While Apple went all-in on ARM with their custom silicon, the Windows side of things has been a little more slow going. So far the handful of ARM based Windows devices I’ve looked at have been expensive underperforming devices with significant compatibility issues.
I was surprised that we haven’t seen any ARM based mini PCs until now. Unfortunately this first example, the Apcslimic Dot 1 Mini PC is one that I will not recommend. Here are some of the issues I found with it:
No 4k Support
Only 100 megabit ethernet
Lackluster performance vs. similarly priced Intel & AMD based Mini PCs
No return policy
And most importantly a non-activated version of Windows 11 ARM.
The company tried to get away with running some development tool hack after purchase to get around the lack of activation. But the tool didn’t work properly on my device. While they denied shipping PCs without proper activation it’s clear these systems are not being shipped with proper licenses.
ARM based Windows laptops trade performance for battery life, but on a MiniPC that plugs into a wall you’re not getting much of a benefit beyond a few cents a month off your electric bill. There are far better Intel & AMD based Mini PCs I’d suggest over this one.
Back in 1994 your options for gaming were the Sega Genesis/SegaCD, the Super Nintendo, Turbografx 16 and DOS PC Games. These systems had their differences but for the most part they delivered very similar gameplay and graphics. The PCs were more powerful from a CPU perspective but 3D accelerator boards like the 3Dfx were years away.
Enter the 3DO. It arrived around 1993 with a pretty hefty $800 price tag but delivered a staggering (for the time) increase in gaming prowess. It did it all: outstanding 2D performance with a huge color palette, 3D acceleration, and the best video playback quality out of any of the CD based devices including the PC. But it was out of reach for most gamers.
Then in the fall of 1994 the price dropped in half to $399 along with the release of a reimagined Road Rash that looked amazing at my local Babbages. I had saved up some money over the summer and picked it up at the local mall during my freshman year of college.
As you can imagine my dorm room was pretty popular for the remainder of the academic year – at least until the following fall when the Playstation arrived here in the USA. Some of our favorite games included Road Rash, The Need for Speed (the original!), FIFA Soccer, Super Wing Commander & Wing Commander 3, and many others. They also had a few fun FMV game show games like Twisted and Zhadnost.
Many of the games don’t hold up well these days but it’s still fun to boot it up every once and awhile. The problem is that the optical drives on the aging consoles are not long for this world. Enter the FZ1-ODE – an optical disc emulator or ODE that allows games to be booted from USB sticks or SD cards.
Developed as an open source project by Felix Lazarev, it works as a drop-in replacement for the 3DO’s optical drive, using the same cables that connect it to the motherboard. The console thinks it’s a CD-ROM drive.
The FZ1-ODE dramatically increases load times – so much so it almost feels like a new console. You’ll also note some games like Need for Speed running a bit smoother as texture loading can happen much more efficiently. The ODE will also back up your save game NVRAM to the SDcard and allow for restoring it should you need to swap out the system’s save game battery. As a bonus the ODE’s menu has a killer soundtrack composed by the developer’s daughter.
At $250 it’s not cheap but for die hard 3DO fans it’s a must have. It’ll breath new life into your console and for many allow it to be playable again. Lazarev has an external model in the works for $100 more that will work with more consoles that have an expansion connector.
We did manage to collect a lot of great content out here about the many systems astronauts, engineers and scientists will be testing as NASA and the European Space Agency ready crewed missions to the moon.
While on site here at the Kennedy Space Center we spoke with Astronaut Shannon Walker, got a close up look at the Orion survival space suits and a new radiation protection system, and spoke with the head of NASA’s science office. That plus a look at the rocket on the pad along with some of the rapid construction taking place at SpaceX’s neighboring launch pad.
Our view of the pad from the NASA Press Site
I will be following this video up with a wrapup about the scrub and the highs and lows of rocket chasing. I’ve chased rockets longer than I’ve been a YouTuber and out of the seven launches I’ve attempted to witness only one went off on time!
And the rocket was not the only thing that had trouble getting from point A to point B. I had to battle an airport closure, a hotel cancellation and a missing rental car at the airport in the middle of the night!
