Steam Deck is here!

 

So, it arrived after FedEx led me to believe that it wasn't arriving when it was scheduled.  It went from "out for delivery" to "pending" in a matter of minutes after 5 P.M. local time.  30 minutes later, it had been delivered.  I don't do unboxing videos, so the three photos will have to suffice.

First Impressions

It's big compared to the early handheld from Epyx/Atari or from Sega.  It's a bit heavy at times.  The anti-glare display is great.  It has touch capabilities, so you can operate games and the operating system in a number of ways.  It takes what the Steam Controller had and amplifies the capabilities.

There is a cleaning cloth that arrived with the unit, as well as the charger.  Instructions are minimal.

I have around 30 games in my Steam library that are "great" with Steam Deck.  I have installed over 10 of them.  Most operate well, but Ni no Kuni Remastered has some audio glitches.

Some of the "great" games are games I have never tried, so it's good that Steam Deck is showing me what works well.  There are a lot of games that need adjustments in the next category.  I was pleased to see the Unreal Tournament 2004 is one of those.  Apparently, keyboard interaction is manual, so the player must invoke the keyboard, rather than it being displayed automatically.

It's odd that not all of the Valve games hit the "great" category.  There are two games attached to Half-Life that I'd like to play but they don't fall into the "great" category: Black Mesa, Half-Life 2 Update, and also, Portal Stories: Mel.  Portal Stories: Mel falls into the untested category, so anything could happen, including that it could work perfectly.

Most everything is good, but the connection to Wi-Fi seems a bit dodgy.  I'm not really worried.  This is the best Linux-based machine I've ever had.  It's based on Debian with KDE Desktop  although I haven't tried that.  I had hoped to play some games I have from GOG Galaxy, but there is not a Linux version.  However, there may be a way to make it run on Debian.

It's only been two days.  I have much to learn and do.

Getting to the enjoyment part

I have 21 games installed and a 512 GB microSD Card on the way.

Some of the games are fine but the controls aren't always what I'm expecting.  I was pleased to see that Chorvs/Chorus was available and bought that quickly.  After having several games in the Galaxy on Fire series, I hurried to buy another game from the same developers.  The controls work as expected, once I invested the Y-axis control.  I slso bought Road 96, which seems great, but the controls are troublesome.  Distance is a game that will take some time to get the controls where I like them.  Right now, I can't find which controls work.

Another problem is accessing the game menus.  Some use the Start/Select buttons, but others seem to randomly assign the buttons for menus.

I managed to install Unreal Tournament 2004, which is a first-person shooter for keyboard and mouse but just working the menu has been interesting.  I can get to the option with the right track pad control, but as soon as I go to select it, that control moves the pointer.  I'm hoping for a way to use the D-pad to go up and down the menu and the A button to select the function.  Obviously, with a game from 2004, there won't be any updates to make it work better.

Past the initial phase

I have 27 games installed now.:

aperture Desk Job

Galaga

Pac-Man

Bayoneta

Bright Memory Infinite

Bugsnax

Children of Morta

Chorvs/Chorus

Distance

Doom II

The Gardens Between

Half-Life 2

Heaven's Vault

Moonlighter

Ni no Kuni, Wrath of the White Witch, Remastered

Okami

Ori and the Blind Forest, Definitive Edition

Portal

Portal 2

Redout

Road 96

A Story about My Uncle

Trigon

Trüberbrook

Unreal Tournament 2004

Vanquish

Yonder, The Cloud Catcher Chronicles

Update 2022.12.15: It's been about one month.  A few games require precise cursor movement and the Steam Controller trackpads were never my easiest controller bits.  I've been playing Pixel Puzzles Japan to push myself to learn how to use those pads.  It's helped a lot.

I have 38 games installed at this point.  Several of the Bandai Namco games have been modified to use the controllers and they work well.  I'm struggling with other games and the Underdog Detective game shows the video upside down with menus right-side up.

As they test more of the games, I have more choices.  I've removed one or two since I started but I continue to try everything.  I think back to when I started playing games and using different kinds of controllers made the games easier to control but occasionally, games were just a pain to play.

