Review: Swees 25600mAh power bank

Nice weather we’re having?… I’m from England.

Speaking of weather, last month I was sitting in an airport boarding gate waiting for my outbound flight. Though there had been some flight cancellations the previous days at Heathrow – thick fog – I thought I’d get lucky because some flights were leaving. However, the flight time on the display board kept on showing later numbers until eventually everyone sitting there sighed at the speaker announcement.

I wasn’t panicked at the flight loss because I was able to rebook easily for 2 days later and was offered accommodation, but my phone battery had died and all the charging ports around me were in use. Like most, I don’t know most peoples’ numbers by heart to contact via a phone booth, and I had converted all my currency (not a single coin on me). People in contact were tracking my flight but I couldn’t communicate until a little while later (finding a plug back in the departures entrance). Should I just travel back to the house I was staying or wait to be collected? Those questions couldn’t be resolved quickly and at a relaxed pace because my phone was dead (it held enough charge to get home if I had no delay or cancellation).

I resolved to get a power bank, the biggest capacity you could get for a good price! I actually didn’t need to go over the top, but when you’re annoyed by a situation you can overcompensate, and I did. But the model I got would be useful in long-haul situations too (not that I’m planning on that anytime soon).

The Swees 25600mAh power bank is huge! You can get smaller – often sensible – ones that look like lighters that will charge an average smartphone a couple of times, but this one looks like a small hard drive and weighs nearly half a kilo. It charges my 2000mAh phone 9.5 times alone and my 7000mAh tablet 2.5 times alone. Though you could get away with putting it in a coat pocket it is more appropriate for a bag. It has 4 dim blue lights which signify 25% charge each, but these aren’t very accurate as the last 2 lights disappear quicker than the first 2. A micro USB to USB cable is included, but you’ll want a 2A wall plug to charge this in about half a day. A 1A plug will take more than a day. I’ve had this unit a month now and it’s doing fine. It charges all devices I have, including a Kindle and data dongle.

I’ve found that as well as for travel it’s great for use at home. If I want to use my phone or tablet while it’s charging I don’t have to be chained to the wall as I can put the power bank everywhere, and you’re recommended to at least charge it once every 4mths to keep the battery working well.

If you really need a whopper of a power bank I have no reservations in recommending this.

Btw, season’s greetings.

Neo-Luddites vs those plugged into The Matrix

It’s been 6 months since I last blogged here, purely out of nothing to add. Early on I once stated that I’d cease blogging but changed my mind that I’d do it when I felt like it, and finally I feel like it. It might be late or soon when I post here again. But this blog will never close.

The reason why I’m writing is almost ironic because it’s a little rant at technology. I was reading a few articles predicting the emergence of ‘neo-Luddites’ in 2015 (use your search engine on that term to find one of many articles), and though I don’t think it’s going to be a significant movement I would like it if it came true.

If you’re not going to look up neo-Luddites, basically these are people who are willingly going to avoid or drastically minimise their use of technology as a backlash to an ad-centric, app driven, social networking gadget-internet environment. These are likely going to be going to be kids, presumably because teenagers born in the last decade or so don’t remember a time without at least dial-up internet and PCs and find it something to escape from, whereas my generation and older found computing magnetising because we grew up at a time when the pocket calculator was pretty much one of the most advanced gadgets you could carry with you.

Though there are reasons to love the internet because it makes communication very easy – indeed, you can find old friends and make new ones – and it appeals to our need of instant information and entertainment, I also find it slightly depressing now. Maybe not the internet per se, more the smartphone.

With a smartphone you have a pretty powerful computer with you all the time. On my ‘dumbphones’ I never made very many calls and as texts cost 10p a message I wouldn’t send very many. It was just a useful thing to have. But now very cheap mobile data, home broadband and WiFi hotspots mean you can contact, learn and be entertained any time. Whereas prior to the smartphone and tablet you would make time to sit in front of your PC or laptop for a bit and once you turned it off you’re pretty much done for the day (assuming a session or two a day).

No one forces one to have a smartphone, but even decent ones are pretty cheap now; mobile data packages can be dirt cheap and their use almost makes them mandatory because you can do things very easily like mobile banking, restaurant rewards or checking in at an airport. So, it’s a drug that you like because it can be useful.

