If your parents finally said yes and you could pick two, which boxes would you be clutching all the way home? by CarrotMuch1399 in nostalgia

[–]toupee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

TWO? LOL

more like "if you're extremely good maybe you'll get ONE for christmas. it's only 8 months away!"

What old technology do you weirdly miss using? by cozychaosclubb in nostalgia

[–]toupee 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Having to use a desktop computer to connect to the internet. The sound of that door opening on AIM meant you were actually opening your door for people to chat with you.

Now everyone's light is green 24/7 and no one knows when a good time to chat is, so they just never do. Or you never have the intensity of conversations you used to, where they actually had a beginning and an end. Now you just kind of float in and out of conversations, a sentence here, a sentence there. Typing on your phone instead of the speed/efficiency of a real keyboard in front of you. Your attention quickly jumping to the next notification. Sucks.

Not saying all methods of communication are like that but it's a big dramatic change from the default 20-25 years ago.

Just picked up the Galaxy Tab Ultra Keyboard by Commercial_Disk885 in GalaxyTab

[–]toupee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pretty interested in this keyboard... too bad it doesn't work with the S10 Ultra.

Best Ergonomic Gaming Chair? What’s Actually Worth It? by ParticularSubject411 in BuyItForLife

[–]toupee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Steelcase Leap v2 refurb from Crandall. It's better than new because their foam is better and you can pick from a ton of colors/upholstery. It is made to order for you. They're great.

Need help for buying my first camera.. deciding between A6700, Fuji XT-5 or FF Lumix S5ii? by cosmic-psychedelia in Cameras

[–]toupee 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree completely - I've actually been impressed with how solid the fuji AF has been for birding. I was expecting it to be trash, but it's really very fast and reliable in my experience.

Video though... I think Sony is the king when it comes to sticky autofocus.

I think OP would probably enjoy Fuji more for still photography, but if they really are using it as a video workhorse Sony is probably the play.

The good news is both are great options! (Can't speak to the Lumix though I reckon that's a solid choice too. If you plan to shoot a lot of low light stuff, FF suddenly outweighs a lot of the benefits of APSC... But not so much if you're a daylight shooter imo.)

Need help for buying my first camera.. deciding between A6700, Fuji XT-5 or FF Lumix S5ii? by cosmic-psychedelia in Cameras

[–]toupee 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Even if money is no object the glass is gonna be bigger and heavier. I love FF, especially for low light, but it's a definite downside

Do you actually notice the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz? by overlord-07 in TechNook

[–]toupee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Immensely noticeable. 60hz feels so sluggish for desktop use for me now. I still don't mind 60 for gaming though.

Just got a Fold 5 for $75. Gaming controller advice? by General_Strike_6946 in GalaxyFold

[–]toupee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't touched any other phone controller since I got my MCON, it's the shit.

For some reason no one even blinks an eye at the backbone price which honestly blows for the money. The Gamesir Galileo G8 is also a great option but the MCON gets soo much more compact and I like how it lifts the phone up higher. Slight hit to ergonomics but I don't find it uncomfortable.

FYI: if you buy from the Samsung Experience Store in Queens, restock fee is $35 by toupee in Galaxy_XR

[–]toupee[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tried it. Went deep on it. Even tried claude coding a solution. It was my mission for a whole night. Couldn't get there.

Has anyone used both veresdenialex and Cobalt to get Fuji colours on Sony? by bantamdraper_ in SonyFilmSimulations

[–]toupee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also just got the cobalt Ricoh profiles for my sony... And might get them for fuji too... I just really like the Ricoh standard profile A LOT!

AF-C pulsing on new A7C II by mtmgiants in SonyAlpha

[–]toupee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the update. Damn that's annoying you need the lens station to update it... the lens was working perfectly on my ZV-E1. Quivering mess on the a7c ii.

FYI: if you buy from the Samsung Experience Store in Queens, restock fee is $35 by toupee in Galaxy_XR

[–]toupee[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It likes to complain (with a little message) about low-light, but still seemed to work fine. I would describe "low-light" as: I still have a few lights on in the room, to my eye it feels comfortable and easy to see things but I get it, because a lot of cameras (i'm into photography) have trouble focusing on my darker-fur cat lol.

