The "New Toys" Thread

Excellent, I am envious
 
I wonder what the differences in internet speed are between countries and what the prices are at the moment.

I know there are vast differences in Germany already. For instance, I have a 50 Mbit VDSL connection for download with an option for 100, if I want to upgrade. I don't see any sense in that at the moment, because I don't download large video files or something. Most websites or file providers don't support that speed anyway, in most cases I reach the maximum download speed only when I trick the server with a download manager like DownThemAll. I also have the advantage of having an optical fibre cable leading directly into my house.

10 km from here in a nearby village, however, they still only have 1 Mbit and things are veeeeery slow. Problem is that they'd have to dig up the ground and lay new cables to change that.

As for costs: I have an unlimited flatrate for internet and in combination with my telephone connection (Voice over IP) I pay around 45 Euros a month, depending on how much I use the phone.
 
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ISP pricing can be regional in nature here, especially if you're not on a larger provider and instead dealing with a local company or don't have much competition.

Don't forget teaser rates. They're popular as fuck here, providing you a reasonable-ish price for a few months before rocketing upward. That or being locked into a 1 or 2 year contract before the same thing happens.

In my area:

Verizon wants 29.99 a month for a year for 7.1 - 15 Mbps DSL service. That's on top of the required home phone service.

512 Kbps to 1 Mbps is 19.99 for a year on top of home phone.

The FiOS fiber to the home service isn't available here sadly.

Comcast's site is terrible so I'll need to check that via a PC.

PA.net (a local ISP out of Mechanicsburg) offers plans from 24.95 for 1 Mbps DSL to 59.95 for 7 Mbps if you're in a Verizon area and 24.95 for 256k DSL to 59.95 for 5 mpbs if your in a area served by CenturyLink.

They don't do contract pricing so thats nice + they're local. The speeds though.
 
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The "New Toys" Thread

The "New Toys" Thread

Att has a one year promotion at $30 per month (38 after its all said and done) but then goes up to $55. I'll pay that because I won't ever use Comcast no matter what. Why use a provider if they suck so bad?

Mine is 6mb down 1mb up or something.
 
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I like my local provider - 100 down/20 up for 24.89 Euros (~27$) a month (plus phonecalls, but I don't have a phone connected anyway since I just use my cell phone)...

My mum just changed providers from T-Online to a T-Online reseller and she's down from ~55 Euros a month to ~30 Euros a month for 16 down/1 up including online and landline flat. After 12 months it gets 5 Euros more expensive and she's bound for 24 months, but it's still way less than before.
 
Gigabit is 10? here.
 
Eye-Q said:
I like my local provider - 100 down/20 up for 24.89 Euros (~27$) a month (plus phonecalls, but I don't have a phone connected anyway since I just use my cell phone)...

My mum just changed providers from T-Online to a T-Online reseller and she's down from ~55 Euros a month to ~30 Euros a month for 16 down/1 up including online and landline flat. After 12 months it gets 5 Euros more expensive and she's bound for 24 months, but it's still way less than before.
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I'm quite sure I could get a lot better price -- epecially if I combine it with my mobile phone contract. But currently I am too lazy. Maybe this new year I will see to it.
 
I pay $79.99 for 15mbps from AT&T Uverse. It's the only option besides municipal cable, which is $10 cheaper for 5mbps...but it really only exists to be a subsidized solution for low-income folks, who I think can get that 5mbps for $6-10, or free if they qualify.
 
NecroJoe said:
I pay $79.99 for 15mbps from AT&T Uverse. It's the only option besides municipal cable, which is $10 cheaper for 5mbps...but it really only exists to be a subsidized solution for low-income folks, who I think can get that 5mbps for $6-10, or free if they qualify.
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If the local govt is using cable, you'd think they'd offer higher speeds. o_O
 
Just did a test:

4961484180.png
 
rickhamilton620 said:
Verizon wants 29.99 a month for a year for 7.1 - 15 Mbps DSL service. That's on top of the required home phone service.

The FiOS fiber to the home service isn't available here sadly.

Comcast's site is terrible so I'll need to check that via a PC.
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That's the situation I'm stuck with right now. I'm currently paying $72.99 for the 7.1-15 Mbps Verizon DSL service (~12Mbps on average,
Kec2qA2L-Qk.jpg
) + landline. FiOS is not available in this area and the only other option was Comcast cable, but I won't touch them with a 39 1/2 foot pole. Yeah, the upload rate sucks (1 Mbps on a GOOD day), but I rarely upload things anyways. Download is OK since I live by myself. It handles GTA Online rather well with very little lag, even in a lobby with 20+ people and can stream Netflix, Hulu and YouTube in HD with little difficulty.