I used to have a dedicated MP3 player but now I just listen on my phone, but because the phone is almost always online I can be driven awake longer by the appeal of net usage too. I find it hard to restrain myself.

As much as I like communicating with people I’m irritated by typing too much on an on-screen keyboard, so my replies are usually quite small, unless I’m at a real keyboard doing an email (or blogging).

Social networking can be fun (I’m restrained to one) but sometimes it can be bring out the worst in everyone and there is a deluge of pointless content just for the sake of sharing – essentially because the technology and services aren’t that old, so it can be appealing to share anything and everything (of course, I shouldn’t judge as what I write here can be criticised the same way). I think people are also getting more alert about sharing too much about themselves online.

I was a bit happier (not to fish for sympathy or to get counselling) when technology was rudimentary enough so as not to sufficiently change interaction with people and services. There are obvious conveniences which is a plus, but like those who fear technology, those who purposely avoid it can still get by. Possibly they feel a bit more human.

I don’t think I’ll ever be a neo-Luddite but I’m going to silently salute people who don’t whip out their smartphone or tablet in public, because they haven’t got one.

Review: Dell Venue 8 Pro, 8” Windows 8.1 Tablet

As I own a trinity of Microsoft-powered devices I think it’s reasonable that someone can point at me and shout “fanboy!”. I’ve owned a couple of Apple products (past-tense because one died and one never really fell under my ownership) but I’ve pretty much stayed with The Good Ship Gates for 20yrs and counting…

I last got a Dell (my first) in 2003, so a little over a decade later I’ve revisited the brand for an 8” tablet. The reason for this purchase was to fill two needs. My long-loved iPod Classic broke and instead of fixing it I just dumped some content onto my Windows Phone, I say some because I couldn’t put my rough 40GB of music all on there. But with this tablet I know that much of my PC-stored music can be cloud-matched by Microsoft, so at least ¾ of my music collection is able to be streamed or downloaded from the cloud. If I run out of the free part of the 32GB storage I can also pop in a microSD card for anything not cloud-matched.

Sure, it’s not as portable as the Classic but it’s do-able for me and I’ll still store some songs on my phone, even though I’m in love with Nokia MixRadio which has made me not bother!

Secondly, my gratis ultrabook died within a year and the manufacturer won’t help me fix it as I obviously have no proof of purchase, and seeing as that proved useful away from the desk, I wanted something again to be able to be entertained by and be creative with, so I got the Venue 8 Pro, which is astonishingly an ace tablet for the price category.

Though similar to the iPad Mini, the Venue 8 Pro has a more wider aspect ratio and works better for films and lets you scroll less of any document in portrait mode. It runs FULL Windows 8.1 so, though it only has one micro USB port, with some extra gadgetry you could hook up a full keyboard, mouse and monitor. The Intel Atom processor here has come a long way from the netbook days and is very zippy. To me, it’s faster than an iPad! Having Windows 8.1 (not RT, which does not run desktop-mode apps) means you have a better library of software in addition to what’s available in the growing Windows Store. This plus also means you’ll need antivirus software but Defender is there, and as it won’t be anyone’s primary computing device this should be enough, though you can substitute it if you wish.

Having a Windows 8.1 PC already meant that a lot of settings were pulled from my Microsoft account, so getting going didn’t take long. My desktop wallpaper, theme colour, app selection and program settings were all ushered in. I just had to work out what the touch screen equivalents were of some mouse gestures.
When seeing Windows 8.1 on a tablet you begin to see Microsoft’s gamble of a unified OS pay off as it works smooth on a desktop or tablet.

Though the screen is 8” it’s only 2” less diagonally than a full-sized tablet, so it doesn’t feel too small for a surfing session like on a smartphone, yet is more portable than a 10”. It’s a Goldilocks-sized tablet. Build quality is sturdy too with a rubberised back for easy grip. The home/Windows button isn’t on the front like on an iPad but on the top (or accessed by accessing Charms by a left swipe-in from the right of the screen) which helps inadvertently pressing it when holding it with both hands.

Though not a Retina display it is HD with an IPS screen, so it’s still really nice to look and you’d find it hard to make out a pixel framework without pushing it right against your nose!

You can also use it with a special stylus, and a dedicated Bluetooth keyboard which functions as a smartcover is also around the corner.

If you want something that fills the gap between a phone and a traditional computer, want to save a bit and are fine with Windows, I’d wholeheartedly recommend this.