Month: August 2018

30 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: RAVPower 60W 5-Port USB-C Charging Station for $20 – An Absurd Deal

By . Product Reviews No Comments

One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

When it comes to charging, I’m all about packing as many ports into a charger as I can, which has made these mutli-port chargers an absolute necessity both around my house and in my bag of junk I carry with me when I travel. The RAVPower 60W 5-Port USB-C Charging Station is one heck of a multi-tasker, as it features a USB-C port capable of charging the Nintendo Switch, your MacBook, or other USB-C devices and four USB ports that can do 2.4A each. Better yet, for whatever reason, today this is on sale for $20.39 (down from $39.99). For the sake of comparison, I’ve also got a bunch of these very similar Anker chargers that I bought thinking they were a pretty good deal at $49.99. This is an absurd deal.

I have these kind of chargers all over the place at my house, as it seems like everything I use these days charges either over USB or USB-C. I’ve got one in the drawer of my night stand, on my desk, and next to my couch. $20 is pretty nuts too, as that’s what a normal Switch charger will run you, but this one also includes four more USB ports for charging batteries, iPhones, iPads, and any other weirdo thing you plug into a USB port for power. I do wish someone would eventually release a charger like this that has a fold in power plug sort of like MacBook chargers, as the cord is a little annoying for minimal travel packing, but, whatever.

Amazon reviews are overly positive as well, with the few negative reviews coming from folks who just seem like they got a bad unit they could easily just return to Amazon. Additionally, Ravpower offers lifetime warranties on these chargers in case it stops working after your warranty runs out. Really, I can’t say enough good things about these things, and for $20? That’s a frickin’ smokin’ deal.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

29 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: The Linksys Velop WiFi Mesh Network – $70 Off

By . Product Reviews No Comments

One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

I am a simpleton who lives in a small, single story ranch house. I’ve got my WiFi router in the center of my house, and really just don’t have any WiFi coverage issues aside from in my garage… Which I don’t really use WiFi from anyway. Friends with larger houses seem to just have constant issues, which becomes a pretty annoying problem with how many things these days require WiFi connectivity. Not long ago I helped a friend of mine solve this exact problem by installing the Linksys Velop Whole Home WiFi Intelligent Mesh System.

It’s shockingly easy to do, as you start by identifying which areas in your house have poor WiFi signal, then just intelligently place the three different access points (with one near your router) so everything is covered and then you just plug them in and let the Linksys app do the rest. I had never set up one of these systems before, and we were both sort of amazed by how simple it is. I still remember the days of when the concept of home routers were new and how weirdly complicated the setup can be, with the Velop system you basically name your network, set a password, and the rest is more or less automatic.

Only a few minutes later, and all the different dead zones and problem areas were gone. It seriously was like magic. I mean, sure, that’s the entire point of these mesh network systems, but having been so use to WiFi being notoriously flaky I have to say I was incredibly skeptical that this setup would work as well as it does. There’s a bunch of different options on Amazon for setups that do simlar things, including the Google WiFi system, but with today’s sale price of $229.97, the Linksys Velop Whole Home WiFi Intelligent Mesh System is the cheapest I’ve seen one of these mesh network setups from a name brand you recognize. If WiFi signal strength is a constant annoyance at your house, this is a fantastic solution.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

28 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Get a Sphero Mini App-Controlled Robot Ball for $36 – It’s the Ultimate Cat Toy

By . Product Reviews No Comments

Anker PowerCore FusionOne of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

All the way back in 2011 we got our first look at the Sphero. Basically, the device is/was an app-enabled ball that connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth and you can roll it around either by tilting your device or using on-screen controls. I originally thought it was sort of dumb, and the original pre-order price of $129.99 was absurd… Then I played with one at E3 a few months later and bought it on the spot.