I just saw the system update for SteamOS 3.3.3 and updated the device.  Hopefully, the experience will continue to improve and more games will become available out of my 129 Steam-hosted games.  The odd thing is that Quake III Arena doesn't work but Quake III Team Arena will work with adjustments.  Obviously, some development software would never be ported and software dependent on those products just wouldn't work.  I remember some problem with Unreal Tournament III, where it was ready to go on Windows, Mac, and Linux, but there was a dispute about using the package outside of Windows and so, the other two versions were never allowed to be distributed.

I'll continue to hope that almost everything can be made to work.  Surely, Steam Deck is becoming a success and developers should consider the implications of not offering their games.

Update 2023.03.01: SteamOS 3.4.4 has been out for a while and the Proton layer has been updated a few times.  Most everything works as expected and the glitchy-ness has subsided.

It's still interesting to play games that expect a keyboard and mouse but they work with the unique controller trackpads.  A few games require the Steam button + X to invoke the keyboard but it's becoming better.

Update 2023.03.19: Valve has the Steam Deck on sale for 10% off.  I've had mine a few months, so I don't know whether to be happy or upset that I didn't get it for less.  Still, it's a good experience.  SteamOS 3.4.6 is out and they've handled more situations.

I have more games and what I've put on Steam Deck seem to run well.

Update 2023.04.19: I've been reading a bit on Steam Deck HQ and Gaming on Linux.  They're both worthwhile resources with plenty of current information and reviews to offer.

Proton 8.0, based on WINE 8.0 is out and should fix even more problems.

I saw some article recently about how older games are so much better on the battery life than newer games are.  Of course, when you planned for a 1024x768 or 1280x800 resolution display, you didn't need as much power, did you?

Hi-Fi Rush isn't too bad, but obviously, Hogwarts Legacy, which taxes most machines, is going to hurt a portable's battery life.

I recently bought a 1 TB microSD card and there was no way to transfer the games from one card to the other.  When I switched cards, I needed to download and install the games again.  I've been a bit more picky so far, even though I have more space.  Despite a good internet connection, I don't want to waste it.  There have been a few M.2 drives made available in the 2230 size for Steam Deck but they are expensive.

Update 2023.05.14: What about the ASUS ROG Ally?  It's going to be interesting but Windows 11 doesn't really have a mobile/portable interface.  Launching games will be a mixed experience from Steam to EA to Ubisoft to Epic Games.  They're not all that easy to use with a mouse and keyboard, how will they be without them?

There are a number of people working on resources to make Linux gaming better and Valve is involved in making their machine the best, of course.  Would I like to run my purchases from stores other than Steam?  I would but I am happy with a single interface.

Update 2023.08.31: It's been about 9 months since I got the Steam Deck.  Lenovo has been leaking information about a Windows-based handheld (Lenovo Legion Go) with controllers that can be removed, Switch-like.  It's obviously going to be expensive in the premium version, similar to ASUS ROG Ally.

Steam Deck needs to be nothing short of excellent.  It's coming along, with fixes for most new games.  Some of the developers want to see their games running on Steam Deck, so they make some useful modifications, short of a Linux-based executable.

There are more than 11,000 Valve-tested games for Steam Deck.  I only have 168 games on Steam and 44 games installed on Steam Deck.  42 of those games are ready but Toxikk hasn't even been tested and UT2004 requires some adjustment to play.

Update 2023.11.16: The Steam Deck OLED model is on sale, or more correctly, out-of-stock OLED model has been ordered by the hungry masses.

Since the Legion Go and the ROG Ally are available, Valve needed to do something to draw attention back to Steam Deck.  Apparently, the update is very good.  I'm not parting with that kind of money again, but I would definitely want to buy the new one, instead of the Lenovo or ASUS products.  Mine is still good.

Update 2023.11.17: Just like that SteamOS 3.5.5 is here.  I haven't had much time to test the differences, but it seems smoother.

According to the numbers, I have 211 games on Steam, 77 are "Great on Deck", and I have 45 games installed.  I still haven't got a handle on how to play a FPS with a controller.  I'm more used to WASD and a mouse or trackball.

Apparently, Valve has been re-working some of their original games for better play on Steam Deck.  I'm disappointed at the Counter Strike 2 release.  They had a download for Mac but it was everything but an executable game.  Is it time for them to embrace 64-bit-ness?

