Month: August 2018

16 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Elevation Lab’s CordDock – A “Experimental” iPhone Charger

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 yesterday I posted about the Elevation Dock 4 by Elevation Lab and mentioned that today I’d be focusing on another dock-like solution from the same company. Today we’re looking at the CordDock, which is an interesting spin on the whole idea of an iPhone dock, but in 2018 the use cases aren’t as fantastic as they would have been a few years ago.

Rolling the clock back to the early days of iOS, the iPhones and iPads of hardcore users seemed to be semi-permanently tethered to your computer. Backing up to iTunes, managing music, dealing with apps, and even things like your home screen layout could all be done through iTunes. This was the primary way I loaded content on my device, as most of the early iOS product user flow was just mirrored directly from how you dealt with your iPod. Apple has walked practically all of that back now, and I haven’t even plugged my iPhone X into a computer. You just don’t need to anymore. But, there was a time where I would have killed for something like the CordDock as I was constantly syncing, charging, playing, and dealing with my iPhone plugged into my machine.

(It doesn’t seem like Elevation Lab made an official video for this dock, but the Apple Insider video is great.)

Now days, the CordDock makes a really great bed-side charger. My normal usage of my iPhone at night might be kind of weird, but, whatever. I use these headphones paired with my iPhone, and often listen to podcasts. A lot of the time though, I use this pre-sleep laying in bed time to catch up on Netflix shows. For a while I was trying to use wireless chargers everywhere, but what’d happen is I’d be watching Netflix, fall asleep, and wake up the next morning with my iPhone not in the charger dock and mostly dead from auto-playing shows for hours.

With the CordDock, I am able to combine the functionality of a dock I can just rest my iPhone in effortlessly along with a larger charging cable that I can pull out when I need to keep it connected. Someone in the Amazon reviews mentioned this dock being great for the car, which I could also see- Particularly if you’re lucky enough to have a newer car with Apple CarPlay and need to keep your iPhone connected for it to work. The CordDock is an interesting product from Elevation Lab as for me it solves one very specific problem with how I like to use my iPhone, but it probably isn’t for everyone.

I guess that’s why they’re not bashful about calling this an “experimental” charger.

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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.

15 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Elevation Labs’ Elevation Dock 4 – A Great iPhone Dock

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!

Following in line with yesterday’s post and reviewing the things I have laying on my desk is the Elevation Dock 4 by Elevation Lab. While Elevation Lab makes a bunch of cool stuff, their docks are what got them started with the original Elevation Dock that launched on Kickstarter in 2011. With seven years of work across four different docks, the Elevation Dock 4 is the best one yet, at least until they release the Elevation Dock 5, of course.

Now, there’s close to as many different iPhone docks on Amazon as there are iPhone cases, but what I really love about the Elevation Dock 4 are the various defining features of Elevation Lab’s docks. First off, you can put your phone in and take it out one-handed. Most (if not all?) of the cheaper docks out there might look great on your desk, but are super light and kind of awkward to use. The Elevation Dock 4 is about as close as you can get to just using a wireless charging dock when it comes to how easy it is to put your iPhone in it, except being hard wired, it charges way faster. The Elevation Dock 4 is both heftier than your typical cheapie dock and has grippy material at the bottom that keeps it stuck to your desk, to further help the one handed use.

Also, unlike most (all?) docks I’ve seen, the Elevation Dock 4 is totally adjustable and works with cases. There’s two stainless steel knobs on the back that you can turn to adjust the depth of the back rest as well as how much the lightning connector protrudes from the base. Any normal, non-ultra thick Otterbox-style case should just effortlessly work with a little adjustment unlike a lot of docks that require your iPhone to be naked to work. It’s also MFi certified, which doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore, but the certification means you don’t run the risk of buying something, having iOS update, and all the sudden getting the alert that it’s not a supported accessory. (This recently happened to me with a super cheap Lightning to 3.5mm adapter I have.)

