I found not one, but two, digital pianos with light-up keys. These pianos do it right, just like Terence C2. The whole key lights up, not just a single spot. However, it applies to white keys only. Black keys don't light up nicely.
957 yuan (S$178.75) with lifetime app membership. No full specs. Weight is not given. Key weight is 30g (very light) and the speakers are 10W.
The cheapest I've seen this gone for is 927 yuan.
Carod also has two more lighted pianos: A3 and A3 Pro. However, these are much more expensive (1,800 and 2,100 yuan).
Only 700 yuan (S$130.73), also with lifetime app membership. It is not the same model as above. Speaker power is not stated, but music source and weight are: Dream 5.0 and 5.2 kg.
The price jumps about alot, depending whether voucher is present. The cheapest I've seen this gone for is 593 yuan (S$111.16)! Sometimes 700, sometimes 740, sometimes 900 or 940 yuan. It has free shipping to Singapore too, so it is effectively half the price of the other piano. Very attractive!
I believe the hardware is made by the same OEM, but customized by two different brands (their dimensions are identical: 127 x 21.2 x 6 cm). The question is, how come one is 250 yuan more expensive? Does it have anything extra, or is it just the name? (I've not heard of it.)
Overall: not as good as last year.
Titled Paradise Island, based on a true event that happened in Pulau Senang Penal Settlement in 1963. I have not heard of it, but it is infamous enough that I can find it on Google easily.
It was an experimental, open-concept 'prison without bars'. Prisoners were allowed to roam freely and were put to manual labour, as part of a rehabilitation programme to allow them to rejoin society.
The Chief officer was 'benevolent', but strict — overly strict and harsh. He was friendly with a prisoner, who led the uprising, ironically. There were discontent over excessive workload and harsh discipline. He was really burnt to death. The rioters who committed murder were later hanged.
The play was a straightforward telling, it matched the real events pretty well.
Official records will never justify why the prisoners riot. In the show, the Chief was shown to be dictatorial. He had good intentions, but he never considered the prisoners' wellbeing — they were beneath him. That's a possible interpretation.
It started with a boy who was stressed by his studies. He found solace and calling in a Teochew Opera Troupe.
His mother was very displeased, because she felt it had no future.
The Troupe was also struggling due to lack of interest. They had to innovate, but the Troupe leader was against it, wanting to keep to tradition.
In the end, the mother relucted, and the Troupe innovated and brought in modern dance-style moves. It was a really good excuse to give the audience a taste of Chinese opera. :lol:
There are two themes here.
The first is pretty relevant to the target audience (students): parents opposing the interest they want to pursue. From the student's PoV, the parents are being unreasonable. But parents are thinking from financial and social status PoV. In the past, parents would have forced their children to give up their interest for a stable choice in life. But now with GenZ, parents are resigned to supporting their children even after they have grown up. :lol:
The second is the need for traditional arts — or anything, really — to innovate to survive. Sadly, I don't think it is as easy — nor successful — as portrayed in the show.
I recognized three returning actors/actress in this play. I guess I won't be seeing them next year.
The show must succeed, except it didn't — even after the Director time-travelled numerous times to help his younger self. Anything that could go wrong went wrong.
This time, he had the idea to recruit his ex-Drama mates.
With age came experience. They were able to help their younger selves, who were overwhelmed with the workload and overlooked crucial details.
It was revealed the Director's ex-Drama mates cared about him, but he was too fixated with the show's success to notice. When the show failed, he was obsessed with making it right, to the extent of inventing a time machine! Meanwhile, his friends had moved on with their lives.
It was also revealed one of the ex-Drama mate married him, though they had separated cos the Director spent all his time on his time machine.
The Director had some heated confrontations with his friends. His wife asked him why was he so obsessed with the show. Was it really the success of the show or was it something else that he really wanted to get back?
Finally, he finally realized the error of his ways. He had always been a one-man perfectionist, not willing to trust others to do things properly. That was why he had been nagging at them. He finally decided to trust others to do their job.
He reconciled with them one by one, both his present and future self. He also reconciled with his wife. When he hugged her, the audience went wild. I love teenage enthusiasm. :lol:
Finally, it was show time. The Drama members from the future watched from the backstage. Everything went well. No mishaps. Until a 'force of nature' (on a stage?) broke the prop — a ship — into three parts and the show seemed destined to fail after all.
The Drama members from the future leapt into action to push the ends of the ship back into one piece, and they managed to do it through the power of friendship.
The show ended successfully. This was the ending of the 'show' and Show 3.
It was not shown, but presumably, the Director could finally move on from this show and mend his friendships with his ex-Drama mates. This was done to end the show on a high note. But realistically, the past should remain unchanged. What changed was the Director was able to move on despite his failure and realizing there were more important things than his play.
I don't like this year's shows as much because shows 2 and 3 are about plays. I prefer not to have 'play-in-play' settings. I understand this is most relatable to the cast as they are experiencing it live, and they have limited life experience.
There were some tear-jerking moments last year. There were none this year.
I notice some common threads for the three shows based on last and this year's show, though two years are too short to call a trend.
The first show is grounded in reality. Last year's show was on scam (a current event that can hit too close to home), this year's show is a historical event.
The second show is about the struggles of a teenager and escapism into his imaginative and colorful world. Last year, the show had varied fictional settings and a musical. This year, it is Chinese opera and its colorful props. You can say it is Chinese musical. :-D
The third show is about friendship... friendship that formed when young but have drifted apart due to some reason. They need to resolve it and resume their friendship. Last year's show was better because it invoked nostalgia. :-P
Mix in elements obsoleted by time, the constant need for innovation, and parents' unending worry about their children's future, and you have the basic formula.
I sat in a Circle seat this year. It was about the same distance as last year, except higher up.
