Category Archives: Product Reviews

GEEK! Product Reviews

D-Link DIR-868L review – still a high performance 802.11ac router in 2015?

Leave a Reply

IMG_2512

Rating: ★★★★½

PROS:

  • Still blazingly fast even by today’s wireless-AC standards – up to 40MB/s transfer speeds at close range over 802.11ac
  • New router firmware drastically improved since original router release
  • Excellent value for money

CONS:

  • Can be confusing to set up as a standalone wireless access point
  • Lack of some more advanced features like VPN support and Time Machine Backups

RRP: £139.99, best price at time of writing £81.99 on Amazon 

In late 2013, D-Link announced, in my opinion, what was their first decent set of wireless-AC routers to hit the market. The D-Link DIR-868L arrived to the party as the high end model at the time – boasting six internal antennas and the newly introduced with the standard “beamforming” technology that allowed wireless signals to in theory be concentrated between the wireless router and connected clients.

Benchmarks from Trusted Reviews, CNET and others all said that the router delivered very impressive transfer speeds over both wireless-N and wireless-AC.

Two years on and the router is still live and in production according to D-Link. However, it has fallen in price considerably since its original release and had various updates and revisions. The question is, two years on – is this still a fantastic router with an even better price tag? Let’s find out.

Setting up the router looks fairly easy but you do have to think a little carefully. For me, I was replacing an old but trustworthy Airport Express which was getting an ethernet feed in from my router downstairs. Now my Airport was smart enough to realise that if I connected the ethernet connection to it’s WAN port, it still could detect there was another LAN in place and gave me the choice of whether I set up a new LAN or use the existing one from the router downstairs. As my NAS is plugged in upstairs and I wanted to share that across the house, I definitely wanted to use the existing LAN. That was all very easy and automated with the Airport.

It’s not quite so simple with the DIR-868L. If you plug your ethernet feed into the WAN port, it will forcefully create a new WAN even if you manually give it commands not to and there seems to be very little way of getting around it, aside from connecting your ethernet feed to a LAN port instead. This is fine and dandy, but the router then won’t believe it is connected to the internet. Swings and roundabouts. I’m yet to find a way around this issue yet, but it’s a minor concern as the router does otherwise function normally once you cross that bridge.

Once you’re up and running, it’s very easy to get connected and start reaping the benefits. When you connect to the router for the first time, it prompts you to configure your own wireless network SSIDs and passphrases if you wish, as well as a custom router admin password. The router of course also supports WPS for easy connection. Great to see router manufacturers are prompting users to set their own passwords rather than leaving the defaults in place.

Performance from the router is still, even by todays standards, very impressive. In my benchmarks (WD MyCloud large file transfer over wireless-AC), I was getting around 38MB/s transfer speeds constantly at around 1m range. At 4m range, this was still around 28MB/s and at 10m range with two brick walls in-between I could achieve around 12MB/s transfer speeds (which is still around 96Mbps). According to CNET, one of the best performing routers of 2015 is the Linksys WRT1900ACS, and they reported that at around 67MB/s transfer speeds at 4m. That’s fantastic – but you’ve got to bear in mind its price tag is approximately £230 on Amazon – almost three times the price!

So can the D-Link DIR-868L still win from a value point of view? In my view, yes – without a doubt. At around £80 it offers what are still considered very high benchmarks and if you’re looking to move your home onto a wireless-AC network, this could be a fantastic starting point. It’s also worth noting that since the original reviews were written back in late 2013, D-Link have given the router’s interface a complete makeover from it’s very dated looking original admin panel – the new interface is much more effective. In addition, you’ve got features such as remote management, USB 3.0 device sharing/streaming support through a built in multimedia server and four Gigabit LAN ports for high speed device connections. For the more technically minded, it is also supported by DD-WRT – great if you wish to push the router to the max and gain even more functionality.