Would still be nice to have FiOS, though... :glare:
 
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UGH, I wanted to mess about with retropie, about 47 days later it's up and running on the pi zero... with two wired dualshock 4's. :mrgreen: I had issues with FTP and case specific folder directories.

It'll run upto 32 bit games, PS1 and Sega 32x run, but slowly. Thats not why I bought the ?4 Zero though, mines running SNES, Mega Drive (Fuck you America with 'Genesis' <_< ) and NeoGeo at the minute.

Retropie will run all of these:


Amiga
Apple II
Atari 800
Atari 2600
Atari ST/STE/TT/Falcon
Apple Macintosh
C64
Amstrad CPC
Final Burn Alpha
Game Boy
Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Color
Sega Game Gear
Intellivision
MAME
MSX
PC ? x86
NeoGeo
Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo 64
TurboGrafx 16 ? PC Engine
Ports
? CaveStory (RetroArch/NXEngine)
? Doom (RetroArch/PrBoom)
? Duke Nukem 3D (eDuke)
ScummVM
Sega Master System
Sega Mega Drive
Sega Mega-CD / CD
Sega 32X
Playstation 1
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
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So, after 4 1/2 years I bought a new graphics card: a used Gigabyte GTX 960 OC with 4 GB for 165 Euros shipped. I know the 4 GB are maybe a bit overkill since the memory bandwidth is restricted, but who knows what the future brings. I plan on keeping that card for a long time again so more memory is always better.

Of course I don't have the Athlon II 5050e anymore, my PC looks like that afterwards:
- Intel Core i5-4460
- ASRock B85 Pro4
- 2x4 GB DDR3-1600
- Gigabyte GTX 960 OC
- Asus Xonar DX
- Scythe Ninja 3 Rev. B
- 256 GB Crucial MX100 SSD
- 4 TB Seagate HDD
- LG 24" monitor (1920x1200)

I think that's decent power for the next years, I don't have to have the latest and greatest anymore since I don't do much gaming anymore. The main focus of the rig is silence and energy efficiency.
 
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$(KGrHqZ,!n4FJriQygyvBSe!efPdQQ~~60_12.JPG

A new 16GB moherboard to fix my dead 2013 Nexus 7 32GB. 35 eur to fix a dead tablet that only cost me 50 to begin with? Why yes, that sounds like a good idea. Sadly, 32GB motherboards are quite a bit more expensive.

Result:
IMG_20160103_161006.jpg


Now I have two very good tablets running Android 6, one 7" mostly suited for watching videos and browsing internet, the other an 8" gaming beast.
 
I did a bad thing yesterday and ordered an LG 4k TV to act as my new PC monitor. 40UF770V to be exact.

medium01.jpg


Just to clear one thing up - I have no intention of gaming in 4k. The reasons for getting it are a larger desktop space on the PC, larger screen for 1080p gaming with my steering wheel and built in on-demand features. Apparently this one is good and it was a nice deal.

I've already had to modify the speaker shelves of my Fredde desk to fit it in, yes I took a saw to Ikea furniture!
 
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Aston Martin said:
UGH, I wanted to mess about with retropie, about 47 days later it's up and running on the pi zero... with two wired dualshock 4's. :mrgreen: I had issues with FTP and case specific folder directories.

It'll run upto 32 bit games, PS1 and Sega 32x run, but slowly. Thats not why I bought the ?4 Zero though, mines running SNES, Mega Drive (Fuck you America with 'Genesis' <_< ) and NeoGeo at the minute.

Retropie will run all of these:
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What? No Apple I? You haven't gamed until you've played Woz's text based Lunar Lander played off a cassette onto the computer via audio. I played it once on my dad's Apple I replica and goddam its hard.
 
smib said:
It seems I can't unlock my phone due to it being rooted. Now, I know I should be able to unroot and do a full revert to factory setup, but that is so much hassle. At this point I'm more inclined to just buy as cheap unlocked phone and tell AT&T to eat me.
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A bit of eBaying later...
20131018T122945.png


It will arrive by the end of the week. I was hoping the seller would be agreeable to allowing me to pick it up since they live like 30 minutes from me, but oh well.
 
smib said:
It will arrive by the end of the week. I was hoping the seller would be agreeable to allowing me to pick it up since they live like 30 minutes from me, but oh well.
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Thats normal.

If it is the other way round some day, you are selling something, if the person wants to do local pickup, only allow them to give you cash on pickup. Never sell something on eBay let the buyer Paypal you the funds, and then let the buyer do a pickup.

Thats a scam where after the pickup, the buyer files a chargeback, and Paypal says well you can't prove you shipped the item you don't have a tracking number or proof of postage because it was a pickup!
 
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