This is one beast of a phone. Build like a tank but rather beautiful with it a great of though seems to have gone into the design and I am sure it will be rugged enough to take on my hiking and camping trips. In the large and upmarket box is the phone itself, UK power adaptor with USB cable, OTG adaptor, earphones, USB-C adaptor, additional screen protector (one is already fitted), screwdriver and spare casing screws, stylus, and a User Guide. I attach a scan of the excellent User Guide to my unboxing video. No SIM card eject tool was included Build quality is first rate and although the phone is designed for heavy duty use it still manages to look stylish and upmarket despite the size and weight of the phone. However, despite the quality and attention to detail of the phone casing inside it is essentially a mid market device inside. The phone has no less than five external buttons, all metal: Power, Volume rocker, camera, Press to Talk/Emergency. It has a fingerprint scanner also on the side of the phone. The 1920x1080 441 PPI screen is sharp and clear but for a phone designed for outdoor use brighter would have been better. It has a headphone port and USB-C connector but both are deeply recessed and many standard plus may not work with it so be sure to hang on the cables and adaptors supplied with the phone. The special port design is no doubt why no grommets are needed despite the phone being fully waterproof and dust proof to IP68. Before using the phone you have to insert a SIM card. This no easy task as the top of the rear panel has to be removed to gain access. A screwdriver and set of spare screws are provided for this. You can fit two nano SIM cards and a micro_SD card to add to the on board 64GB or storage. The phone has two cameras, 16GB and 8GB both from Samsung and these produce good but not fantastic results. Some sample images and video are in my video but remember they will be compressed heavily serverside but should be OK to give you an idea of the quality. I found low light results to be disappointing and sometimes highlights were blown but in general results were as at least as good as I would expect from a phone in this price bracket. The phone is shipped with Android 7 which is good as despite Android 8 now being available too many phones are still be sold with Android 6 or below. Although there are plenty of custom apps installed, including an excellent suite of outdoor orientated ones, the Android OS is not too heavily skinned. I was also pleased to see that in the few days I have had the phone two OTA updates have been made, although these were for the Blackview firmware not the basic Android system. The phone is snappy and responsive in use but not as fast as the current high end flagship devices. That said it is at least as fast as any other sub £300 phone available. In any case, a phone designed for rugged outdoor working use such as this does not really need cutting edge gaming performance. The supplied headphones are once again OK without being fantastic but for outdoor use I find Bluetooth headphones to be more convenient and this phone should work with any of them. The built in speaker is loud and both speech and music is audible in decent quality. Phone calls made outside were excellent both ends of the conversation and wind noise was nicely suppressed by the BV8000 Pro. The hefty 4180mAh battery packs plenty of punch and I found I was getting at least a full day of normal use between charges including wifi, video streaming, general browsing and photography. For a phone designed for outdoor use this an important factor and the BV8000 Pro did not disappoint. At nearly £300 this is not a budget device but if you need a rugged and reliable phone for sustained outdoor use I doubt you will find a better at any price. If you want a normal phone for gaming and general use you may be able to find better and cheaper alternatives. The Good Super rugged build quality Attractive and stylish design Good price Gorilla Glass 3 IP68 water and dust proof Useful suite of custom apps Android OS not too heavily modded Hardware buttons cannot be customised Android 7.0 OTA updates USB-C Dedicated photo button 6GB RAM 64GB Storage Dual SIM cards Good GPS accuracy Good speaker The Bad Non standard USB-C cable needed Display could be brighter Non standard headphone port Status LED too dim Mid market performance More info and purchase: https://goo.gl/gDxecY ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGscTSTp9T4

OYU 12W 1800LM Floor Lamp https://youtu.be/rzLNHc6J828 More Info and Purchase: tinyurl.com/2oh48o89 Blog: https://marcoscucom.wordpress.com/2022/07/07/oyu-12w-1800lm-floor-lamp/ I was surprised at how small the box was, but it all fits in nicely in with the lampstand tubing waiting to be screwed together and the wiring already in place inside. Inside the 6 x, 22 x 28 cm package was the lamp itself and a short but well written and easy to read user guide. Build quality is fine, everything looks robust and built to last with a quality feel to it and modern stylish looks when assembled. The weighted base and stand are all made from metal with a plastic translucent downfacing light panel on the lamp head. On the rear of the head are the two touch sensitive control buttons, Assembly is easy enough but take care that all the components are kept together as the small white plastic dividers are easily lost and may have come free during shipping. I am not sure just what purpose they serve, it may be just for protection during shipping, but the lamp assembles quite well without them. It takes just five minutes to assemble it and when done you have a full-sized upright Floor lamp. It is just as quick to disassemble it for storage, so save the box if you need to. Operation is as simple as you would expect it to be. Short press the power button to switch on and again to scroll through the four brightness levels, long press to switch off. To change between colour temperature modes - 5 steps from warm white to cool - short press the mode button. The lamp looks good switched on or off and gives out a decent amount of focused light with a maximum brightness equivalent to an old style 100w bulb. This is designed as a feature lamp, for reading or to give light to a specific area in the room rather than for general room illumination. It works well both as reading or work light or just to give an ambience to the room, particularly when a warm light is selected. Priced at a shade under £60, I think it is a pretty attractive buy. Music: YouTube Audio Library: Unicorn Heads:My Train's A Comin' ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzLNHc6J828

