My dad mentioned he wanted a new calendar for the new year. How hard could buying him one be?

Very…

To start with, Amazon’s search results for 2025 calendars were mostly out of date 2024 and 2023 offerings.

Staples was not much better.

They had one in date (boring calendar).

Argos though I wanted to buy advent calendars or support one of the only two football teams that exist.

Apparently, it was too much to ask that there be a stock of date-appropriate offerings with cats or sci-fi or something.

You can get a cats pooping calendar though.

There’s no picture for this but when I Googled more widely, there were so many NSFW calendars. So many. Who knew?

I should not have been surprised that the first decent one I found (RSPB) was sold out.

This was going to be one of my posts with tables and side-by-side comparisons but there is literally nothing to standardise against. So you are getting my sarcastic comments as I take screenshots looking for a wall hanger for my dad.

This one wanted me to subscribe by email. I guess it is out of stock or something. It took me longer than I care to admit to see the little grey circle saying “out of stock”. Because grey is the universal colour for “there’s a problem you need to know about”.

At least cardfactory.co.uk knows what they are doing with a listing of 68 products.

I’m going to talk to the family about making him a custom calendar with family photos in it. At least that way it will have the right year on it.

Why must shopping be so much hard work?

I’m a huge fan of good storytelling which is probably why I like reviewing stories. Outside of writers’ nights I don’t get to review stories all that often. I’ve decided to change that.

On another blog of mine where I post sci-fi (lots of HFY), I decided rather than just getting annoyed at so much bad AI stuff, I would review things. My thinking is that I could start to identify where the good HFY can be found.

This review was my first.

What I was aiming for was a fair but helpful review. I threw ina few points that were more about raising awareness of good storytelling. What can I say, I love seeing writers grow in their craft.

If you have put some storytelling out on the Internet somewhere, I’d be happy to review and offer (what I hope will be) useful feedback. Use this post to point me at the story. A comment, a mention (link and ping), or a fediverse reply all work.

Show me your writing.

In the third instalment of “Matt looks for the best deal online”, I am looking for a cheap USB drive. I want to give them away with content in them. Cheapness is my primary metric for these flash drives. They must be inexpensive but large enough to use when giving people folders full of photographs and related media. USB 3.x would be nice but I’m not all that fussed.

In this instance, 1GB could do the job. However, larger sizes would be nice for other projects. Thus “small” is those USB sticks with low capacity while medium and large should be self-explanatory. “Other” is where I note any interesting USB flash drives that otherwise don’t fit with my search needs.

In the table, USB 2.x is assumed and the faster USB 3.x is mentioned when it shows up. Some links are affiliate (UK) links, meaning if you click them, I get paid at no cost to you. Most links are just links though and everyone gets the same treatment. Price, brand, and probable quality vary considerably and it looks like you get what you pay for when it comes to removable media. Or not. Reality does not have to make sense.

Oh, one more thing – I only mention the brand of USB drive if, in my judgment, that could be a purchasing factor. That means these are brands I understand to be good quality indicators. If I’ve not mentioned a brand either I forgot or I just wasn’t familiar with them.

The table of results: Who offered what prices?

Shop	Small drives	Medium sized	Larger drives	Other
Amazon UK (free p&p)	This 2GB £4.79	This 64GB £4.98	This SanDisk 128GB 70% off £6.99	This USB 3, 256GB, £11.19
Ebuyer (£1.99 p&p)	n/a	This 64GB. USB 3.2 £3.29	This Kingston 128GB USB 3.2 £5.19	Kingston XS1000 1TB USB-C £62.99
Argos (£3.95 p&p)	n/a	This 32GB Sandisk £5.99	This 128GB SanDisk 25% off £6.99	This 32GB USB 3 SanDisk £6.49
Staples (Free sometimes)	This 4GB £2.29	This 64GB £4.00	n/a	n/a
Curries (£3.99 p&p)	This 8GB £5.99		This USB 3.0 128GB SanDisk £12.99	This Integral USB 3.0 256GB £16.99
Ebay* (varies)	n/a	n/a	Unbranded red drive 128GB £1.19	128 GB unbranded USB 3.0 £1.19

Amazon’s USB drive offerings

Unsurprisingly Amazon offers a wide range of USB flash drives all for roughly the same price point regardless of capacity.

