My Top Picks For Gear Of The Year 2022

“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them; but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims

If you’ve been following my blog, you probably know what happened to me last year, right? Because of my previous year’s traumatic experience, I didn’t do the My Top Picks For Gear Of The Year for 2021. But as time went by, I started to regain my former self, and my computing universe became my dominant daily life activity all thanks to my WFH style.

And when I take a look back at this year, 2022 was the year how I interact with computers on daily basis has changed significantly, especially thanks to Linux and Android.

The two open-source platforms, which are interlinked to each other, are the very center of my computing universe, and they even shaped my personal career goals and my undeniable enthusiasm for programming and server engineering.

Additionally, what’s amazing is that my daily interactions with Linux and Android will never be wasted. Those outside-of-job experiences were actually the best experience I’ve got during this year. My daily job as a Java programmer at work is rewarding, and that’s great – but it was never enough to satisfy my unstoppable enthusiasm to discover more about computers.

Rooting Android devices, building up a home Linux server from scratch, and programming a mobile app – all of those experiences shaped who I am not only as an engineer but also as a curious person who genuinely wants to be a life-long learner.

What you buy tells a lot about you. The way you spent your money tells a lot about your story.

Here, let me give you a glimpse into my computing universe through my purchases.

MINISFORUM EliteMini HM90

This was a good purchase. Despite its mini-size as a desktop machine, the bento-box-inspired PC is a powerhouse that can handle almost any type of heavy computing workload, including gaming, hosting virtual machines, and programming.

And here is the spec sheet:

Processor	AMD Ryzen™ 9 4900H , 8 Cores/16 Threads (Total L2 Cache 4MB , Total L3 Cache 8MB , Base Clock 3.3 GHz , up to 4.4 GHz)
GPU	AMD Radeon™ Graphics (Graphics Frequency 1750 MHz)
System	Windows 10
Memory	DDR4 8GB×2 Dual channel (SODIMM Slots×2)

And aside from the aforementioned spec sheet, I additionally installed Seagate’s 2TB HDD in the PC, so I think I can use this machine for another decade (hopefully maybe more). And in terms of storage capacity, 2TB technically is not its maximum all thanks to my home Linux server which is able to store up to 5TB of data.

Before I purchased this machine, the Surface 7 Pro had been my main PC. Even now, the portable 2-in-1 machine is one of my daily drivers, especially when it comes to my Android app development, but it’s undeniably less powerful when compared with the elite mini 90.

All in all, this is one of my very best purchases of this year.

Skynew Mini PC

As far as I believe, this is THE BEST purchase of this year, personally. Probably you’ve never heard of the manufacturer’s name – Skynew is a small Japanese computer manufacturer that sells a wide range of desktop PCs, and what’s interesting about this particular model is that it’s shipped without any OS installed. So, you can install any OS you want on it, either Windows or Linux.

I’ve always wanted to have my own home server, so the whole experience of installing Ubuntu Server 20.04 on the device was not only fun but also exciting and rewarding. Throughout the process of it, every time I encountered an error, I googled it, finding the best possible solution to it. The whole process of building the server, therefore, gave me lots of rewarding experiences to learn about Linux, server mechanisms, bash-scripting, and many more.

*I’ve written a more detailed story of my server construction here.

Also, recently, I figured out a way to access the server remotely by opening some ports in my home router, and it successfully worked! So, technically wherever I go, I can access my home Linus server from my client devices. Again, this whole process of learning not only Linux, and server engineering, but also the routing mechanisms, was a priceless experience that money can never buy.

In addition to that, separately-purchased Seagate’s 5TB storage is mounted to the server by LVM, and this massive amount of storage makes it my absolute Dropbox replacement, which allows almost all of my devices to read, write, edit, and delete files in it.

You can of course purchase a NAS or subscribe to Dropbox’s premium plan, but they are not only costly but also get miss out on all of the aforementioned experiences you could achieve through the process to build your own server. Maybe those products offered by big companies can be reliable, but I, personally, don’t want to miss out on all of those rewarding and exciting experiences.

So, overall, this is absolutely the very best purchase of this year that changed my computing life into something more productive, educational, and meaningful.

Galaxy Tab S8+

Since I was a bit busy with my daily life, I haven’t been able to write my review of the newly bought Galaxy Tab S8+. Despite my enthusiasm toward Google’s Pixel series, none of any Android manufacturer can beat Samsung when it comes to tablets.

And this Galaxy Tab S8+ is not an exception. And there are two reasons I purchased this Android powerhouse: learning algebra and immersing myself in the Android’s experimental universe.

With its super-capable S pen, the machine is more than ideal for learning math. Since I’ve been working as a programmer professionally, learning math somewhat became one of my enthusiasm for the similarity between the two.