Update 2023.12.01: Loaded SteamOS 3.5.7 earlier this week and loaded another Steam Client update a day ago.  It seems smoother, although the updates seemed to hiccup, and I have to run the update twice.  However, the Steam Deck is still amazing and it's so good just to play.

There might be a time or two that I think about a game I had with Ubisoft or Epic Games, but that's rare.

I ordered a gaming keyboard and mouse combo from Temu, so I'll see if Temu's listed products are worth it, and how they interact with a Linux-based device, plus I'll learn to use desktop mode.

Update 2023.12.13: I've got the mouse/keyboard combo connected to the Steam Deck and played UT2004 for the first time.  Becoming accustomed to the keyboard will take some time but play was good.  I also went to Desktop Mode for the first time and it's interesting to see a Linux distribution that's fairly easy to use.  Explanations happened as soon as I switched to that mode.  Switching back was easy, as well.

My previous experience with Ubuntu in the early 2000s wasn't great and I didn't accomplish much.  Trying to install FreeBSD was a difficult proposition and I was unsuccessful.  It still isn't "The Year of Linux" but it's much more user friendly than it was.

The keyboard from Temu doesn't have a numeric keypad, so it's very compact.  For roughly US$31, the combo is a good deal.  The mouse is very good.  I suspect in the end, they won't last very long under normal usage.  However, for add-ons to a Steam Deck, they're a good choice.

Sprint is no more

Today, I got a notice to log into T-Mobile, as my account had been moved.  Now, I'm as vulnerable as all of those long-term T-Mobile customers who have been through six hacks in the last few years.

Supposedly, nothing else has changed.  

My plan has been changed, however.  My 60 GB of Mobile Hotspot data has been whittled to 5 GB and anything over that will proceed at "max 3G speeds".  High speed data for the phone is at 100 GB, which is not exactly Unlimited but better than the 22-25 GB that is typical.

Update 2023.01.20: T-Mobile announced another hack that happened in November.  My data may or may not have been there at that time.  My data is there now though.  I'm not feeling secure, and I'm wondering why morons are in charge of T-Mobile's data.  Oops, make that two--one in November and one in January.

Update 2024.03.23: Somewhere in the past year, they put the Mobile Hotspot back to 60 GB of data and the last time I used it, it didn't seem to be at 3G speeds.

ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 OLED is here!

Imagine that a Ryzen 7-based 5800H laptop computer with OLED display is available.  Add 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, plus touch screen capabilities in just over 4 pounds for US$999.  I ordered one, an ASUS ZenBook Pro  UM535.  I've always felt that ASUS' laptop computers were an alternative to Apple, but it took me three recent tries to arrive at this one.

It isn't a gaming machine.  It is officially a creator's machine.  It only has a resolution of 1920x1080, but that's fine, considering the games that I will play, and the photos and video that I will edit.

What's wrong with the MacBook Air M1?  Nothing is really wrong with it, but I'm missing some games that I played daily on the Windows machine.  Sadly, a number of those games aren't playable on the Steam Deck, as well.

So, first impressions are:

Great display

Poor WiFi

Decent keyboard and trackpad

For US$1399.99. I would feel that the display was too much of the cost.  At the price I paid, it's a good machine.  It hasn't been 24 hours and I've had multiple instances of difficulty connecting to the router downstairs, even though my other devices aren't having a problem. I'm wondering if this is a Windows 11 thing, along with Intel's crappy compatibility in the WiFi department.

I haven't really pushed the machine, but Unreal Tournament 2004 and Asphalt 9 were smooth.  That should be the case with this hardware.

Bitlocker was enabled, even though I don't have the key.  I disabled it.  Besides, the SSD already has some encryption.

It also came with Alexa enabled.  I removed that and McAfee anti-virus.  Getting rid of the stickers could be more interesting.

Initially updating software is always a pain and of course, the WiFi connection didn't work during the updates, so I used my iPhone as a hotspot with T-Mobile 5G service to complete the updates.

It's been a year since I had a Windows machine and that 7th generation quad core i7 Omen by HP wasn't much faster than the 3rd generation i7 MacBook Pro.  This feels so much faster.  I want to say that it's smoother but Windows 11 feels broken so far.  None of the game launchers seem happy.