At $59.95 (as of this writing), the Elevation Dock 4 is on the higher end of what you’d pay for a iPhone dock, but Elevation Lab as a company has positioned themselves fairly similar to Twelve South in that their products are designed in a way that they fit right in with Apple’s overall style and don’t stick out at all if you’ve got a desk full of fancy Mac stuff. They also have the CordDock which I’ll review tomorrow that has some interesting features I’ll dig into as well.

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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.

14 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Elevation Lab’s The Anchor – An Under-Desk Headphone Mount, Now 42% 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 already reviewed my favorite gaming headphones as part of our Amazon Item of the Day series, and modern headphones all seem to be trending towards being bigger and bigger- with the SteelSeries Arctis Pros definitely also fitting in line with that. I do my best to keep my desk free of clutter, and never seem like I have a great place to put my headphones until I stumbled across The Anchor by Elevation Lab. If you’re unfamiliar with Elevation Lab, they got their start with a Kickstarter for an iPhone dock back in 2011 and since then have more or less become known for making really intelligently designed accessories. (I’ve actually got a few more of their things I’ll be posting this week.)

Like most of Elevation Lab’s stuff, the beauty of The Anchor is its simplicity. It’s made of a flexible rubber-ish material with space on each side to hold things. I’m using wireless headphones now, but before that I used one side to hold my headphones and the other to wrap the cord around loosely. It sticks to the underside of your desk with the same super sticky 3M adhesive that GoPro uses for their helmet mounts, so it’s more than capable of holding a pair of headphones.

More than anything else, I just love that The Anchor gives me a spot to put these giant headphones I use at my computer without them just going in a pile of whatever other things I’m working on at the time. Folks in Amazon reviews have even mentioned that it works just as well sticking it on the side of your desk too, which makes sense. As far as criticism in Amazon reviews is concerned, it seems the only problem people really have is it falling off, but I’d be very curious how many people who had those problems also followed the instructions where they very clearly tell you to stick it on and let the adhesive cure for 24 hours before using it. (I made this mistake with a GoPro mount.)

There’s a bunch of other headphone holders on Amazon but oddly enough the original The Anchor seems to be the cheapest. As of this writing it’s on sale for almost half off, getting the price down to $10.95.

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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.

13 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: amFilm Tempered Glass Screen Protector for Nintendo Switch

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!

Continuing right along with our accessories that solve dumb Nintendo Switch design flaws is the amFilm Tempered Glass Screen Protector for Nintendo Switch. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the Switch but there are definitely things Nintendo could do to improve the device which (thankfully) are easily solvable with inexpensive accessories. For instance, likely to make it super difficult to ever actually shatter the Switch screen no matter how many times you drop it, Nintendo didn’t go with a glass screen like most modern mobile devices. Instead, the Switch has a plastic screen, which is surprisingly simple to scuff- Even when doing things the Switch is designed to do, like pulling it in and out of the Switch dock.

When I read about this in some of the early hands-on pieces, I came to the conclusion that a screen protector for the switch is a must-have, which I wasn’t super happy about. Historically, my experience with screen protectors is … sub-optimal to say the least. I gave up on them back when everyone was using transparent plastic film which required the hands of a god-tier ocular surgeon who specializes on operating on baby eyes (I’m not even sure this is a thing that exists but I’d imagine if it did they’d need supreme precision) to apply both with proper alignment and without air bubbles. In my entire adult life I’ve been happy with exactly one film screen protector application.

The amFilm Tempered Glass Screen Protector for Nintendo Switch is the first tempered glass screen protector I’ve used, and wow, what a difference. Instead of the soapy water solution, and all the other incredibly stupid stuff you had to do with plastic film screen protectors, the process of installing this is absurdly simple.