All in this video was literally a labor of love :). I hope you might give it a watch as these typically don’t perform all that well for the amount of effort that goes into it. We also did a livestream the night before the second launch attempt so you can get a feel for what it’s like to be on-site at NASA for a launch!
We’ll be back to more regular tech content this week! I also have another dispatch on the way from my visit to the Retro World Expo right before I left on this adventure. Stay tuned!
Frontier’s new fiber optic service in Connecticut is rolling out quite aggressively. My father recently got it in his neighborhood and installed it at his place giving me an opportunity to do a full review!
So far it’s working as advertised – but it’s also apparent that even though gigabit speeds are coming to more and more households peering arrangements and other technical factors limit how much practical bandwidth is available for many tasks.
One of the “real world” activities I tested was uploading a video to YouTube. On my 6 gigabit connection here at the house the best I get is about 400 megabits per second – and that’s exactly what I got on the 500 megabit plan my Dad has.
This is why I suggest most families opt for the entry level plan. In most cases there’s not much of a need for more bandwidth as it’s usually impossible to make use of the fat pipe available on fiber optic plans.
Frontier is not known for having the best network or infrastructure. We’ll likely dive into their history and recent bankruptcy in a future video. Stay tuned!
If it was not already plainly obvious I’m a huge fan of Star Wars. My favorite films have been poked and prodded over the decades with the most significant update to them taking place in 1997 when Lucasfilm re-released the original trilogy with some controversial updates.
In my physical collection I have a number of editions of the movie: the original “A New Hope” VHS rental release, three editions on laserdisc including two box sets, two different DVD releases, a Blu Ray edition and more recently the 4k Blu Ray release. Sometimes I feel like I’ve single handily funded George Lucas’ retirement.
In my physical collection it’s very easy to differentiate all of these different editions on my shelf. But up until now in Plex you can only have one edition per database listing. If you had multiple files it would blob them up together as a single unit with common meta data.
Enter the new Plex Pass “multiple editions” feature. This allows you to set up distinct database entries for each edition of a film, allowing you to treat each version as its own thing complete with its own metadata, thumbnails, etc. Using the collections feature you can bundle them all up to keep them together but separate.
To enable multiple editions all you need to do is change the file name! See more in my latest Plex video here.
Yesterday I received an email from Plex about a potential data breach in their systems. They found evidence that a third party was able to gain access to their user database:
Yesterday, we discovered suspicious activity on one of our databases. We immediately began an investigation and it does appear that a third-party was able to access a limited subset of data that includes emails, usernames, and encrypted passwords. Even though all account passwords that could have been accessed were hashed and secured in accordance with best practices, out of an abundance of caution we are requiring all Plex accounts to have their password reset. Rest assured that credit card and other payment data are not stored on our servers at all and were not vulnerable in this incident.
First kudos to Plex for notifying us the day after vs. the statutory maximum like my bank Ally waited to do a few months ago. While this is a serious breach Plex does not believe the hackers were able to gain access to plain text passwords.
The database accessed is the one that you use to log into Plex services (like Plex pass, etc) – not the local database stored on user’s servers. But if you are using a Plex login to manage your Plex servers and clients you should change your password AND logout all devices from your account as a precaution as I detailed in this video short. You may want to enable two factor authentication (2FA) while you’re at it.
It does not appear that those who use Google to authenticate their accounts need to do anything. But I’d enable 2FA just to be safe.
Afterward you’ll need to “re-claim” any servers attached to your account. It’s a pain but a necessary precaution.
WD has a new USB-C external SSD called the P40 SSD which is the subject of my latest review. What distinguishes this one from the P50 we reviewed a few months ago is that this one is a little smaller and has RGB lighting.
I found the drive performs quite well for its stated use case: gaming. The random read/write tests on the Crystal DiskMark test suite were excellent. But I did notice that it was not able to sustain its write speeds over longer periods of time, perhaps making this a little less ideal for professional video capture applications that need 800 megabytes+ per second. I did edit a 4k video on it and found it to be very responsive with no lags or slowdowns.
