Refresh, Revive, Resurgence

The month was full of anticipation with MWC starting before the month closed and the actual AMD Ryzen launch.

As expected, the Sony Xperia announcements are incremental with a couple of key feature additions/improvements from last year’s offerings. XZ to XZs, XA to XA1, XA Ultra to XA1 Ultra—makes sense. Show stealer would be the XZ Premium which is more of an upgrade from and almost 2-year old Z5 Premium. And it’s gonna launch much later. The Sony releases really do make sense. I’m still bitter with the absence of the X Compact in the official Philippine market, though.

The modern version of the Nokia 3310 isn’t as many have expected, but I’ll give it a passing mark. It’s unfortunate that it won’t have wifi, and it could have been better off with a more current gen network. The design has just enough references to the old one and people seem divided. Again, I’ll give it a passing mark. I’m still inclined on getting one…or two. Maybe next year, they’ll upgrade it a bit and release a 3315. Ah, yes.

And AMD Ryzen 7 is officially launched and will be available here soon. Benchmarks and Philippine SRP’s make it a win. I’m hoping availability will be just right. Midyear, I should be prepared for the Ryzen 5 launch.

On other geekery, the Lazada mishap delayed my collection display “closing” so more on that next month.

Slow and Steady(?) Start

On the tech side of things, I can’t say there really is something significant. We got more details on AMD’s Zen—now Ryzen—and Vega, but we don’t even have model numbers. Intel did release the 7th Gen Code processors but those in themselves are pretty minor upgrades to the 6th Gen from more than a year ago. Well, I recently got to recommend an i5-6400, and JT’s build is finally complete.

I haven’t really gotten back to watching the DC tv shows and SHEILD though they have already returned after the midseason break. Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans, I’m just one episode behind, and I think I’m updated with the Big Bang Theory. I’ll probably be consistet again with my tv shows after the Otaku Expo gig for which I am procrastinating with practicing my parts.

Gundam Wing—Glory of Losers is updated with the 12th volume. Eva—I’m serously considering getting rebuild of evangelion portraits 8 and the revoltech mark.06. Transformers—I managed to find the generations release of Arcee, Springer (Takara version), Kup, and Blurr on ebay to go with my Ultra Magnus from Yonni last year, all to recreate the 1986 movie poster/sticker book cover. Not to mention, I got the G1 reissue Optimus Prime this month. I think successfully acquiring that triggered the urge to complete my nostalgia collection. I need new shelves…and to fix my room again.

Upcoming for 2017

Before the year ends, I’m more inclined to looking forward to upcoming tech and geek stuff. There are quite some to look back at from this month, though.

I finally got my Z1 Compact back from warranty-covered repair with a 3-month warranty on the repaired parts since warranty ended befor November ended. it’s good to have my phone back and I’m amazed at how effective the pc companion backup restore works with settings. It’s a little lacking, though, in that you need to install the apps before you restore. But game progress and the like, they were as before the backup process. Also, I managed to apply the backup screen and rear side protectors. It took a lot longer than makati square people would have but at least, I got to do it. And the purchase of a spare, more than a year ago, did pay off.

I tried and failed to clone my current (not fully utilized) 3TB HDD to the 2TB Seagate SSHD I bought last month. Will try again, maybe next week with some research. Maybe I need to do it on at least a second gen intel core system. So yeah, maybe that’s going to be a good gift to myself, get my main pc fixed after more than a year.

One minor thing about computing, I’m really satisfied with and my expectations were exceeded by the canonc lide 120 that I bought some time ago.

And I have yet to wrap and give the HGAW Gundam X to JT’s kid for nostalgia. And I’ve been wanting an HG for myself again since I bought that.

I prepared myself to wait until January for both but they arrived some time mid-December—MAFEX Wonder Woman, and Evangelion (Rebuild) Portraits VI. I’m keeping Wonder Woman boxed to save its value since I’m not so sure about getting Batman and Superman. But the eva portraits, their “displayed” around the room. Will have to organize soon. Maybe even get a Revoltech Mark.06 for Kaworu to be displayed the same way Mari is with the Provisional Unit-05. Or as one display, with the two eva’s and the two pilots. I must say, the portraits purchase is worth it, seeing the Revoltech 69 with the special color Mari on top of the nvidia edition 690 case. Best thing, they’re both not color accurate to the movie.

