It’s December of another year, and time for me to write a summary post of the tech toys I picked up during the year. I’ve spent most of 2020 in WFH mode. But thankfully, our home from the start had already been pretty well-equipped with laptops and its accompanying accessories, multiple charger placements, and a mesh-type WIFI setup. So, the transition for us – including several months where all four of us were working or attending lessons from home – had been fairly smooth for us technology-wise.
The number of tech toys I picked up this year is actually relatively fewer compared to previous years, but it wasn’t actually on account of financial prudence. In fact, in 2020, we had more devices break and/or were in a bad state and needing replacement. These included a just over 4 year old laptop refusing to start-up, the butterfly switch of a key from another laptop came off and couldn’t be mounted back in, motherboard failure on my two year old iPad Pro 11, and finally a robot vacuum cleaner that likewise refused to work anymore. None of these devices were subject to significantly more stress than normal, WFH or not, so the device failures were all coincidental.
That said, here we go:
Dell XPS 13 (9380) – win: my first major purchase of the year, and a few months before the pandemic took us all by storm. I’ve loved the compactness of the first Dell XPS 13 I owned 3 years ago, and though that device also suffered a motherboard failure just past its two year mark, I wasn’t entirely put off Dell’s XPS line. I picked the XPS 13 off Dell’s factory refurbished line, and swapped out its relatively measly 256GB SSD with a fast 1TB Samsung Evo 970 Nvme one. This thing is a portable screamer now. Unfortunately, this ultraportable was purchased largely with the intent of it being my travel laptop, and we finally never got to travel for 2020. I applied also a laptop decal to its top, and almost year of use later, the laptop still looks and feels as new as it was at the point of purchase in January this year.
Xiaomi Viomi V2 Pro Robot Vacuum – win: this is our third robot vacuum cleaner so far: one for each year since 2018. It’s also by far the robot that’s worked better than the other two. The first – iLife A6 – cleaned well enough, but had serious problems sensing obstacles in its path. The second – Ecocavs Deebot Ozmo 900 – was dual function: it supported both vacuuming and mopping. However, the unit’s LDR – Laser Distance Sensor – failed five months into its use, making the bot essentially unable to start a cleaning cycle. This new Viomi V2 was picked up in March this year, and it’s worked without problems for the most part for 8 months since then, and we use it around 4-5 times a week. Unlike the Deebot, the Viomi does a much better job remembering our apartment’s map. Oddly, the Viomi will occasionally refuse to start a cleaning cycle, though it seems to be the result of intermittent network connection problems. And the water compartment in the dual-purpose tank is rather limited: its volume can hold enough water for a full cleaning of the apartment, but not more than that. Still, this has been a great robot cleaner, and it looks to be able to continue working well for the next few years.
Gigabyte Aero 15-X9 – win: the Aero 15-X9 was picked up to replace my 4 year old Aftershock S17, which suffered an increasing number of component-level failures in the two preceding years, before finally refusing to power-on altogether in March this year. Gaming class notebooks with decent screens and good specs aren’t uncommon, but they routinely command a significant premium above similar midstream laptops. I got lucky though finding a slightly older model that was being sold at significant discount: the X9 had a decent i7 processor and a fantastic GPU – similar configurations would have routinely cost at least SGD500 more. So, and without hesitation, I picked one up, and the X9 has found a permanent home in our master bedroom. Eight months into its use, the X9 has also borne up remarkably well though the laptop under stress does heat up quickly – necessitating additional laptop cooling, e.g. via a cooler mat.
Samsung S20+ Grey Snapdragon Edition – win: my first higher than 60Hz refresh rate smartphone. General experience wise, the S20+ wasn’t actually noticeably faster nor responsive than the handphone it replaced – the Oppo Reno 10x Zoom. And the QHD+ resolution on the S20+ was immaterial as I never need it anyway. No, if nothing else, the singular most important upgrade for me in this Samsung phone was the 120Hz refresh rate, and it’s hard to go back to lesser phones after experiencing it!
Oculus Quest – Mixed: my second VR kit, and certainly way better than the first – the Samsung Gear VR. There’s sufficient content that’s being put out across different platforms, and with firmware upgrades at the start of the year have basically made the Quest capable of running very quality content without needing a tether back to the gaming PC. Unfortunately, the Quest 2 that included significant upgrades was announced a month after I picked up the Quest, and was going to retail at a lower price too. Gosh – what a bummer. So, as it is today now, there’s no reason to pick up the Quest anymore as the Quest 2 is superior in just about every way. As it turned out, I got the Quest 2 anyway at the end of the year – more on that at the end of this entry!
Amazfit GTS – win: picked up in July, this little smartwatch has been on my wrist for most of the four months since. Amazfit puts out firmware upgrades periodically, and also updates to the software app quite frequently. Battery life remains a solid 8 to 10 days of us, and the Gorilla glass display layer and ceramic body has also protected the watch reasonaly well. It finally did pick up a faint scratch on the display screen just this week though. Not unexpeted since I’ve been wearing it all the time – including when I turn in for the night – and I have not been especially going out of my way to take care of it either.
Epson L6170 Printer – mixed: a replacement for an almost 5 year old Epson L550 photo printer whose paper feeds for printing and scanning were frequently jamming. The L6170 has a couple of important upgrades – including WIFI connectivity, and double-sided printing – though a few months into its use, I’ve observed a few of the quirks on the L550 have carried into the L6170 too. These included a still somewhat finicky auto-document feeder when scanning documents, and that the scanning app forgets the IP address of the printer when the printer kicks into standby mode.
Apple iPad Pro 12.9 (4th Generation) – win: an urgent replacement for an almost 2 year old iPad Pro 11 that failed without warning. The Pro 12.9 with the Logitech Slim Folio keyboard at just over 1.3kg now weighs about as much as a not particularly light ultraportable, but the tablet and keyboard combo is a real joy to use. And I’ve found myself writing these blog entries, and multi-tasking on the 12.9 more than I did with the 11. As a footnote: I went to two repairmen to see if they could fix my iPad Pro 11, and neither could: which meant either I went back to Apple and fork out the likely SGD729 fee for repair for a 2 year old iPad which I can buy for new at SGD1349, or give it up for salvage. I went with the latter option and exchanged it for SGD100.
We also picked up two foldable bikes before Christmas, but we’re still adjusting and learning about those two gadgets, and have yet to get a firm opinion on it. There’s also the Oculus Quest 2 that the wife and kids bought me for Christmas – that’ll have to go into the 2021 update too.
That’s a wrap for 2020 – a dready year that I won’t miss. Cheers up to 2021!
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