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Showing posts from November, 2021

Case round-up for the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

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The new Pixels are a real step up from previous years in terms of specs, making them a good upgrade. But you'll definitely need a case on these slippery premium devices. As usual for my case roundups, I'll cover a variety of styles, with most samples supplied by MobileFun, kind people that they are. See their  complete range of Pixel 6 cases and covers , and then Pixel 6 Pro cases and covers . But on with the individual cases, each link goes to the relevant product page, of course. Plus, since the two phones are almost identical apart from size, I've included links to each variant in each heading - you'll see what I mean. UPDATED 25/11/2021. More cases, especially for the Pixel 6, even though I don't have a host device to show them off in-situ. But I still have plenty of opinions! And in such cases, I've also linked to the Pixel 6 pro variant, to help you out. Olixar ExoShield, £10 ( Pixel 6 version ) Olixar's ExoShield cases have been a favourite of mine f

Power inefficiency in car campers and micro-campers

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Just getting something off my chest.  I watch quite a few tours (and 'making of') videos on YouTube about micro-campervans, typically on Citroen Berlingo or Ford Transit Connect, and a common feature that they seem to lift from larger campers and motorhomes is generating mains electricity using an inverter, ostensibly 'to power a laptop'. Sound OK, right? I mean, a laptop needs mains power to charge? Nope. Not even close. Just because a laptop computer comes with a mains brick and plug doesn't mean that it's designed to charge from 'AC' power. The 'brick' bit in the lead is a step down from 110/240V AC to (typically) 15V DC. And it's an inefficient step down, as you'll have noted in the way your mains brick gets warm when the laptop is charging. So then the plan in these micro-campers is to have the 12V (or so) DC from the car/van's battery (or pair of batteries) stuffed into an inverter, a lossy and inefficient device (again, it gets