And on to upcoming stuff. I’m really excited to see AMD Ryzen (formerly codenamed Zen) and Intel Kaby Lake for desktop duke it out early in the year. I might even consider buying a new platform even if things do go well with my 2500k.

The Xperia X Compact Philippine release is doubtful, questionable at best. I’m just glad I have my Z1 Compact back and fixed and with a well applied pair of matte screen protectors.

I’ve always wanted to get a Masterpiece Optimus Prime but felt it was too expensive for me. Now that I managed to get Bumblebee and Hot Rod, both less expensive models, I’m wanting to get Optimus Prime yet again. well, one reason is the upcoming Masterpiece Megatron 2.0 in the same scale as the MP-10 Optimus Prime. Then again, I’ll leave that to the real collectors, and most likely settle for what I currently have. I’ll just enjoy the fact that they exist.

By end of January or early February, the midseason premieres of DC TV Shows (and Agents of SHIELD) are going to air. The DC TV season had an ok first half and I’m expecting things to just get better.

Lastly, on expectations, Rebuild of Evangelion FINAL is said to be back in the works. Yeah, I think I could be excited for Code Geass R3 and Attack on Titan season 2, but the anticipation for Rebuild Final beats both, combined. I sure hope it brings a closure that End of Eva didn’t bring but have the same profound anime geekery effect.

So there, some look backs and expectations. Cheers to tech and geekery from 2016. Now on to 2017!

Quick Bits for This November’s Geekery

Z1 compact warranty-covered repair is in progress and LG K4 is serving its spare phone role well. I’ve come to appreciate high end handsets more.

Bye bye T100 charger. You are greatly missed, especially since you apparently can’t be simply replaced by a 2A charger that can be baught overpriced at makati square.

Just acquired SSHD for use with spare/main PC. Main PC repair still pending. But yeah, tipid pc search as a google chrome start page was a really good idea. I’ve decided to use it as my main disk (partitions and all) and on 3TB HDD as exTended and image backup storage. The 2nd 3TB would be for use with the Orico enclosure.

Got MP-28 Hot Rod and pre-ordered MAFEX Wonder Woman. Hoping eva portraits arrive soon. Still deciding on Marvel Select finds on ebay.ph.

DC TV shows just rock. Best team up ever just started today.

October Techfest and Geekery Month

I think it’s a good idea to pick up where I left off last month. Well, quite.

It turned out that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 saga has ended because of the worse battery problem that came to light after the first recall.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Pluse still aren’t available here via Globe or Smart. And I guess that’s all I have about that.

For my next phone, I’m thinking, will I actually get the Xperia X Compact on January? And will it actually be released here? As it is, the Xperia XZ is in preorder and on display at the Xperia Store at Glorietta but the X Compact is nowhere to be seen. And the picture banner on the Sony Philippines microsite for the XZ preorder has XA written instead. Fail.

And talking about the Xperia Store, apparently extended warranty claims should be done on the memoxpress service center in Mandaluyong. I guess I’ll be spending more time with my Z1 Compact, now without the screen and back “glass” protectors.

I got to buy a spare phone, though, and I’m already using it mainly, though I still brought the Xperia in my bag after a week of having it also in my pocket. That’s practically a 2-week transition. The spare phone is a white LG K4 LTE. They didn’t have the indigo one in stock. I was pretty disappointed when I realized that I didn’t ask if that was a dual sim phone. I meant to hand it to my mother after the warranty process but oh well. Good thing is I got to buy her a replacement battery for her LG L40. Mhae also thought it would be nice if she bought the K4 from me later on and give it to Aboy.

TV shows. I got to watch an episode of Legends of Tomorrow on actual TV. Flash, Arrow, and Big Bang Theory, partly. What’s cooler is the same day showing (technically, next day) for Arrow, Big Bang, and Legends. I’m not sure about the schedule of The Flash and apparently Agents of SHIELD also shows on the same week on a different channel on cable.

I got through season 6 of South Park this month and it was very smart. Yeah, I kinda missed Kenny but Butters is a real winner in my books. I’m really considering getting the game on PC.

And sepaing of PC, finally got to (1) get a Sapphire Nitro+ RX480 4GB; (2) get a Canon Lide 120 scanner; and (3) clone my 1TB RAID 1 drives to one of the 3TB drives I got last July (wow, that was 3 months ago). Yep, I’ve decided to not go RAID 1 on my harddrives and the 2^nd 3TB drive will serve as a manual backup drive.