It turns out that actually fiddling with one of these things is shockingly fun- Particularly with the obstacle course they had set up. Fast forward a few years and Sphero has grown their brand of Bluetooth controlled balls into something that is featured in the new Star Wars movies. BB-8 is made by them, and the BB-8 Sphero toy was the hottest thing ever when the first of the new Star Wars movies was released.

Well, if you’ve always been curious about Sphero toys but never really wanted to fork out the cash for one, the Sphero Mini is on sale for $36.00 today on Amazon, down from its usual price of $49.99. Specifically, the white ball is on sale, there are other colors, but they’re regular price. The Sphero Mini works with the various Sphero apps, it’s just smaller, and cheaper. As shown in the above video, you can use an app to control the ball, and you can also use the ball to control the few games that support it- For instance, there’s FlappyBall for Sphero (Free) which is basically Flappy Bird controlled with a Sphero.

I primarily use my Sphero to screw with my cat, and the Sphero Mini will definitely do the trick there. He really has no idea what to do when a ball chases him, which is pretty hilarious. This isn’t my cat, but you get the idea:

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

27 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Today Is the Last Day to Get 20% off Game Preorders

By . Product Reviews No Comments

One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

This is a bit of a rerun of a previous item of the day, but it’s for a good reason: Today is the last day to take advantage of Amazon’s better preorder bonus program. Basically, if you’re a member of Amazon Prime and you preorder video games over there you get two pretty substantial benefits: If the price is lower anywhere Amazon adjusts their price and Prime members get 20% off anything they preorder. This took a typical $60 video game down to $48, which is a pretty zany deal as typically new games don’t go on sale and even if you’re looking at buying a reasonably new-ish game used from Game Stop you’re lucky to get much more than $5 off retail. This is the last day to get this discount.

As we mentioned in the previous article, all good things must come to an end, and Amazon recently announced they’re tweaking the way these preorder bonuses work. Instead of getting a flat 20% off, game preorders will be full price and instead you’ll just get $10 in Amazon credit for select games. So, you’re getting slightly less off the price of these game preorders and instead of paying less you’re just getting Amazon credit back. It’s not a huge deal if you do a lot of shopping on Amazon, as that $10 will just roll into your next purchase but if you rarely shop over there it is way better to just get $12 off instead of $10 back to spend later.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oAuNwjd4O-4

Amazon switches over from the 20% off to the $10 back program tomorrow, so as of this writing you’ve got about 12 hours left to look through their list of game preorders and grab whatever you feel like preordering. Historically, Amazon doesn’t actually charge your card until the item is shipped, so you could go nuts just preordering everything you’re even remotely interested in to lock in the discount, then just end up cancelling whatever you decide you don’t actually want to buy as reviews start to trickle out. That doesn’t seem like the worst strategy, provided you’re vigilant about actually following through on the cancelling.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

24 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Anker PowerCore Fusion Combination Battery and Wall Charger

By . Product Reviews No Comments

Anker PowerCore FusionOne of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

One of my favorite things about being able to spend time with TouchArcade founder Arnold Kim at WWDC and other events is hearing just how opinionated one person can be on batteries. Arn won’t buy a battery if it isn’t also able to plug directly into the wall to charge itself, which I always though was an unnecessary complication as the space that’s taken up by the plug and charging components is space that isn’t being taken up by battery. Eventually I thought, “Eh, maybe Arn knows what he’s talking about,” and I bought an Anker PowerCore Fusion which is their hybrid battery plus wall charger… And as much as I hate to say it, Arn is right, this thing is stupidly useful.

Basically, it works just how you think it would: If you flip the power outlet blades down and plug the Anker PowerCore Fusion into a wall, it’ll start charging itself. When you plug USB devices into it and those devices need to charge, it prioritizes charging connected USB devices before the internal battery. Once things connected are charged, it shifts gears back to recharging itself. The Anker PowerCore Fusion is about the size of a regular MacBook charger, so it’s not a total brick in your bag either.