I brought along an 8x bino. I only used it to check occassionally — it gave a single-person closeup. A 6x would work better with wider view.
Really need to sit at least midway to the stage. Circle seat is fine, but must be in front.
Power consumption is listed as 56 W, sound level from 28 dB to 61 dB. Air flow is rated at 500 L/s at max speed, which according to Google, is equivalent to 1060 CFM.
|Speed|Power|dbA| |---|---|---| |0|0 W|44.5| |1|4.7 W|45.6| |2|6.3 W|48.0| |3|9.2 W|50.2| |4|12.4 W|52.8| |5|17.5 W|55.8| |6|22.0 W|57.5| |7|27.3 W|59.5| |8|33.8 W|61.5| |9|41.4 W|63.2| |10|50.4 W|65.0|
Sound is measured about 50 cm away by the side, not in direct air flow. The sound is still acceptable up to Speed 4. Speed 5 onwards start to sound noisy.
Speed 9 and 10 are "turbo" modes. The power jumps by so much suddenly.
Speed 0 = off. It measures background noise.
I got the round temperature/humidity monitor. It has humidity to 1 dec place – hurray! — but it is still imperfect. 😤
Let's go through them one by one.
||KAAC0005-001|RSH-TH03|XJM0472|TY400H| |---|+---|+---|+---|+---| |Size|51x51x16.5 mm|64x64x28 mm|60x63x25 mm|74x75x28 mm| |Weight|43.5g w/ batteries|71.5g w/o batteries, 140g w/|65.4 g w/o, 98.4 g w/|90.0 g w/| |Power|2 AAA batteries|3 AA batteries|3 AAA batteries|2 AAA batteries| |Temp precision|0.1°C|0.1°C|0.1°C|0.1°C| |Temp accuracy|± 0.5°C|± 0.5°C|± 0.5°C|± 0.3°C| |Humidity precision|1%|0.1%|1%|0.1%| |Humidity accuracy|± 5%|± 5%|± 5%|± 2%|
(Accuracy for TY400H is suspect.)
Note: all can toggle between °C and °F.
Features:
The way it works is very intuitive. It will sample every X mins, if the reading exceeds the threshold, it will report. It will also report at every sync interval, whether reading has changed or not — this is useful as a heart beat.
Battery can last 3+ weeks in frequent mode, 3+ months in low power mode. (Both at 3 min sampling period.)
It is small and light. It can be stuck on a wall without fear of falling off.
The only real flaw is that when the device is power-cycled, it reverts to low power mode, 1°C and 6% RH threshold (not sure about sampling period). You need to set it back to the mode you want.
If the router power-cycles, the device won't be able to connect to it until it is power cycled — it caches the connection credentials. I don't know if other battery-powered devices have the same issue.
No sync mode is not ideal, but still acceptable, except it has fixed threshold and they are too high: 1°C and 5% RH. Sampling period is unknown. (My guess: ~5 mins.)
Its reporting code is buggy. It sometimes skip reporting for hours, even though the readings have changed.
It uses 3 AA batteries, so it is big and heavy. Battery life is estimated to be < 2 months.
This would be perfect if it supports humidity to 1 dec place.
Shows date/time, but it is only updated when it synchronizes with Tuya Cloud. Set reporting interval to 60 mins? The time will be way off.
Battery is reported as states (e.g. high) instead of percentage.
Is reporting interval same as sampling period? Does it skip reporting if the reading is below threshold?
Test: after setting reporting interval to 60 mins, it still reports every ~5 mins if the readings exceed threshold.
Can adjust reported temperature/humidity. This allows a fleet of devices to report consistent readings — all low-end monitors should have this, because there is usually some variance. Very nice feature.
No threshold, so I presume the device will always report at every sampling period?
Test: after setting reporting interval to 60 mins, it still reports every ~5 mins if the readings exceed threshold. (Threshold is unknown, though.)
Battery life is estimated to be < 2 months.
I used S6 for 7 years before replacing it. It was stuck at Android 7.0 and more and more apps required min of Android 9 for security purposes. It was failing as well. I later repaired it, but it turned out I never used it again — and it died earlier this year.
My S22 will be 5 years old next year. I'll probably change then. Let's look at S26 spec first.
||S22|S25|S26| |---|+---|+---|+---| |Size|146.0 x 70.6 x 7.6mm|146.9 x 70.5 x 7.2 mm|149.6 x 71.7 x 7.2 mm| |Weight|168g|162g|167g| |Display|6.1"|6.2"|6.3"| |Resolution|2340x1080, 422 PPI|2340x1080, 416 PPI|2340x1080, 411 PPI| |Aspect ratio|19.5:9|19.5:9|19.5:9| |Screen-to-body|88.6%|91.1%|90.0%| |Camera|50 MP FL 23mm f/1.8<br>10 MP FL 70mm f/2.4<br>12 MP FL 13mm f/2.2|50 MP 24mm f/1.8<br>10 MP 67mm f/2.4<br>12 MP 13mm f/2.2|50 MP 24mm f/1.8<br>10 MP 67mm f/2.4<br>12 MP 13mm f/2.2| |Camera AR|4:3|4:3|4:3| |Selfie Cam|10 MP 26mm f/2.2|12 MP 26mm f/2.2|12 MP 23mm f/2.2| |WiFi|802.11ax dual|802.11be tri|802.11be tri| |Memory|8 GB|12 GB|12 GB| |Storage|128, 256 GB|128, 256, 512 GB|128, 256, 512 GB| |Battery|3700 mAh|4000 mAh|4300 mAh| |USB|Type-C|Type-C, DP 1.2|Type-C, DP 1.2|
S26 is starting to get too big for me.
I suspect S27 base model may go back to 64 GB due to high memory prices.