I’ve been running to some bluecreens lately and I think it has something to do with the 3TB drive being more than 2TB. Interestingly, I’m only using just above 1TB on my drive. The urgency of reviving my main PC rises. As for the videocard, I came across a post-purchase realization that I could have opted for and RX470 instead. Nevertheless, I would still be underusing it had I gotten that. Haha. I came to rationalize that I’ll probably make use of this card longer.

So yeah, a good number of wins this month in tech.

Phones and TV Shows

The title felt familiar so I checked. Yep, I had a similar title in February. Just had quite a bit of PC stuff recently.

I’m halfway (or a bit more) with harddrive upgrades at work with the arrival of the two 4TB archive/backup drives I requested and Chammy’s 3TB PBD files drive. Yep, ABC.

AMD Zen is coming next month so I’ll keep my eye out for news and availability. Home PC upgrades went back to a halt because PC activities are mostly relax time on the internet. And the cash issues mostly because of old bills and not getting the time and push to buy a new flatbed scanner. The one time I tried to, almost got irritated at PC Express. I used to like going there.

Now, phones.

Sony Xperia X Compact – I’m definitely getting this despite the compromises:

· No ingress protection rating – with my Z1 compact getting damaged when I used it during an outing, I guess that really isn’t meant for me. I’ll miss rinsing my phone, though.

· Midrange chipset (SD650) – reviews say though, that it’s not really that bad and could actually perform as well or even better than the Z5 compact with last year’s flagship SD810.

· No lanyard attachment – I only learned earlier today that that’s what they call it and that the X Compact doesn’t have it

The selling points for me:

· There are really no alternative mini/compact upgrades to my still well-performing (though damaged) Z1 compact and definitely isn’t a step down from what I have.

· The best improvement could be the camera with improved low-light quality. That’s the biggest weakness I’ve encountered with my current and past Xperia’s

· Natural progression with the USB Type-C

My Z1 compact’s extended warranty ends in November and I’ll probably push myself to have it repaired before mid-month. I’m eyeing January for a phone upgrade.

Sony Xperia XZ – Sony’s anticipated flagship seems to be impressing critics more than the interim flagship X Performance and last year’s Z3+/Z4 and Z5 series.

Apple iPhone 7 / 7 Plus – I stayed up late for the launch event. I was actually impressed by the main products launched and the rest of the “undercard” launches were not as boring as I expected. Not bad, Apple.

· The headphone jack thing is a difficult issue but at least they have adapters included in the box.

· Most of the key improvements have actually been found on Sony, HTC, and LG phones for some time. But still, it’s not a bad thing to get the best features everyone else has.

· The 7 Plus’s dual camera is pretty impressive but it’s interesting to see comparisons against the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Well, Note 7 wins…with a bang?

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – not really something that launched this month, but the battery issue and the resulting recall & replacement action is both good and bad. I hope it affects the industry in a much more positive way.

LG V20 – now here’s an underrated phone in the shadow of the iPhone 7 Plus and Galaxy Note 7.

I mentioned upgrades earlier. My father ended his Sun Cellular subscription. I’m thinking of getting myself a Samsung Galaxy J2 with a DTV Antenna while I have my Z1c for repair. Maybe I’ll hand it over to may father if he gets frustrated with his current phone/s since he isn’t going to get an upgrade from Sun anymore.

On to TV show seasons.

I finished season 4 in my South Park catch-up. I’m taking a break now from that because I don’t think too much South Park continuously is a very healthy thing. Still, fun.

Macross Delta has ended and it was just OK. Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans season 2 starts next week. Fun how these two aired similar to Gundam 00 and Macross Frontier. Quite sadly, though, i got engaged to the older shows more. Wow, I can’t believe it’s been 10 years.

The Big Bang Theory and Agents of SHIELD have started. OK starts, I guess.

The DC TV shows are coming next week. Now the previews are getting me hyped. I hope I wont get disappointed.

Non-TV shows, I’ve seen Son of Batman and completed watching the animated Wonder Woman movie. Both good. I think I’ll be watching DC Animated Movies at that pace.

Techxitement

So much for my sbh70. At least it’s still usable though I damaged it a bit more in the past month.

And there’s a lot to be excited about in tech/acquisitions:

· AMD Zen

· Intel Kaby Lake (7^th Gen Core)

· Sony Xperia “X Compact”

· Sappire RX480

· more 3TB harddrives

And I sure wish I’ll have the time to get my main pc up because of above imminent acquisitions.