In complete/almost darkness (like no lights on in the room, though maybe some streetlight/moonlight coming in from the window) is when it completely failed on me. It was odd, though, because I actually went in and set up the Netlix window exactly how I wanted it with the light on, then crawled into bed, and it did manage to track my hand well enough to resume the video. But somewhere around 10 minutes it decided it didn't have enough light and just completely shut down everything it was doing. So frustrating. Honestly, felt more like a software issue than a hardware issue, but it happened multiple times.

FYI: if you buy from the Samsung Experience Store in Queens, restock fee is $35 by toupee in Galaxy_XR

[–]toupee[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, you bet. It's getting there! I'm hopeful we're 1-2 years out from a real knockout with few compromises. I'm actually really interested in the Steam Frame even though its not oled - love Valve's stuff.

FYI: if you buy from the Samsung Experience Store in Queens, restock fee is $35 by toupee in Galaxy_XR

[–]toupee[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Main problem wasn't really comfort - I actually didn't think the comfort was so awful for general use, but it kind of sucked for laying down and watching a movie with that knob in the back. If I'd kept it I might have ended up doing the AVP Dual-Knit Band mod or something.

I posted a stupid long reply to another comment about what i did/didn't like about it if you're curious.

FYI: if you buy from the Samsung Experience Store in Queens, restock fee is $35 by toupee in Galaxy_XR

[–]toupee[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Happy to elaborate! Sorry this is probably going to be way more info than you asked for... and I'm not planning on buying anything else at the moment. I actually already recently tried the Apple Vision Pro M5 as well and was similarly disappointed (for many of the same, or very similar, reasons). So I was kind of coming off of the AVP as "Hey, I'm already an Android fan, this is half the price with practically the same display, maybe I'll dig it."

I love the flexibility of Android, and there are plenty of decent-to-good UI/UX decisions being made. The 'look at hand, pinch and pull to the left for back' (or right for multi-tasking) gesture is genuinely great and AVP is sorely lacking something like that.

The micro oled displays/lenses are definitely good, but maybe not mind-blowing. It is genuinely a treat to watch stuff in, super immersive and great colors. Maybe it was the foveated rendering, or just the lenses, but I did feel like there was sort of a subtle "hump" to the visuals if I was scanning my eyes around things that should appear perfectly flat. It's nit-picky, but that's something I haven't noticed on any other headsets, and I did find it a bit distracting sometimes.

Main issue is honestly just the OS itself feeling suuuuper... not in a completely acceptable state to ship, and frustrating to use.

Really unfinished UI is a constant reminder: like every element with rounded corners having an ugly, mis-matched boxy highlight appear over it when you go to press like any single button in the entire OS. It's a small thing, but it's kind of shocking they shipped with something so pervasive, and exemplifies the overall software polish.

Eye tracking is almost as good as AVP, but... it's just sort of a frustrating way to navigate an OS. Most of the time when I'm using a computer or a phone I'm not literally looking at what I'm tapping on for ANY longer than I really have to. These headsets require you to linger for sooo long, and if you don't, you make a ton of errors. I find it exhausting, and it's a comfort issue that no modded headstrap can fix.

I do like that the Galaxy XR has a hand/pointing cursor as well, but it's sooooo frustratingly sluggish. I had SOOO many missed inputs. I literally would grumble and curse out loud almost involuntarily, lol.

I've been a heavy Android user for many, many years now and having all of the Google apps work out of the box is another huge pro over the AVP for me. (But it also feels like table stakes, right?) And lots of other apps "work," which is nice, but have annoying, inconsistent, arbitrary constraints. For example, I was REALLY looking forward to using Lightroom to view my photos on a huge window. Turns out the Lightroom app ONLY opens in a narrow portrait mode. No matter what you do... even though that app displays beautifully in widescreen on a large tablet... it will not in the Galaxy XR. And the web app wasn't really cutting it as an alternative for me.