WONEIRA Bike Helmet https://youtu.be/-c7UjNiXjv8 More Info and Purchase: https://tinyurl.com/yz2fxqwf Blog: https://marcoscucom.wordpress.com/2021/04/17/woneira-bike-helmet/ This attractive and well made £39.99 cycling helmet from WONEIRA arrived simply packaged without a branded product box. Although the helmet was perfectly well protected it does make it rather less appealing as a gift. Inside the bag was the helmet itself, a USB charging cable, clip-on sun visor and a small but well-written User guide. I include a copy of the User Guide in my unboxing video. Build quality of everything seems fine, tough, robust and at just 348g super lightweight. The LED light and battery seem watertight and rainproof but no IP rating is given. I would not expect any problems in normal UK weather. The outer shell is made from Polycarbonate and the inner shell from Expanded Polystyrene with a padded liner that can be removed for cleaning. The helmet is fully adjustable with a quick-release buckle and size regulator and should fit almost every head size between 57 - 72 cm. The headset is a standard one in many respects and from a distance looks the same as the rest. That is fine by me and in fact and this one is a shade less costly than some rivals I have seen. It has a plastic front visor that is detachable and clips into position and is held in place by four powerful magnets. The visor can be locked out the way above the eyes when not needed and quickly and easily clipped in place when the sun comes out. . It also has a bright red multi-LED warning light on the rear which can be switched turn on/off or switched between a flashing, slow breathing and always on modes using the switch built into the light itself. This is awkward to reach and the rider might need to stop in order to do so. The light is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that can be charged from any USB socket with a small cable provided for that purpose. This is an excellent quality cycling helmet, well made, comfortable and protective with the clip-on sun visor both useful and rather stylish. Although by no means the cheapest helmet I have tried this one does possess a premium feel lacking in the budget rivals. The Good Good price Powerful Safety Light Rechargeable Battery Showerproof Good User Guide Detachable sponge lining Adjustable size Removable Sun Visor The Bad Poor packaging Light switch awkward to reach Music: YouTube Audio Library: Ofshane: Caballero ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c7UjNiXjv8

AliExpress GT4 Pro Smartwatch Review More Info and Purchase: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006068800507.html Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/marcoscu6 Blog: https://marcoscucom.wordpress.com/2024/04/14/aliexpress-gt4-smartwatch/ The HUAWEI GT4 is a high quality premium grade smartwatch currently priced at around £230 on Amazon. The AliExpress GT4 smartwatch - which very closely resembles the expensive original - is widely available across AliExpress from multiple sellers at a range of prices. The one I am looking at today cost me £20.93 including shipping. The AliExpress watch has a 1.53" 360x 360 display, a stainless steel body, a stainless steel body and a 300mAh battery with wireless charging. The product page claims a wide range of features for it including GPS, NFC, notifications, wireless charging, Blood pressure, SP02, sleep and heart rate tracking, Bluetooth calling, music control, camera control, and multiple sports tracking. How many of these features are actually present and working? In the box are the watch, silicon strap, charging cable and a User Guide in English. The presentation is OK but far from premium grade, the box is low to mid market but attractive enough with some thought given to the design. I was very surprised by the build quality. The watch body feels weighty and substantial with a classy and impressive screen apparent even before switching the thing on. The watch strap is silicone with a simple traditional style metal buckle but does not feel cheap or low end. So far, as regards the hardware, I would genuinely think this was a premium product. Things start to change when looking at the magnetic charger which is lightweight and seems cheaply made The user guide too is not good, being poorly written, badly printed and hard to read but does contain all the instructions needed to use the watch. The magnetic charger works well enough but the magnetic connection is not very strong and it is prone to falling off. I found that I could get two to three days of normal use from a full charge. Turning the watch on for the first time I have to say I was very impressed by the display, which is bright colourful and detailed and would not be out of place on a high end watch and, I think, superior to that of my usual Amazfit smartwatch. The watch paired easily to my phone running the required RDFit app. and I was pleased to see it immediately downloaded and installed a firmware update. The phone link seems pretty stable and I have not yet needed to manually reconnect. The RDFit app covers most of the claimed health tracking modes, although not all are fully supported by the watch. The app is reasonably well designed and easy to navigate, although good eyes are required to read the tiny lettering and often hard to read lettering. A large number of free watchfaces can be downloaded through the app onto the watch but many of them are very similar to each other and not well designed. The watch comes with 5 built-in watch faces which cannot be changed and one custom watch face which can either be downloaded or designed inside the app from your own original photo. For some reason, I have noticed that the active watch faces do seem to cycle of their own accord. The watch interface is simple and easy to navigate reacts instantly and rapidly to touch and is fast, responsive and lag free in use. Again, this could be the screen of a high end smartwatch. From the home screen swipe down to access a shortcut screen with links to important control features, scroll up to view current app notifications, scroll left to view principal app screens (music control, steps, sleep), and scroll right to see widgets for weather, music control, exercise, sleep analysis, heart rate, blood pressure, SP02 and buttons for the four most used apps. The functions of the top button can be defined inside the watch settings app and I have mine configured so that a single press gives the installed apps which can be scrolled through either by touch or rotating of the top button, a double press opens the stopwatch, a long press opens the sports menu. The lower button returns to the home screen, turns off the display and gives an option to power off the watch. The watch monitors these parameters: Steps. Distance, Calories, Sleep, Heart Rate, SO02, Blood Pressure GPS route tracking and NFC. It also shows weather, phone notifications, breathing mode, phone music and camera controls. Let’s look in more detail at watch the watch can do FOR Full Review see Blog: Music: YouTube Audio Library: Dove Love - Quincas Moreira 00:00 - Introduction 00:55 - In The Box 01:43 - User Guide 02:03 - Charging 02:12 - Watch Screens 04:18 - Health Measurements 05:30 - Phone Call 05:41 - Custom Sxcreens 06:33 - RDFit App 07:32 - Conclusion ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7wQe4Rm6g4