[MUSIC]
These are my favorite tech purchases of the year.
I love my gadgets, but I do a lot fo research before buying anything new.
I mean working at CNET I get to see lots of the best stuff and they can be expensive.
So let me tell you what took a [UNKNOWN] from my stingy, stingy self.
Number five is my Fitbit Versa 2 watch.
There were a number of reasons why I ended up with this thing.
First up, I managed to lose my regular analog watch somewhere in my apartment.
AFter a long search, I declared the watch dead.
I alerted its next of kin.
So I needed a watch, I cover lots of Google things over on Alphabet City.
So I know that [UNKNOWN] kind of stinks.
Then there is the Apple Watch.
I looked at my Android phone and thought, that's not going to work.
Then Black Friday hit and the Verso 2 was selling for a lower price than normal.
As around the office and people seem to like their verses.
And boom, I bought one.
I'll tell you getting notifications on this thing has been great.
The weather has been a mess here in New York.
Instead of having to bring up my phone in the ring.
Or freezing cold.
I can just quickly glance at my watch and keep going.
It's also really easy to use on the subway.
Plus the always on watch this way is very useful.
Number four is my anchor, Soundcore Life Q20 noise cancelling headphone.
Earlier in the year we did a video on the best noise cancelling headphones.
The best one was in the neighborhood of $300.
If I had unlimited funds, maybe I'd pick up a pair.
Now in my house, we're a bit clumsy, to say the least.
My dog has destroyed her fair share of tech as well.
So when looking for a pair of headphones, I usually think of it this way.
If this breaks or is lost, will I get upset?
Enter the Anker Soundcore Life Q20.
These guys cost around $50.
Now I've had Anker products before.
They're reliable, inexpensive, and perform well.
Are they the best sounding headphones on the planet?
No.
Do they sound good for the money?
Let's say so.
The controls are easy to use, they fold to take up less space when traveling.
My only gripe about these is minor.
They require a micro USB cable to charge.
I would like everything to be USB C at this point, that's a really small nitpick.
Number three is Disney plus, Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and Disney all in one place.
Unlike most of those things, it's cheap, it's works well.
There really is not a whole lot to say about swan.
It's great, enough said.
[MUSIC]
Number two is Cribd.
This is another subscription service that I gladly pay for, you pay one fee a month and you get access to ebooks and audiobooks.
The library is huge.
Oftentimes, I like to find a book that is available as both an E book and audio book, that way when I have downtime I can just read the book, when I'm traveling to and from work, audio book time.
The best part for me is that I get to try it works, they may not try otherwise There's no feeling of, I bought this book, I better listen to it.
I wonder if it's good.
Listen to it a bit and then decide whether to continue.
Script also add a summaries of books to its service called snapshots.
This is similar to blankest if familiar with them.
There is both an audio and written version of the summary.
These last around 10 minutes or so.
If you enjoyed the summary, then off to the full version of the book.
Good deal.
[MUSIC]
And my favorite purchased of the year is definitely the NVIDIA Shield TV.
Now in the old days, I used to hook up a computer to a television, that will allow me to watch anything from my personal library of movies or play any game I wanted to on my TV.
This was in the Windows Media Center days.
I wanna say was somewhere in 1955 or so.
Then I started tinkering with Xbox Media Center on my hack Xbox.
This was somewhere around 1979.
I believe back when wearing onions on your belt was the style of the time, media playback and gaming one box.
Fast forward to this year I finally picked up the NVIDIA Shield TV.
I had read, it can also act as a Plex server.
Meaning it could serve my movies and TV shows to me at home or on-the-go.
My previous solution for this had died a terrible, terrible death.
So this made the Shield and easier buy.
In my home theater there's an Apple TV, a Roku and a PC.
But for the most part, The Shield is the only set-top box I use on a day-to-day basis.
I can watch pretty much any movie No matter the format, I can play all kinds of games.
Plus, there's Nvidia GeForce NOW, a cloud gaming service that is still free to use at this point.
[SOUND] What was your favorite tech purchase of the year?
Let me know on Twitter.
I'm at Iyaz.
I'm also Iyaz Akhtar, and I'll see you online.
[MUSIC]