WD continues to build drives that support the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (aka Superspeed 20gbps). This is different than the USB 4 20 gigabit standard that uses Thunderbolt technology. Most computers don’t support 2×2 technology (I have yet to get one in for review that does) so in most cases you’ll only get about half the state maximum of the marketed claims even when connected to a Thunderbolt port. In my testing we were able to sustain about 940 megabytes per second in reads and writes. Yes, USB continues to be a total mess for consumers.
The RGB lighting is not necessary but does differentiate the drive a bit from its competitors. The colors can be configured with a software control panel on Windows which will also allow connections to Razer Chroma, Asus Aura, Gigabyte RGB Fusion and MSI Mystic for color coordination with other RGB hardware.
The drive will work on Xbox Series S & X along with the PS5. But games designed for these next gen systems can only be archived – not played – off the P40. My advice would be to install the prior gen games on the SSD and play the new ones off the console’s internal drive.
All in this is a good choice for gamers but also for booting operating systems, virtual machines, video editing, etc. thanks to its super fast random read and write speeds.
This is an enormous TV antenna designed for situations where you’re located far from broadcast towers or have challenging terrain like I do. It’s likely overkill for many people, but for me it is the first antenna that I tested that pulls in all of my major networks both over ATSC 1.0 and the new NextgenTV 3.0 standard.
Assembly wasn’t too difficult although the instructions reminded me a lot of Ikea’s sometimes cryptic assembly guides. Thankfully Televes has a helpful assembly video on their YouTube channel that will help those of us who are challenged assembling things like this.
The antenna includes a pre-amp for the best results. It is not outdoor rated but ideally you’ll place it somewhere near where the antenna is mounted on the exterior.
Performance is outstanding – most of my stations are located over 35 miles away with a lot of challenging terrain and lots of trees in the way. I found that it picked up my NextGenTV ATSC 3.0 stations better than an Antennas Direct unit I purchased previously with a separate preamp installed. It also picked up one ATSC 1.0 network that I could never receive and it was able to maintain about a 50% signal quality. In total I was able to reliably bring in about 55 channels to my place here – more than any other antenna I have tried.
Thanks to the Antenna Man for the recommendation! It’s big but if you’re having DTV reception problems this will likely solve your problem.
Every once and awhile Lenovo puts together the perfect “all rounder” laptop that offers a great mix of price, performance and utility. The Slim 7 Pro X is that machine for 2022.
It incorporates a Ryzen 6900HS processor (the first time machine I’ve reviewed with one) along with an Nvidia RTX 3050 GPU running at 55 watts. It’s just a little over 3 pounds, well built and has a nice 14″ 120hz display. It’s great for gaming, light VR, video editing, and other types of basic work.
I ran a few gaming tests with the GPU disabled to see how the Ryzen graphics worked on their own. Red Dead Redemption 2 ran much better on this vs. prior Ryzen generations which was also confirmed in our 3Dmark benchmark tests.
Whenever I cover anything cord cutting involving over the air antennas viewers tell me I have to talk to the Antenna Man. And in my latest video I do!
The 45 minute interview covers a wide range of topics including how the Antenna Man got his start as a subject-matter expert, the big changes ATSC 3.0 will bring, what types of antennas people should look for, and a whole lot more.
Be sure to check out the Antenna Man’s website where you can get an inexpensive consultation for what might work best in your location, and his YouTube channel where he looks at all things related to receiving free over the air broadcasts.
The Analogue Pocket recently received its long awaited update to allow for third party cores to be added to the system and that’s the topic of my latest video.
Magically a mysterious Github user posted cores for the GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, Sega Game Gear, Sega Master System, and the Sega SG1000 a day or two after the announcement. Analogue also came up with a PDP-1 core that plays the very first video game, SpaceWar.
There is hope that many open source MiSTer cores will be ported over to the Pocket platform. But don’t hold your breath – although the FPGA code can port over fairly easily the frameworks both systems use to attach the core logic to displays, controllers, file system, etc. are very different.
The first MiSTer core port attempt was of the NeoGeo core and it’s very, very rough. So rough I can’t get it to boot! But others have had better luck on YouTube. Hopefully some smart folks will get together and come up with a simple path to port more cores over to the portable system.
