The Gadgetry Thread

[RIPPA]

This is a close enough thread for this

Microsoft is shutting down Skype - May 5, 2025

[odessasteps]

A sad day for us old streamers. 

[tbarrie]

Public Service Announcement: Nobody should ever try to install Windows on anything.

[RazorbladeKiss87]

Is this the best place to ask if someone can help me figure out what computer to get? 

I know software,  not hardware (and honestly barely know software at this point) but my laptop is dying.  It's old, I got it free. It's slow. I want a new computer but I'm not looking for anything crazy.  I just want to surf the web a bit, watch YouTube and IWTV and, most importantly,  download videos from the Internet Archive to backup.  I'll probably use my tv as a monitor so I'd be watching video files too. I don't need a big hard drive because I use externals.  

[Raziel]

Pretty much anything mid-tier in the $400-500 (fuck, it may be more in the $600-700 now) range is going to be fine for what you're looking for.  Acers and Asus are pretty good brands.  For what you're doing any current or last gen processor will be fine.  Stay the hell away from Chromebooks and consumer tier Lenovos.

[odessasteps]

Now might be a good time to buy too, as you can prob find "back to school" sales from manufacture website or big box stores.

I'd definitely shop around and go to places like the CNET YT page for opinions. I watch a bunch of laptop review channels but they are probably aimed at a higher price point than what you are trying to find. 

[Zimbra]

One of our TVs crapped out this weekend so I got to be amazed by how cheap TVs have gotten.

55" 144hz 4K TCL for under $300.  Insane.

[Tabe]

On 9/9/2025 at 6:38 AM, RazorbladeKiss87 said:

Is this the best place to ask if someone can help me figure out what computer to get? 

I know software,  not hardware (and honestly barely know software at this point) but my laptop is dying.  It's old, I got it free. It's slow. I want a new computer but I'm not looking for anything crazy.  I just want to surf the web a bit, watch YouTube and IWTV and, most importantly,  download videos from the Internet Archive to backup.  I'll probably use my tv as a monitor so I'd be watching video files too. I don't need a big hard drive because I use externals.  

Check slickdeals.net every day for deals. 500 bucks will get you exactly what you need. 

[Tabe]

I need a printer recommendation.  I hate my current Canon TS-8320 inkjet.  We don't print much but I want it to at least print the right colors when it prints.  Brand doesn't matter much but I'm thinking I want one of those tank ones since the ink lasts forever.  As much as I'd like one with 6 or 7 color tanks and amazing photo printing, I wanna keep it to $200 or less, I think.

[odessasteps]

 

[Zimbra]

On 12/7/2025 at 1:44 AM, Tabe said:

I need a printer recommendation.  I hate my current Canon TS-8320 inkjet.  We don't print much but I want it to at least print the right colors when it prints.  Brand doesn't matter much but I'm thinking I want one of those tank ones since the ink lasts forever.  As much as I'd like one with 6 or 7 color tanks and amazing photo printing, I wanna keep it to $200 or less, I think.

Unless you're printing in color a ton you're better off just buying the Brother laser printer that everyone has and go to kinkos when you need color.

[JLSigman]

1 hour ago, Zimbra said:

Unless you're printing in color a ton you're better off just buying the Brother laser printer that everyone has and go to kinkos when you need color.

I second this - color printers are finicky beasts and the ink cartridges are stupidly expensive. If you're constantly printing color, it might be worth it, but for occasional/once a year things just go to the library and use their printers.

[Tabe]

34 minutes ago, JLSigman said:

I second this - color printers are finicky beasts and the ink cartridges are stupidly expensive. If you're constantly printing color, it might be worth it, but for occasional/once a year things just go to the library and use their printers.

Well, that's why I was looking at a tank printer - no cartridges. 

I really don't want to have to go somewhere to do color printing, much rather do it at home. 

Appreciate the insights. 

[NikoBaltimore]

I would avoid HP printers.  Had two that would do color for a while and toners were full yet it would have weird issues.  Apparently Brother isn't as bad though if you're looking for reliable color printers long-term it might be out of your range.

[JLSigman]

Ugh, my computer has picked a bad time to decide to crash once a day on a 12+ year old game. Maybe a cheap desktop somewhere, I just need 16GB of RAM, 1TB of hard drive, and whatever processor and graphics card isn't a scam.

[Raziel]

Good luck with the RAM.

[dogwelder]

Maybe a mini PC?  Not sure how they are when it comes to gaming, but they're generally cheaper than full towers.

