Some alright deals in there.
Samsung 980 1TB NVMe SSD
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/HDDSAM981600/Samsung-980-1T…
Samsung 64GB EVO Plus MicroSD (better than the Noel Leeming deal I posted earlier)
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/MEMSAM11023/Samsung-EVO-PLU…
Alternative link:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/promotions/ULTRA888
256GB is just $50 more than Samsung EEP store, which is very good for public pricing. S22+ 256GB is $70 more.
However Ultra 512GB is 30c cheaper. So that's a better deal.
Depends what you're looking for. If all you're looking for is a "sale" or "discount", then there's not much else to say. It's cheaper than before.
Personally, I still find it expensive and not a good bang for your buck. Like, having roughly $500 off seems like a good deal, but it's still $1000 and for that money, you could probably get something else that is better and/or cheaper. If somebody sells a literal piece of shit for $5000 and tells you that it is now 90% off at $500, well you're still buying an actual poo.
In this day and age, battery life on Android devices should be at least 4500mah. The base S22 still has 3700mah and that's absolute crap. My phone has 5000mah and it lasts forever. Sure, you get fast charging, but having a small battery to begin with means it'll deteriorate faster and retain less juice the longer you use it. It's natural battery wear. I've used Samsung flagship phones in the past and always find their battery drain to be annoying to deal with. I just hate charging my phone regularly. I already have enough devices that I need to charge, from my bluetooth headphone, mouse, keyboard, battery banks, earbuds, smartwatch and other things. The less charging I have to do, the better. It's less chore for me.
Anyway, you might not care about battery life like I do, so this might not affect you. But honestly, 3700mah is crap for the price. Everything else, it's just meh. Nothing special, just standard stuff that other brands and models also offer. Their OneUI is more refined, their cameras are good, but that's about it. If you're not someone who's going to use all of the specs that this phone has to offer, then it's just a waste of money. It really depends on what you're buying a phone for. Buying this for a grandma who only cares about using Facebook and Candy Crush is gonna be an absolute waste. Can't really provide advice without any details on your requirements.
If you're looking for very similar specs at a cheaper price, i.e phones that are bang for your buck, you can get them at around $700 and probably even cheaper. So yeah, depends what you're looking for exactly.
What phone do you have?
Redmi Note 9T 5G, Redmi K20 Pro and Poco F1. These are phones I've used over the years though, running web server and some random cool stuff on the phone (kinda using it like a Raspberry Pi in a way).
I think all 3 of them combined are still less than $1000. More than enough for my needs and I can always upgrade to better specs at around ~$400~$600 at any time.
@NovaAlpha: Have you thought about posting some of your recommendations from AliExpress as deals? or perhaps in the discord?
Seems like you've done enough research over the years to know whats a good deal and would probably help a lot of people out to just buy what you do haha
@Tmurder91: Yeah maybe, if I have time. I'm usually too busy though.
Also, I don't consider a lot of the stuff on Aliexpress as "deals". Sure, they occasionally have huge sales, like the upcoming August 22nd sale and the November 11th sale and probably some other ones. But generally, their prices are good enough that I just buy without really needing to wait for a sale. Their prices are just cheaper, in comparison to other sites like Ebay, Amazon or local stores in NZ. Not all the time, but most of the time.
The stuff I buy are quite niche as well. Like, not many people actually need 100W USB-C cables and not many actually need a 240W GaN charger that can charge 3 laptops and other devices. Not many people need a 18 port port replicator that can connect up to 4 monitors, etc etc.
The other stuff I mentioned in my previous comments are just typical brands & products that others would buy:
etc
@aerir: The one I got comes with travel adapters (if that's what you mean). So I can easily swap them out and use it on my travel. The nice thing about my GaN charger is that I can plug it directly to the wall, or use a 1.5m extension cable. If I'm at an airport or at a hotel and I don't want to stand right next to the power plug points, I can use the extension cable. The extension cable has a NZ plug head, but you can buy other extension cables for other countries as well.
I've used multiple GaN chargers, some from Aliexpress, some purchased locally (which I later sold). The 2 main brands I'm using now are from Aliexpress. I've used them for a couple of months now and they're very stable and reliable. Unlike some of the GaN gen1 chargers I got from PBTech last year, these ones are either GaN2 or GaN3 and they don't get hot, only warm. They are very light and compact and I love them. I use one permanently at home and another that I have in my bag for work use (I can't be bothered unplugging things). My wife really likes them too and so she "stole" one of them, so I'm planning on getting another.
