We point out some faulty connections. |
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The Affordable Gear Gods have blessed us today: We've got hands-on insights on a bunch of budget-friendly tech toys, including: a $20 smartwatch, some ultra-affordable webcams, and Amazon's aggressively cheap answer to Apple's Airpods. Enjoy! |
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If you're the type of person who likes to stretch a dollar, you're probably familiar with Wyze. The company has built its reputation on smart home gadgets that offer roughly 80 percent of its competitors' offerings for about 30% of the price. From doorbells to cameras, Wyze has set a new low in pricing for a variety of smart home and wearable offerings. The latest is the Wyze Watch: a smartwatch that can be purchased for the mind-bogglingly low price of just 20 dollars.
Buying a $20 smartwatch that boasts a nine-day battery life is pretty much a no-brainer. But along with that price tag comes a tremendous set of lowered expectations. Unsurprisingly, this watch does not have the same features you'll find on most high-end smartwatches -- but it does have some of them. So is it worth getting? Let's dig in: |
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AMAZON'S AIRPODS ALTERNATIVE |
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Amazon has just announced the second generation of its Echo Buds true wireless earbuds, and they sport a much smaller design. They'll be available in May in white or black, and will cost $120 for the wired charging case, or $140 for the wireless charging option. Folks who sign up for the pre-order period, which starts today and goes for 30 days, will get a $20 discount: $100 (wired) $120 (wireless). Amazon is also throwing in six months free of Amazon Music Unlimited and Audible Plus for qualifying pre-order customers.
The first thing you notice about the new Echo Buds (like Apple's AirPods and Google's Pixel Buds, Amazon has opted to keep the product name unchanged for the second generation) is how small they are compared to the originals. Amazon says that the new Echo Buds are 20% smaller, while their new charging case is 40% smaller.
The other big change in the newest version is improved active noise cancellation (ANC). The first version used Bose's active noise reduction (ANR) technology to achieve a modest amount of noise canceling. The new version ditches the Bose tech for Amazon's own ANC, which the company claims is twice as effective as the previous system.
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Webcams took on outsized importance as millions of people started working remotely and communicating via videoconferencing tools. For many people, that means the webcam on their laptop, which is a component that hadn't received much attention until very recently. Chances are, your laptop's webcam resolution is 720p at best, and its quality might be severely lacking.
I looked at a handful of popular inexpensive webcams on Amazon to see if any provided good enough quality for today's remote workers, and I was pleasantly surprised by a few of them.
The GoHZQ W8A was the best one I tested, and as we'll see, it offers a much better experience than the webcam built into one otherwise powerful and high-quality laptop. But even those with the worst image quality proved better options than whatever your laptop happens to have. |
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TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES |
Google Pay is one of the most popular mobile payment apps around, used by more than 150 million people in 30 countries every month. Launched in 2018, Google Pay merged two other popular payment apps, Android Pay and Google Wallet, bringing the functionality of both apps into one handy new app that allowed you to pay for stuff as well as make peer-to-peer payments.
On April 5, the old Google Pay app ceased functioning for users in the U.S. and has been replaced by the new app. If you're confused, you're not alone. Perhaps you're wondering how to get the new app and what features it offers, or even why you need to switch? Keep reading and we'll answer all your questions. |
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