Each year as technology evolves, as a bit of a geek what I carry changes slowly and steadily. There’s almost always at least one review device, a couple of phones, a tablet, laptop and the critical headphones for some tunes. But which one am I carrying?
That’s still one of the questions I get asked most commonly so today I’ll take you through what I carry in my bag daily.
The bag itself – Booq Boa Nerve
I reviewed the Booq Boa Nerve about 2 years ago now and loved it so much, I bought it.
There’s a number of areas I really liked about it including the space, number of compartments and internal pockets as well as the carry style. It just works for me so well in my daily use. While I’d still love for it to have some internal cable management for charging etc, it’s not absolutely necessary and doesn’t really affect how I use the bag.
The phones I carry
At the moment I’m carrying two phones with me, one for my regular daily use and one because its still one of the best phone cameras I’ve used.
Oppo Find X2 Pro
This is a great all-rounder and ticks a heap of boxes. One of the real attractions for me is the speed of charging; half an hour will get you to 85% or more which is crazy charging speed thanks to the SuperVOOC 2.0 charging. In his review, Scott summarised just how good this is in one paragraph:
I would possibly say that this is the best available device on the Australian market today. If you want full 5G support, VoLTE, VoWiFi along with local warranty and support you cannot go past this device — and that is the advantage of it over the OnePlus 5G. Add in a first for OPPO with its IP68 rating and it’s close to complete smartphone.
Huawei P40 Pro
This doesn’t get heavy use, but if I’m looking for a really good photo that I can take my time to frame or need to zoom in – it’s my go-to device. The camera is still one of the best phone cameras I’ve ever used.
My laptop – Macbook Pro 13” Retina
I’m still carrying the 2017 Macbook Pro 13” with Retina display. I still love the screen, form factor and how light it is for the power it offers. When I took the plunge and upgraded from my previous Macbook, I stuck with the SSD and made sure it has plenty of RAM. Once the dust settles on the latest update to Macbooks, I may well go again or look at something windows based from one of the bigger names to make sure I get great support.
Tablet – Samsung Galaxy Tab S4
Released back in 2018, the Tab S4 felt like Samsung’s acknowledgement that they needed to up their tablet game. They did it, they did it well and recently the update to Android 10 and One UI 2.1 gave it a new lease on life.
Like a lot of people who have a tablet, yes, I consume a large portion of my media on there. But I also (due to the ease of transport) produce a lot of the content I put on Ausdroid from the tablet as well. The keyboard cover adds a great dimension to productivity and while there are some facets missing in Android, it’s a pretty useful tool on the move.
Earphones and Headphones
Some days I’ll carry both, but a lot of the time it’s a chop and change arrangement depending on what I’ll be doing on the day. Currently (shhh…) I’m reviewing the Huawei Freebuds Pro, so they’re in my bag or my ears pretty much all the time. Without spoiling the review: These are good… REALLY good, delivering big sound and big comfort at a big price!
The other headphones I may carry is the Jabra Elite 85h which are now — I believe — the longest lasting set of headphones I’ve ever had. They’ve lasted well and not been replaced for two reasons: The case they come with protects them well in transit and they’re just so comfortable, I couldn’t fathom a different pair (regardless of audio quality) unless they’re as comfortable.
Chargers, cables and other goodies
Compared to a couple of years ago, I carry less in this area because of USB-C. Simply put, these days I don’t buy or stock return equipment that’s not USB-C. So I only regularly carry a power bank and a couple of cables, one of which is quick charge capable and does the job on my MacBook too. So it’s only if I’m going for more than one night I take a charger these days.
Recently I’ve also started calling a portable hard drive for larger data storage sure to a couple of things I’m working on in the background. Nothing major, just a 2TB USB-C Western Digital drive.
The other item I carry for “just in case” use is a USB/USB-C convertible network adaptor. Believe it or not, there are places that don’t have Wi-Fi that’s accessible, so I do actually use this a lot more regularly than you’d expect.
I’ve become more conscious of how connected and reliant I am upon technology over the last year or so. As a result, I’m also aware of how much stuff I’m carrying and now only carry what I need and use on a regular basis.
