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My Favorite Technology

I must admit that I am a bit of a materialist. I love owning cool stuff, and I love using them. I love my cool stuff so much that I'm writing a blog post for it. And there is proof of my materialism.


ESSENTIALS


Digital Watch

Digital watches are Technology. It's a digital clock that goes on your wrist and beeps every hour because you didn't read the manual, and accidentally set the hourly alarm. Casio is my go to brand for digital watches, and I currently use the hell out of my f91w. I prefer its smaller size over the bigger, bulky casio models.

USES: daily alarm, work timers, and general timekeeping

IEMs

My friend introduced me to In Ear Monitors, and I have been starstruck ever since. I'm no audiophile, but IEMs provide such good sound quality for a fair price.
I own a pair of KZ ZSN Pro X's, which are pretty swell on their own. The seller I bought from also gave me some memory foam ear tips, which are not only comfortable, but also insanely noise cancelling. I also bought KZ's IEM bluetooth module, which transforms their wired IEMs into bluetooth earphones. It's a game changer; I can now use my IEMs while exercising.

USES: listening to music but very well

Android Phone

I don't take part in the phone wars, but I do think an Android phone is the biggest hack ever. This is coming from a person who grew up around Apple devices, btw. Android customization is just better, and you have more freedom. Not to mention all the apps you can get on Android; I think the majority of apps I have are from F-Droid.
I have a Huawei Nova 2-something. It's considered a pretty old phone, but it suits me just fine. I use MLauncher with it, and it basically cut my screentime down by half.

USES: messaging, browsing, listening to music

Laptop

We really take laptops for granted. They're portable PC's, for crying out loud. I can't believe that I can actually bring my laptop to the park with me to play Minecraft if I wanted to.
My current laptop is a Huawei Matebook D15 (the number of huawei devices I have is a coincidence, I swear). It's not the most powerful machine, but it's slim and light, and powerful enough for what I need to do. The screen is nice and big, too.
It's not the perfect device, however. The I/O options are limited, and the keyboard...takes some getting used to. The screen isn't color-accurate, either. Design work is limited on this laptop.

USES: coding, text editing, general silly activities


PERSONAL ENJOYMENT


E Ink Tablet

I recently bought a BOOX Nova Air 2 after I decided to pick up the habit of reading again. I've never had an e ink device before, so the screen was very impressive for me. It's extremely comfortable on the eyes, and the size of the tablet is thin and sleek. I tend to bring it with me when I go out, and that causes me to read a lot more.
This model also comes with a pen, which is quite nice. Writing something long isn't as satisfying as it is on paper, but it is sufficient for short notes and pdf annotations.
An unexpected use of this tablet was for manga. This model can browse the internet and download apps, so reading manga on this is quite simple and extremely satisfying.

USES: reading and note-taking

Cassette Player

I like listening to music; it is my primary form of entertainment. Naturally, I turned to collecting physical music, which is an expensive hobby. Cassettes are one of the cheapest forms of physical music, and I quite like them, so I stole my parent's old cassettes and started collecting more.
I have four portable players, three from my parents. I also bought a shoebox player, which is just lovely. It can record music onto blank cassettes (the quality isn't good; I should use a deck) and it can output through speaker or earphones.

USES: listening to cassette tapes

Nintendo DSi

It's a clamshell handheld console that is slim enough to fit in a (men's) pocket. The battery life on this is actually quite insane. Maybe it's because a lot of my devices have crap batteries from years of usage, but my DSi lasts for a respectable amount of time without recharging.
Normally the DSi can't play Gameboy games as it lacks the slot for it. But let's be real. This is a legacy console. Of course I hacked it-! I mean, it is technically possible to modify your DS to play games from an SD card instead of physical cartridges. How do you do that? cough cough https://dsi.cfw.guide/ cough.

USES: playing my favorite vidya