Handy Tech Under $100 Episode 2
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,838 words · ~9 min read
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The Cooler Master glacer 240l CPU Cooler delivers the convenience of an
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all-in-one and the performance of a custom water cooler click now to learn
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more well I guess if we do two videos about this it's sort of a series so
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here's our cool technology and gadgets and gizmos under $100 episode 2 we're
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going to start with this guy right here this is the most basic concept ever a
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charging cable that you'll always have on you they've got the charge key in the
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shape of a key to go on your key chain and the charge card which unintuitively
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isn't a credit card but rather a cable in the shape of a card to go in your
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wallet they sent us the micro USB version of the charge key but either
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version is also available with a lightning connector for Apple users
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their website hellonomad domcom lets you order the product and has an FAQ with
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information ranging from very useful to completely laughable mixed in with what
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speed do your cables charge at are great bits like their 30-day no questions
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asked return policy and lifetime warranty against breakage that covers an
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unlimited number of bins due to the use of high-grade plastics which leads us
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finally to the price it is a flat $25
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for the charge key or the charge card for Android users it's a bit of a tough
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sell I think at monoprice.com I can get over 40 Standard 1 and 1/2t USB micro
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cables for 25 bucks and put five of them in my car five of them on my boat etc
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etc but for some folks the convenience of being able to wear it will be a
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selling Factor the lightning cable is much more palatable to me because Apple
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users are already going to have to spend about $12 on a lightning cable at
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somewhere like mono price so for only about double the cost of a normal cable
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you're getting the convenient one next up we have the pluggable USB to GB
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Ethernet adapter a USB to Ethernet adapter is something most people haven't
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really needed in the past but with how much I hate Wireless and the rapid
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disappearance of Hardline networking from even devices like notebooks it's
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becoming really hard for me to get by without one I actually originally bought
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a sabrin USB to gigabit one that worked really well and is now providing the
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dual land connectivity I needed to turn my Aspire 1 Netbook into a PF sense
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router but since it was permanently tied up I needed to go back and find a new
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one to use on my Ultrabook and NVIDIA Shield when I want a more reli
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connection and the pluggable brand one appears to be the exact same thing it
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works perfectly on my PC and installed driverless on my NVIDIA shield and it's
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$5 cheaper than the other one on Amazon so it's 25 bucks works on Windows Mac
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Chromebook Linux and some Android devices as well obviously because it's
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USB 2 you're not getting full gigabit speeds but it's faster than 10100 and
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has better compatibility than a USB 3 solution so that's a tradeoff that I was
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willing to make for this one our next item is the titanium smart fast md600 L
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16 Bay nickel metal hydride battery charger and this is something I wish I
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had had years ago compared to the basic Chargers that you can get bundled with
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your anol Loop batteries my favorite rechargeables by the way they offer
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little graphical indicators of charge progress more smart charging features to
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make the batteries last longer the obviously higher battery capacity and
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finally a couple of little USB charging ports so you can go ahead and you know
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Chuck a phone or a portable battery Bank on it to charge at the same time as all
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your other batteries each battery is on its own channel so you don't have to
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populate two adjacent bays at once with identical batteries and the charger can
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monitor the charge state of each Bay individually it charges either doublea's
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or AAA batteries and comes with a wall wart as well as a where is it this one
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ha or a 12volt car adapter so you can take it with you pretty much where ever
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we actually took it with us to CES although we weren't driving around there
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but the point that you can travel with it Still Remains the charger is only 50
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bucks and you can get started with the Charger and 16 Anal Loops to fill it up
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with for about $100 total so stop wasting money on disposables and switch
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to anal Loops they're absolutely awesome
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which leads us to our last and most expensive product today I'm holding it
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upside down this is the air do it's actually not quite shipping yet but the
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indigo Yogo campaign is ending soon and they've got at least a few samples that
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they are finished enough with to send out to reviewers so I spent some time
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with it my sample came with a short windshield mount and a long flexible
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windshield mount that has to be the sturdiest flex ARM I've ever seen I mean
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it is tough to bend and then once you've got it in position it absolutely stays
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then the build quality continues to impress me with a solid feeling ball
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joint at the top that locks into the head where the phone our tablet can rest
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and then I'd say you know the reasonable suction cup so it seemed cool already
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and then stuck to it and then I saw it includes Chi wireless charging with a
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micro USB plug on the side and an included micro USB cable that you can
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run down to your cigarette lighter or whatever else and now it's got my attention because when you consider that
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a decent car mount is 15 to 25 bucks and
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a CH charging pad is $ 20 to $30 this is
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looking pretty competitive at that Indiegogo price of $63 now now throw in
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the kicker the head uses magnets for
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phones with Magnetic mounting plates inside them combined with what air do is
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calling okay magic foam which caused my
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eyes to almost roll out of their sockets to achieve a very strong bond between
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your device and the dock without really putting any effort into it but of course
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I needed to see it to believe it it only really works on smooth surfaces so
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you'll want either a smooth backed phone like the LG G2 that I have here or a
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smooth case for existing one but man when it works it's really amazing I mean
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listen to the sound of the bond here in their demo video they even show
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it working with tablets my HTC1 kind of works without my Pink matte
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case when it's backing and the air do
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are perfectly clean so you can kind of see it's you can get a little bit of a
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bond there and the good news is that you can clean it with water and restore its
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stickiness as long as you're careful not to damage Electronics inside but that's
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not something that I would trust with my phone day today so stick to the phones
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that airdoc or your friends have
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validated you can check out the phone compatibility list on the Indiegogo
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campaign linked below with the where to buy links to all of this cool stuff also
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there and they're also offering deals in their Indiegogo campaign on Chi charging
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cases for some devices that don't already support it and I think you've got about two weeks left to get one at
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the pre-order price once the pre-order price goes away I've yet to see how much
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they're going to be charging for it when it's back up to full pop so you might
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want to check that out while the campaign is still running so full
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disclosure Guys these $100 oress Gadget guides are much more like
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recommendations to buy than our other videos so in the interest of making sure
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that you guys know what you're watching and what you're looking at I want to
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make sure you understand where these gadgets all came from the anal loops and
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the charger that you saw were bought by me for business use here at Linus Media
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Group the USB to Ethernet adapters I
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actually bought two of them there's another one around here somewhere uh were bought by me for personal use the
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Prototype air do was sent to me for free by the founder of airdoc when I
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expressed interest in the campaign and asked for a sample it's something I was
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about 5050 about funding even if I didn't get a sample of it and now that I
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have my hands on it it has met my expectations so I quite like it and then
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finally the charge key was sent to my editor edzel who thought it was cool and
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I agreed so we didn't pay for that one and particularly for the micro USB
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version I don't think either of us would but we both saw the utility of it and
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figured some people might be interested so we figured we'd throw it into the
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video and show it to you guys speaking of interested if this video was interesting to you and you want to make
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sure that we can keep making videos here at lus Tech tips please check out our
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becoming a supporter through the lineus tech tips Forum anyway That's all folks
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thanks for watching like if you liked dislike if you dislike the video and
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comment to let us know which Gadget you thought was best today I'm going to
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create a thread on the Forum where you can suggest future $100 or less gadgets
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