Category: Gadgets & Apps
TCL opens up shop in Zimbabwe ready to take on the biggest names in home appliances
TCL is one of the biggest home appliance brands well known for making decent products at reasonable prices. A value-for-money brand against the likes of Samsung, Sony, and LG in the home appliances market. In 2021 TCL made inroads into South Africa and the reception was good enough for them to think about expanding to […]
Black Friday Tech deals in Zimbabwe! Up to 58% off
The week has arrived and banks left right and center are reminding us that they have Visa and Mastercards that can buy stuff online. Black Friday stuff. Well before you go on Amazon maybe you want to check out some deals available in Zimbabwe starting 25 November 2022. Up to 58% off on some products. […]
Spending most of the day staring at screens? Protect your eyes from strain using these home remedies
The life expectancy in Zimbabwe is around 62 years. That means our middle age is in the 30s and as a middle-ager, I can tell you for free, your body starts preparing for the long sleep once you hit the big three-oh. I recently had to tend to my decaying body. A half-life of staring […]
Xiaomi 12s Ultra concept has a built-in Leica lens mount!
Xiaomi announced their concept, the 12s Ultra, with the highlight being their partnership with Leica. Outside of professional camera circles, Leica’s popularity was brought about by its collaboration with Huawei for the camera system. That partnership has since ended thanks to a lack of Google services destroying sales of Huawei devices globally. So Xiaomi came […]
Chrome support to end for some Windows users
Chrome has decided to end support for older Windows versions that include Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. This makes Chrome version 109 the final version of the world’s most-used browser to support these older versions of Windows. In a blog post on Google Chrome Support, they stated that this end of support falls in line […]
Xiaomi AX9000 review. The most extreme Wifi router
There are normal routers. Nice and compact ones with support for 64 connected devices, which also blend in with the furniture. Nice, modern, and sleek. But what if normal is boring and ultimate excess is more of your cup of tea…like me. Then you get a router that comes in a behemoth of a box. […]
Xiaomi 360 home security camera review. A lot of tech for the money
This is a Xiaomi 360° Home Security Camera 2K and as you may have guessed, it’s a smart camera. It doesn’t come with much in the box, just the camera itself, the wall mount kit, and the power cable. Setup Setting it up was pretty simple. You make sure you have the Mi Home app […]
Xiaomi Ionic hairdryer and brush. Overengineered beauty products
What we have here is a hair dryer. A Mi ionic hair dryer. We are used to hair dryers just being a stick with a fan and a heating coil blowing hot hair. And you would be right. That is what this one here does. But it’s also got a bit of a science project […]
The Android Go that runs on Itels is now on over 250 million devices
We were just talking about Itel phones and their popularity. There’s a lot to praise about them but performance is not one of those things. You will get by with an Itel but you will be taught patience along the way. What’s crazy is that it could have been worse. Android has been getting leaner […]
Itel has good brand loyalty with fans praising battery life and durability especially
It’s still surreal to think about just how the mobile phone has become an indispensable tool in the modern world. It’s almost impossible to function without one, in an urban setting especially. We need our phones to keep in touch with family and friends, obviously, but with electronic transactions becoming the default, a phone is […]
Xiaomi Electric screwdriver review. Almost perfect
I am a tech head which naturally means I am also a tinkerer. I literally repair all my stuff and I have been for a while now. This little toolkit has been a big help. My trusty screwdriver set since 2016. I’m not gonna lie it was super cheap, something like 5 dollars or so […]
Google Pixel 7 livestream. How to watch it
Google is officially launching the Pixel 7 series of smartphones, the successor to the very appealing Pixel 6 range launched last year. The funny thing is they already ‘leaked’ the phone’s design some months ago before the internet did it for them. But they did not include the specs and features. The specs did leak […]
Intel Arc GPUs bringing the fight to Nvidia
This one is for my tech heads. When you are looking for a performance PC, you would know that the more serious the machine is, the less integrated the system is. What do I mean? Well, lower-tier computers will have one processor handling everything. By everything I mean the computation tasks and the graphics stuff. […]
HP Pavilion Gaming 15 review – not much better for the price, parliament should consider it
With the $9,200 laptops still in mind, we should look at the $800 one I have been using for a few months. The performance I am getting from this HP Pavilion Gaming 15 makes me wonder why anyone would ever pay more, especially $8,500 more. I will concede that there is someone for whom the […]
iPhones in Zim can now connect to 5G thanks to iOS 16
We had a collection of Apple devices announced last week and if you missed it we had the latest heap of iPhones with the highlight being that US versions of the iPhones are ditching the physical sim slot. So it’s only a matter of time till other regions get the same treatment as well as […]