The interesting thing about this charger is over the spread of about six bucks you really have three pretty interesting options to consider. If you, like Arnold Kim, really like the no fuss of having a battery that can directly plug into a wall, the Anker PowerCore Fusion is for you. The one down side this particular charger has is that 5,000 mAh is a little on the low side when you compare it to the Anker PowerCore II 10000 which is just a battery, and about the same size, with twice the capacity. (I actually love this battery for its great size/weight/capacity balance.) Or, if you want to get really weird, you can check out the RAVPower 2-in-1 Wall Charger and Power Bank which has all the capacity of the previously mentioned Anker battery, but is quite a bit larger due to all the extra charging components onboard.

Of the three, what’s the best one to get? It all depends on your uses. That being said, I’ve found the Anker PowerCore Fusion to be ridiculously handy to bring on quick overnight trips where I really only need a way to charge my iPhone and Apple Watch, and maybe a bit of extra battery in case I get caught in a pinch.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

23 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: The Tomtoc Slim Hard Case for The Nintendo Switch is Great

By . Product Reviews No Comments

One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

It’s no secret that we friggin’ love the Nintendo Switch around here. In a lot of ways, it is delivering on the promise it felt like the iPhone and iPad were trying to make with portable gaming… before we got swerved into this alternate universe hellscape we’re living in now. 2018, am I right?! Anyway, the one thing that sort of sucks for the Switch as a portable device is that unlike the DS or 3DS, the screen and analog sticks are always exposed which isn’t great for just tossing in a bag. This had led me to try out a bunch of different cases, and eventually landing on the supremely minimalist Tomtoc Slim Hard Case. UPS just dropped mine off on Monday, and I’ve been super happy with it so far.

As far as a Switch case is concerned, the Tomtoc Slim Hard Case has everything you need and nothing you don’t. There’s just enough room for your Switch, a flap that you can keep some game cards in, and enough room to weasel some ear buds in as well along with maybe one other cord if it’s pretty short. The outer shell is also designed in a way that prevents having direct pressure on the analog sticks, which I really like.

The Amazon reviews are overwhelmingly positive, aside from a few one off negative reviews mentioning the case … smells bad? I’m usually pretty sensitive to that sort of thing and don’t have any problem with the Tomtoc Slim Hard Case. If I close it up around my nose and breathe deep, sure, there’s a bit of a plastic-y smell but I have no idea why you’d ever do this. So, I guess it comes down to this: If you want a reasonably priced super slim no frills Nintendo Switch case that provides good protection and your primary use for it isn’t breathing deep with it zippered around your face… I’m super happy with the Tomtoc Slim Hard Case. Also, it’s worth mentioning that if you want to opt for the grey color it’s a couple bucks cheaper, but, I like the black with the red zipper pulls.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

22 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Get the Amazon Echo Dot for $39.99 (20% Off)

By . Product Reviews No Comments

One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

I’ve thought these smart speaker devices were super stupid for the longest time, largely because of my experiences with Siri. Well, last time the Amazon Echo Dot was on sale I decided, “Eh, Alexa is turning into a meme I’ll spend $40 and try this out, it can’t be worse than Siri.” …Which rapidly turned into me strategically placing these things throughout my house because I use them so much. The Echo Dot I have in my bedroom I use as an alarm clock and to ask what the weather is going to be like when I’m getting dressed. The one in my bathroom (yes, I have one in my bathroom) I use to get “flash briefings” (quick news reports) to hear what’s going on during the day when I’m brushing my teeth. The Echo Dot in my kitchen is great for unit conversions and timers when cooking, and the list just goes on and on.

