Congratulations to our good customer Kathryn Harper for entering our competition and winning a £50.00 voucher to spend at La Marina!
Perhaps our favourite restaurant in Portishead, La Marina serves delicious and authentic Italian cuisine. They also have a steak night, a fish night, and do Sunday roasts - eat-in or take-away.
The restaurant is located in the marina - so you have great views, and it's perfect for a post-dinner stroll. 🙌
There's not many greater joys in life than indulging in an Italian banquet. Here's our take:
You've got the seared scallops with celeriac puree & black pudding to start. You can't go wrong with a charcuterie board for the table. A fresh seafood linguine or other pasta dish is always a winner. Throw in a crunchy side salad, balsamic vinegar - doesn't get any better. Some bruschetta with lots of olive oil if you're hungry. Delightful with a bottle of red wine - but if you fancy white, we don't judge. Always finish up with a Tiramisu - just glorious. Finally, you really treat yourself with a glass of Amaretto. Incredible.
Who's hungry? 😋
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Taken on a mobile phone. Tell me this isn't absolutely wild.
What is a periscope camera?
It's a technology that will aid in unleashing your inner spy, reading signs from a mile away, inspecting craters on the moon, or just being a bit of a nosey neighbour.
More and more smartphones are coming equipped with a periscope zoom lens. This lens utilises a prism mirror system to extend its focal length - capturing light with an array of 90-degree lenses and sensors.
This short video from Samsung gives a cool visual depiction of how the prisms are utilised in conjunction with autofocus support to provide a stable image.
A standard telephoto lens camera offers 2-3x optical zoom. A periscope lens typically offers 5-10x optical zoom, with minimal loss in resolution. When combined with digital zoom, we create an even greater "hybrid zoom".
Whilst a typical zoom lens will protrude out from a device, a periscope lens can fit quite neatly into a compact space.
The periscope camera was first popularized by the Huawei P30 Pro, which was released in 2019, which could take photos at 50x magnification. Many other manufacturers followed suit, introducing periscope cameras to their flagship devices.
If you are lucky enough to own a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, then you'll know just how impressive the camera is - with 10x optical zoom and 30x digital zoom, you can capture a near-lossless image from far away - like the one pictured here.
Apple are still working on it, and it's suggested that the iPhone 15 Pro (2023) will have a periscope lens. This will be the final piece that is currently lacking in the iPhone's otherwise excellent camera setup. There's no rush to get it out this year though. How many consecutive years can Apple convince people that they need to purchase their new product using the slogan: "Our Best Camera Yet"? Fans will go crazy when Apple finally invent this revolutionary technology.
A telescope that fits in your pocket. What a time to be alive.
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See Our Blog for the latest industry news, tech tips, company updates, and anything else we feel like writing about.
If your console is on, but just displays a black screen, or if it's freezing on the home screen, then you could have a faulty drive.
Note: If you are experiencing issues with your console, It's worth trying a factory reset before sending it in for repair.
If you want to upgrade your drive so that you have more storage, then your existing data can be saved and transferred onto a larger drive.
If the original drive is corrupted, the data cannot be recovered or transferred onto a replacement drive.
Like a computer, the Xbox requires a drive to be formatted, with the official Xbox firmware & operating system installed.
You have the option to install an SSD (Solid State Drive), but we generally recommend sticking to a HDD (Hard Disk Drive). An SSD will speed up load times, but will not increase in-game performance. They are more expensive than HDDs - meaning you'll be spending more money or settling for less storage. However, SSDs are more durable than HDDs because they have no moving parts and are less susceptible to shock damage.
Just as a car begins to depreciate the moment you drive it off the lot, your phone depreciates as you take it out the box. And there's no exceptions. There's no Aston Martin DB5 or other classic-equivalent smartphone.
A phone is not a financial investment. No matter what you buy, its value will steadily decline. In fact, most technology becomes less useful and less desirable over time; eventually becoming obsolete. You know this, because you have an old iPhone or flagship Android phone that you literally cannot give away.
iPhones have always had the greatest residual value. On average, iPhones lose 41% of their value in the first year after they are released and 60% after 2 years.
Samsung phones lose an average of 64% of their value in the 12 months after launch, and 77% after 24 months.
It gets worse. OnePlus phones lose 78% of their value on average after 24 months. Google phones lose an average of 83%. Huawei phones lose a staggering 87% in just two years.
It's better to think of your phone as a tool that you make use of and enjoy. If you buy a top-end phone like an iPhone 13 or Samsung Galaxy S22 for £700 and use it for just two years, it is, in a sense, only costing you about £1 per day. If you re-sell it for 40% of what your originally paid for it, it's just 60p per day. Not bad when you look at it like that, right?
Recently upgraded? Here's what you need to know:
> Most people sit on their old phones for a while - 16 months on average! In this time, it loses around 50% of its value. Your phone is not going to gain value sat in a drawer. Re-sell it as soon as possible.
> Most shops (including ours), will offer a trade-in when you buy a new phone. We almost always suggest to our customers that they sell us their old phone immediately - after we've transferred the data for them.
> One third of people don't even trade in their phones. That's more e-waste in landfill, and less money in your pocket.
> It adds up over time. We can safely assume that most young people will go through about 35 smartphones in their lifetime. Delaying selling all your old phones could cost you thousands of pounds cumulatively.
> If it's fairly old, like an iPhone 6 - it won't have much (if any) value. Charities such as Hubbub will help you gift your old phone to someone that needs it.
> It's a good idea to keep one old phone spare, in case someone in the household loses or damages their phone.