Basically, you clean your Switch screen super well and precisely position where you want it on top of the screen. Then, you use two included pieces of tape to tape one side of it, effectively creating a flap of sorts, so when you lift up one side and put it back down it’s always in the same place. This totally solves the positioning problem. Then, you once again really, really make sure your Switch screen is completely dust free, peel off the back piece of plastic on the screen protector, (AGAIN MAKING SURE YOUR SWITCH SCREEN IS DUST FREE) and then you just let go of it. Thanks to the taping and positioning you already did, it lands perfectly in place, and since it’s just one smooth application you completely miss the opportunity to get tiny air bubbles. Make sure the center of the screen protector contacts first, then you can use the included squeegee to seat the rest of it which will push any of the bigger air pockets out.

This was so unbelievably easy it’s borderline stupid. Additionally, they include two screen protectors in the pack so you effectively get a do over if you screw the first one up for “free.” I’ve had a amFilm Tempered Glass Screen Protector on my Switch for over a year now, and it still looks great. Also, it’s worth mentioning that there’s a whole bunch of similar products on Amazon. The amFilm variety is just the one I have direct experience with, presumably they all work the same, although the price difference is incredibly minimal (basically a spread of a dollar as of this writing).

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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.

10 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Three Heavily Discounted RavPower USB Battery Packs, Starting at $21.99

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 pool floaty drone delivery service 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!

RavPower is another brand like Anker or Aukey that makes loads of great mobile accessories that are far cheaper than the sort of brands you can find at the Apple Store. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with all of them too, as the three companies seem to be in a pretty competitive war on sites like Amazon which has sent the prices for things like batteries, chargers, and cables lower than ever. (Which is great for us.) Today’s Amazon Item of the Day is actually three items from RavPower that they also are providing coupon codes for which make these already super cheap batteries even cheaper- One of them, with the coupon, is the cheapest it’s ever been.

So, why do you need these external batteries? Well, as you’re likely fully aware, smart phones are getting faster and faster, while manufacturers like Apple insist on making them slimmer and slimmer each year. I think all of us would be totally happy with a few millimeters of thickness for the additional battery capacity that they could pack in, but, that’s not the world we live in. Instead, these kind of external batteries are a completely necessary accessory for anyone who plays games a lot or just spends a bunch of time using the various social network apps, which at times seem even more battery intensive. Today’s deals involve three different batteries, each with slightly different features and capacities:

First up is the RAVPower 16750mAh Power Bank. Its regular price is $34.99, but if you use coupon code TOUCHPB010, it goes down to $21.99, which is the cheapest this battery has ever been. With 16,750mAh of charging capacity, you can charge an iPhone 8 Plus 3.6 times. Also, it can output 4.5A, so it can charge two devices at full speed, at once. This battery weighs 10.7 ounces, making it a great overall battery pack to carry around with you daily.

Next up is the RAVPower 26800mAh 3-Port Power Bank. Normally this battery pack will run you $56.99, but using coupon code TOUCHPB41 at check out brings it down to $39.99. Primary differences between this and the previous battery are that this one has three USB ports up from two, and 26,800mAh of power storage which according to RavPower is enough battery capacity to keep your iPhone charged for upwards of nine days of normal usage, charging it to full over six times. It’s also capable of 2.4A per USB port for fast charging, but the additional ports and power capacity come at a cost: This pack weighs 1lb, making it a bit more of a brick in your bag than smaller capacity batteries.

Last, but not least is the RAVPower 20100mAh USB-C Power Bank. Normally priced at $51.99, using the coupon code TOUCHPB043 also brings it down to $39.99. With “only” 20,100mAh of onboard power, its capacity is slightly less than the previous battery but what it loses in capacity it gains in futureproofing with the addition of a USB-C port capable of charging things like laptops, the Nintendo Switch, and other USB-C devices. It also weighs 1lb, and is probably the better buy of these two batteries unless you just really have nothing that uses USB-C and want that slight bump in capacity. Additionally, it’s the only one with a QuickCharge 3.0 port on it, which probably means nothing to you unless you have a newer Android phone that supports the QC3.0 standard.