Both of these are going on sale on August 22nd:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003803277086.html
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003846251949.html
I also have a lot of 100W and 66W cables, some are purely for charging, some carry 4K video delivery. These days, I just carry about 6 USB-C cables and a single GaN charger. I go into work and I connect them to my laptop, tablet, smartwatch, phone, headphone, mouse and keyboard. Easy, no fuss.
@NovaAlpha: Bro, I'm very interested in buying these chargers. I got a few questions:
1 - Out of the two, is there any of them you would say it's more reliable?
2 - The sale you're talking about, is it happening on the 22nd NZ time? Just want to set a proper reminder.
It would be nice if you could post a deal on this day when it's up.
Thanks mate!
@Neotk: I believe it's happening on 22nd at 7pm NZ time. It's gonna last for a good few days, so don't worry about missing it. It's not like the PB Tech deal from last night that lasted only a few hours.
In case you're wondering why I can see the 7pm instead of 12:00 AM PT, it's because I'm using Chrome extensions that converts times to local time. You can find them here if you're interested:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/localise-times/lfa…
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/localise-timezones…
Both chargers are very reliable and they don't run hot, which is really good for GaN chargers. A lot of people will tell you how awesome GaN chargers are, how compact they are, etc. But the problem for a lot of them is that they run hot, because of the high wattage they are providing in such a small form factor. I had a Satechi 100W GaN charger from PBTech and that runs hot and I don't like it.
The 2 I got from Aliexpress are both great, no issues so far and I've used them for maybe 6 months now. I can't really say which one is more reliable, I think both are fine. If you want to use it for travel, get the Urvns one, as it comes with the travel adapters. However, the Wotobe one has 240W instead of 200W and it has 5 ports, so yeah that might be nice for some people. It really depends on your use case.
Since my wife took one of my GaN chargers and I don't want to have to unplug it from my devices at home just so I can take it to work, I'm gonna get another one just for work use. I'm thinking the Wotobe one, since I'm not really gonna use it for travel and so having 5 ports and higher wattage is better for me in this case.
Do note that there are lots of positive reviews of Wotobe on Reddit and on Youtube and so maybe go with this one if you want extra assurance….?
@NovaAlpha: Bro, you are so helpful. The downvotes you got on the other thread are completely bunkers.
I'll get ready to order the 240w one. Currently I have in my kitchen one power outlet with like 3 or 4 charges plugged in with cables going everywhere. Some of the chargers don't even get to 20w, which is annoying when we are changing both tablets and phones. This 240w one will do wonders.
Thanks for all your help!
@Neotk: All good.
And yeah, this is why I mentioned to @Tmurder91 to just get a decent charger. You can't really expect much from a 20~30W charger, they're just not worth it. You're not saving that much in comparison. It's not like one is $30 and the other is $1000. If that were the case, then yeah I'd recommend differently.
It's really important to pay close attention to the specs and the charging distribution of the chargers. 20W just means total output, it doesn't necessarily mean 20W for a single port. Same idea as a 65W charger, some people will buy it thinking they can charge their 65W laptop and it doesn't. It just provides maybe 60W in one port and 5W in another port, or some other combination that adds to 65W.
Also, cables are really important. A 240W charger may allow you 100W charging in 2 ports, but if the cables you're using don't support 100W, then those will be the bottleneck. It's the same idea as ethernet cables (100 megabit VS 1000 megabit), etc.
And lastly, your device itself needs to support 100W charging. Basically, check everything from start to end.
Oh and if you're just using it to charge your devices in the kitchen, then maybe get something like this:
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/SURJAC1055/Jackson-PT1055-1…
Those are great and provide decent ampere for charging. The problem is that those are always out of stock and it takes ages for PB to re-stock them. I bought like 6 of these and using 3 of them, one in my room for all my electronic equipments, including 6 monitors and laptops, etc, one in the kitchen and another in the master bedroom. These provide decent charging rate to my devices and it's pretty good.
The GaN charger is useful when I need to charge quickly, or when I take it to work or for travel. But if you don't care about charging devices at an insane rate, then just get the power board.
@NovaAlpha: I should probably have added that I didn't pay for my 6-port charger I use for travel. An ex-colleague left and forgot it, and didn't come back to collect it haha.
