https://bitcritiq.com Straight-talking reviews, buying advice and tech news. We lead with the verdict, then show our work. en Mon, 31 Aug 2026 05:00:00 GMT https://bitcritiq.com/local-llm-coding-context-wall/ https://bitcritiq.com/local-llm-coding-context-wall/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 05:00:00 GMT Ollama gives a card under 24GB a 4k context. Its own docs say coding agents need at least 64k. That gap is why local coding disappoints. ai https://bitcritiq.com/esim-vs-physical-sim/ https://bitcritiq.com/esim-vs-physical-sim/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 11:00:00 GMT You stop carrying a paperclip and start needing your carrier. Whether that is an upgrade depends entirely on which carrier you are with. mobile https://bitcritiq.com/why-your-phone-gets-hot/ https://bitcritiq.com/why-your-phone-gets-hot/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 10:30:00 GMT Apple designs for an ambient ceiling of 35°C, which a summer afternoon clears easily. Warm is normal; the warning is the signal. mobile https://bitcritiq.com/iphone-storage-full-other/ https://bitcritiq.com/iphone-storage-full-other/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 10:00:00 GMT Most of the blob you cannot delete is cache, and iOS clears it on its own when it needs the room. Apple says so in its own documentation. mobile https://bitcritiq.com/do-you-need-a-steam-deck-dock/ https://bitcritiq.com/do-you-need-a-steam-deck-dock/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 09:30:00 GMT A hub, not a video upgrade. Valve's own specs put the official dock's display ceiling below what the Deck does over plain USB-C. gaming https://bitcritiq.com/handheld-gaming-battery-life/ https://bitcritiq.com/handheld-gaming-battery-life/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT The ROG Ally X carries twice the Steam Deck's battery and lasts about as long at full tilt. The capacity bought performance, not hours. gaming https://bitcritiq.com/what-is-a-steam-deck/ https://bitcritiq.com/what-is-a-steam-deck/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:30:00 GMT Not a console. A small AMD computer running Linux — which is why it plays what it plays, and why battery life is a range not a number. gaming https://bitcritiq.com/one-earbud-quieter-than-other/ https://bitcritiq.com/one-earbud-quieter-than-other/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:00:00 GMT Before cleaning anything or claiming a warranty, check one accessibility setting. Five seconds, and it beats hardware as the cause. audio https://bitcritiq.com/how-loud-is-too-loud-headphones/ https://bitcritiq.com/how-loud-is-too-loud-headphones/ Sun, 30 Aug 2026 07:30:00 GMT The WHO limit is 80dB for 40 hours a week. 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Every turn re-sends the whole conversation, and there is a hard ceiling on how much fits. ai https://bitcritiq.com/motion-sensor-lights-turn-off/ https://bitcritiq.com/motion-sensor-lights-turn-off/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 20:30:00 GMT Your sensor is not broken and the timeout is not too short. It was built to detect movement, and sitting still is not movement. smart-home https://bitcritiq.com/why-ai-chatbots-make-things-up/ https://bitcritiq.com/why-ai-chatbots-make-things-up/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 19:00:00 GMT Not a bug in the model so much as an incentive in the scoreboard. OpenAI's own numbers show what honesty costs a model on a leaderboard. ai https://bitcritiq.com/smart-bulbs-vs-smart-switches/ https://bitcritiq.com/smart-bulbs-vs-smart-switches/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 17:30:00 GMT A smart bulb needs permanent power, which makes your wall switch the thing most likely to break it. Two good reasons to accept that. smart-home https://bitcritiq.com/do-ai-detectors-work/ https://bitcritiq.com/do-ai-detectors-work/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 16:00:00 GMT The company with the most to gain from a working detector built one, measured it, and took it down. The numbers it published say why. ai https://bitcritiq.com/smart-devices-keep-going-offline/ https://bitcritiq.com/smart-devices-keep-going-offline/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 14:30:00 GMT Switching platform almost never fixes it. The thing failing is usually the one nobody looks at, and it is not the app. smart-home https://bitcritiq.com/does-chatgpt-train-on-your-chats/ https://bitcritiq.com/does-chatgpt-train-on-your-chats/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 13:00:00 GMT The consumer app and the developer API ship opposite defaults. One setting changes it, and it is not the one most people reach for. ai https://bitcritiq.com/smart-home-internet-outage/ https://bitcritiq.com/smart-home-internet-outage/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 11:30:00 GMT Whether a light switch survives an outage depends on one thing: how far the command travels. Some go across the room, some go to Virginia. smart-home https://bitcritiq.com/what-an-npu-does-40-tops/ https://bitcritiq.com/what-an-npu-does-40-tops/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 10:00:00 GMT The number on the sticker gates one specific list of Windows features. The feature most people would actually notice needs a quarter of it. ai https://bitcritiq.com/how-much-vram-to-run-an-llm/ https://bitcritiq.com/how-much-vram-to-run-an-llm/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:15:00 GMT The download size is the floor, not the answer. Context, quantisation and where the model actually lands all move the number. ai https://bitcritiq.com/wifi-slower-than-you-pay-for/ https://bitcritiq.com/wifi-slower-than-you-pay-for/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 23:30:00 GMT The plan describes what reaches your router. Wi-Fi is the hop after that, and it is the part nobody sold you. services https://bitcritiq.com/phone-battery-health-check/ https://bitcritiq.com/phone-battery-health-check/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 22:15:00 GMT It is not how full the battery is. It is how much of the original capacity survives — and Apple and Google both publish the number. mobile https://bitcritiq.com/matter-thread-zigbee-difference/ https://bitcritiq.com/matter-thread-zigbee-difference/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:45:00 GMT They sit at different levels. Matter is the language, Thread is one of the roads it travels on, and Zigbee is a different road entirely. smart-home https://bitcritiq.com/vpn-concentrator-explained/ https://bitcritiq.com/vpn-concentrator-explained/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:15:00 GMT Datacentre hardware for terminating hundreds of tunnels at once. If you are one person wanting into your own network, you want software. services