The 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine

| Random

Back in 2003 when the U.S. invaded Iraq[a], my father told me about him watching the start of the Gulf War[a] live on television. Apparently my parents were watching the news and later on they started showing what I believe was the CNN live feed from Baghdad. This wouldn’t surprise anyone today, but in 1991 for a guy in a rural part of Portugal, it was something very different. In the area where they lived, most only had two TV channels available, a colour TV if they were lucky (many were still black and white), and after a day of work many would watch the Telejornal[a] at 20:00 and maybe one of the (bland) programs before going to bed. Watching war live wasn’t something that people were used to, so like many they stayed up until late.

I don’t remember much of the 2003 Iraq war even though it was broadcasted live too (12 year old me didn’t pay attention to wars or followed the news). The only memories I have from what I think was the start of the war was an American tank shooting by mistake at the hotel where some journalists were staying, a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled, and weirdly some technology that RTP[a] was using to do live broadcasts from there… I think it involved sending the video (low quality) via satellite and the audio via a normal phone call or something like that? I was into mobile phones back then, 2.5G/3G services were being introduced, we could make (expensive) video calls, etc… maybe that’s why I still remember this.

In February 2022 I had a similar experience to that of my father back in 1991. Russia invaded Ukraine[a] and I was about to follow the start of this new stage of the war in a very different way.

This won’t be an interesting post for most, but it has been a year since the start of the invasion and I’m starting to forget some of the details, so this is me writing it down in case I want to refer to it later on. Some of the content and descriptions might be too much for some, so here’s your warning to stop reading. The dates should be more or less correct, but keep in mind that it has been a year since it happened. My time zone is UTC. Some of the links also have an archived version “[a]” saved when I was writing this in case the original source changes or disappears.

Ukraine War

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Poco F4 Review

| Tech | 4 Comments

Poco F4 Box

What’s in the Box

  • Poco F4 “Moonlight Silver”, 6GB+128GB, pre-applied screen protector.
  • 67W USB-A charger.
  • USB-A to USB-C cable.
  • USB-C to 3.5 mm headphone port.
  • Clear case.
  • SIM card remover tool.
  • The usual paper stuff (quick start guide, warranty notice, etc).

Other notes:

  • Bought directly from Xiaomi. I paid £229 GBP (around 266 euros or 273 dollars) for it in June 2022.
  • The phone is running MIUI 13.0.6 Global based on Android 12.
  • Out of the box, after the Play Store/Xiaomi updates installed apps and before uninstalling bloatware, there’s around 100GB of space free on this 128GB variant.
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Macbook Pro 16″ 2021 (M1 Max)

| Tech | 1 Comment

I’ve replaced my laptop with the new Macbook Pro from Apple and this is my opinion about it. A mini review about the 2021 16″ model with the M1 Max SoC and how well it works for me.

Macbook Pro 16 2021

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OnePlus Nord, my Review

| Tech | 50 Comments

I use two phones. The main one is the 2019 Asus Zenfone 6, a mid-higher range device with fairly good specs sold at a lower cost, and an old OnePlus One as a backup/secondary device. The OnePlus One reached end-of-life a long time ago, but I kept it running with LineageOS (Android 9), root, and some tweaks to make the battery last longer.

While it still works, it’s becoming slower, the battery doesn’t last as long, and custom ROMs are becoming buggier with each major Android update, so I decided to replace it with something that can handle messaging, phone calls, navigation, the occasional photo, etc. I don’t play games or do anything special with it, so there’s no need to spend a lot of money.

I could just get a Nokia or Samsung from a local phone store, but I want to be able to root and use custom ROMs, so these two brands were automatically excluded (they are not “dev friendly”). Brands like Realme and Xiaomi (Redmi, Poco, etc) have attractive hardware and good prices, but software updates are bad on Realme phones and Xiaomi makes money by showing ads and selling their services. After some thinking, I reduced my list to two phones: OnePlus Nord and Google Pixel 4a.

The Pixel 4a might seem an odd pick here as the Nord has better hardware, but software updates, features, and official Google Camera support makes it an attractive phone to me. Sadly, the 4a won’t be available right away, leaving the Nord as my only option.

This is my opinion about it, with focus on the camera and other areas I think are important.

Content:

OnePlus Nord Review

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