I’m a big believer that you can really never have too many batteries, particularly with how many things charge over USB now. I’ve collected an embarrassing amount of them, and as new batteries come out that support things like USB-C or have other fancy features, my older ones get relegated to living in places like the glove box of my car or in random bags I use so I’m never somewhere that I can’t charge my phone. Additionally, if you’ve got a battery already, these companies have made some oddly huge advancements in maintaining the same capacity (or in some cases even more) with way less weight. I found the first Mophie battery pack I bought ages ago while cleaning out my closet and that thing was a brick compared to these.

Anyway, thanks a ton to RavPower for the coupon codes, I always love passing along stuff like this to our readers. These coupon codes last through the end of the month, but I have no idea what RavPower’s stock is like on Amazon so I wouldn’t wait too long if you’re interested in any of these.

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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.

9 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: 32GB Fire HD Tablet for $59.99 – The Best Cheap Tablet on Sale Today Only

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 expedition to mine cheese from the moon 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!

If you’ve got kids or family members who aren’t super tech savvy and don’t yet have their own tablet, this is one deal you shouldn’t miss: Amazon has the 32GB Fire HD 8 Tablet with Special Offers on sale today only for $59.99. (Technically, it’s a 48 hour sale, but the sale started yesterday.) Amazon’s lineup of tablets is my go-to when it comes to my preferred tablet to gift other people because it’s the absolute cheapest way to get folks to dip their toes into the world of tablet computing and today you can get one for less than half of what a positively ancient iPad will run you. Additionally, Amazon has done a shocking amount of engineering work to make these things stupidly simple to use with many of the core apps pre-installed and ready to roll. 32GB isn’t a ton of space, but unlike iOS devices, you can utilize the micro SD card slot to expand storage as much as you want. There’s tons of different options for micro SD cards too that start at under $20 and go up to … as much as you want to spend.

Anecdotally, I’ve found tablets like today’s Fire HD 8 to be way more durable than iPads when it comes to bumps, bangs, and drops, but whenever I buy one for a kid, I also grab this $17 case which not only adds a handle but I’m pretty sure it’d allow the tablet to survive a nuclear blast. I’ve seen a Fire HD 8 in that case literally thrown down a flight of stairs and escape unscathed.

Now, being an Amazon device with “special offers,” there’s a few caveats to be aware of here which you may or may not care about. By default, you’ll be getting all your apps the Amazon App Store, which means you won’t have access to any of the “core” Google apps like Gmail or Google Maps. Thankfully, it’s an Android tablet and side-loading these things is not difficult. The “special offers,” like the Kindle with special offers basically is just another way Amazon has figured out how to reduce the price of these devices even further by subsidizing their cost through displaying ads on the lock screen. These ads are incredibly innocuous, but if you really don’t like looking at them you can either pay Amazon $15 or go digging around on various Android sites looking for guides like this one to hack the device. Honestly though, it seems like just paying $15 is less of a hassle as I’m sure Amazon will tell you to pound sand if you have any support issues after you’ve hacked it.

Things are so cross platform now that with few rare exceptions, you (or whoever you give this to) are going to be able to find basically everything they’d ever want on the Amazon App Store. While the 1.3ghz processor isn’t going to win any awards for its amazing performance, mobile apps in general are developed with a very low base spec in mind, and the Fire HD 8 vastly exceeds that. As long as you’re not aiming to use this as a desktop replacement or play the latest and greatest 3D games, you won’t find anything that the Fire HD 8 can’t do- Which is a pretty cool thing to say for today’s price of $59.99.

$59.99 is the cheapest the Fire HD 8 has ever been with the only sale price that was anywhere near this being $79.99. If you’re in the market for a super cheap general use tablet to watch some movies, play some games, or give to someone else who is interested in those kind of things… Do not miss today’s Fire HD 8 sale.

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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.