I think what makes Alexa so much more useful than Siri is it’s connected to Amazon’s larger cloud infrastructure which allow you to add “skills” to Alexa. For instance, if you enable the skills to do it, you can have it suggest wine pairings, order pizza, and even call people for you. My favorite killer feature is by using the Amazon Echo Dot as a poor man’s Sonos setup. I can say, “Alexa, play Spotify everywhere,” and my music will play all over my house. There’s an AUX output on the back too, so I’ve got a couple of them hooked up to older Bluetooth speakers I had laying around for better audio quality.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rLCIbkE1Pw0

The Amazon Echo Dot has been fairly surprising, as I was almost certain it was going to be super dumb or not very useful when I first ordered it, and my experience has been the exact opposite. If you’ve never fiddled with Alexa before, $39.99 (as of this writing) is a super low barrier to entry with giving it a go- Just beware, if you find it as useful as I have you’ll probably be buying way more than one.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

21 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Game Preorders are 20% Off Through 8/28

By . Product Reviews No Comments

One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

Alright, so todays’s Amazon Item of the Day isn’t one specific item as much as it’s raising awareness of Amazon tweaking the way their discount structure works on video game preorders. Basically, if you’re a member of Amazon Prime and you preorder video games over there you get two pretty substantial benefits: If the price is lower anywhere Amazon adjusts their price and Prime members get 20% off anything they preorder. This took a typical $60 video game down to $48, which is a pretty zany deal as typically new games don’t go on sale and even if you’re looking at buying a reasonably new-ish game used from Game Stop you’re lucky to get much more than $5 off retail.

Well, all good things must come to an end, and Amazon recently announced they’re tweaking the way these preorder bonuses work. Instead of getting a flat 20% off, game preorders will be full price and instead you’ll just get $10 in Amazon credit for select games. So, you’re getting slightly less off the price of these game preorders and instead of paying less you’re just getting Amazon credit back. It’s not a huge deal if you do a lot of shopping on Amazon, as that $10 will just roll into your next purchase but if you rarely shop over there it is way better to just get $12 off instead of $10 back to spend later.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oAuNwjd4O-4

Amazon switches over from the 20% off to the $10 back program on August 28th, so as of this writing you’ve got a week left to look through their list of game preorders and grab whatever you feel like preordering. Historically, Amazon doesn’t actually charge your card until the item is shipped, so you could go nuts just preordering everything you’re even remotely interested in to lock in the discount, then just end up cancelling whatever you decide you don’t actually want to buy as reviews start to trickle out. That doesn’t seem like the worst strategy, provided you’re vigilant about actually following through on the cancelling.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

20 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Upgrade Your Car Charger to the Anker PowerDrive II with USB-C and Normal USB Ports

By . Product Reviews No Comments

One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

Chances are you’ve got a car charged plugged into the 12v outlet of your car (or cigarette lighter, if you’re real old school) and really just haven’t thought about it in years. It charges your iPhone, so whatever. But here’s the thing- Over the years, and particularly with newer iOS devices, you’re actually able to charge way faster with more powerful chargers- Almost twice as fast in fact.

There’s a bunch of different examples of this across the internet, but last year MacRumors did a test on these different charging options and found that if you’ve got an iPhone X, iPhone 8, or iPhone 8 Plus and charge either via a 12W USB port or a 18W USB-C port your overall charge speed doubles over using just the normal 5W USB charger that you’re probably rocking if you didn’t specifically look for a high speed charger.

Anyway, I’m a pretty hardcore Anker fanboy, and I’ve been super happy with the Anker PowerDrive II which both has a traditional USB port capable of fast charging anything that can be fast charged and a USB-C port that conforms to the USB-PD standard so it’ll not only charge your iPhone as quick as an iPhone can be charged but it’ll also work with MacBooks, the Nintendo Switch, and anything else that uses USB-C.