For me its great because the type of travel I refer to is when our family goes out of town to stay with relatives or on holiday. No fast charging needed, but lots of ports is handy for the slow overnight charging.
I've got a good 2-port fast charger for portability/transport, but I'm definitely going with one of the 4-port GaN ones over 100W at some point (probably Ali sale next week) which is why i've been so active and curating these tech recommendation lists
@aerir: I have one of each since few months and it's great
URVNS 4-Port 85W GaN USB C Fast Charger, PD 65W PPS 45W 20W
100W 4 Port GaN USB C Type-C Power Adapter PD3.0 87W/65W/45W/20W
Above one came with 4 different plug types so very handy while traveling.
@NovaAlpha: You've already raised the correct point that when looking for something, the item on 'sale' isn't always the best deal. Sometimes posting something thats very good value is a deal in itself.
I'd say a forum or deal post listing a couple of GaN chargers would be quite popular. Something in the 65W, 100W, 240W ranges for laptops, and perhaps 100W range, but high port (for example single charger 6+ ports split between type A and type C) get talked about quite often on here.
As for 18-port replicators, yeah quite overkill for what most people want. But the hubs and docks that get posted on here and OzBargin tend to be the really shit stuff that importers get cheap from Ali/Bangood etc and bring in then flog off as associated accounts via Amazon etc. Would be good to see a few posts from users rather than store reps (things like 4-8 port USB hubs, basic docks supporting 1 or 2 displays and perhaps MST, or true thunderbolt docks)
@Tmurder91: To me, Cheapies is supposed to be a site full of curated deals. If people start posting things that aren't really deals, then all they're doing is just cataloguing the products from other websites. In my opinion, Aliexpress is always one of the best places to find great products at cheap prices. I've spent over 10K on Aliexpress just this year alone. Never had issues and even if I did, the refund process is amazing and simple. Sometimes you get to keep the item and still get full refund, or 80% refunded at least, which is awesome (because the item can usually be repaired or fixed easily anyway).
People could just as easily search for something on Aliexpress, as they would on Cheapies, Ebay, Amazon or some other site. There's no point for me, or anyone, to start posting products from Aliexpress in Cheapies. It's just spammy and I wouldn't want to see that as a Cheapies user. The reason I use Cheapies is that occasionally there might be some "hacks" that people discover, such as the Plex lifetime deal or the Netflix deal, where you pay using Turkish currency and get huge savings. OR, maybe there's a system glitch or pricing error with The Warehouse or whatever. Most of the time though, it's just posts about discounted deals and a lot of them I don't really consider as deals. Like, Briscoes does 50% off all the time and that's NOT a deal.
If people post questions on Cheapies forums, I might occasionally jump in and share some advice. But in terms of posting deals, I don't really think that's necessary, plus I don't have the time to go through all that posting exercise.
Anyway, the port replicator brand I use is CableTime and you can get either the one that requires its own power source, or one without its power source (but requires power from your laptop). I have both and they work fantastic. No issues with my displays and I have like 4x 27' monitors. I have a single GaN charger connected to my port replicator and that is connected to my laptop and provides power delivery. The single 100W USB-C cable from the port replicator to my laptop supports 4K video delivery, as well as charging of course. Port replicator runs fine, I'm able to get the correct USB 3 throughput on the USB-A and C ports, I have an external microphone connected to that as well and the audio quality is crsip, it's just really good imo. It's much better than the shitty HP docks that my company use, which are overpriced at over $300.
You can find both versions here:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003141419814.html
There is also another brand I use called Hagibis, but they discontinued their model and so I can't share that here. But that one has 15 ports, 2x HDMI and 1x DP. Really good brand too.
For the GaN chargers, I generally recommend people to spend extra and get at least 100W+. No point getting a 65W charger. Then you have people who would pay like $20~$40 to get a 45W charger and it's just like, what's the point? Just spend another $10~$20 and get something decent. Unless you have really low-power devices that use a total of less than X number of wattage, just get something decent at 100W and future-proof yourself. This is like the debate of which price range of motherboard of graphics card you should get. There are just certain choices/descisions here that are (to me) better.
