics card for your, obviously superior, PC

[Alan]

You can’t buy a nice graphics card for the pittance xboxes sell for