After buying FiiO’s Bluetooth over-ear headphones last time and liking them, I’ve finally started buying FiiO earphones too. The reason I bought this was purely my hands acting on their own. By the time I came to my senses, the order was already placed. Of course, the main factor in that impulse was the discount being too big to resist. The first-batch preorder was 30 yuan cheaper, with six interest-free installments, plus a free cable if you posted a review. Basically 100 yuan off. The earphones arrived pretty fast, and unboxing them was full of that typical FiiO “pile on the extras” vibe. It came with a bunch of accessories — a case, a pouch, everything you’d expect. But what we care about is the earphones themselves. As a certified fat otaku, purple was the obvious choice.

I originally planned to write a 2019 eroge roundup, but my beloved Duan-ye nagged me on social media to post a shopping writeup, so that one gets pushed back. Honestly I like writing shopping posts too. They’re fast, simple, low-effort, and they still count as a post. Who wouldn’t? Esoteric audio stuff especially — you can bullshit freely with zero accountability, and apparently there are idiots who enjoy reading it. Perfect time for one, no? This time it’s about: the FiiO EH3 NC over-ear Bluetooth wireless headphones.

Why I bought it: I’ve always used a Surface Pro 4 as my “secondary machine.” The reason is simple: I need Windows, especially for playing Galgame. Unfortunately my Surface Pro 4 later went to my wife, so I no longer had a Windows machine. I started thinking about getting a new one, and that’s when I saw the Chuwi Minibook project on Indiegogo. I was hooked instantly. I compared it against other similar products, including the GPD Pocket 2 MAX and the One-Netbook, and each had its merits, but the Chuwi Minibook had these highlights: Supports Yoga-style tablet flipping Front camera quality better than the GPD Pocket 2 MAX User-replaceable/expandable NVMe SSD The Chuwi Minibook has the biggest keyboard buttons (typing is no problem) Internals are closer to a real laptop, with metal shielding — less of the knockoff feel than GPD and the like Cheap, cheap, cheap! The One-Netbook with the same specs as the Chuwi Minibook costs more, GPD isn’t cheaper than Chuwi, and it doesn’t support Yoga mode either Keyboard backlight, which GPD doesn’t have Pressure-sensitive stylus support, which GPD doesn’t have I figured the Chuwi was the most well-rounded overall and fit my needs well, so I joined the crowdfunding campaign and picked the 16GB RAM / 8100Y version. The campaign ended in August, with a few free spec upgrades along the way, plus a stylus and an EVA hard shell case thrown in. It didn’t arrive until October, though. As everyone knows, Chuwi is a Shenzhen shanzhai factory, so I didn’t have to wait for an international package like the other foreigners on Indiegogo. Mine came by SF Express. But that was only the start of a whole saga.

I’ve been tinkering with open-source handhelds for a long time. The last one was probably the Retro Game 97 — I reflashed its firmware several times and even swapped the conductive pads. It worked well enough, but I always felt it wasn’t perfect and still had a lot of problems. So a while back I was browsing the forums and found that a successor to the Retro Game 97, the Retro Game 350, had been released. The price seemed acceptable, so I bought one to check it out.

I bought the Lipstick Power Adapter last year, and a while back it started acting up — it wouldn’t charge my ThinkPad X1 Carbon anymore. Actually, this problem is really annoying. First off, the adapter still charges: it charges phones, it charges a New MacBook, it charges a Switch, it can even charge a MacBook Pro. It just won’t charge the ThinkPad. Personally I figure it probably doesn’t support the PD protocol anymore. Thought about it for a bit, realized it was less than a year since purchase, so sending it in for repair was the only option.

Xiaomi had a sale a while back, so I picked up this water purifier for a little over 1000 yuan, with six months of interest-free installments thrown in. Xiaomi actually sells a bunch of under-sink purifier versions, and I honestly don’t know which model I got — probably the 400G one, the single-filter version.

Needed something at home to listen to music, so I decided to buy a network speaker. Honestly, I know the best in this category is the Apple HomePod. But nobody in my house uses Apple devices except my wife, and I’m an Android guy, so buying it was obviously unrealistic. Ended up going with Sonos, and I had solid reasons for choosing Sonos:

Generally speaking, putting a tempered glass protector on a laptop is a dumb idea, unless your laptop is a tablet 2-in-1 or has a touchscreen. After all, the laptop screen doesn’t really come into contact with anything, and closing the lid protects it too, so why would you ever need a protector? Even if it gets dirty, just wipe it off, right? Well, lately I’ve come to feel that was naive of me. After more than a year of using mine, I personally strongly recommend putting a tempered glass protector on your laptop, especially if it’s a ThinkPad X1C series. Don’t laugh, I’m serious.

A few days ago while aimlessly browsing the web, I came across this article: The highest-sound-quality earphones in history, now only 20 yuan At the time it felt pretty badass, and also pretty bullshit, so I figured—I may not be as rich as Old Wu the Second, but 20 yuan is something I can grit my teeth and fork over, so I decided to test for myself whether it’s really that magical.

I figure plenty of rich folks, Wu Lao Er included, have already moved on to the OnePlus 7 Pro. Me, I’m still on a OnePlus 5. Though my OnePlus 5 is really my backup phone. It’s fine, honestly. Performance holds up, no reason to replace it. Only the protector I’d stuck on it cracked, so I decided to get a new one. The protector I had on the OnePlus 5 before was from Fangshao. The coating on that one felt weird to me, not smooth enough — probably some knockoff coating from a small factory. Since the Nillkin protector on my Pixel 3 XL feels great and the coating is great too, I decided to give the Nillkin one for the OnePlus 5 a shot. Then I used it and cried.