Reviews - Page 40 of 120 - CNX Software

October 4, 2020October 4, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

DT71 smart tweezers review – 3-in-1 tweezers, multimeter, and signal generator

Earlier this year, I discovered a new (to me) category of devices that look useful for electronics projects with smart tweezers Colibri ST-5S that integrate an LCR meter and can help quickly identify SMD components. I also noted some cheaper, but bulky models selling on Aliexpress for $15 and up. I’ve now received another compact model, yet affordable, as Seeed Studio sent me Miniware DT71 smart tweezers for review. As we’ll see in this getting started guide, DT71 can be used both as a multimeter and a signal generator and sells for around $59 plus shipping. Miniware DT71 Smart Tweezers Unboxing Let’s first see what I received. the tweezers are stored in a plastic box that contains three parts. First, the arms fitted with replaceable tips clearly marked as positive (red) and negative (blue). There’s a 3.5mm audio jack that allows us to connect the microcontroller unit with a display, […]

September 22, 2020September 22, 2020 by Karl Johnson - 3 Comments

Sovol SV02 3D Printer Unboxing and First prints

Hey, Karl here. Back in September of 2019, I reviewed the Sovol SV01 printer. I had a very good experience and still recommend it to this day. Fast forward a year and Sovol is back with a new version, the SV02. The SV02 is a dual extruder single nozzle printer. This will be my 3rd dual extruder 3D printer… The first 2 I did not have a very good experience with. Sovol sent over this printer at no charge for review purposes. I am going to share my experience a little differently this time. Instead of 1 long article, I will break it up into bite-size pieces. In this one, I will share my initial impressions and first prints. The new 3D printers I have been seeing have not been very exciting lately. They all basically have the same features and only minor differences and the SV02 is no different. […]

September 13, 2020September 13, 2020 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 7 Comments

Intel NUC 9 Extreme “Ghost Canyon” Kit – NUC9i9QNX Review

I’ve previously written about Intel’s (relatively) new NUC 9 range of mini PCs and now I am following up with my experiences of having bought one. Whilst I’ll cover some performance metrics from both Windows and Ubuntu I’ll also discuss the benefits and drawbacks of using either OS together with a comparison of gaming, thermals, and power usage as well as a brief look at overclocking potential and implications together with highlighting the issues encountered. NUC9i9QNX Hardware Overview The model I purchased and will be reviewing here is the NUC9i9QNX from Intel’s Ghost Canyon lineup and is formally known as the Intel NUC 9 Extreme Kit – NUC9i9QNX. It contains a “Compute Element” with an i9-9980HK which is an eight-core 16-thread 2.40 GHz processor boosting to 5.00 GHz with Intel’s UHD Graphics 630. The full specifications of the NUC9i9QNX include: The NUC9i9QNX is sold as a kit which essentially means […]

September 8, 2020September 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 27 Comments

USBImager – A Lightweight Alternative to balenaEtcher

The common way to flash OS images to SD cards used to be “dd”. But you could potentially damage your system with a wrong command, it will not do verification after writing the firmware image, and it was not available in Windows, so people had to use Win32DiskImager, and last time I check it did not do verification either. So Etcher, now called balenaEtcher, became a popular cross-operating systems tool to flash images for Raspberry Pi and other SBCs. It’s easy to use and does verification after flashing. However, the binary is rather large at around 130 MB, and the company started to show sponsors to fund the development of the program, and this was not to the liking of everyone. During my review of CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 laptop, I encountered an issue with balenaEtcher, which was quickly fixed once I updated the program to the latest version. But […]

September 7, 2020August 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 Education Laptop Review

I started my review of CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 Learning Kit a while ago and at the time I showed content from the kit and its first boot. I’ve now spent more time with this very special Raspberry Pi 4 laptop and will focus this review on the education part, namely CrowPi2 software, but will also look at thermal cooling under stress with and without a fan, and try to install another Raspberry Pi compatible board inside the laptop shell. CrowPi2 Education Software It’s quite important to read the user manual before getting started as there are a few non-intuitive steps you may have to take. First I assume the wireless keyboard would just connect after pressing the power button, but it did not. The user manual explains the RF dongle is inside the mouse, and once you connect it you’ll be able to use the keyboard that has some […]

August 27, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

Testing Hercules OTT Realtek RTD1395 4K Android STB Development Board

This is a guest post by Promwad, a software and hardware product development company with DTV & STB development expertise and know-how. Recently, they received a package from Realtek, their partner in Taiwan. There was a Realtek RTD1395 development board inside – Hercules 32-bit OTT – with 2 GB RAM and pre-installed Android 9 OS. Promwad team tested what it’s capable of and how it can be used by hardware and software engineers who design new TV set-top boxes and develop embedded software. Hercules OTT board is an Android IPTV box that plays videos of any formats with a maximum resolution of 4K. Streaming services such as Youtube, Netflix, etc. are supported via Dash and HLS. Also, the board supports other Android apps, including audio/video calls and conferencing. Realtek introduced RTD1395-based boards back in 2018. IP and cable TV operators used them in their subscriber devices. The RTD1395 chip with […]

August 24, 2020August 24, 2020 by Sponsored Post - Comments Off

Review of FamiSafe Phone Tracking & Parental Control App (Sponsored)

CNXSoft here. I’ve been tasked with reviewing Famisafe parental control app for Android and iOS acting both as a parental control app and phone tracker app and designed for parents who want to track their kids’ location and better control when to use the phone and what content they may access. The first thing to get started is to download the free trial on either Android or iOS. I actually downloaded both versions for FamiSafe for this review, since I used Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 (Android 10) as the “parent” smartphone, and an iPhone 6 as the “kid” phone. Famisafe Initial Configuration We’ll have to start with the “parent” phone. After a welcome screen explaining some of the main features including offensive content detection, device & app usage rules, web filter, etc.. you’ll be asked to select whether it’s the parent or kid device. Once we select “Parent” we’ll be […]

August 20, 2020October 18, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

NanoPi NEO3 and NanoPi R2S Gateways Review – Part 1: Unboxing & Teardown

This morning I received a message from DHL informing me of an incoming package from Hong Kong and sent by a company (i.e. an agent) I had never heard of. My first reaction was “Ah” shortly followed by “Why?!”. But in any case, I’ve just received the package, and after tearing the plastic out, I found a FriendlyELEC branded package. So I thought to myself it must be a NanoPi board for review. Wrong! I actually got two NanoPi “boards” namely NanoPi NEO3 with 2GB RAM, and NanoPi R2S both of which are Rockchip RK3328 powered SBC’s designed for Linux headless applications. Unboxing After opening both packages, I realized I did not get the SBC versions, but instead the complete gateways with their respective enclosure. NEO3 is really light since the case is in plastic, while R2S is a bit heavier due to the metal case. NanoPi NEO3 gateway comes […]