I connected my Corsair mouse and there was no mention of new hardware and it seems to be working without incident.  I had so much trouble with the iCue software, I'm not sure that I want to load it onto Windows 11.

Update 2022.12.10: Was searching for new Intel WiFi and Bluetooth drivers and the machine restarted.  It mentioned something about fTPM being corrupt, having a new CPU, and tried to use Windows Hello to check my face to log into the machine.  I freaked out a bit.  I couldn't access the internet and needed Microsoft Authenticator to authorize the login.  I couldn't use Microsoft Authenticator for some reason and it took me some time to find solutions.  It's all working again.

Update 2022.12.14: The machine is still working but the WiFi is still erratic.  For a company that sells routers and extenders, I'd think they'd be better.  I ran Windows 11 diagnostics and I've had some marginal improvement.  A new driver and diagnostics have helped but it just isn't all that reliable.  I'm wondering if Windows 11 has something to do with the problem.  I've seen a few comments about it being beta test quality.  It's just odd that the ZenBook Pro is the only device out of four that is having WiFi issues on the same household connection.

Games run well, whether they use the inbuilt Radeon technology or the mobile RTX 3050 Ti.

I did some research and the Ryzen 7 5800H and the Apple Silicon M1 don't seem that far apart in performance but the MacBook Air seems much faster in launching applications and switching web sites in a browser window.

 Update 2023.01.04: I got an e-mail from ASUS thanking me for taking the effort to write a review but that it did not follow their guidelines and was rejected.  I guess you can't tell people that the WiFi isn't working well and that it was the only one of four devices not staying connected.  Oops. 

Update 2023.01.21: Saw a report about Intel's WiFi hardware dropping connections in other machines.  It didn/t mention the Intel hardware I have but I wouldn't be surprised if all of their technology is just a bit sloppy.

I've moved to another room and my computer desk is pretty much right above the router, so I'm getting a better signal.

Windows update 22H2 was ready today and I confirmed that I wanted it installed.  Things don't seem different so far.  Hopefully, the bug fixes will make things better.  Windows 11 seems buggy.

Update 2023.06.04: I haven't seen a firmware update for a while and only occasional Windows updates, although a substantial feature update is due.

Machine is working well.  Fans kick in frequently while I'm playing Honkai: Star Rail and other recent games.  Graphics are good and OLED is sharp.  Keyboard is...meh.

Update 2024.09.09: Microsoft keeps pushing AI-related updates and each one seems to degrade performance of games and other high usage applications.  The machine itself is doing a great job.  The keyboard is still annoying.  They should have ditched the numeric keypad in order to have a better keyboard.

Steam Deck is on the way! It's here!!

 Earlier in the year, I gave away most of my photographic equipment and my Windows laptop computer.  I bought a more recent MacBook Air because I needed a computer that wasn't 10 years old and one that was powerful.  The Omen by HP was good enough but not exactly powerful.

I've been wanting to play certain games since then.  I have 99 games in my Steam library and quite a few outside of it.  Some games now have macOS versions, so that's good but the FPS games have no equivalents, and with my mid-2012 MacBook Pro on Catalina, my old games just don't work there or on the 2020 MacBook Air.

I considered another Windows laptop computer.  There are some deals, but when you get the storage to 1 TB and the RAM to 16 GB, the price is well over US$1000.  Plus, when I considered the effects of fixing Windows from the various patches' problems, I didn't really want to deal with Windows again.

I considered a Nintendo Switch.  They're awesome for playing Nintendo games.  My GameCube and Wii are gone.  I have a Mario game on the iPhone and a couple of other Nintendo-related games.  I don't play often.  Why spend so much money on a machine I might not use much?

I looked at various Windows handheld machines.  The main problem is the same problem with Android--you don't know if there will be updates.  Razer just put out an Android-based handheld, Edge, and it looks great, but tell me what happened to the Razer phones?

So, one night, I decided to just decide and I bought the top-of-the-line Steam Deck. 512 GB of storage, but with a microSD slot, plus 16 GB of RAM, 1280x800 resolution display.  1920x1080 would be better.

SteamOS and KDE Desktop are there for Linux mode.  I didn't find Ubuntu to be a good daily operating system for me.  I could use it, but it always needed me to do extra things.  I hope that it's usable and I can play other games, but who knows?  If GOG works on SteamOS, I'd be pleased.