It appears Econet are working on an app store of their own
One of the main innovations that made the smartphone what it is today is the app store. With that move phones were no longer limited in functionality to what the manufacturer thought up. Developers flexed their creative muscles and came up with the craziest of apps, everything from fart noise simulators to full IDEs. Today […]
The iPhone 14 makes me think smartphones have peaked, it’s incremental upgrades from now on
The new iPhones are out. My colleague talked all about them here. He thinks the 14 Pros are good but the regular 14s are a fleece. I don’t completely disagree, however, the iterative nature of the upgrades introduced has me thinking – have smartphones peaked? First, it was Samsung Late last month we saw Samsung […]
The iPhone 14 Pros are great. Don’t buy the regular 14s
Apple just dropped some fresh new hardware and we have quite a lot to talk about. And we will waste no time and jump straight into the iPhone 14s because there are a lot of interesting product decisions Apple made. iPhone 14s Remember the iPhone 6 and the first intro of a bigger iPhone with […]
Econet eSim: Everything you need to know
Econet made a bit of a quiet rollout of their eSim service and Econet being Econet they are the first to bring this tech to Zimbabwe. And as it is with new tech we have a lot of questions needing answers. Let’s answer some of these. What is an eSim? eSim is short for embedded […]
About the iPhone 14, Pixel 7 and Mate 50 smartphones
We recently saw the launch of the Galaxy Z Fold 4, Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Watch 5 not so long ago and this just marks the avalanche of new product announcements in what the tech industry now calls Techtember. And the first to pull the trigger is Huawei. Huawei Mate 50 series – 6 […]
Econet ‘quietly’ rolls out eSim service [Updated]
For the longest time, the more up-to-date members of the Techzim community have been asking when we will get VoLTE and eSims. Well, we can still keep wishing for the former but the latter has arrived. At the 2022 annual Zimbabwe Agricultural Show Econet quietly rolled out eSim service. And because I like shiny new […]
Itel Home. From smartphones to blenders
You may know Itel as a smartphone brand with a reputation for selling really affordable smartphones with proper entry-level specs and one huge battery. And you would be right. But that’s not the full story. Itel makes quite a lot of products. Let me introduce you to Itel Home. TV’s They have an offering of […]
Tecno Camon 19 Pro 5G review
Tecno has tried something new with the Camon 19 series which seems a bit unorthodox. There are 4 variants. The regular Camon 19, the Neo, the Pro, and the Pro 5G. The main difference between the Pro and the Pro 5G is this. The Camon Pro has a Mediatek Helio G96 processor, a 50MP 2x […]
Samsung plays it safe with improvements to folding phones, Flip 4 and Fold 4, still impressive though
There’s a bit by Romesh Ranganathan where he says he hates Android users. He says he hates how smug they are when they announce that they are not like the sheep that use iPhones. He says, ‘you’re not off the grid, you have not unplugged from the matrix because you bought a freakin’ Samsung.’ I […]
Tecno Spark 9T review. Even longer battery life!
We all know the Spark series. It’s Tecno’s best-selling smartphone and thanks to that we have this Spark 9T coming in with a couple of cool nice-to-haves for the price. It also falls between the Spark 9 and the Spark 9 Pro making it the middle child. Exterior The body is plastic but the glossy […]
What’s the best Xiaomi speaker under $70?
Right. You are a Xiaomi fanatic and you are thinking about which is the best speaker to buy. Well, I have 3 of them for 3 different types of people, and all of them each go for less than US$70. And I am able to play with these thanks to the really nice people at […]
Xiaomi vs Oraimo. Battle of the bluetooth speakers
The first bluetooth speaker head to head. Who would have thought? And the contenders are the. In the blue corner, is the Mi portable bluetooth speaker 16W, and in the black corner, is the Oraimo Sound pro. Unboxing and accessories Let’s talk about the unboxing experience. The Mi speaker comes in a relatively ordinary box […]
Huawei Mate 40 Pro Review. A hardware masterpiece let down by software
Emotion. It defeats reason. Defies logic. You cannot understand it unless it pulls on your heartstrings. You cannot relate to it unless your very body slightly trembles and your skin goes awash with goosebumps. It is peak, pure Huawei design, and engineering. It is the footnote to the end of a glorious era. An era […]
Tecno Camon 19 5G in the studio for review
The freshly announced Tecno Camon 19 5G which was launched in New York in the USA is in the building. This phone is a sequel to the Camon 18 series where the Camon 18 Premier really was the best overall smartphone for 2021 on Techzim. It’s not the big boy Camon 19 though. This one […]
Reopening a tab you mistakenly closed & other Google Chrome shortcuts you need to know
Mistakenly closing a tab while using Google Chrome is something I do with frightening regularity. I usually end up having to Google the shortcut for restoring a closed tab because I can’t remember the key combinations to save my life. And many of you would laugh because the shortcut on Google Chrome is simply Ctrl […]