Generally, any 100W GaN charger on Aliexpress is good. Go with Wotobeus (or Wotobe) or Urvns. For Wotobeus, there're quite a lot of highly rated Youtube reviews, Reddit reviews/discussions and so it's actually quite reputable. Urvns is good too and I use both brands. You can also research the brands using something like this:
https://reviewmeta.com/brand/wotobeus
Also, having more ports doesn't mean anything. It's all about how the power distribution is designed for the chargers. I go into a lot of details in a separate discussion and I'm not gonna type out the whole thing. You can read them here:
https://www.cheapies.nz/comment/134571/redir
It's a lot to go through, but my comments should be helpful. After reading through them, you might then understand why I don't bother posting "deals" on Cheapies. Sometimes it's hard to talk logic to people who lack common sense, or people who are just generally uneducated. Call me whatever you want, but yeah I just can't be bothered with this crap.
@NovaAlpha: Forgot to mention, there's always some idiots lurking on Cheapies who are probably racist and just dislikes Chinese products/services/whatever in general. They think that if it's made in China, then it's poor quality. Don't get me wrong, there are some stuff made in China that are crap, but generally the stuff I've used are great so I don't see what the fuss is here. And when you point out that the brand that those people like to buy literally has 50% of the stuff made in China, they just shut up and don't have a counter for that. Some people will always bash buying products from Aliexpress, or complain about lack of warranty from Aliexpress, or just whatever. So yeah, I cbf dealing those people. No point posting normal Aliexpress deals on Cheapies.
@NovaAlpha: I know you're not keen on posting deals, but those potential Aliexpess posts would help start a conversation and get the ball rolling. Take OzBargain (USB cables, Android pads, security cameras, USB hubs) or the Flyhal FC600 for example. Now that they're in the system, people have a better idea of what's a good price, brand, location etc. Then you can start making comparisons (as you have) to products available locally.
But then there are some people that just prefer to buy locally.
@NovaAlpha: Yeah, all fair points about not flooding the site with good 'deals' that are not special pricing.
The forum is a good place to put stuff like this.
I've just started a channel in the cheapies discord server with a bunch of recommendations on tech (a lot influenced by what you have said) so i'm hoping that after a few days of conversation in there, I'll be able to see a lot of extra recommendations and then will just create a new forum post with the top tech suggestions and tips etc all curated.
Cheers for the recommendation on the CableTime dock, I'll have a look into that one (my setup is a 4K + dual 1080p vertical displays, with 4x USB devices, and USB-PD so just looking for something to make plugging everything in as quick and easy as possible)
Yeah the reason I actually recommended something with lower wattage but higher port is because thats the exact setup I use when I go on holiday with the family. I've got a charging hub with 6 ports and so its awesome for just connecting a few phones, watches, tablets, nintendo switchs etc and leaving wahtever is plugged them on a slow overnight charge. For a setup like this, even a basic 5W charging speed is sufficient since its overnight
@Tmurder91: For me, I always think of buying something as an investment. It's not always the case that all your devices can wait until they get charged at night. Prior to covid, I used to travel a lot and back then, most phones didn't support fast charging like we do these days and this meant that my phone would die before I could charge it at the hotel.
Nowadays, phone support fast charging at either 33W, 65W or even 100W+. You can easily charge from 5% ~ 100% in just 30 minutes and that's amazing. But again, this wasn't the case back then. You'd need a power bank and that too is slow charging, as fast charging wasn't really as popular back then. I was constantly charging via my power bank, constantly charging my phone and power bank (and other devices) at an airport, etc. The charger I was using at the time had multiple travel adapters (great), it had 5 ports (great), but overall the experience of charging my devices constantly sucked. I'm a pretty heavy tech user you see, so that's why I had to charge constantly.
Now, I have a 240W GaN charger that I can take on my travels. I can easily charge up to 5 devices at the same time. I can take my laptop with me and charge that too (remember, some devices need at least 45W or 65W to even be able to charge). I'm not worried about the low wattage and ampere, because my charger is able to charge pretty much any device I own. I use the charger at home, at work and during my travel. We're not talking spending like $1000 for a charger, we're talking an extra $100 or so for one.
Like, buying a charger under 65W is just limiting yourself. You can only charge a limited selection of devices and when one day you need to charge a laptop that eats 65W, you can't. Even a 65W charger doesn't necessarily charge a 65W laptop. Need to read the charging distribution fine prints. It could be 60W charging in one port and 5W charging in another port, so combined it'll be 65W and not necessarily 65W in a single port. And when you use that charger for a 65W laptop, your other ports won't be able to power other devices, as the power is already focused in one port.
