Week in Review: Amazon scams, action cams and Frankenstein game consoles
Plus: Would you blow half a million on some specks of moon dust? | Amazon is a hive of memory card scams, and I hate it | Don't panic – there isn't an iPhone shortage (yet)
Created for techradar.com@quicklydone.com | Web Version
Hey everyone, and welcome to another Week in Review – this is Matt Hanson standing in for Gareth again while he’s on holiday.
You know what? It’s really lovely helping out with this newsletter, as it gives me the chance to read interesting and entertaining stories from all over TechRadar, rather than just concentrating on our (admittedly great) computing content.
This week’s newsletter features an eclectic selection of articles from our talented roster of writers, from cautionary tales of Amazon scammers to some cool new gadgets, so hopefully there’s something here for everyone. Enjoy!
Matthew Hanson, Senior Editor (Computing)
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Rather naively, I thought that buying a microSD card from Amazon would be pretty straightforward, but it actually ended up being quite the ordeal, as the search results were showing a worrying number of fake products amongst legit ones.
Luckily, I knew how to avoid the fake offers (go with brand names you trust, read customer reviews, and approach any 'too good to be true' prices with a healthy amount of skepticism), but sadly there will be plenty of people who are taken in by these scammers, who essentially deliver memory cards with much lower capacities and speeds than advertised.
Since posting the story I've had lots of readers contact me to relate similar experiences, so it seems like this is a widespread issue, and one that Amazon needs to take seriously.
For its part, an Amazon spokesperson got in touch to highlight the moves the company has been making to remove what it calls 'bad actors' from the site. Amazon needs to protect its customers first and foremost, otherwise it may find a lot of people choosing to avoid its site and shop elsewhere.
Tech production lines in China have been hit by new Covid restrictions (Shutterstock / Fishman64)
We've seen lots of people worrying about how global goings-on are making it harder to get their hands on new gadgets, and with good reason. Some devices have proven extremely tricky to get hold of over the past couple of years – has anyone seen a PS5 lately?
That's not necessarily going to be the case with Apple's latest products though, even if its factories in China are temporarily shutting down amid new Covid outbreaks in the country. As Tom Bedford explains, Apple's supply chain is robust enough to weather a fair few storms, and it's very possible that the factories will open up again soon anyway.
And if they don't? Well, it sounds like the iPhone SE 3 is selling worse than expected, so there won't be any shortage of those on store shelves. The upcoming iPhone 14 could be affected, but we'll hear more about that later in the year. So, no need to panic-buy iPhones or iPads just yet – stick to toilet paper and pasta.
GoPro's new Hero 10 Black Bones is strictly for the tinkerers (Future)
I'm not an FPV (first-person view) drone pilot, but if I was then I'd be pretty excited about GoPro's new action cam. The Hero 10 Black Bones is designed to bolt onto mini drones, so that you can shoot fast (and slightly nauseating) aerial videos like this one from Tesla.
It's a slightly odd launch for GoPro because it's really only for tinkerers. 'Bones' doesn't have a built-in battery or screen, so you have to bring your own, along with a soldering iron. So this really is a bare-bones device – but that's just the kind of thing FPV fans love, and has 'weekend project' written all over it.
It's only available in the US right now, and it's pretty pricey – but it's probably for the best that I can't afford one, as the world is a safer place without me crashing drones into hedges.
A VPN can help to keep you safe online, and more (Shutterstock)
VPNs (virtual private networks) are extremely useful tools. They can help you get around censorship and local restrictions (essential for people living in certain parts of the world), and they can help boost your online security as well, keeping your internet traffic completely private – especially useful if you're using a public Wi-Fi hotspot, for example.
However, choosing a VPN is a bit of a minefield. It seems like there are so many to pick from, and of course they all claim to be "the internet's best, fastest and most secure". They can't all be telling the truth, so which one should you get?
The clever VPN experts here at TechRadar have just completed an in-depth group test on all the latest offerings to help take the pain out of your decision making – and once again, ExpressVPN is at the top of our list.
