Inspired by the Minority Report New Stuff Series, I also want to share some new things I bought during Black Friday.
Even during Black Friday, most products in the UK are still more expensive than usual in China, but it's just for fun.
Chromecast with Google TV 4K#
- Purchase Channel: Amazon
- Price:
£59.99£39.99
When renting a house, the landlord left a TV with very few built-in system functions. It's okay for streaming and playing games with PS5, but it's not good for watching videos in the NAS. I was initially tempted by the newly updated Apple TV, but when I saw that Chromecast was discounted by £20, I thought it was a good deal. After all, it's a Google product, and Google TV is different from regular Android TV. There might be some surprises.
The appearance and workmanship look exquisite. However, after turning it on with a smile, I noticed a noticeable delay and lag in system response without doing anything. The smile gradually disappeared. Hesitantly, I downloaded Jellyfin and tried to open a 4K video.
It's garbage, I want a refund!
(Later, I suspected that the problem might be the high bitrate of my videos, so I tried playing a video from Bilibili and found that even Bilibili's low-bitrate 4K videos couldn't play smoothly.)
Western Digital 20TB Desktop External Hard Drive#
- Purchase Channel: Amazon
- Price:
£304.99£45.99
This is a hard drive loved by NAS users. As we all know, although it is designed to be placed on the desktop and connected to the computer, it is more suitable to remove the internal hard drive and use it in a NAS. On the one hand, it is very cheap, and on the other hand, its hardware level is comparable to Western Digital's highest-end enterprise-grade Gold or NAS Red Pro (reddit). The only downside is that it is a bit noisy.
These are the two models:
Compared to the prices of these two models, £515.99 and £545.99, the price of £304.99 is like giving it away for free. So, it has been on my Keepa subscription list, waiting for it to drop in price again.
Then one morning, I received this notification:
£45.99! Of course, my first reaction was to suspect that Keepa made a mistake. I opened Amazon and it turned out to be true.
Without hesitation, with trembling hands full of excitement, I bought 8 of them. Why only 8? Because I only have two accounts, so I can only buy a maximum of 8.
But later, 5 of them were canceled, and I only received 3.
I removed the hard drives and replaced the two 4TB Coolwolf drives.
Satisfied.
Originally, that was the end of the story, just a lucky story of getting a good deal. But the next day, my Synology NAS had a failure alarm.
When I took out the hard drive, I could clearly hear abnormal noises, and it seemed beyond repair. I didn't know if it was still under warranty, after all, it was a deal. Fortunately, after applying for after-sales service, Amazon sent me a replacement for free.
I'm so touched. What a philanthropist Amazon is.
Later, I downloaded some 4K movies and found that even 20TB doesn't seem to be enough.
Plex Lifetime Pass#
- Purchase Channel: Plex
- Price:
$119.99$68
I returned the Chromecast, and now I have enough hard drives. But the problem is, how do I watch on the TV? I was once again lost.
Then I remembered our excellent 4K Blu-ray player at home - PS5. It's definitely capable of playing 4K videos, although I can't install Jellyfin on it, fortunately, there's Plex.
I installed the Plex server on the Synology NAS, imported videos, installed the PS5 client, and purchased the Pass.
Although Plex is more closed and its code is not open source, making it less trustworthy for commercial content, I have to admit that the experience is much better than Jellyfin. The video scraping is good and fast, the client experience is better, and loading subtitles is also convenient. It has its pros and cons.
PlayStation 5 DualSense Charging Dock#
- Purchase Channel: Amazon
- Price:
£24.99£16.99
I've been annoyed by the charging dock at home for a long time. It takes up a lot of space when lying flat, and it uses an insert-type charging method. Every time I have to push it in with force, and the direction is not convenient. It's very inelegant.
The official dock is much better. It uses contact charging, so I can just put the controller on it without exerting any force.
This Works Deep Sleep Pillow Spray#
- Purchase Channel: Amazon
- Price:
£16.8£13.44
I have never liked sleeping, and recently I have been deliberately reducing my sleep time. I sleep for just over 6 hours a day. Although there is no major problem overall, there are occasionally a few days when I don't feel well. So, I bought this product hoping to improve the quality of my sleep.
The official description says it has the scent of lavender, chamomile, and vetiver. I actually don't know what these things smell like, but the actual experience is a woody scent, giving a fresh and gentle feeling. It also has a calming effect (although I can't rule out the psychological impact). I quite like it.
I have been using it for four days now, and I feel that it is effective. But to eliminate the psychological impact, I will verify it through the sleep data from my Xiaomi smart band:
Deep sleep ratio for the 4 days before use: (15+21+15+11)/4=15.5(%)
Deep sleep ratio for the 4 days after use: (13+19+16+23)/4=17.5(%)
Although it seems very mysterious and the sample size is not large enough, the data currently shows improvement. Plus, I really like the scent, so I recommend it.
Crucial 16GB DDR4 3200MHz Memory#
- Purchase Channel: Amazon
- Price:
£48.49£36.99
As the capacity of the NAS hard drives increased, I couldn't neglect the memory. Although 8GB is enough now, Linux will use up all the memory for caching. More is always better. The most important thing is that it is really cheap.
After installation, I have a total of 20GB of memory, and the utilization rate is stable at 16%.
Before and after comparison.
SanDisk 512GB Ultra microSDXC Card#
- Purchase Channel: Amazon
- Price:
£69.99£34.99
It's also really cheap. 512GB capacity, 150 MB/s read speed. The 128GB memory card in my camera is not enough every time I go out, so I replaced it.
Group photo
Cyberpower UT650EIG UPS#
- Purchase Channel: Amazon
- Price:
£46.94£37.08
Last time, there were two unexpected power outages due to street circuit maintenance near my house, which made me very worried. When I saw a used UPS for sale on Amazon, I bought one.
First of all, the packaging is really shabby.
After plugging it in, I found that it couldn't charge. It was broken 🤡
In addition, I found that it didn't have a USB port, so it couldn't achieve automatic shutdown of the NAS during a power outage. Moreover, it is too heavy, and its density is like a piece of iron. I think I'll buy it in China in the future. I returned it.
There are also unsatisfactory scented candles, chairs, and a bunch of clothes bought by my friend. These are all my Black Friday purchases this year. Feel free to tell me about your recent new stuff in the comments or leave a link to your article.