For some things, like buying a power supply for your gaming PC, you just don't want to go cheap. If it blows up or whatever, your entire motherboard is fried. Getting a good charger is the same. They charge your devices, so you don't really want to spend little $ on charging cables and chargers. Get something decent, something that is future proof and works in all scenarios and is long lasting. I honestly wouldn't trust a 25W charger to charge my switch and multiple other devices at the same time.
I'll check out your Discord.
I'd save the $$ and get the S21 FE. Same amount of software support, bigger battery and cheaper.
If you are buying a flagship consider chucking on your mobile plan for 12 months eg 2d is offering 400 off right now for new customers spark And voda usually have same deal.
Do you have to buy the plan with the phone (at the same time)?
Yeah you do but it depends on the provider and current promo.
@[Deactivated]: Cheers, I'll have to look into it.
I bought an S22 last night through the Noel Leeming sale ($943.20) and they proceeded to charge me the full sum ($1179) to my debit card anyway and now neither support online nor their phone staff claim to know the deal even existed.
Going to cancel and go back to PBTech - never had pricing issues there.
@Dutch: Yeah we sell 2d there is commission but many people don't even realize we do contracts and you can get bundles+discount so it would be worth it if you spend x amount per month
@Dutch: That's super weird. I bought an s22+, a Samsung watch 5 44mm, and a cover for said phone last night during the sale from NL (including 'bonus' items I saved around 1100 dollars, thanks Cheapies). Used Zip and the payment went through at the correct amount. Did you hit buy after 9pm or somthing?
@Donnycrane: Nope, I even had the confirmation email before 9pm, and Wakrak pulled a screengrab from cache showing I wasn't imagining it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsLhneXtQTQ
Livestream if you want try and win prizes. It's also on their Facebook page.
Hmm… I remember I saw some news on samsung's SSD recently about data damage across a few models. Which you can check by seeing if the 'E0' is zero in crystal disk info.
Some of the deals are cheaper than Samsung EPP/Family Values/Education pricing. Mainly things those have been on the market for a while.
So don't hesitate if there is something you need.
If you're after the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro the EPP has a better deal, but yeah otherwise these are quiet competitive deals
Now running till 6am tomorrow morning
yeah wasn't sure whether to go with the description or the 9 8 hours to go banner.
Edit. I see what you mean. They've updated the description as well.
I have impulse bought this SSD thinking I am going to miss the deal as I had 1 min to complete the deal before 9.30pm. Then they extended the deal. Oh well, I have been wanting a 1TB sad anyway. Good deal! Just wish I had more time to think about it.
Definitely a good deal, haven't seen a 1TB under $100 for quite some time
Tempted to grab a new phone. Samsung EPP has the ZFlip 4 (256GB) for $1,479.20 on it's own vs PB with the bonus UE Megaboom 3 & Momax Premium 10,000mAh Power Bank for $1798.98 Wonder if it is worth the hassle to go PB and just sell the bonus stuff (probably not LOL)?
So that's around a $300 difference then? 10,000mah for a power bank is kinda meh. These days, I would imagine most people would go for 20,000mah and ones that support USB-C input (for charging the power bank). A lot of power banks these days are surprisingly still using micro-USB for input-charging. A lot of good power banks can be bought for less than $70 on Aliexpress and this is the total price, including shipping and tax. I got a Baseus 20,000mah battery bank recently to replace my Xiaomi battery bank (which btw, is one of the highly reviewed brands for power banks these days) and I'm super impressed with it. It's able to read the current charging ampere, current voltage and wattage, battery % left on the power bank, all on a digital display, with multiple charging ports (lightning, USB-C, micro-USB, USB-A) and it's just really good in general. All for like $50 I think, or maybe $55.
So then you're left with the UE Megaboom 3 and you'd have to sell that for around $250 then. I don't have one of those and don't know what the market value goes for, but looking through previous Cheapies deals, I don't think that will cost $250? People will probably just wait for a PB deal and buy it there.
So you would probably be better off just purchasing the phone as a standalone?
k i give up, goodbye 256gb 840 hello 1tb 980
dont forget code FREESHIP works too.
Thoughts on the S22 (base model) deals at Noel Leeming and PBTech?