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Mobile Devices & Accessories
eSIM vs Physical SIM: Which Is Better for Your Phone?
Neither format will give your phone a better signal – they both utilize the same credential that your carrier will verify before allowing your phone onto their network, and the main difference between the two formats is the method by which the credential is delivered to your phone (i.e., via a card that you insert into a tray, or via…
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Mobile Devices & Accessories
Why Is My Phone Battery Draining So Fast?
Your phone already has a list of the things that are draining your battery in a settings panel that most people never visit. Additionally, the category “fast” is not a number that you can search for; it is recorded as a comparison with how the device performed last week. That is why Apple’s battery-drain guidance tracks today’s usage alongside that…
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Mobile Devices & Accessories
Why Does My Phone Get Hot While Charging?
A warm phone on the charger is normal, and Apple is unusually blunt about it: after listing the moments a device is expected to feel warm, including wireless charging, its guidance says that if your device doesn’t display a temperature warning, you can keep using your device. The heat you feel is mostly the charging circuit doing its job, not…
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Mobile Devices & Accessories
Why Is My Phone Charging So Slowly?
Your charger does not dictate the speed at which your phone will charge; rather, it is the phone that does so, generally requesting much less than the charger can deliver. When you plug the charger into your phone for the first time, the two devices negotiate briefly to agree on the voltage and current they will use to charge the…
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Mobile Devices & Accessories
Can You Use a USB-C Laptop Charger on a Phone?
Yes, and as I’ve pointed out, it isn’t as risky as the Internet would have you believe. A USB-C charger cannot distribute power to a phone; rather, the phone requests power and the charger responds to request. The number on the charger is an upper limit, not necessarily an indication of how much power it will deliver. The real issue…
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Gaming & eSports
Rapid Trigger Keyboard: What It Does and Who Needs It
A rapid trigger doesn’t improve the responsiveness of a keyboard or speed up the process by which the computer receives the keystroke, however it does affect how fast a keyboard “stops” sending signals for a key that you have not physically released yet. The traditional mechanical keyboards use a solid clicking mechanism that keeps the key “on” until the key…
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Gaming & eSports
60 Percent Keyboard: Is It Good for Gaming?
The only thing you can measure with a 60% keyboard is how wide your desk is. The rest of what people claim about 60% keyboards (more keystrokes per second, better accuracy) is either a feature of a particular keyboard model or not proven at all. Based on HyperX’s published dimensions, a 60% keyboard is typically 296 mm (11.7 in) wide;…
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Gaming & eSports
75 Percent Keyboard: Is It Good for Gaming and Everyday Use?
When you say “75 percent” in terms of keyboard size, you are not getting a measurement of anything since no standards body really defines what keyboard size percentages mean. The only useful thing that this designation gives you is an idea of what keys will likely be present on a keyboard (the top row of shortcut keys, the arrow keys,…
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Gaming & eSports
Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse: How to Choose the Right One
When a mouse is labeled as “ambidextrous,” it means that it’s shaped equally for both left- and right-handed users, but it doesn’t guarantee that users will have the same number or function of buttons on each side. Many mice labeled as ambidextrous have a mirror image of the thumb button on the left side. So when a left-handed person picks…
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Gaming & eSports
Budget-Friendly Wireless Gaming Mouse: What to Look For
A low-cost wireless gaming mouse can be just as fast as a wireless gaming mouse priced four times higher. The determining factor is not the pricing but rather the two different wireless connections that appear on the packaging for that gaming mouse. Most budget-friendly gaming mice will support both connection types, while each one will have a different response time.…
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