In any case, I'm guessing that only around 20% of my game library will be functional.  Valve games will work supposedly.  I wish that they would migrate Source to 64-bit, so that Valve would support the latest macOS versions.  It's not as though Apple is pushing them to ARM.  They've had years to update to 64-bit applications.

Hopefully, games will work and be enjoyable.  At 1.5 pounds, it's supposedly heavy.  Anyone who has tried to use a Windows laptop computer in tablet mode shouldn't have a problem.  5 pounds and a 14 inch display is not easy to handle, no matter how many fingers you can use on the display.

I'm hoping for the best after spending slightly more than US$700 with tax.

So, it arrived after FedEx led me to believe that it wasn't arriving when it was scheduled.  It went from "out for delivery" to "pending" in a matter of minutes after 5 P.M. local time.  30 minutes later, it had been delivered.  I don't do unboxing videos, so the three photos will have to suffice.

First Impressions

It's big compared to the early handheld from Epyx/Atari or from Sega.  It's a bit heavy at times.  The anti-glare display is great.  It has touch capabilities, so you can operate games and the operating system in a number of ways.  It takes what the Steam Controller had and amplifies the capabilities.

There is a cleaning cloth that arrived with the unit, as well as the charger.  Instructions are minimal.

I have around 30 games in my Steam library that are "great" with Steam Deck.  I have installed over 10 of them.  Most operate well, but Ni no Kuni Remastered has some audio glitches.

Some of the "great" games are games I have never tried, so it's good that Steam Deck is showing me what works well.  There are a lot of games that need adjustments in the next category.  I was pleased to see the Unreal Tournament 2004 is one of those.  Apparently, keyboard interaction is manual, so the player must invoke the keyboard, rather than it being displayed automatically.

It's odd that not all of the Valve games hit the "great" category.  There are two games attached to Half-Life that I'd like to play but they don't fall into the "great" category: Black Mesa, Half-Life 2 Update, and also, Portal Stories: Mel.  Portal Stories: Mel falls into the untested category, so anything could happen, including that it could work perfectly.

Most everything is good, but the connection to Wi-Fi seems a bit dodgy.  I'm not really worried.  This is the best Linux-based machine I've ever had.  It's based on Debian with KDE Desktop  although I haven't tried that.  I had hoped to play some games I have from GOG Galaxy, but there is not a Linux version.  However, there may be a way to make it run on Debian.

It's only been two days.  I have much to learn and do.

2022 iPhone SE for US$1.25 per month and T-Mobile 5G

 The T-Mobile/Sprint merger has been a bit of a pain, and it's not finished.

In 2021, they seemed to be taking LTE towers from Sprint and turning them into T-Mobile 5G towers.  My service slowed dramatically.  It went from being the fastest in this town to being average.

That all improved in May 2022 when I was able to trade my 2020 iPhone SE for a 2022 iPhone SE for just US$1.25 per month.  Two things changed: the system on a chip jumped two generations and the LTE modem was replaced with one that included 5G (but no mmWave) capabilities.

I used the 2.5 GHz band with WiMAX back around 2012.  Now, it's much more useful supporting 5G communications.  A lot of the work Sprint did has been helping T-Mobile with 5G service.  It seems that there isn't a downside to the T-Mobile network now.  It isn't as good in rural locations as it should be, but it's much better than T-Mobile could ever claim.  During the Voicestream days, they barely had a network that wasn't tied to the freeways.

I'm glad that my information has still been limited to Sprint servers.  T-Mobile has had multiple data breaches and their security just isn't what it should be.  Maybe, they're using an old version of Windows Server from the 1990s.

The 2022 iPhone SE has been good.  It's roughly the same exterior that arrived with the iPhone 7.  I was using a case from the iPhone 7 on the 2020 model.

It's powerful but at this point, is there a need for more?  Android top-of-the-line phones aren't as powerful.  I also have a OnePlus 8T, which was a flagship phone from a couple of years ago.  The Snapdragon 865 with 12 GB of RAM is generally very powerful but it becomes very hot at times.  Both phones have communication moments when the connection seems to lag.  They're still faster on T-Mobile/Mint Mobile 5G than on Xfinity WiFi.

