The great macdebate (now with roids)

[SuperPang]

[yosai]

That's excellent.

[crunchywasp]

[cools]

The display on my V20 started playing up - going corrupt then dark and running blind. Bought another one, figuring I could part swap and pray it wasn't the motherboard that was dying.

Forty (identical) screws and a few plastic clips later - no glue or special tools needed - motherboard swapped in with new thermal paste in both. The newer one had thermal tape vs the blob of dried paste in the older.

Both now behaving flawlessly... and the newer came with various extended batteries so I'm good for years.

[k1ngarth3r]

5K of Gameboy

Where can I get that desktop wallpaper?

[pubjoe]

Happy to upload it as is, if you can ignore the three Nigel Mansell’s (I never bothered fixing it).

[k1ngarth3r]

I will take whatever you can give

Looks awesome.

[CTN]

If you ask Mansell, there is never too much Nige.

[pubjoe]

Fwhy me, Microsoft made an appealing logo.

[cools]

My 3 year old LG V20 has finally copped some damage that's not economical to repair.

Pre-ordered (does it count if it's UK release is only 2 days away?) a POCO X3 https://www.mi.com/uk/poco-x3-nfc/. Looked around at some other stuff but this ticks most of the boxes I care about.

What I find interesting is how price + spec have changed over the years. I remember paying £600 for a smartphone, multiple purchases at £400, £300, the V20 was sub-£300 and this Poco is £199.

[geotrig]

very good speced phone from the looks of it for 200 , cant really fault the xiaomis much to be fair ,cameras can be a bit average at times but still better than a lot

[CTN]

I may need a new laptop for a lecturer position abroad. I will use it mostly for online seminar stuff. Considering this use what's the best 13 macbook for this job?

Will the new cheap 13 pro up to the task or should I go 1 step further in the specs?

[cools]

very good speced phone from the looks of it for 200 , cant really fault the xiaomis much to be fair ,cameras can be a bit average at times but still better than a lot

Funny you should say that: https://www.dxomark.com/category/smartphone-reviews (I know, dxomark vs every other review site...)

I was looking sub £200, the Pocos get exceptionally good community software support (my V20 had an unlockable bootloader, which I grew used to but it did annoy me to be stuck with stock software), and when people say "bad camera" I remember working with 2-4MP stuff and being pretty happy... so yeah, it'll be fine.

[yosai]

My 3 year old LG V20 has finally copped some damage that's not economical to repair.

Pre-ordered (does it count if it's UK release is only 2 days away?) a POCO X3 https://www.mi.com/uk/poco-x3-nfc/. Looked around at some other stuff but this ticks most of the boxes I care about.

What I find interesting is how price + spec have changed over the years. I remember paying £600 for a smartphone, multiple purchases at £400, £300, the V20 was sub-£300 and this Poco is £199.

I'm still rocking a V30 and that was ~£150 about a year ago. After having a few LG phones the wide angle camera, headphone socket and Quad DAC were prerequisites.

[geotrig]

very good speced phone from the looks of it for 200 , cant really fault the xiaomis much to be fair ,cameras can be a bit average at times but still better than a lot

Funny you should say that: https://www.dxomark.com/category/smartphone-reviews (I know, dxomark vs every other review site...)

I was looking sub £200, the Pocos get exceptionally good community software support (my V20 had an unlockable bootloader, which I grew used to but it did annoy me to be stuck with stock software), and when people say "bad camera" I remember working with 2-4MP stuff and being pretty happy... so yeah, it'll be fine.

Yeah I agree all these cameras for me are more than good enough , Mrs has a redmi note of some distinction and found sometimes it was not sharp at times but I'm not a good photographer so it was probably me being the problem but I've also heard it might be software limitation.
Anything with 3.5 jack gets my vote these days though after having a phone with out

[SuperPang]

John Darko raves about the sound quality of the V30 compared to other smartphones.

[cools]

Aye, the V20 onwards through the rest of the V series have had exceptionally good audio output. I've all but stopped plugging headphones in, the Bluetooth Sennheisers I've got do a good enough job. Jack is still essential though, I frequently use it as an audio source.

Battery is the killer, I've lived with 10000mAh for years and only recently is stuff starting to get over half that.

[CTN]

John Darko raves about the sound quality of the V30 compared to other smartphones.

I don't believe in Darko shtick and what he says. He's just an influencer peddling what he was told to do. Those phones have probably all the same dac implemented anyway.

[SuperPang]

I don't believe in Darko shtick and what he says. He's just an influencer peddling what he was told to do. Those phones have probably all the same dac implemented anyway.

Pretty sure he bought the phone. LG don't promote on audiophile websites.

[CTN]

I don't believe in Darko shtick and what he says. He's just an influencer peddling what he was told to do. Those phones have probably all the same dac implemented anyway.

Pretty sure he bought the phone. LG don't promote on audiophile websites.

Even a LEGO influencer in Germany was peddling OPPO phones hard for several weeks on YouTube and Darko has enough reach to make it worthwhile giving him stuff to promote.
It's the same with Fremer @ Stereophile - this man never bought a cable in his life but still recommends the most expensive stuff in his reviews. In the end it's all paid promotion.