Post the last thing you bought. Oh fun!

[raymondlin]

Some monitor lights

 

[Somafunk]

Some monitor lights

I’m considering that light for my iMac as I like the functionality of the control dial, what do you think of the light in use? - would you recommend it?

 

[raymondlin]

I’m considering that light for my iMac as I like the functionality of the control dial, what do you think of the light in use? - would you recommend it?

I do like it, if expensive but I think the built quality justifies it.

There are other brands for like half or 1/3rd of the price, like the Quintis or Xiaomi, but my specific requirements are

1 - Back light. I much prefer it having a back light to the monitor
2 - USB powered with no additional power supply
3 - No spill to the monitor itself and in this regard, I believe the BenQ is the best on the market.

The light isn't perfect, the control dial, let's call it t"he Puck" uses 3 x AAA batteries, in this day and age I would have expected it to be USB-C rechargeable but it's something you have to supply yourself.

There is 1 memory setting, I would have preferred if there are more memory settings. Because in the day I just like the back light but at night I light both on. The touch dial on the puck goes to sleep when you haven't touched it in a while so it takes 2 touches to use it. 1 to wake it up, then 2nd to adjust.

The good, it has different K of light from cool to warm and all that in between. It clamps on my monitor with ease and the bezel on my monitor is VERY thin and this doesn't block any of the screen at all. Overall it does what I want it to do..

 

[Somafunk]

Thanks for quick reply, I don’t mind the expense if it’s built accordingly. There’s nothing worse than going for a cheaper option and then thinking every time you use it that you should’ve bought the one you wanted.

I currently use a light I have behind my monitor that I use as a backlight but it’s a hassle to slide it out every time I wish to illuminate my desk area (see below), the puck would be very.handy to control the light fom my listening/viewing position when not sat at desk. Your original pics above got me looking at it last night and I am in that frame of mind that I “need/want” it , now my mind will need to get to work on the “justification/wallet opening” option. I’ve found it online for £125 which seems a good deal so I “may” have made the purchase before the end of the day, perhaps an early single malt whisky or two would help make my mind up

You may (most likely will have) cost me £125 by the end of this day

 

[raymondlin]

Thanks for quick reply, I don’t mind the expense if it’s built accordingly. There’s nothing worse than going for a cheaper option and then thinking every time you use it that you should’ve bought the one you wanted.

I currently use a light I have behind my monitor that I use as a backlight but it’s a hassle to slide it out every time I wish to illuminate my desk area (see below), the puck would be very.handy to control the light fom my listening/viewing position when not sat at desk. Your original pics above got me looking at it last night and I am in that frame of mind that I “need/want” it , now my mind will need to get to work on the “justification/wallet opening” option. I’ve found it online for £125 which seems a good deal so I “may” have made the purchase before the end of the day, perhaps an early single malt whisky or two would help make my mind up

You may (most likely will have) cost me £125 by the end of this day

On my previous set up I used some LED lights that is USB powered. I plugged it into my USB hub which has a on/off switch. The hub had things like my keyboard, Mic connected and not HDD so not really a problem in terms of ejecting HDD.

So I just turned it on/off when I sit down to use the computer whether from fresh boot up or sleep/wake.

With my Mac Mini I bought a Caldigit TS4 which is always on. so there is no way for me to turn it off and have to physically pulling out the USB cable every time and I got tired of it after about 2 weeks.

I found mine on eBay, paid £110 so it's a good £40 savings on a brand new one. It seems previous owner didn't use it much if at all, it has not marks or scratches anywhere on the unit on the puck. He also kept all the packaging so to me it shows he take care of his stuff.

As I said, it's not perfect but one of the criteria is the light spill, or lack of. In this regard, there is no other light bar that can beat this. Plus I can turn it on and off now with a switch and not having to keep pulling out cables.

 

[Thomasr]

Two things actually - a bench multimeter and a cheap component tester:

 

[g4ndr1k]

Cambridge Audio Evo One: decent for background music / passive listening...

 

[sygnus21]

Bought this background kit for my photography. And since I'm also a PC builder, this was its first use as shot a few photos of my new Intel Core Ultra 9 build...

 

[g4ndr1k]

 

[Ethuleon]

After the W520 they changed keyboards , for the worse, and were previously thought to have the best keyboard of any laptop.

IBM made Thinkpads before Lenovo got hold of them. I don't know the details, but have an i386 IBM Thinkpad T43 that is my Precious.

​

Those were the days! I was part of the carve-out project in 2005. Damn long ago.

I used a T43 during my studies.

Thanks for mentioning it. Great memories…

 

[raymondlin]

Headphone amp and also some HiFiman headphones.

 

[g4ndr1k]

 

[Somafunk]

Some monitor lights

Much as I wanted the BenQ Halo I decided on the Quntis RGB model below after watching/reading a few reviews.

I’m quite pleased impressed with what you get for £50, a few “little” upgrades would make it the “obvious” choice though.

The ability to increase/decrease the illumination of the rear light

Motion sensor on the front of the bar, perhaps an auto function for adaptive lighting

Li-ion rechargeable battery in the remote rather than 3 AA’s

There is slight light bleed onto iMac screen when placed at the angle which avoids my line of sight seeing the leds in the light bar when seated at desk, either improve the led angle/cut-off angle or include a teeny visor for length of light bar - I’ll prob use a very thin slice of black tape for now until I consider something better.

Improve the remote, sometimes a touch works, sometimes not.

Be nice if it worked with the rest of my Apple HomeKit stuff/lights but not essential

Sounds like I’m moaning/not impressed with it but not at all.

It’s a bit of a bargain at £50

 

[g4ndr1k]

Upgrading to A8 from A6. Love it.

 

[Kukuk]

New TV day.

I hardly needed a new TV, my LG 55" CX was plenty, but I was itching for something more theater-like in terms of size. I ordered a C3, but they sent me a C4 instead, which is a slightly newer model which would have cost me $500 more.