Author Archive: Lambert Varias

Along with video games, manga and anime are the latest geeky pursuits to hit the mainstream. You see YouTubers racking up millions of views from analyzing and reacting to them, rappers name-dropping and quoting them in songs, and even high profile brands collaborating with some of the most popular franchises.

Marvel has been taking the X-Men in all sorts of crazy directions in its comic books ever since it got the movie rights back from Fox. Freelance illustrator Lucas Pereira has a cool idea for the beloved and feared mutants with his ongoing Instagram series, which sees the X-Men and other Marvel characters dressed in clothing and accessories inspired by traditional Japanese culture.

Computers and other gadgets are becoming increasingly affordable, but they’re also getting harder if not outright impossible to repair. We’re warned that our warranty will be voided if we open up our gadgets, licensed repair shops are nearly extinct, and reputable sources of components are also hard to find.

After years of playing second fiddle, Final Fantasy XIV seems poised to finally take the crown from World of Warcraft as the premiere MMORPG. Discussing the many reasons behind WoW’s fall from grace will leave a bad taste in our mouths, so let’s talk about something that could put great food in our bellies instead.

If you’re looking for a great entry point to the colorful, thoccy, and expensive world of mechanical keyboards, keep an eye out for MelGeek’s upcoming Mojo68. It’s a stylish and fully assembled 60% mechanical keyboard with a transparent plastic chassis, gasket-mounted components, RGB backlighting, and wired and wireless connectivity options.

The never-ending post-apocalyptic nightmare has started to affect even the supply of gunpla. So what do you do if you can’t get your hands on a Gundam model? Be a Gundam model. Bandai Namco’s silly Narikiri (“roleplay”) line features boxer briefs and socks based on Amuro Ray’s RX-78 Gundam, Char’s MS-06S Zaku, and the mass production MS-06F Zaku from the first Mobile Suit Gundam show.

Chinese company Dasung has been working to make larger and more responsive E-ink displays for seven years. They made waves online in 2015 with their 13.3″ E-ink reader, and now they’re back with a product that is almost twice that size.

Iron Studios has a treat for die-hard and deep-pocketed Dungeons & Dragons fans. The figure maker’s 1/20-scale Tiamat Demi statue features the legendary tabletop RPG monster as it was depicted in the franchise’s 1980s cartoon. Naturally, the statue also includes figurines of the cartoon’s six protagonists: Hank, Diana, Shiela, Eric, Presto, and Bobby (and Bobby’s pet Uni).

The M.2 storage drive specification has been one of the best new additions to PCs in recent years, allowing for extremely compact and easy-to-install SSDs. These days it’s often used by incredibly fast NVMe SSDs, giving you the best of both worlds – small footprint and lightning speeds – at reasonable prices.

Give the guitar nerd in your life the gift of nothing with Chibson USA and Daredevil Pedals’ Placebo Pedal. All of its parts are legit – the knobs, the footswitch, the power indicator light, and the I/O jacks.

Taiwanese toy shop Bid Toys won toymaker of the year in my books with its Soul of Animal GX Go Kitten, a parody of the OG Voltron that replaces the Lion Force with cats and boxes.

An 11″, 2K, 4:3 AMOLED touchscreen. A 1.8GHz 8-core ARM SoC. 8GB of RAM. 256GB of storage. USB-C. An included stylus. Sounds like an awesome tablet right? But the thing that makes the JingPad A1 truly special is that it’s running JingOS, a Linux-based operating system.

A lot of modders often make console laptops by transferring the gaming machine’s guts to a smaller case and then slapping a monitor on it. But the Xbox Series S is already small and light enough that someone was bound to put two and two together.

Critics and gamers lucky enough to get their hands on the PS5 often cite the console’s DualSense controller as a true next-gen controller, thanks to its precise haptics and force feedback triggers. However, the previous generation also saw a small but significant addition to gamepads – paddles.

If you’re a PC enthusiast, you might have noticed that boutique manufacturers are actually making open-air chassis that are not meant to be test benches, but for showcase builds. Well, how’s this for an open-air chassis?

Across console generations, Xbox controllers have always used AA batteries instead of a built-in rechargeable one. It has its pros and cons, but Otterbox has found a solution that combines the best of both worlds. The company’s Xbox Battery Pack gives you two rechargeable packs that you can hot-swap.