I've been mentioning to a few people about the 3G network shutdowns.  Are you getting another phone, so you'll still have service?  The sooner that old equipment is out of the way, the better for everyone.

The gentleman who owns the house was having trouble with his iPhone 6S and switched to an iPhone 12.  He's having trouble with the gestures, but he's doing better than I might.  I notice occasionally that I cause something to happen on the OnePlus phone because there is apparently a gesture for it and I don't know the modern Android way to get things done.  Then again, each vendor was quite unique in their interpretations.

Update 2024.03.23: It's been almost two years since I got the phone.  The battery capacity is at 88% and I charge every day.  I generally don't go into the power saver zone, but it has happened.

I don't usually keep a phone more than two years now, especially since AppleCare+ was a two year warranty.  I've been paying for it monthly since the previous phone.

The real trouble is that Apple is under pressure to get rid of the last vestige of a phone prior to iPhone X.  I like my Home Button.  They could add an underscreen fingerprint reader, but apparently, they don't want to do that, and I don't want to have or use FaceID.  Now, it is rumored that the follow-up phone will be launched in 2025.

Update 2024.10.08: My battery capacity is 84% now.  The follow-on iPhone SE is about six months away.  It's supposedly totally different and I'm not sure I want it because of Face ID and the inane gestures to get almost anything to happen.

Of course, I can just enter my code to unlock the phone and use secure functions but will that be enough.  I looked at buying an iPhone 15 now that the iPhone 16 is available.  Is $33+ too much each month for 24 months?  I think so.  Will they screw up the new iPhone SE?  It feels as though they're rushing everything that they produce.  I'm still waiting for iOS 17 to be fixed, but they're pushing the new one.

Refurbished MacBook Air M1 is Good

 It's been about two years since the original M1 SoC was introduced to make Apple independent of outside CPU makers.  It's been a success and it's certainly upset Intel.

Having had Apple equipment since 1993, I've gone through the Motorola 680x0 to PowerPC transition, the PowerPC to Intel x86 transition, and now, the Intel to Apple Silicon (ARM) transition.

This is the most difficult transition because developers weren't sure what to do.  After almost two years, there isn't as much native software as I had hoped.  Being that Apple cut off 32-bit software with Catalina, I'm not sure why developers aren't more ready.

Game developers aren't really testing the waters.  The biggest current game I've seen is Life is Strange 2, which was ported by Feral Interactive, and published by Square Enix.  It seems to run well enough to believe that it is M1-compatible, not running through Rosetta 2 emulation.  However, Steam, GOG Galaxy, and Epic Games Launcher all appear to be x86 applications.

Creative software is quite different.  Capture One Pro by Phase One is native and so are Affinity Publisher, Designer, and Photo applications.  HitFilm Express from FXHome seems to not have a problem, though I haven't really tested it.

It looks as though Microsoft Visual Studio is compatible, if not 100% native. 

Bottom to Top, Top to Bottom

I've almost always had top of the line machines, but here I am with a MacBook Air.  Why?

It's powerful at a reasonable price.

Remember when US$1499 bought you a 15.4 MacBook Pro with integrated graphics and a dual-core CPU?  It wasn't that long ago.

I bought a MacBook Air 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of storage for US$1399, refurbished.

My previous MacBook Pro had a 3rd generation quad-core i7 with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.  My Omen by HP had a 7th generation quad-core i7 with 32 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage and it didn't seem much faster.

While I'm writing this entry, iStatMenus is telling me that the core temperature is 30 degrees C, which is in contrast to 44 degrees C on the Windows machine or 64 degrees C on the old MacBook Pro.  That old MacBook Pro could boil water.  When processing video, it would be at 100 degrees C.

Of course, there are many updates since 2012 besides the CPU and GPU.

The sound is amazing.  The display is so much better than the old 1440x900.  The keyboard is okay.  I liked the PowerBook G4 keyboard and none since have impressed me.

Change is Necessary

I bought a couple of cable adapters and an OmniCase Mini USB-C Storage Docking Station from JSAUX.  The company's products have been as reliable for me as products from Anker have been.