As of now, I’ve uploaded four posts about algebra, and all of those images uploaded there are screenshots of this machine. With its swiss-knife-like capabilities, the S pen is an integral part of the slate, and its 24/7 stand-by mode always allows me to interact with the algebraic world every time I open the note app, solving some math problems.

And, if you’re a high-end Samsung device user, probably you’ve heard of Samsung DeX. Samsung DeX is Galaxy’s specific mode that transforms the devices into desktop machines. If you use Galaxy S22, for example, its desktop mode will start running once you enabled it as well as connect it to an external monitor.

The mechanism is basically the same here. Once I enabled the Samsung DeX, the slate transforms itself into a desktop machine. Despite some buggy software issues related to the experimental concept, the overall experience was surprisingly good. For me personally, what’s amazing about the mode is that it allows me to access the aforementioned Linux server from its ssh-app, called Termius.

Of course, you can access the server through ssh command without enabling it, the desktop mode however allows me to open other windows (apps) so that I can visually interact with multiple files and data, just like a Windows machine. In my personal use case, I also use Solid Explorer, a powerful file explorer app for Android, and the app allows me to interact with files inside the server’s samba directly with the GUI interface.

So, the device becomes a productivity powerhouse once I open both Termius and Solid Explorer as well as wirelessly connect it to a keyboard/mouse just like in the above image.

So, basically, this is one of the best purchases of this year.

Galaxy Buds Pro

Inspired by Galaxy Tab S8+, I felt my undeniable urge to immerse myself in the Galaxy ecosystem. And my purchase of the earbuds turned out to be great! As I said, I’m traditionally a Pixel enthusiast, but Galaxy’s wide range of attractive product lineups made me do a little affair with the Korean brand.

Personally, I love the design and color (purple is amazingly gorgeous and cool!), but what was most exciting about the product is its experimental feature that allows you to control the sound volume by double-tapping your ears – right for increasing and left for decreasing. Yes, you’ve read it right – double-tapping your actual ears. Cool, right?

This is pretty much like the future I once envisioned, and Samsung’s experimental challenge paid off significantly! I love what they do, and I even considered switching to #TeamGalaxy from #TealPixel.

OnePlus 7T

OnePlus is something you can’t ignore when you talk about the Android world. Even though they are losing their grip recently ever since Carl Pei left the company, the brand released a lot of legendary and great devices throughout the 2010s.

Among them, the OnePlus 7T is my personal favorite. Thanks to its affordable price which I found in Mercari, a Japanese eBay (kind of!), my overall interaction with the device changed how I use phones in general.

Until I purchase this device, my daily driver was always Pixel 4a for the past couple of years. Since I’ve been working from home and barely had a chance to go outside, I spent much of my time at home. So, I didn’t feel any need to use the cellular-connected Pixel 4a. Of course at my home, the device is connected to my home wifi, but still, the device’s small screen size didn’t satisfy my need to enjoy my digital life.

The OnePlus 7T, on the other hand, offers not only its relatively larger screen size (6.55-inch) but also has a powerful chipset, Snapdragon 855 Plus, which is still competing with modern standards.

So, unless I’m somewhere outside of my home, I basically interact with the OnePlus 7T, and I enjoy the device, instead of my Pixel 4a.

And what makes it even more special to me is that I actually side-loaded LinegaeOS in the device, replacing its originally installed OxygenOS. So, just like the aforementioned Linux server, the whole process of learning side-loading mechanisms and the overall experience was unquestionably rewarding, especially for learning Android OS mechanisms.

Since I love Android, nothing literally stops me from learning the OS and its ecosystems. Since LineageOS supports a wide range of OnePlus devices, one of the major reasons I purchased this device is to experience the OS side-loading and gain experience with it.

OnePlus 7T is now something I can’t live without.

Arduino UNO R3 starter kit

Last but not least, the Arduino UNO R3 starter kit was also one of the best purchases for this year, in terms of educational purposes.

As I’ve uploaded a slew of C/C++-related posts recently, coding electronics with the language made great sense to me. Since I’ve been learning a lot about C/C++ through my interactions with the Linux kernel, Arduino paved the way to further improve my coding skills.

But unfortunately, for my personal priority, I didn’t have much chance to interact with Arduino for the past few weeks. But, I’m more than willing to dive deeper into the world of robotics and electronics, especially considering the fact that electronics is one of the rare sectors that can’t be easily replaced by AI any time soon.

Also, isn’t it cool if you have the Hollywood-character-like super ability to build your own machine just like Tony Stark did in Ironman?

Arduino is capable of letting me achieve a boys’ long-time dreams.

Afterthoughts

So, overall, what did you think about my list? Did you like it?

I’ve personally been through a lot this year, but my overall experiences of it weren’t so bad. And thanks to all of my dream gadgets, I wasn’t bored at all. Every single day offered me a chance to discover something new, and I learned a lot about computers in general.

My computing journey will continue as long as I live on this planet.

See you soon!