Some were hoping for a little more of a floodgate being opened given the potential the pocket has to run just about every 70’s, 80’s and 90’s console but it’s good to see some progress being made.
I’ll admit I’ve gotten a little addicted to WhatNot (affiliate link) which is a live auction site that has attracted some interesting sellers in the Retro game market and a few other collectible verticals.
The other day I happened upon a seller with an Atari 2600 that had its RF input swapped out for a RCA composite adapter. It even came with a controller in decent condition.
This was a great excuse to fire up the Retrotink 5x. After tweaking a few settings on the Retrotink side it looks perfect.
Unihertz’s “Tick Tock” phone has nothing to do with the social media network – its name refers to the round watch-like second display it has on the back. It is the subject of my latest video review. See it on Amazon and YouTube.
This very solid and rugged phone has a Mediatek Dimensity 700 processor, 8 GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and support for SD cards for additional storage. I was pleased with the performance of the phone for its reasonable price point and I think it’ll do well in industrial and commercial applications. It’s pretty good for games too.
Like other Unihertz phones the build quality is spectacular. It weighs almost 11 ounces and feels like a brick. The phone is IP68 rated for dust and water resistance, has a screen protector preinstalled, and has a case along with an extra screen protector in the box. There’s no need to purchase any additional accessories.
Battery life is exceptional – the large case allows for a large battery that will last quite a long time. It also supports up to 30 watts of fast charging over USB-C although it does not have wireless charging capabilities.
The rear display doesn’t have much utility for me. It’s cool but it feels like Unihertz was trying to come up with something to make this rather standard Android phone feel a little more unique.
The default clock it displays looks great and there are other watch faces that can be used instead of the default. In addition to watch faces the display can display notifications, has a compass app, and allows the rear camera to be used as selfie camera as you can see the preview image in the round display. This is not an Android Wear watch, however, it’s proprietary to Unihertz and they plan on adding additional features to it over time.
The cameras are terrible, however. Although the rear camera shoots at 48 megapixels the image quality is very bland. And with all of that resolution the max it can shoot video at is 1080p @ 30 frames per second. Although it looks like there are two cameras on the back the right hand side camera is just a place holder and doesn’t seem to do anything. It’s not selectable in the camera app. I suppose the camera system is fine for commercial work but it’s not competitive with other phones from better resourced competitors.
Unihertz is known for their niche phones like the super tiny Jelly 2 and their other Android phones with Blackberry style keyboards. This is their first attempt at a more mainstream phone. It’s certainly much better than the many generic phones we see at this price point but it’s not quite up to the level a slightly more expensive Google Pixel 6a would deliver – unless a rugged design is what you’re looking for.
Some may consider amateur radio an obsolete technology given all of the ways we can connect to others over the Internet. Unlike the Internet nobody owns amateur radio and it’s relatively easy to reach people over super long distances with nothing more than a low cost radio and a wire in a tree. As I’m typing this I’m remotely logged into a PC in the basement making contacts in South America using a digital mode called FT8.
Working within the limitations of small bits of bandwidth and the physics of radio communications is a ton of fun for those of us who like tinkering with technology.
The last two weeks on the channel could best be described as the “not for everyone” series. The ioSafe 220+ is another product not for most people but those who need one will appreciate that it exists. You can see my review here.
The ioSafe 220+ has all the guts of an Intel powered Synology 220+ NAS device inside of a fireproof and waterproof casing. It’s designed to survive being in a 1550 degree fahrenheit fire for 30 minutes and the subsequent water dousing it’ll take to put the fire out. The electronics won’t survive but the drives inside of the fireproof enclosure should.
It works thanks to an endothermic material that is built into the casing. Water molecules are trapped inside of the material and will turn into steam when placed in a high temperature environment. That steam draws heat away from the center portion where the drives are stored. The drive enclosure is hermetically sealed to prevent water intrusion. You can hear more about how it works in this interview I did with the founder of the company back in 2015.
One of the improvements in this version is a much quieter fan. Previous versions had super loud fans that made it difficult to locate the device in an office environment. This one is about as a quiet as a regular Synology NAS.