[Tabe]

3 hours ago, dogwelder said:

Maybe a mini PC?  Not sure how they are when it comes to gaming, but they're generally cheaper than full towers.

Mini PCs can be very capable in the $500-600 range. 

As always, check Slickdeals for system deals. 

[Technico Support]

On 9/9/2025 at 9:38 AM, RazorbladeKiss87 said:

Is this the best place to ask if someone can help me figure out what computer to get? 

I know software,  not hardware (and honestly barely know software at this point) but my laptop is dying.  It's old, I got it free. It's slow. I want a new computer but I'm not looking for anything crazy.  I just want to surf the web a bit, watch YouTube and IWTV and, most importantly,  download videos from the Internet Archive to backup.  I'll probably use my tv as a monitor so I'd be watching video files too. I don't need a big hard drive because I use externals.  

I just grabbed two of these at Best Buy.  Great price for this kind of use case.

On 9/10/2025 at 12:50 PM, Zimbra said:

One of our TVs crapped out this weekend so I got to be amazed by how cheap TVs have gotten.

55" 144hz 4K TCL for under $300.  Insane.

Unless you're one of these chronically-on-reddit TV heads, for whom perfect is always the enemy of good enough, TCL is great.  I have a 75" TCL that works fine.  I'd recommend using a separate streaming box like AppleTV or GoogleTV Streamer with it.  RokuOS is very light and simple, but the TV doesn't have a ton of RAM, so your native app experience on the TV itself isn't optimal.  I had a LG and a Sony and returned or sold both because I hated their OS's as opposed to Roku OS.  Give the TV a hard reboot once in a while, too.

Edited December 17, 2025 by Technico Support

[Zimbra]

The new TCLs (or at least the ones at Costco) are running Google OS instead of Roku and I think it's better, but we'll see how it does after a few bloated updates.  The TV I replaced was a Hisense running Roku and I made the mistake of updating the software and it basically made the damn thing unusable.

[Tabe]

2 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I just grabbed two of these at Best Buy.  Great price for this kind of use case.

Unless you're one of these chronically-on-reddit TV heads, for whom perfect is always the enemy of good enough, TCL is great.  I have a 75" TCL that works fine.  I'd recommend using a separate streaming box like AppleTV or GoogleTV Streamer with it.  RokuOS is very light and simple, but the TV doesn't have a ton of RAM, so your native app experience on the TV itself isn't optimal.  I had a LG and a Sony and returned or sold both because I hated their OS's as opposed to Roku OS.  Give the TV a hard reboot once in a while, too.

Yeah, always get a separate box for streaming and apps. Don't hook your TV to the internet. I think it's LG that just updated their TVs to turn on by themselves and start showing ads. Screw that. 

I'm using an Nvidia Shield and I love it. 

[Technico Support]

54 minutes ago, Tabe said:

Yeah, always get a separate box for streaming and apps. Don't hook your TV to the internet. I think it's LG that just updated their TVs to turn on by themselves and start showing ads. Screw that. 

I'm using an Nvidia Shield and I love it. 

The LG I had for a little while was so bloated with ads and apps that I couldn't remove.  It sucked.  And the Sony had this thing where it queried the HDMI ports at random intervals and tried to figure out what I had plugged in instead of, I don't know, just let them be HDMI ports and I'd do the rest because fuck you Sony.  Most of the time, the query would fail and the port would change from whatever I had it set as ("Xbox," "AppleTV") to "Unknown" and then wouldn't work until I manually configured it.  What a mess.  

@Zimbra My TCL TV is still Roku but my steaming box is Google.  The OS is okay.  A little bloated but I can live with it.  I thought TCL gave you the choice between Roku and Google, but I admittedly bought mine a few years ago and it's probably changed.

[JLSigman]

3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I just grabbed two of these at Best Buy.  Great price for this kind of use case.

 

That hard drive is TINY. You'll only be able to put like 2 games on it at a time.

[Technico Support]

6 minutes ago, JLSigman said:

That hard drive is TINY. You'll only be able to put like 2 games on it at a time.

Oh absolutely.  But the use case was pretty much "just browsing and streaming (porn)."

[Raziel]

1 hour ago, JLSigman said:

That hard drive is TINY. You'll only be able to put like 2 games on it at a time.

If you're willing to spend another $100-$200 (until companies other than Seagate and WD stop making consumer storage to feed the AI overlords), M.2 drives are pretty easy to upgrade. Although BestBuy not putting the damn model number up to check if it's got an extra slot is crap.