I expected Amazon to sell the cheapest USB drives but I was surprised to discover that, once more, others had lower price points for flash storage.

Ebuyer’s above-average results for removable media

Ebuyer is where we nerds tend to shop. I was not surprised to find more USB 3 offerings, larger capacities, and a really good search and filter experience. In addition, I have found that Ebuyer reviews are dependable and trustworthy. As always, every technical detail was given. I do love Ebuyer.

There were no low-end old-gen crap offerings. Everything was reasonably modern. I would love it if they offered me a sponsorship and/or affiliate deal. Because I could praise them with all sincerity. I would feel confident that everything I recommended would be value for money and of good quality.

Ebuyer managers, call me; let’s talk.

Argos’ USB storage deals

Argos prices seem to closely follow Amazon’s wth similar search and filtering options. This leaves them running in second place as they charge for delivery.

There’s nothing much else to say. Their offerings were okay.

Staples’ USB drive offerings

Staples was surprisingly cheap on the low end but the search was unhelpful as there was no way to filter except by brand and price. Size was not an option so I gave up before finding any larger offerings.

Delivery is free over £15 which is tempting for a bulk buy. They cite price and price with VAT which I guess is helpful for business buyers. I don’t know what the low-end p&p price is as the view cart option was not working.

Curries for USB sticks

Largely seems to stock strong names in data storage like Kingstone, Integral, and SanDisk. They were not competitive on price but most of their offerings look like good solid choices for personal use. Even so, you can get similar products for less elsewhere.

Overall Argos and Amazon had Curries beaten on price and delivery costs. A safe choice if you don’t mind paying a bit more for no good reason.

*eBay was where it all went crazy!

The cheapest deals on eBay triggered my mental alarm for scams. They were pocket change prices and free delivery.

I found this listing where 128GB in red was the cheapest deal. Other colours and sizes were more expensive. I have my doubts if those others exist.

Then there was this USB 3.0 unbranded drive also for £1.19.

The thing about these deals as they all looked fishy AF. The USB 3.0 was a knock-off product from outside the UK and reviews that mention they sell many imitation items.

In each of these cases, I think the seller is in China. My gut says do not trust and the reviews suggest my gut might be right. This is cheap for a reason.

Conclusion: Where would I buy some cheap USB drives to give to people?

Once more I am forced to ask myself why I even pay for Prime. They run adverts on the streaming service and charge enough extra to pay for the 2free” postage and packaging. Amazon was not the winner of this roundup.

At the top end, Ebuyer wins hands down. Their stock is reasonably priced and of a new technology. On the whole, they offer more storage, good brands and some of the best prices. For everyday personal use, this is where to go. I would probably wait until I need to order other stuff to spread the postage and packaging into little more than a rounding error.

Ebuyer’s USB drives were mostly from dependable brands, less money than Amazon’s and with more storage. If I were buying for personal use, I would find a removable media of a size and price I can live with and get that.

This is not for personal use. In this case, I want cheap and somewhat disposable drives. There are two contenders for this crown – Staples and eBay. While eBay is the cheapest, quality is a dive roll and delivery time could take months. That leaves Staples for a job lot of low-end cheap USB drives.

If getting the cheapest as humanly possible is your aim, eBay wins. However, you had better be ready to wait a long time for products that might fail or not last long. Maybe they will be fine. Maybe they are as good as other offerings. Purely going from vibes, I have strong doubts.

Staples’ “small” offering was half the price and twice the capacity of Amazon’s similar offering. After illuminating eBay on scam avoidance vibes, they were the clear winner. After all, the files I need to give out all come in at under 1GB. I only need the storage device to be cheap, dependable for data, and likely to arrive before the next ice age.

If more people still used DVD/CD drives, I’d buy a few blank disks I have sitting about gathering dust. These days, that’s only an option for archiving backups.

If I spend more than £15 the p&p will be free. That’s slightly more than 5 (6 after rounding up). That puts the final price at 6x 4GB drives @ £17.94. That would get me three and a bit smaller drives from Amazon.

Final thoughts

There are two lessons to learn from this exploration of USB drive prices.

1. Always shop around for good deals
2. If something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

I hope my little window-shopping trip was useful to you. Where do you get your USB flash drives?