Upgrading a Anker PowerDrive II been pretty significant for me, as I can actually get a meaningful charge out of having my iPhone plugged in for quick trips. The one annoying part of the current USB-C iPhone charging situation is that Apple hasn’t MFi certified any third party USB-C to Lightning cables yet, so you’re stuck buying expensive official cables from Apple, or much cheaper “used” ones on Amazon. Hopefully the situation surrounding this changes, but, it is what it is. Apple wouldn’t be Apple without being real dumb about cables.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:
 

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

17 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Apple AirPods – The BEST Minimalist Bluetooth Headphones, Provided They Fit Your Ears

By . Product Reviews No Comments

One of the best ways you can support TouchArcade is by doing your Amazon shopping through a TouchArcade affiliate link. We’ve set up the easy to remember toucharcade.com/amazon too if you want to type that in or bookmark it. We get a small percentage of anything you buy through any of these links, which otherwise would just go to financing Jeff Bezos’s experimental pizza bagel flavors or whatever else he’s up to now, and it goes a long way to supporting the site at no additional cost to you. These Amazon Items of the Day articles are all products we have used ourselves, and feel are things that the TouchArcade audience might be interested in!

I’ve been pretty critical of a lot of Apple hardware decisions over the years, particularly when it comes to their laptop lineup, but there’s one Apple product these days that I absolutely adore and have nothing but good things to say about: The Apple AirPods. I’ve extensively posted about them on the site between a first impressions piece, a lengthier review a few days later, and we even talked about them quite a bit on an episode of our podcast. I still stand behind all that gushing, as AirPods have become such a vital part of my day to day life that if I somehow leave home without them, I’ll turn around to get them as soon as I notice they’re missing.

The thing that sucked about the AirPods release last year was that, like most Apple products, demand vastly outpaced supply. I follow the Apple scene pretty closely so I was able to order mine as soon as they went up for sale, but if you missed that brief window you were stuck haunting an Apple store for a restock- Which also often sold out instantly. Friends of mine who managed to buy AirPods in Q1 of this year basically only managed to buy a set because they just happened to be at an Apple Store when their daily shipment came in. Well, now they’re readily available everywhere, and Amazon even has AirPods for (as of this writing) $14 cheaper than you’d buy them from Apple for, $145 vs $160.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RdtHX15sXiU

I use my AirPods for absolutely everything across all my iOS and Mac devices. They’ve got Apple’s fancy W1 chip, so swapping between devices is incredibly graceful- Particularly if you’ve only used Bluetooth audio devices and have dealt with the awkward process of constantly unpairing and repairing if you use old school Bluetooth stuff across an iPad and an iPhone. Instead of all that, you just pull down the iOS control center and select your AirPods . It’s seriously borderline magical comparatively.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, audio quality and fit are the same as the EarPods Apple throws in with your iPhone, so the one dealbreaker of AirPods is if you’re one of those people who have ears shaped in a way that just don’t work that great with Apple’s headphones. There’s a few different solutions like EarBuddyz that help… But any of the covers are going to be real awkward as a big part of using AirPods is popping them in and out of their charging case all the time, which you’d need to remove these covers for every time to have them fit.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lvOKBQvbLhg

Yes, $145 (or $160 if you pay full price) is expensive for headphones, particularly those of the ear bud style, but if I had to estimate my overall cost per use of these things it’d be under a penny. AirPods are so friggin’ convenient that they’ll just live in your pocket and you’ll find yourself using them all the time. I absolutely cannot say enough good things about these, I’d go as far as saying AirPods are my favorite Apple product they’ve released in a long, long time.

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Thanks for checking out today’s Amazon Item of the Day, and as mentioned before, even if you’re not interested in this particular product, buying things from Amazon by first visiting toucharcade.com/amazon is immensely helpful in supporting the site at no additional cost to you. Additionally, if you’re ever thinking of signing up for any Amazon services, we’d really appreciate if if you’d do it through these links:
 

If you want to take things a step further, you can check out our Patreon, but either way we just appreciate you sticking with us and continuing to both visit and contribute to the TouchArcade community over the years! If you’ve got a product you’re interested in seeing featured in an Amazon Item of the Day, don’t hesitate to reach out. The best way to get in contact with us is via email at tips@toucharcade.com and be sure to include “Amazon Item of the Day” in the subject.

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