8 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: 5.11 RUSH12 Tactical Backpack – Our Favorite Super Durable Backpack

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 bionic probiotics 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’m not sure if I’m just harder on bags than most people, lug around more junk than I should, or a combination of the two but for whatever reason it seems like with rare exception, backpacks rarely last me more than a year- Sometimes often less from some of the “boutique” brands that you sometimes see sold in Apple Stores. That is, until I picked up the 5.11 RUSH12 Tactical Backpack on the recommendation of a friend of mine who had one that survived his entire military tour. I figure if this bag can take that kind of abuse, surely it can deal with being jammed full of phones, batteries, cables, video game stuff, laptops, and more on airplanes and coffeeshops, right? Looking at my Amazon history I bought this backpack over two years ago, and it still looks brand new.

I used to avoid things like the stuff 5.11 makes, figuring unless you’re an actual soldier or something similar you just sort of look like a tacticool mall ninja rocking it. What does someone like me need a bag covered in MOLLE webbing for, anyway? The answer, it turns out, is using carabiner clips to clip absolutely anything and everything anywhere you decide you want to put it. Flying somewhere and bringing your travel pillow which otherwise is annoying to carry by itself and takes up half your bag? Clip it to the side. Don’t know where to put your water bottle while you wander around? CLIP IT. Additionally, there’s a whole ecosystem of other stuff that works with standard MOLLE webbing like this, so you can really create the perfect bag for whatever you’re using it for.

The above video does a great job of showing all the pockets and different places to put things, and here’s how I typically roll out: In the “hydration pack” (the first thing they show) I keep my 13″ MacBook Pro and iPad, although when I’ve taken it to beer events I use that pocket for what it’s meant for: One of these. On the front of the bag, in the lower pouch I keep two battery packs, a spare phone (I’m weird.), a couple sharpies, my Magic Mouse, and anything else that might need to be immediately accessible. The top front pocket I keep my passport in, and is where I shove all the junk in my pockets when I need to go through airport security. On the top of the bag there’s another small zippered pocket you’re supposed to put your sunglasses in that I use for tiny things like my AirPods, gum, chapstick, and other similar junk.

Inside the bag there’s two large mesh pockets on the front flap, the top I keep all my cables in and the bottom I keep all my MacBook charger, a small power strip, an Anker multi-port USB charger and other things like that. Then i’ve got the whole main compartment for basically anything I want. My Switch is usually in there, a light jacket, random snacks, etc. One super cool feature about this bag that I discovered that I absolutely love is that the front opens all the way, instead of the zippers stopping at the half way point like a lot of backpacks I’ve had.

This turned out to be a killer feature as when I put my bag through the airport X-Ray machine, I open it up all the way so the security people can see that it’s a bunch of cables and chargers. Before I started doing this, it seemed like my bag was getting checked a good 50% of the time because on the X-Ray screen it just looked like densely packed wires and batteries.

All in all, the thing I’ve been most impressed with though is the durability of this bag. I abuse my backpacks, and because of that they’ve just sort of always occupied this very temporary “wear item” space in my head. I’m not sure what magic 5.11 employed with the construction or materials of this particular pack, but I’ve been totally blown away.

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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.

6 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Anker SoundCore Sport XL Outdoor Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker

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 robot hermit crabs 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!

Continuing Friday’s theme of cool products to use to cram more podcast listening into your life is the Anker SoundCore Sport XL Outdoor Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker. I actually got this ages ago to go on vacation where we were going to be spending a long weekend at a place with a beach and pool. The original idea was I didn’t want to bring my Big Jambox (Anyone remember when THOSE were the hottest Bluetooth speaker to have?) somewhere wet and sandy, which led to a search for something more appropriate. I’ve always had great luck with Anker stuff in general, so when I’m looking for something new inside of the ecosystem of stuff that they might sell, I usually check their listings first. Well, the Anker SoundCore Sport XL worked like a charm as it’s both IP67 waterproof rated (so it can be submerged up to 1m deep) and the same protections keep it dust-tight. It also has a totally rubberized exterior that has taken a number of careless drops over the years and it’s still working great.

