Steve Litchfield

I realise that we're in the twilight of my tech career here, but in addition to writing missives in this blog, I'm continuing to produce videos, albeit in Shorts form, mostly on the subject of smartphone tech.  Worth a watch hopefully, even if limited by YouTube's insane compression and time constraints.  For example, extolling the surprising usefulness of Apple's Dynamic Island: And looking at the new features in Google's latest Feature Drop for the Pixel Fold: And then explaining my love for stereo in phone speakers: Plus a load of review content. Here's my three part Fairphone 5 review: Staying topical, will Apple ever release a folding iPhone? I think not: And finally, for now, how to put a skin on a phone, smoothly and successfully(!): That's just the last few months, there's a full two year set of Shorts videos for you to browse through, all listed here . Enjoy!

I'd been swimming against the tide for well over a decade. Making my name writing about Symbian OS on the Nokia phones, then the Apple iPhone appeared in 2007 in fledgling but notable form and Android phones started appearing a year or two later. Symbian was dominant for a while still and then the American juggernauts took over, with Symbian being relegated to irrelevance by 2013.  Not to worry, I had Nokia's new love, Windows Phone, to play with and write about, eh? This was something of a flash in the pan, disappearing after just a few years thanks to Nokia's lack of investment in the high end and the industry's indifference to the platform in general.  Android seemed the obvious choice for me, because of its tech credentials, and I went through several Samsungs and Pixels, until in 2019 a friend (literally) bought me an iPhone 11 Pro because he'd been so impressed by it and thought I would too - he wanted me to cover iOS more in my videos and podcasts. And he was...

I have to say that I wasn't expecting much from these, the Boiros 4-in-one rechargeable hand warmers , not least because the packaging was Chinese-generic and Boiros name was implemented in a couple of cheap stickers. However, the actual product is well made and works rather splendidly. Not least because of the potential for being tiny emergency power banks as well. Note that in all the photos here, the refresh rate of the LCD displays is too slow for the camera shutter speed, so not all segments are shown in the images. But they're fine to the eye! The units are charged (both at once via a single 'Y' cable, unusually) by USB Type C at 10W and a full charge takes 90 minutes or so from any Type C source you happen to have around. Output, if you want to use them as power banks, is via USB-A and also at 10W. But that's OK for emergency use, I suspect, especially with this lowest common denominator port. The idea with these warmers is to use a couple of meaty power bank...