Overall, for the price, it’s a fantastic device with a unique design and very high performance. If you’re looking to move to wireless-AC on a budget, this is a big contender.

Buy now from Amazon 

Buy now from eBay UK

Review: 1byone Battery Case for iPhone 6 and 6s

Leave a Reply

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Rating: ★★★★½

PROS: 

  • Adds at least an entire extra charge to your iPhone
  • Acts as a durable case for your phone
  • Two bumper colours included in the box
  • Includes audio cable so headphones can still be used

CONS:

  • Adds a little weight to your phone
  • Case charges with microUSB – could be seen as a minor downside to some

RRP £32.99, best price at time of writing £25.99 on Amazon

This particular product was an interesting one for me. I, for the most part (and we do have our disagreements occasionally!), love my iPhone 6 and use it extensively in my day-to-day life. And there’s no doubt about it – it’s a fantastic phone with huge amounts to offer – without even mentioning the new iPhone 6s that has countless additional new features (some of which I think are great, others a tad gimmicky). However, nothing can escape the fact that battery life on most high-end smartphones is still nothing to shout about.

So what can you do about this? Imagine the typical scenario – you’re out and about in the countryside for a weekend or you’ve made your way to a music festival. And half way through your trip your phone battery hits critical. We’ve all been there. Well, there’s really two choices if you haven’t got any form of mains power. Either, you can buy a power bank such as this one (I own a similar model by the same brand), or you can buy a bespoke design battery case for your phone.

And that’s exactly what this is. It works just like any other power bank you might have come across. You simply slide the phone into the case, making sure the lightning port is lined up correctly and pop either of the two included bumpers over the top. On the back, you have a simple power button together with a 4-LED charge indicator. Simply press and hold the rear power button until you iPhone starts charging and that’s all you need to do. You can tap the power button whenever the device is switched on to see the current battery status. When you’re done, you simply press and hold the power button once again and the battery case switches off.

So how well does this one work? Fairly well indeed. It charged my iPhone nice and quickly, and because this device is MFI certified, you can be sure that you won’t get any compatibility issues or charging errors on your phone. I comfortably got an entire phone charge out of the case with a little juice to spare, so for those extended trips where you could use the backup power, this is a must have.

Would I keep it permanently attached to my phone? Probably not. You can by all means do that if you want to – you simply charge the battery case with the included cable and then use that to charge your phone. But I probably wouldn’t. It’s a little too big to keep on my phone all the time, and I would probably keep other cases on the phone when I didn’t need the extra capacity.

However, for its intended purpose, it does a fantastic job and it’ll definitely be a vital tool for when I do go on my travels. It’s ideal for people who enjoy camping, long treks, visiting rural countryside or really anything that keeps you away from the mains for a while. Even those tedious long haul economy flights without a power socket.

Overall, I’m delighted with the device and it certainly will end up permanently in my travel backpack. It’s not the cheapest portable charger on the market at around £30, but the benefit of being able to leave it attached to your phone without cables dangling all over the place certainly outweighs any increased expense.

Buy now from Amazon

Review: 1byone magnetic windscreen phone mount

Leave a Reply

Rating: ★★★★★

PROS: 

  • Excellent design
  • Good value for money
  • Available in 3 different types to suit all cars and drivers

RRP £12.99, best price at time of writing £5.99 on Amazon

I tell you one thing that really gets on my nerves is the cheap, “universal”, Chinese windscreen phone mounts that you can get for your phone. They rattle, they fall apart after a couple of dozen uses, they are bulky and they are a nightmare to set up perfectly.

So you can imagine how happy I was when 1byone gave me one of their newly designed magnetic windscreen phone mounts to try. They actually come in three different flavours – one for the windscreen, car vent and – interestingly enough – the CD drive for your car.

I opted for the windscreen mount as that tends to work best for my particular car (Mk7 Ford Fiesta). This windscreen mount is different to many others that are available on the market as rather than actually holding your phone with a grip of some sort, a magnetic force is used to keep your phone in place.

