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Two entirely different processes — fused powder versus sprayed liquid — producing different strengths, and the right choice depends far more on how often you print than on what you print. Inkjet.
Lumens measure light output, and the number on the box is frequently measured in a way that bears little relation to the picture you will see — which is why projector specifications are among the
A digital-to-analogue converter turns the digital audio file into the analogue voltage a speaker or headphone needs. Every device that plays audio already contains one — so the question is never
Three numbers that together determine how loud a speaker will play with a given amplifier — and the one most prominently advertised, wattage, is the least informative of the three. Impedance,
Some genuinely are — and the risk is not evenly distributed, so the useful question is not "branded or not" but whether the product actually contains what safe operation requires. What a safe mains
Through two separate processes running simultaneously: calendar ageing, which happens regardless of use, and cycle ageing, which depends on how you charge and discharge. Understanding that both are
How the switch registers a keypress and what it feels like doing so — described by three broad families, plus a set of measurements that matter more than the family name. The three families: Linear.
Haptic feedback is physical sensation produced by a device to communicate information — and the enormous difference in quality between devices comes down to the type of motor used, which is a
Most camera sensors do not capture the whole image at once. They read it out line by line, from top to bottom, over a few milliseconds — and anything moving during that sweep is recorded at a
Three related things people conflate: gaining administrator access on a device, removing manufacturer restrictions, and allowing different system software to be installed. The bootloader is the first
An eSIM is a SIM embedded in the device and programmed remotely, rather than a removable card. It does the same job; what changes is how you obtain, install and move it. What a SIM actually is. A
An IMEI is a unique identifier for a mobile device — the International Mobile Equipment Identity — and blacklisting it prevents that specific handset connecting to mobile networks, regardless of
A movement and a set of laws requiring manufacturers to make products repairable — through availability of parts, tools, information and design that permits disassembly. The problem it addresses.
USB Power Delivery (USB PD) is the standard by which a charger and a device negotiate how much power to transfer; PPS is an extension allowing that to be adjusted continuously rather than in fixed
Gallium nitride is a semiconductor material replacing silicon in the switching components of power supplies — and its properties allow chargers to be considerably smaller, cooler and more efficient
Reasonably good for comparing and tracking, and not good enough for billing disputes — which is the distinction that determines what you should use one for. How they measure. A smart plug with energy
Nits measure luminance — how much light a display emits per unit area — and the figure matters most for two things people rarely connect: outdoor readability and HDR. What the number describes. One
They are now closely related — USB4 was built on Thunderbolt 3's donated protocol — but Thunderbolt imposes stricter mandatory requirements, which is why two ports that look identical can behave very
A device letting one keyboard, video display and mouse control several computers, switching between them with a button or a key combination — the name is an acronym for exactly that. The problem it
A compression technique that stores colour information at lower resolution than brightness, exploiting the fact that human vision is far more sensitive to brightness detail than to colour detail. It
Bitrate is how much data is used per second of video — and it frequently determines picture quality more than resolution does, which is why a 4K stream can look worse than a Blu-ray at 1080p. The
The codec determines how the video is compressed; the container is the file format holding the compressed streams together. .mp4 is a container — it tells you almost nothing about what is inside. The
OIS moves hardware to counteract shake; EIS crops and adjusts the image in software. They address the same problem differently, and increasingly appear together. Optical image stabilisation (OIS).
The aperture — how wide the lens opening is relative to its focal length — and the scale is counterintuitive in two ways that confuse almost everyone at first. The two confusions: Lower numbers mean