Gadget Guru’s magic box

Hot news, at least if you’re in the region of GaGu’s right front pocket: his trusty Nokia 8 developed an irritating fault in which the home button started activating on its own, and it has therefore met its doom courtesy of the heavy iron end of Guru’s Gadget Corrector 3000. Guru didn’t have an awful lot of cash on hand with which to pick up a new Android handset, but his bargain nose was truly a-sniffin’ when he found the

Google Pixel 3a XL for just 600 bones. Last-gen it may be, but only just, and the sacrifices from the big boy 3 (no water resistance, wireless charging, or metal-and-glass build) aren’t deal-breakers. Oh, and that camera is everything it’s cracked up to be.

Long-term test results now for GaGu’s last-gen non-LTE Ticwatch Pro, and reader they are not good. What started as a promising and very cheap Android smart watch quickly morphed into a laggy, stuttering heap of battery-sucking junk, so annoyingly slow that Guru actually stopped wearing a watch for a while. The trick, if there is one, is to disable every piece of software from parent company Mobvoi, which does make things a little smoother. Not the easiest task, if you’re not used to tampering with the guttyworks of Android devices. Guru’s fingers are hovering dangerously over the ‘install a custom ROM’ button, so he’ll let you know if anything comes of that.

It’s worth noting, though, that later versions of the Ticwatch Pro are reportedly much smoother, thanks to the extra RAM.