Inside the box you get the mount itself, a very thin rectangular magnet and an extra circular thicker magnet.

It works like this – first of all you stick the mount in your car as you normally would. Then, you can either

  • place the thin rectangular magnet inside your phone case – between the phone and the case
  • or place the circular magnet to the back of your phone or case with pre-applied adhesive.

I chose to use the small rectangular magnet which fits snugly inside the official iPhone 6 leather case. You wouldn’t even know it was there – the phone barely appears any thicker than it was.

Once you’ve got your magnet fitted you simply place your phone in front of the mount and, of course, it’ll be magnetically stuck to the mount.

The solution works brilliantly for a number of reasons. First of all, it looks really neat and tidy. Looking at it from the right angle (from the drivers seat) it almost looks like the phone is floating in mid-air!

Second – it DOESN’T RATTLE! I know I tend to be melodramatic about these kinds of things but without doubt this is the first phone mount that doesn’t rattle at all while I’m driving. It’s probably one thing that’ll annoy some people more than others but for me having things rattling in the car drives me mad!

Finally, with it being magnetic, it’s really easy to mount and dismount. Rather than having to find  a small button on the side of the mount to release the phone, now you simply just pull the amount away firmly. And then to put it back, just place it in front of the mount again. Easy!

In this particular case I really can’t find anything to complain about. It’s a simple yet very smart idea that works perfectly in the car.

Overall, this is a fantastic phone mount that will definitely have a permanent place in my car. At just £5.99 (at the time of writing), it’s barely any more expensive than a conventional phone mount, almost making it a no brainer!

Buy now from Amazon

An open letter to Pebble and the new Pebble Time Round…

Leave a Reply

Here’s something I haven’t done for a while – HAVE A RANT!

Dear Eric Migicovsky,

I’m an original Pebbler, still am to this day and I love it, but can’t help but feel Pebble staff might have started eating bad Apples (pardon the pun)…

– Nice design, fair enough it looks like a normal watch, but..

– Why ditch the great thing about both Pebble’s so far – all week battery life?! 2 days just isn’t enough – fair dos it’s better than Apple Watch but not by far – 2 sizes, countless styles/strap combos… deja vu?

– At $249, I might as well spend 100 dollars more and just get an Apple Watch which does TONNES more and has almost the same battery life – not to mention the vastly better screen.

– That screen resolution isn’t going to get better by itself

Also what on Earth happened to that previous commitment to get timeline to the original Pebble? We were promised that MONTHS ago :(. It’s the same old story with every company – get successful, get rich, forget the people who made you.

Oh and by the way – Jony Ive presents new products way better than you do. You never saw him saying “maybe they’ll get one” with a cheesy yet desperate looking facial expression. Maybe employ someone else to do that job.

Sincerely,

Disgruntled early Pebble supporter.

Linx 1010 Review – best Windows 10 tablet on the market right now?

5 Replies

Rating: ★★★★½

PROS:

  • Massive improvement from a design point-of-view
  • Two USB ports
  • Windows 10 works well

CONS:

  • Low resolution screen (720p)
  • Office 365 no longer included with Windows 10

Buy now from Amazon – without keyboard 

Buy now from Amazon – with keyboard

Buy now from eBay UK with keyboard

Linx have recently released their follow-up to the great value Linx 10 tablet which ran Windows 8.1, and it’s called the Linx 1010. The new version comes just in time for the new release of Windows 10 and it’s one one of the first tablets to come preloaded with the new software. So what’s new – and how does the new tablet stack up against the old one? Let’s find out!

Introduction

The Linx 1010 is designed to follow on from the success of the Linx 10. It’s designed to be great value for money while providing ample performance for most day to day tasks – such as browsing the internet, checking email and watching streaming services on the go. But the Linx 10 did this job absolutely fine as I pointed out in my last review, so what’s new – and is it worth upgrading from the previous generation?

Continue reading →