This speaker got a ton of use on vacation, but when I got back I had a serious eureka moment: I can actually put this thing in the shower and sneak some additional podcast listening while getting ready in the morning. My Anker SoundCore Sport XL has lived on the wire rack we have hanging from the shower pipe, getting drenched daily, for well over a year now, and it still works like a charm. Anker claims the speaker gets 15 hours of play time, which seems about right based on my usage where I end up charging it around once a month. Cooler yet, under a rubber flap on the back of the speaker it not only has a micro USB port for charging itself and a 3.5mm line-in port, there’s also a full sized USB port which allows you to charge whatever you want off of it. With enough battery onboard for 15 hours of speaker use, you can charge a heck of a lot of phones and still have enough power left over to keep the speaker playing all day.

While my Anker SoundCore Sport XL‘s primary home is the shower caddy, we’ve also taken it up to a friend’s lake house where we made a little platform out of half an old pool noodle and just had it floating in the water with us most of the day. It’s really, really neat just not needing to worry about something like this getting damaged in the water- A lot like how when Apple started adding waterproofing to their iPhones, using your phone in the rain became a lot less daring.

Are there cheaper Bluetooth speakers on Amazon that claim to be waterproof? Yes, there’s tons of them. I’ve always been of the mind that when it comes to Anker accessories you really get what you pay for, and really just haven’t been satisfied when it comes to using any of the super cheap no-name Bluetooth speakers out there. It seems like everyone I know just buys cheap pieces of junk, then wonder why they either don’t sound good, or stop working. Anyway, if you have a need in your life for a Bluetooth speaker that seems like it could survive the apocalypse, the Anker SoundCore Sport XL Outdoor Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker is the one I have and I love it.

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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. 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.

3 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: AcousticSheep SleepPhones Bluetooth Sleep Headphones – The Perfect Way to Listen to Podcasts at Night

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 robot hermit crabs 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!

Working from home is cool and all, but it comes with a significant drawback: Without any sort of commute, it’s real hard for me to slot time into my day for things people normally do while commuting. I have friends who are always talking about podcasts, like when Serial was red hot and everyone was talking about whether or not he did it, I was like “who did what?” I also happen to be one of those people who really can’t listen to podcasts while doing mentally intensive things. Like I can either write this article, or listen to a podcast. Not both at the same time. I listen to podcasts while doing yard work, but, I cut the grass once a week, so it’s hard to listen to that many. This had me analyze my day and realize laying in bed is the perfect time to listen to podcasts. It takes me a while to go to sleep, this was perfect- Or so it seemed.

Problem is, laying in bed with headphones on unless you’re just totally on your back like a corpse (I’m more of a side sleeper) is super uncomfortable. I did this for a few weeks, it worked in practice, but wasn’t that amazing because you have no idea how irritating drifting off and waking up to the pain of an earbud shoving its way deeper into your ear is. That led me to discovering SleepPhones, headphones specifically made to wear while you sleep. I started out with the classic corded version, and holy cow, absolute life changer. I used these for nearly a year, and the corded version is great but it has one significant drawback: If you toss and turn in your sleep you’d literally wake up with the cord wrapped around your neck. Seemed … less than ideal. SleepPhones also makes a cordless version, but I always wrote them off as being too expensive.

Well, Christmas rolled around last year and my girlfriend bought me a pair of the AcousticSheep SleepPhones Bluetooth Sleep Headphones and they have become an absolute staple in my life. I like them so much that it’s one of those situations where I felt dumb buying the cheaper ones, and holding on to the whole “Ehh, I don’t want to spend more money” thing for so long. For this use case, the cordless element makes so much more sense- Particularly when plugging the corded ones in at night while I charged my iPhone X required not one but two different stupid dongles. I’ve even used these headphones on airplanes and the headband doubles as an eye mask if you pull it down a bit off your forehead.

