Steve Litchfield

As many readers will know, I've been experimenting with power stations and solar panels recently. And there's a particular configuration that I've been delighted with and which I thought worth sharing. You see, I have two Jackerys, one 500Wh (that charges my phones and tablets), one 1000Wh (i.e. 1kWh, that I keep stocked for domestic emergencies in these troubled times), and two matching (Jackery) Solar Saga 100 (100W) panels. The idea is that this pair of panels is the perfect (max) 200W input into the Jackery 1000, to charge it up. Now, while this works very well - in sunny conditions it can charge the Jackery 1000 completely from scratch in a day - how should I charge the Jackery 500? A separate panel for this? That would end up costing even more, plus it's an extra panel to set up and position. My solution is to daisy-chain the devices, in effect. Here's the set-up: So the panels (with extra Jackery extension cables, shown in orange, to allow them to be out wher...

Actually reviewing the Sony Xperia 5 iv is tricky, since it's so relatively similar to the 5 ii and 5 iii in previous years. But that's not a criticism per se, since I absolutely love the form factor and 'bells and whistles' specification. And you do get Qi charging this year, which I appreciated very much. I attempted a few YouTube Shorts covering the device: Xperia 5 iv overview No zoom gap in the 5 iv's camera system Trying to demo Dynamic Vibration But it proved all but impossible to look at imaging in YouTube Short format, hence this blog post.  They don't look much, but it's a very refined camera combination. Note the white balance sensor and the T* anti-reflection coatings... I've taken a handful of likely subjects and test scenes and shot them with the Xperia 5 iv and my 'gold standard' Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max with ProRAW toggled on. This comparison is made even more valid by the match of camera specs, right up to the same 2.5x telephoto ...