The 'Look What the Postman Brought Me' Thread - Technology Edition

[Snowy]

A friend's husband was going to buy a race setup from Vesaro but I don't know if he ever did. He and his neighbour were both going to, with the neighbour (a car trader) going for the full setup with seatbelt tensioners to simulate braking load, risers so that the whole rig moves according to the track gradients, kerbs etc. The amount that you can spend on some of this gear is amazing.

I would love to try out a setup like you have there Chris. The best I could realistically do is some Fanatec gear bolted to my desk though, my wife would exile me if I attempted a setup as nice as yours.

The gearstick looks a bit weird though

[Raid]

It's true, but very few cars require you to laser designate a column of APCs at 8km while changing into fifth.

Motion rigs would be fun, but it's so far beyond what I'm willing to pay that it's still a dream even for someone who spends more than most on this sort of stuff. Even cheap ones seem to be in the eight grand bracket. At some point I may add a haptic bass transducer (a ButtKicker or the like), as it's apparently a pretty big immersion booster, but that's as far as I'm ever likely to go.

[Snowy]

The guy next door to my friend was minted, he had his (triple) garage open one day when I visited and had a 911 GT3, an AMG 63 and a Bentley Continental Supersport parked up. If memory serves he was looking to pay in excess of £60k for the setup, complete with three 65 inch curved TV screens side-by-side to give the view.

Sadly my friend lost her battle with cancer earlier this year, so I don't know what ever happened as far as their getting race setups ever went.

[Alan]

Well having recently said "I need to stop buying stuff for a while...... I bought....

RTX 3060
Randomly happened on it being in stock and got impulsive. I was worried about my i7-4790k being a bottleneck but I'm rather happy with what I'm getting here and its certainly a fairly big leap from my 970. I tried Siege at 4k, med/low settings on the 970 and got 30-40fps, at 4k mostly maxed settings its now 120+. Hunt Showdown 4k medium gets 60+ which I'm fine with, its much more demanding and engine. It will certainly do me for now.
edit: OH SHIT! Its time to play Doom Eternal finally!

Paperwhite 2021
Its nice. The screen in very nice though I have no idea why anyone would use the warmlight beyond the very lowest settings. Not a big fan of the form factor but I also dont like the newer Oasis because of the metal. I would very much like a new version of the first Oasis with the charging cover but that wont happen I did try graphic novels on it for the first time with Locke and Key - theres a neat feature where it shows a panel at a time instead of a page at a time but for some reason wont let you view them in landscape so page width panels are very hard to read. Its a weird oversight.

Iphone 12 Pro Max
Decent black friday contact deal on it and the 13 really didnt seem worth the extra few hundred it would have cost. Its an iPhone, whats to say. Upgrading from the XS I much prefer the design of the XS rounded edges but it'll be in a case so doesn't exactly matter. Never been a fan of big phones but honestly this old man is sometimes squinting a bit to much at some text on the XS screen so a bigger screen can hold off glasses for another year ¬_¬

Roland GK3 pickup
Already had a GP10 but used to use it with my Variax which had a built in segmented pickup. I sold the Variax a few years ago and its a bit daft having a GP10 without the pickup to use half its settings.


NOW I'm going to stop buying stuff.


Probably.



But I really want a Ricoh GR3x

[DjchunKfunK]

How much did you have to pay for the 3060?

[Alan]

360. The temptation to flip it for 5-600 on ebay made my dark side twinge :p

[DjchunKfunK]

Speaking of difficult to acquire items, I grabbed an Xbox Series X on Friday, had to drive to Rayleigh in Essex to pick it up which was a two hour round trip. Can't touch it till Christmas as it is meant to be my Christmas present.

[Alan]

You went to Cthulhu’s bedroom?

[Hatredsheart]

Got sick of my Sony x700 freezing after 1-1.5 hours in on 4k discs so back it went and I got this badboy. Already tried 4 of the discs the Sony baulked at and all played faultlessly. The hdr optimizer feature has made a noticeable difference too as my tv is only really entry-level hdr.

[Wrathbone]

Got sick of my Sony x700 freezing after 1-1.5 hours in on 4k discs

Interesting, I've got the x700 and I've had a couple of discs freeze after a while (1917 froze at a pivotal moment at the end, which was annoying). I'd assumed it was the discs. It's a shame as otherwise it's a good player with DolbyVision support.

[Hatredsheart]

Mine had zero problems with standard blurays only 4k, which leant credence to other owners thoughts that it could be an overheating issue. One even cured his issue by removing the top cover, though I'm buggered if I was going to do that to a £200 item less than 6 months old.
I know it wasn't the discs as some were literally straight out of the shrinkwrap.

[Alan]

I just picked up a Secret Lab chair and I 100% blame Snowy for this unnecessary expenditure!




I also picked up a used Samsung Galaxy Book Flex 2 5G (dumb name!) for a steal and its a cracking wee laptop/convertible. The battery is fantastic, the screen is nice though it does suffer a little from ghosting but not as bad as many other tablets/thin laptops I've seen, 11th gen i5 is surprisingly capable of a lot more than I expected and the stylus being integrated I really love. It is a thinner smaller pen but the current meta of magnetise it to the exterior makes me not want to take it with me but as a counter I also bought a cheapo Wacom pen which works perfect for full sized use at home. Maybe I'll attempt to draw again but probably not ¬_¬ The screen is *very* reflective (though it does get pretty bright) and the keyboard is not great for my typing as the keys don't have a lot of space between them or height to differentiate when you slide off of centre. Not too keen on the silver design either (it would look so nice in matt black or dark grey) but I can get used to those negatives in exchange for all the things it does well.

Its weird how Samsung stuff never seems to be able to hold its price at all, no matter how good it is.

[Snowy]

I just picked up a Secret Lab chair and I 100% blame Snowy for this unnecessary expenditure!

/bows

It is totally necessary, as you will soon come to realise as it starts to mould to you. You might find it a bit uncomfortably firm to begin with but that passes.

[Alan]

I just picked up a Secret Lab chair and I 100% blame Snowy for this unnecessary expenditure!

/bows

It is totally necessary, as you will soon come to realise as it starts to mould to you. You might find it a bit uncomfortably firm to begin with but that passes.

It is firm but its not bad. That adjustable lumbar is so nice as my old back is feeling rather twingey these days. I do wish I'd went with the bigger one because the neck pillow is right at the very top of where the magnets are but I am most definitely not taking it apart and sending it back. I do miss the breathability of the mesh of my old seat but I can live with a slightly warmer bum if my spine feels better.

[Drarok]

How tall are you, out of interest?

I keep going back and forth on whether or not to get one, and everyone I know who bit the bullet says I should.