Reviews

I set out to answer a simple but consequential question: can the Raspberry Pi 5 handle 4K transcoding for a home Plex server? After spending a week building a Pi 5 Plex test rig, pushing it with different source files and client scenarios, and measuring CPU, temperature, and playback behavior, I have practical findings to share. I'll walk you through what I tested, what worked (and what didn't), and how the Pi 5 fits into realistic home media...

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I spent the last two weeks living with both the Google Pixel Tablet and the iPad Pro M4 to answer the question I keep seeing in inboxes and comment threads: which is better for drawing, note-taking, and—critically—battery life in real-world use? I tested both devices side-by-side with the same workflows I use daily: sketching longform concepts, annotating PDFs in meetings, and running mixed use (video calls, streaming, web browsing) to...

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I spent several weeks living part-time in the Meta Quest 3 ecosystem to test a single question that keeps coming up in inboxes and community threads: can the Quest 3 actually replace a laptop for productivity tasks — with a keyboard and desktop-style apps? I wanted to move beyond hype and controlled demos. That meant pairing real mechanical and Bluetooth keyboards, juggling documents, spreadsheets and browser tabs, editing in cloud apps, doing...

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I’ve been shooting with the Pixel 8 as my everyday camera for several weeks now, and given how much attention Google’s phones get for computational photography, the question I keep hearing is: Is the Pixel 8 still the best value for mobile photography on a midrange budget? I wanted to answer that from a practical tester’s viewpoint — real photos, routine day-to-day use, and how it stacks up to other phones you might be considering in the...

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