Performance otherwise is on-part with a regular Synology NAS.
Why is this not for everyone? Price. A regular diskless Synology 220+ NAS sells for $300. This one starts at $940. But there are often corporate and government requirements for data storage that call for flood and fire protection for mission critical data.
I was expecting another “betaish” feeling ARM on Windows experience with this one but was pleasantly surprised that Windows 11 is finally closing the performance and compatibility gaps of previous attempts.
Make no mistake: ARM on Windows is still nowhere near as seamless of an experience as ARM on the Mac is. The 3rd generation Snapdragon 8cx still lags far behind the Apple M1 in performance too.
But the performance on this new ThinkPad is now closer to a mid-range Intel or AMD laptop vs. the low end performance we saw before. And Windows 11 finally integrates support for both x86 and x64 apps in the current shipping version as opposed to having to install beta versions of Windows to get x64 compatibility.
And for the post part compatibility is pretty good. I ran a bunch of low impact x86 and x64 apps and all ran just fine with no complaints or crashes – a big improvement over my experiences with Windows 10 previously. But there are still some issues like Da Vinci Resolve (a video editing application) not identifying a GPU it can use.
Gaming of course is another story. Most games did not run for various reasons like anti-cheat code not recognizing the hardware and games written using the Vulkan API do not currently work on Windows ARM. I’ve found that games that rely on Microsoft’s DirectX architecture do better but performance lags behind current integrated graphics on Intel and AMD processors.
So why then would anyone consider an ARM Windows laptop? The answer is simple: battery life, battery life, and did I mention battery life? You won’t find a longer lasting Windows laptop anywhere else. This is the draw and the selling point right now – especially for executive types that mostly live inside of the Microsoft 365 / Office eco system.
Despite its remaining quirks ARM on Windows is beginning to feel a lot more like a new direction for Windows vs. a novelty. What it lacks now is performance vs. Apple’s M1/M2 architecture.
My journey into the world of amateur radio continues. This week we took a tour of the ARRL headquarters in my home state of Connecticut. We ended up with so much footage we had to split this piece into two parts!
In this first video we look at W1AW, also known as the Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Station. Maxim was the co-founder of the ARRL and an early pioneer of radio technology. You’ll see one of Maxim’s radios towards the end of the video. It still works but it’s rather dangerous to use around modern electronics due to the electrostatic fields it generates.
W1AW is where the ARRL transmits their morse code trainings and digital bulletins and is known throughout the world as an important entry to get into contact amateur logbooks.
W1AW is open to licensed amateurs and the public to operate from too which is what we’ll do in part of the series!
I had a viewer reach out to me recently asking about the best way to host audiobooks on a personal media server. And that question became the topic of my latest sponsored Plex video!
Plex does not have direct support for audiobooks but its music library feature works pretty well especially if the audiobooks you are ingesting have good data inside of their audio files. The most important setting is “store track progress” which will remember where you last left off. This is typically off by default for music libraries so you need to make sure that is enabled in the audiobook library you’re setting up.
Your audiobooks will playback just fine through the Plex app and Plexamp but some users have found third party apps that work with Plex to be a better option. The most popular app by far is Prologue on iOS which brings in some audiobook features missing in Plex apps. On Android Bookcamp and Chronicle are two similar options.
If you have a huge audiobook library you might want to check out this guide on Github with some additional scripts and agents you can install to help quickly organize a large block of audiobook files.
And if you’re looking for free audiobooks check out the Librivox project that is building a great library of books read by volunteers throughout the world. Oftentimes you can find multiple versions of the same book!
First things first on this one – it’s more of a “notification” camera vs. a “surveillance” camera. The reason is that because it needs to operate on minimal power it can’t provide a constant recording like a wired camera will. Depending on what settings you choose you’ll only get a short clip when motion triggers the camera to activate.
That puts this camera in the same market as the Wyze Outdoor cam and Blink cameras which cost significantly less. Is it better than those? Yes in many ways, but the other devices are far less expensive even if you add an optional solar panel for those devices.
