This rather generic USB Floppy Drive has just arrived for me to review. It’s sold by Dainty / ChuangZhiJLB – but it has the same internals as every other floppy drive on the market. It worked instantly in Linux and MacOS. Shows up as a USB drive. Shove a disk in there and your OS…
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The fine folks at Poweradd have sent me one of their gadgets to review. This is their 26800mAh USB-C power bank with Power Delivery. It’s pretty similar to most normal portable batteries – but because it has USB-C-PD, it can charge MacBooks, Nintendo Switches, and other high-power devices! Let’s take a look: In the box…
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I’ve been sent a Flyland USB-C hub to review. It’s a small but versatile unit – perfect for people who need to connect legacy equipment to something with USB-C ports. For £21, you get 7 ports: 3x USB 3.0 1x HDMI 4K 1x Micro SD 1x SD 1x USB Power Delivery It worked perfectly on…
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The only thing I miss about my old MacBook was its magnetic charging cable. It was just so convenient to be able to hover the plug near my laptop and have it snap into place. If I walked off with my machine, I knew the cable would easily spring out – rather than jerking me…
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We’re in the age of endless conference calls. So I decided to spruce up my audio hardware. Sadly, I don’t have the budget for a professional podcaster’s microphone. Luckily, I was sent this cheapo model to review. And, I’m pleased to say, it’s pretty good! Comes with a reasonably long USB cord, and a pop-shield.…
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My quest to move my entire life to USB-C continue. Headphones, laptops, Switch, phone, eReader – all taking the same power port. Bliss! But that means I need more USB-C chargers. This is the YLpower 87W USB-C Charger. First off, 87? What? The USB-C port is capable of 85 Watts – enough for even the…
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This isn’t entirely a rhetorical question. I’m genuinely interested. A few weeks ago, I bought an electric screwdriver. One of the key selling points, for me, was that it charged via micro-USB. My last electric screwdriver had some weird proprietary connector which broke. I’ve hundreds of USB cables – of various lengths – and dozens…
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Here’s a weird market gap. Most modern phones use USB-C to charge. Increasingly, they forego a headphone jack in favour of using Bluetooth. Peachy! But all of the Bluetooth headphones that I can find are charged via Micro USB. Which is bloody annoying! I want to charge my phone, laptop, camera, games console, and headphones…
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The good folk at Ailipu Technology have sent me a fist-sized USB camera to review. This is a cheap and simple way to get external video into a home server like a Raspberry Pi. This is the, slightly cumbersomely named, elp-usb100w05mt-dl36. What’s in the box? The USB cable is around 5 metres long, and is…
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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…
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