This year’s Techtober didn’t disappoint. We were bombarded with all-new Mac products, including a new iPad mini. Toward the end of the month, Apple debuted all-new Mac products with M4 chips set to launch in November, including a new iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. We’ll be getting our hands on those soon, but spooky season 2024 genuinely surprised us with excellent offerings for VR headsets, PCs, and headphones galore.
While the big brands were all making their case for this holiday season’s ultra-expensive stocking stuffers, we also saw plenty of excellent stuff from smaller brands and DIYers. You should put the Analogue 3D on your radar if you still have some N64 cartridges lying around. The DIYer community was also in full swing, especially one designer who modified an original Xbox to fit inside a handheld-sized shell. We’ll see how November goes, but beating October at this rate will be hard.
Security cameras may not sound like the most engrossing tech, but Reolink’s Atlas Pt Ultra does such a good job at monitoring your home with surprisingly good night vision, and it’s one that made us take notice. It’s also packing a claimed year-long battery life when in “Trigger Mode”, but paired with a 6W solar panel at $200 you really can set it and forget it. The camera auto-tracks motion in front of it with its gimbal-mounted camera, and for connectivity, you have the choice of 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz. Really, its biggest security issue is the easily accessible MicroSD card slot.
The $300 Meta Quest 3 was already a great headset for its price, but Meta wants to put VR in as many homes as possible. That’s tough when most folks don’t see the need for a VR headset, even with nice AR passthrough capabilities, which is why the Quest 3S is so attractive. It’s as powerful as Meta’s $500 headset and has comparable hand-tracking capabilities. The big thing you’re missing out on for $200 less are the better lenses and FOV. I think this headset offers the best option for those who want to dabble in VR. More than that, thanks to Meta’s Steam Link connectivity, you can access more VR games that are unavailable on the Quest games store.
The 2024 iPad mini is very much the same device from 2021, but is that such a bad thing? The small-scale iPad packs an A17 Pro chip, the same as the iPhone 15 Pro. Is it any worse to pack a last-gen mobile CPU? No. It can also use the excellent Apple Pencil Pro stylus and access all the planned Apple Intelligence features the Cupertino, California company has cooked up for down the road. For $500, it also facilitates iPadOS better than its larger-screen contemporaries.
JBL brought my colleague Dua Rashid down to check out its MA AV Receiver and Stage 2 Loudspeaker. Stage 2 is an incredibly scalable lineup considering the $3,500 cost for the five-point setup, especially since JBL isn’t exactly known for being cheap.
The $200 DJI is scary. It’s frightening in part because of its loud buzzing noise when it’s taking off but also because of how capable it is at its bargain basement price. It’s only brought down due to a limited 15-minute battery life shooting at 4K. Plus, you’ll want one of DJI’s controllers to push the range and speed to its limits. Despite all that, it’s a fast and maneuverable drone for its price. The Neo is probably enough for high-up shots for most sub-amateur filmmakers or dabblers. Then, when you’re done flying the DJI Neo, it’s so light you can land it in the palm of your hand.
The second-gen QuietComfort Earbuds get a lot of things right, especially for their price. Bose’s buds have great, detailed sound plus excellent ANC. It’s a pretty solid overall bud for $180, though its size and shape let it down. They’re also relatively heavy and tend to stick out of the ear more than some may be comfortable with. Plenty of solid buds at this price range look and feel better than the $180 QuietComfort, but they’re certainly one of the better ones available in terms of pure sound quality.
Alienware’s Pro Wireless Headset replaces the old “beam me up, Scotty” aesthetic with a design that looks like every other headset that’s come out in the past two decades. That’s not necessarily bad, especially since the headset supports solid audio and mic quality. It’s also so comfortable that I could use it for hours and forget I was wearing these sound cannons. What knocks Alienware’s new headset down a peg is that you’ll have a harder time transporting these than other headsets. The mic is removable, but the earcups don’t swivel.
Prebuilt PCs can sometimes feel like you’re giving up the best part of desktop PC gaming: the feeling that you’re building a machine from the ground up to fit your needs. Maingear’s MG-1 is such a simple yet effective PC build it’s hard not to fall in love. The machine is so solid, with excellent cable management. I didn’t encounter a single issue after launching Windows. The only downside to the design is the overt RGB LED strip, which makes it look too DIY.
Audiophiles will do anything to get the most pristine sound setup possible, but even they might balk at the Diva Utopia’s $40,000 price tag. No, this isn’t the kind of consumer product for most of us, but it is easily one of the best-sounding audio setups we’ve ever listened to, luxury or not. The Diva Utopia includes three speakers: one for bass, midrange, and treble. The other benefit of this design is the UWB connection between the left and right speaker, which facilitates the room-filling audio. Just remember there are ways to get great home sound for far, far less.
I wasn’t totally sold on the SteelSeries Arctis 5 Wireless headset, even though I enjoyed the sound and feel on those well enough. That was mostly due to the odd shape of the dongle. SteelSeries knocked it out of the park with its Arctis Gamebuds. They include Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz connectivity that lets you switch between your consoles, PC, and mobile devices. It has great sound and a ludicrous number of EQ options through the Arctis app for game-specific audio. Better yet, its dongle that fits inside the case makes it my preferred choice for listening to my Steam Deck or other gaming handheld when on the go.
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