Now, the Amazon reviews of these aren’t perfect, but I’d describe most of the complaints as flaws but not dealbreakers (and some of the flaws are sort of a necessity of the functionality). So the way these headphones are constructed is a fleece band that’s constructed like a tube with a velcro closure on the back. Inside, the right and left speakers both sit on each side and have a cord that attaches to the battery module which you connect then close the velcro flap. None of this is affixed anywhere inside of the fleece band, so the innards do tend to move around a bit. This is super easy to adjust as you just weasel your finger inside and move stuff around. I only find myself adjusting the positioning of the speakers every couple weeks, as they seem to shift most when you’re taking it on and off. To charge the battery you need to remove it from the band and plug it in to the included micro USB cable.

It’s designed with these different removable components because the fleece band itself is washable. If the speakers or battery was sewn in, and you’re a sweaty sleeper, your SleepPhones would rapidly just get pretty gross. So, yes, I totally see where some of the more negative Amazon reviews are coming from but it’s a functional element of the design. The other complaint is some of the negative reviews has to do with durability, but again, I’ve been using these daily since Christmas last year and haven’t had an issue.

AcousticSheep SleepPhones Bluetooth Sleep Headphones have become a vital part of my night time ritual, and when I travel somewhere and leave them at home it really puts me on tilt. My normal usage is to listen to one podcast a night, and charge the battery every 3-4 days, and I’ve never had battery issues. If you don’t want to worry about managing another battery, or this sounds cool but you don’t want to spend all the money, the corded version is still good- but you really don’t realize how annoying the wire was until you go wireless.

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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. 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.

2 Aug

Amazon Item of the Day: Decadent Minimalist DM1 Aluminum Wallet – The Best Minimalist Wallet

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 robot hermit crabs 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!

We’ve talked about our EDC (everyday carry, for people who don’t follow dumb internet lingo) on The TouchArcade Show quite a bit, and after a ton of trying out different things, I’ve officially settled on my favorite wallet: The Decadent Minimalist DM1 Aluminum Wallet. It’s actually a product that started as a Kickstarter, and is now available on Amazon. It comes in a bunch of different colors, which oddly seem to be priced differently ranging from (as of this writing) $69.00 for black on the high end and $59.00 for blue on the low end. I really don’t understand the pricing discrepancy, but, hey, whatever. Maybe no one buys the blue one.

So the way this wallet works is unlike any wallet I’ve ever had before. It’s basically like if you took the idea of a money clip, but re-imagined the concept specifically for credit cards. I roll out with a couple different credit cards I use, my debit card, an insurance card, and drivers license, so for me the 8-card size is perfect with some room to spare for hotel keys, a Costco card, an RFID keycard badge thingamajig, or whatever else I might need that day. If you’re a super minimalist there’s also a 4-card size, or if you need to carry around more stuff there’s a 12-card size.

Here’s the original Kickstarter video, that shows how it’s made and how it works:

Basically, you slide your cards straight in and out when you need them, and the wallet gives you this nice satisfying click when everything is locked in and secured. It’s really sort of wild how well this system all works, as the design is actually unbelievably simple. To pull out a card that’s not on the immediate front or back, you just slide the first one out a tiny bit to disengage the clipping mechanism, and then you can easily shuffle the other cards out underneath. It’s so much easier than every other super minimal wallet I’ve tried.

If you’re super hardcore, it’s also available in titanium starting at $129, but I can’t really think of many benefits of having the titanium model other than if you like geeking out over metals. I really can’t even tell you guys how much I love this wallet, particularly as it seems going to be real hard to find something more minimal than this unless I just decide to downgrade to a rubber band or one of these binder clip things. If you’ve got a George Costanza wallet, this isn’t the wallet for you… Or maybe it is, as it’ll force you to finally get rid of that Showbiz Pizza coupon you’ve had in your back pocket since 1988.

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. 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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