But the solar panel works exceptionally well on this – I mounted the camera on top of my wife’s garden which is under direct sunlight for a large portion of the day. I purposely didn’t charge the camera when I received it and my battery less than a week later went from 40% to 75%. This is summertime right now so I’d imagine winter will be a little harder to maintain charge, but it’s impressive nonetheless.
Unlike the Blink and Wyze cameras this camera does not require a base station and will connect directly to your Wifi. This might be an issue if you don’t have a good wifi signal where you want to place the camera. The only fix is to get another wifi access point and move it closer to the area. So this means you need to find a spot that gets good sunlight (without a lot of afternoon shade) AND gets a good Wifi signal.
The spot where I have the camera mounted is able to get both a good signal and good sunlight and I’m pleased with the experience so far. The camera alerts quickly and gets thumbnail images delivered to my iPhone and Apple Watch wherever I am. I have no trouble accessing the camera over the Internet.
I like that there’s no monthly fee here and everything is stored on the camera itself. Cloud storage is not even an option on this camera. You need to download video clips manually to keep them permanently. The camera’s 8GB storage should be able to hold a lot of event clips but it will eventually overwrite the oldest clips to make room for the newest ones. And if anyone walks off with the camera you can’t access anything you haven’t downloaded.
Visual quality is great especially during the day. Nightvision with the infrared illuminators also works great and shows a ton of detail. It also has a built in spot light that’s bright enough for a front door vestibule but not quite enough to illuminate over a garage.
For night images you have an option of using the spotlight to get a color image or leave the light off and capture infrared. I recommend using the infrared mode as the spotlight mode tends to blow out faces of people that get close to the camera.
Overall I’m pleased with this one as a notification camera. At the rate it’s operating I don’t think I’ll ever have to bring it in for a charge. If you’re on a tighter budget the Wyze outdoor camera will deliver similar results with free (albeit slightly limited) cloud storage for far less money.
Those in need of more robust security should consider a wired option with a security NVR.
Disclosure: This camera was sent to me for review on my YouTube channel and here on Amazon. However the brand did not compensate me for the review nor did they have any input into the review or see it before it was uploaded. All opinions are my own.
Google’s Pixel 6a phone is a value packed device for folks looking for some flagship features without paying a flagship price. I think most consumers will find this to have everything they’d want in a phone: a nice display, great camera, and excellent performance on par with their flagship phones. You can watch my full review here.
The Pixel 6 series phones are the first to use Google’s new Tensor processor which is tuned for some of the AI work and computational photography that Google integrates into their products. The new 6a also has a Tensor and it performs identically to the flagship 6 and 6 Pro phones.
Tensor doesn’t best its Android or Apple flagship rivals on performance benchmarks tests but what’s notable here is that there isn’t a performance penalty for choosing the lower end phone. Apple’s iPhone SE by comparison is powered by the same A15 chip as the iPhone 13 Pro but Apple throttles the SE’s performance to keep it from besting their top of the line product. That’s not the case here with the 6a.
The camera system is excellent here thanks to Google’s advancements in computational photography. The phone has two cameras on the back – one ultrawide lens with a 114 degree field of view and a wide angle camera. Photos look great in most light and the portrait mode gets better and better every year. The phone will also shoot clean and optically stabilized video at up to 4k at 60 frames per second. You can see some examples of photos and videos in the video.
So what’s missing from this phone vs. the 6 and 6 Pro? A few things. The 6a does not have wireless charging, the 6a’s back is made out of plastic vs. glass, it has a lower resolution wide angle camera (12 vs. 50 megapixels), its display is running at a 60hz refresh rate vs the 90 & 120 hz refresh rates on the 6 and 6 Pro, and it lacks the telephoto lens found on the 6 pro. Despite all that it doesn’t feel cheap nor does it feel lacking in any way.
I have long been a fan of the “a” series Google phones and this one is a nice upgrade over prior models. If you’re still running with the 3a this one will be a huge upgrade.
DISCLOSURE: Google sent me the Pixel 6a free of charge but this is not a sponsored review. Google did not have any input into the review nor did they review or approve it before it was uploaded.