One part of me feels a bit annoyed. How can Express be #1 again!? Is there really nobody else putting in the work to knock it from its pedestal? But that's why we test these products so thoroughly, and ExpressVPN still has the best all-round package that keeps the likes of NordVPN and Surfshark at bay.
Someone hacked a Steam Deck, but we don't recommend trying it at home (Valve / Future)
I love the Steam Deck, the handheld PC that lets me play some of my favorite PC games while I'm out and about, so I was impressed (and horrified) to read about how one enterprising owner hooked up the Steam Deck to an AMD RX 6900 XT GPU to create a Frankenstein's monster of a gaming device.
While the results are certainly impressive – it seems that this super-powered Steam Deck can handle modern games at 4K – it's definitely not something I'll be doing to my beloved Deck.
This is because you have to open it up, remove the SSD storage, then hook the GPU into the SSD slot and run the operating system – which has to be Windows – from an SD card. It's an ugly, overly complex way of doing things which risks breaking your Steam Deck – and it certainly prevents it from being portable, as the GPU needs to be separately powered. It's probably a fire risk as well.
However, it's a pretty cool demonstration of how the Steam Deck could work with an external graphics card, giving it a noticeable performance boost that allows it to play games at 4K, similar to how gaming laptops work.
It should mean that in the future there could be an easier – and safer – way of plugging in an external graphics card, but we may need to wait until the Steam Deck 2 for that…
POLL QUESTION:
Which gadget would you buy from a monster, and which monster?
The Polar Pacer is a running watch designed for beginners (Polar)
We're swimming in running watches right now (seriously, the folks at Garmin must be working overtime), and this week Polar threw not one, but two new devices into the mix. The Polar Pacer is an entry-level watch that's intended to help you fall in love with running (good luck with that in my case, Polar), and the Pacer Pro is for anyone who's already enjoying a passionate affair with sweaty Lycra.
There's no shortage of solid mid-range running watches, but it's great to see something that's designed for real beginners. Most running watches assume that you're going to be ready to run for at least half an hour, but when you're starting out it's a good idea to include periods of walking in your training sessions – going out as hard and fast as possible is a recipe for disaster, and painful knees.
The Polar Pacer acknowledges that, and includes a walking test that means you can check your current fitness level without running flat-out for a long time. It sounds like a really handy tool if you're at the couch-to-5k stage and want a watch that'll grow with you – although I'll be sticking to the couch, thank you very much.
NASA says the moon dust is on these scanning electron microscope aluminum sample stubs – and we can trust NASA, can't we? (Bonhams)
In this day and age, when people are spending silly amounts of money on NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and ugly drawings of apes, it's almost refreshing to see someone spend silly amounts of money on something that's actually tangible. And that's the subject of this story from our colleagues at Space.com, about a tiny sample of moon dust selling for over half a million dollars at auction.
That's a heck of a lot of dosh for very little, but this is important dust (I never thought I'd ever type that): it's part of the first lunar samples that Neil Armstrong collected during the Apollo 11 mission.
The historical significance of this dust is indisputable, even if it won't look all that interesting sitting on your mantelpiece – and you'll probably want to make sure that any over-enthusiastic robot vacuums are also kept away, lest they suck up your investment.
While $500K sounds pretty high for a speck of dust, it's actually quite good value, as Bonhams, the auction house that sold it, had estimated that it would actually go for between $800,000 and $1.2 million. Bargain! Put me down for two specks please.
This is from the editor
Thanks for reading – hopefully you've enjoyed this week's selection of articles from across TechRadar. From budding drone pilots to people who enjoy running even when they aren't being chased by bears, it's an exciting time for fans of tech.
If you haven't already, make sure you sign up to receive this newsletter every week – and if you've got any thoughts you'd like to share, you can email Gareth when he's back from his break (remembering to include NEWSLETTER in the subject line).
And if you've encountered any scams on Amazon, eBay or other online retailers, do please email me, as I'd love to hear from you.
Have a great weekend!
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