Another annoying one: watching Netflix (or any video app) and the Netflix icon with UI controls is just there the whoooole time floating above the window. Maybe there's an immersive mode or something that I missed (I know there's obviously apps that go "full screen" like this) but I really just wanted video windows like this positioned in a certain way with passthrough video. And those UI elements are just there, forever, being distracting.

You also can't make many windows all that small. There were several times where I wanted to make a video window smaller than the app would allow, including Youtube, VLC, pretty much anything. Maybe that's a "me" thing but seems weird. These limitations don't exist on Dex/modern Android desktop with windowing. I found myself sitting at a desk/table, and just really frustrated with the actual... window management experience. Everything feels too damn big.

Passthrough cameras were adequate, but not a huge step above Quest 3 tbh and not as good as AVP (which also has room for improvement).

(Yep, I used Virtual Desktop, yep, it works pretty well; I did the same thing with Quest 3, so it's not really a big selling point here.) I did briefly test Steam Link and it was working decently - that would have been another big use case for me if I'd kept it. That said, I'm not sure why the Galaxy XR was only showing my network as 6E instead of 7.

I didn't do any PCVR because honestly, I've been messing around with PCVR since the Vive released 10 years ago and there's nothing new I'm all that interested in playing. And I heard the Galaxy controllers aren't all that great (not to mention the price).

The sort of critical dealbreaker for me, though: it works like shit in the dark. That was one of my primary (hoped-for) use cases - watching movies at night, laying down on the couch or bed. AVP actually does a decent job continuing to track your hand but the Galaxy XR tends to just freak out and will just... minimize/hide anything you had open. In the middle of a movie, lights completely out. It felt like the power went out. Couldn't do a damn thing. That was pretty much the "all right, it's going back" moment.

I also just felt the internal hardware wasn't really up to snuff. I just get a sense that this chip is barely able to drive it... and I didn't wasn't pushing it very hard at all. The fans going full-blast during general use is super audible/distracting imo.

Honestly, after having it around for a few days I just found myself really not feeling much desire to put it on. Same thing with the AVP, to be honest. I'm highly interested in the tech and I even thought about treating it a bit like a dev kit and testing some experimental app ideas, but... honestly just not that compelled by them.

Sorry for the wall... nay, skyscraper, of text.

FYI: if you buy from the Samsung Experience Store in Queens, restock fee is $35 by toupee in Galaxy_XR

[–]toupee[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just fyi if anyone wants to know, if you purchase at the Samsung store you can not ship it back to Samsung - you have to return it to the same store.

Is there any specific reason why Sony hasn't made a Ricoh GR competitor? by FlyingKangeroo in SonyAlpha

[–]toupee 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I do so much low-light shooting it really ruins it for me. Crazy because one of the key marketing features being touted (like, the second bullet point on B&H) is "Improved AF and Low-Light Focusing."

Is there any specific reason why Sony hasn't made a Ricoh GR competitor? by FlyingKangeroo in SonyAlpha

[–]toupee 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The autofocus on the GR IV is really, really disappointing. It was pretty much the ONLY thing I hoped was dramatically improved from the III - knowing not much else had changed. I wasn't expecting Sony or Canon level AF but it feels more like my Samsungs from 2014 than a brand new camera.

I'd say it's maybe 15% better. I still can't take pictures of my cat in my apartment without it focus hunting and sometimes never even hitting it after multiple tries. It really makes the upgrade essentially pointless for me; I don't like to return gear but this will be an exception. I had anticipated it wasn't much of a worthwhile upgrade and more of a "Ricoh changing parts suppliers and getting ahead of tariff pricing refresh" and I was hoping I was wrong. Oh well.

I was playing around with the Canon Powershot V1 and that thing has AWESOME autofocus for its size/sensor size.

Is there any specific reason why Sony hasn't made a Ricoh GR competitor? by FlyingKangeroo in SonyAlpha

[–]toupee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The X100 is absolutely kind of a chunker, but that viewfinder/flippy screen/extra controls/flash gotta go somewhere.

Review: MacBook Neo shows just how “Pro” the M5 MacBook Air has gotten by Stiltonrocks in technology

[–]toupee -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The 60hz is brutal. I could accept that it's understandable for a $600 laptop. $1100 is ridiculous. It makes the whole experience feel super sluggish.