The OmniCase Mini is a unique product.  It has one USB type-C port, two type-A ports, an HDMI port, and slots for microSD and SD cards.  US$34.99 wasn't a lot.  It also comes with a type-C cable, and a few adapters, and a SIM card tool.  Obviously, if you're looking for a full-blown docking station, there are plenty from US$100 to US$500.  If you want an extra type-C port for power pass-through, you'll have to pay more than the US$34.99.

Equally useful and tiny is a Crucial X8 2 TB SSD that I recently bought.  It has a type-C connector, but also has a type-A adapter.

It may help to remember that the original MacBook Air came with one port--for charging, for connecting, for everything that needed a physical port.  The Dongle circus had arrived in town.

With two type-C ports, it's twice as convenient.

 Apple Succeeded

I'm slowly getting everything together, although it's only been about a week.  It took a while with previous machines.  I'm sure I'll be satisfied with this purchase.

Update 2022.05.22: This machine continues to impress.  The operating system is not where it needs to be and neither is vendor support for native applications.

Daily use without the power cable is amazing.  That 3rd generation quad-core i7 with GeForce 650M was constantly sucking power.  It was also a very good heater.

I haven't needed the USB-C hub as much as I expected.  I transferred most of what I needed the first two weeks.

I've tried a few more games, mostly through Itch.io and GOG.  They work well.  Steam itself is full of glitches, but that was also a problem for the i7 running Catalina.  64-bitness is not something Valve wants to do well.

Update 2022.06.06: The M2 MacBook Air was announced today.  It's more powerful and more expensive.  It can be configured with 24 GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage.  That would be a plus.  In the past, some would complain that the machine they just bought last year was outdated and practically cry that it didn't work correctly any longer.  I don't do that.  This machine is a 2020 model and it's just fine.

I've had the machine over a month now and it took a while to get things in order but it is a wonderful computer that does most everything I want.  I want some good games for it but that will take some time.  Life is Strange 2 is the biggest title I have right now.

Update 2022.07.09: I'm impressed that they've got a newer processor out and it's better but it's a small improvement over the M1.  I priced what I have with the latest configuration and it was about US$600 extra over what I paid for a refurbished M1.  It's nice to have the latest and greatest, but this will last a while.

Update 2023.06.30: I was checking the prices on computers such as mine because of some pricing on the 15 inch version and I found the exact, same machine as mine for the exact, same price as when I bought it.

It's been a bit over a year that I've had my machine and the stage where I'm impressed regularly is finished.  It's very quick, for sure, but now, it's being filled and used regularly and I've got an interesting Windows 11 machine, also.

Windows still is a pain, here and there, but it gets the job done.  macOS Monterey seems better, but not exactly bug-free.  I'm not comfortable with upgrading to Ventura, but I will probably go to Sonoma, instead.

It's been 2+ years with Sprint/T-Mobile and the 2020 iPhone SE

 In 2020, I had completed 20 years with Sprint.  Part of that year, Sprint was part of T-Mobile.

I traded my iPhone 8 for an iPhone SE (2020), which was much the same, but more powerful.  I still have that phone today, and anticipate exchanging it for the 2022 model with 5G capabilities.

T-Mobile took away the best of Sprint's performance to add 5G capabilities.  My 100 Mbps download speed became 45 Mbps or some such.  It has been sufficient.

I recently got a OnePlus 8T and tried Mint Mobile, which is an MVNO using T-Mobile's network.  It works quite well, and at US$20/month for 10 GB, it's a decent deal, especially with 5G included.

I bought the OnePlus 8T to replace a Lenovo tablet with performance equal to my 2012/2013 Google Nexus 7 tablet.  The Snapdragon 865 is much faster than the S4 Pro I had in 2013 and therefore, much faster than that Lenovo tablet with poor 8-core MediaTek processor.  The graphics processor in the Google Nexus 7 tablet from 2013 is the same one that the 2019 Lenovo tablet was using.

In any case, 5G looks good.  I've only tested a couple of times and got one sufficient result and one good result.  If I was paying US$70 per month, I wouldn't bother, but at US$20 per month, it's a good deal.

Update 2022.05.22:

I got the 2022 iPhone SE 5G and it's good, especially for $1.25 per month.  The extra battery life and more powerful processor are somewhat noticeable, while most everything is the same.  The 5G performance is sufficiently good, as it is with the OnePlus 8T.