Handy Tech Under $100 Ep. 14
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,196 words · ~5 min read
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It's handy tech under a hundred time again. And this time, no sticky stuff.
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I've got a better way to charge, a better way to communicate, a better way
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to cool, and a better way to dongle.
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Let's do
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it. be quiet!. Silent Wings 3 use a smooth running six-pole motor to remain
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silent and better cool your PC. Check them out at the link below.
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Number one is the Ant Lion Mod Mic 5, a boomstyle microphone that can attach to
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any pair of headphones, turning them into a very capable and modular headset
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for 70 bucks. This way, you get to keep your audio filegrade headphones that
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you'd prefer to listen to instead of resorting to clipping a mic to your
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clothes, putting a desktop microphone in front of you, or switching to a gaming
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headset. All of which might not be ideal solutions for a variety of unsurprising
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reasons. There are good gaming headset
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options like the ATTH AG1 from Audio Technica, but spending that kind of
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money doesn't make a lot of sense if you already have awesome headphones that you
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personally like and you don't want to lose their sound signature, which can be
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annoying. Of course, if it sucked, we wouldn't bother talking about it. But
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now in its fifth generation, the Mod Mic does sound great. Though I don't expect
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you to take my word for it. I'm going to read the rest of this paragraph on a handful of competing solutions. Once the
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bass is attached to your headphones, you can clip it on or remove it easily with
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its built-in magnet. It has a dual mic capsule with an omniirectional mic and a
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separate unidirectional mic. A modular mute switch, a cable rack to protect
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your wires and simplify your setup, modular cable lengths, the right
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adapters get you going no matter what device you have, other than I guess an
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iPhone 7. Although, if you have one of those Bluetooth audio dongle things, you
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could get it to work with the Y adapter. And there's also Kevlar reinforced
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wiring because why not? Number two, the
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Silverstone 1 to8 PWM fan hub, which is
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way cooler than the name makes it sound. Yes. Yes, it's just a fan hub, but it is
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a four pin PWM, so it will support whatever fans you'd like. It looks very
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sleek and will go in pretty much any case, even with all the tempered glass
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that's been going around lately. The cables are an appropriate length, so you
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won't have a ton of excess, but there also will be enough to actually plug
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them in, which is important. And it comes with awesome 3M dual lock adhesive
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strips, so you can put it anywhere in your case that you'd like. No more
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awkward fan cables running all around your motherboard searching for just one
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more fan header. Just one single cable to control
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the speed, and it's only 12 bucks. less than you'd pay for many premium fans.
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Anyways, number three, the Fin 6 Dart.
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It's barely under a hundred bucks, but it's really cool. It's a laptop charger
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that's so small that when I first saw it, I genuinely asked if it was actually
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just for charging phones. And while I can do that with the integrated 2.1 amp
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USB port, it also charges laptops. In
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the box, you'll get your Dart charger, a nice carrying pouch for everything, nine
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tips for charging a variety of laptops, and a thank you note for their
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Kickstarter. What? A decent product that I like from
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Kickstarter. Okay, that was weird. And it gets even more unbelievable. If none
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of the included adapters actually work for you, just email them and they'll
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send you one that does for free. That's cool. Now, unsurprisingly, it's not that
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strong. At only 65 watts of output, you'll be stuck with the thinner,
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sleeker selection of laptops out there if you want full charging performance.
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But that being said, it does work with laptops that want more juice, like my
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old ASUS Bamboo, whose included charger is rated for about 90 watts. It will
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charge just a little bit more slowly, which may be a fair trade-off while
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traveling if you're going to be able to charge overnight and bag space is at a
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premium. Thanks, United. Last but
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potentially not least, we have number four, the Axel XL axle, whatever. It's a
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DisplayPort 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 adapter.
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Most graphics cards these days only have one HDMI port. Sometimes you need more.
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Sure, your monitors probably take DisplayPort, but VR headsets, capture
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cards, TVs, and video splitters are almost always HDMI only. Big deal, Luke.
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There's like a million of these on Newegg, right? Okay. But if you dig a
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little deeper into the specs, most of them are HDMI 1.4, which means they're
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limited to 4K at 30 Hz instead of 60 Hz,
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which means your highresolution display will feel laggy and stutter in
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everything from games to even basic desktop use. Which brings us finally to
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the full disclosure part of these handy tech episodes. Since they're structured
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more as a recommendation to buy with links below to Amazon versus a review,
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we like to disclose why we chose these and how we acquired them. Item one, the
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Mod Mic 5 was actually sent to us by Ant Lion for an ad spot we did for them a
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little while ago, but Linus has always loved these things and I have too. And
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this one is just well more to love. Item
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two, the Silverstone 128 PWM fan hub was
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sent by Silverstone for Lionus' desk PC project, though unfortunately it didn't
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arrive in time. The Finix Dart. Lionus backed this a thousand freaking years
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ago, and it just arrived a couple weeks ago.
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Item four, the Excel DisplayPort to HDMI adapter was purchased by Lionus
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personally to solve his decidedly firstworld problem of how to connect his
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4K TV and his HTC Vive to the 980 Ti in
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his Media Center PC at the same time.
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All right, guys. If you like this video, like it. If you disliked it, dislike it. Get subscribe to see all the awesome
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stuff we have to offer. Jump on Amazon at the link down in the description
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below to buy any of these things. I believe they're all available there. You
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can also check the link around there to see shirts that we have available and
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same location forum link where you can discuss a bunch of stuff or even suggest
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more items that might be good for another future handy tech under 100
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video or useless tech over a 100 video. I'd like to do one of those as well.
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I'll see you guys next time. Check out this video which is the handy tech
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sticky stuff that I did last time.