Due to my Redmi deciding to resign after five years of loyal service, I was in the market for a new smartphone. I had a few requirements for shortlisting:

1. It has to be inexpensive as there’s not much cash available to make this happen
2. It should be dependable and/or easy to repair
3. It must be more powerful than the Redmi 6 it is replacing
4. Unlocked for all networks
5. Decent camera with a high MP value
6. Ideally 5G
7. Long warranty or easy-to-fix

My first pass was based only on price (see below table). I then filtered on features and limits (further down).

I popped over to my favourite online shop for tech stuff and had a browse of smartphone offerings. I learned last time that shopping around pays. This first table is a vendor price comparison.

Phone	eBuyer	Amazon (UK)	Argos	Currys	mobiles.co.uk
Galaxy A15	£175.56	£117.90	£169.99	£169.00	£169.00
Honor 200	£129.99	£129.99	£129.99	£129.99	£299.99 (?)
Honor 90 Smart	£139.98	£130.44	£139.99	n/a	£139.99
HMD Pulse Pro	£100.49	£99.97	£99.99	n/a	n/a
HMD Pulse+	£89.99	n/a	£89.99	n/a	n/a
HMD Fusion	n/a	n/a	£159.99	n/a	n/a
Honor X7*	£119.99	£79.99 (ish)	£119.99	£119.99	n/a
Motorola G34	£164.99	£103.95	£109.99	£109.00	£109.00
Nokia G22	£99.99	£72.00	£99.99	n/a	n/a
Moto g14	n/a	£89.00	£89.99	£89.00	£89.00

Price comparison notes

I was surprised by just how little variance there was between retailers. It seems, in this case, only Amazon has the market dominance to do anything different with smartphone prices.

Note: Prices may have changed since my search. Some of these prices are limited-time deals and offers.

Honor X7

There was a more than expected variation in price, RAM, and other details. The comparison of this option might be somewhat misleading.

Amazon UK

Getting a price for Amazon (UK) was a touch tricky as they tend to list many almost identical things at different prices. I browsed for the cheapest result which seemed to be the same thing offered by the other online shops. Some of those prices were “on-sale” or had other things going on to affect the price.

For example, the Honor X7* had a better model on Amazon for a lower price.

The technical stuff

In this round, I am looking at CPU, RAM, 5G, Screen Size, Camera, and ease of repair of the various smartphone options.

Phone	5G	RAM	CPU	Screen	Fixablity	Camera	Battery
Galaxy A15	✅	4GB	8/2.2Ghz	6.5″ AMOLED	2Y warrenty	50MP	5,000 mAh
Honor 200	✅	4GB	8/Mixed	6.8″ LCD	2Y warranty	50MP	5,200 mAh
Honor 90 Smart	✅	4GB	8/Mixed	6.8″ LCD	2Y warranty	108MP	5,330 mAh
HMD Pulse Pro	❎	6GB	8/1.6GHz	6.5″	1YW +RTR!	50MP	5,000 mAh
HMD Pulse+	❎	4GB	8/Mixed	6.5″ LCD	1YW +RTR!	50MP	5000 mAh
HMD Fusion	✅	8/6/4* GB	8/2.2GHz	6.56″	3YW +RTR!	108MP	5000 mAh
Honor X7*	❎	4GB	8/Mixed	6.74″ LCD	2Y warranty	48MP	5000 mAh
Motorola G34	✅	4GB	8/Mixed	6.5″ LCD	2Y warranty	50MP	5000 mAh
Nokia G22	❎	4GB	8/1.6GHz	6.5″ LCD	QuickFix	50MP	5050 mAh
Moto g14	❎	4GB	8/Mixed	6.5″ LCD	2Y warranty	50MP	5000 mAh

Round one: The details

In this first round of reviewing, I have focused only on getting the most important smartphone specs recorded. At the end of this process, I will create some illumination criteria and then do a deeper dive into the round’s winners.

Not all spec listings are created equal. If you can correct or add new information, please leave a comment and I will update my table.

Galaxy A15

The A15 is, according to the website, 5G ready (according to the website) sporting a Mediatek MT6789 processor. It has 4GB of RAM to play with which after OS use is not a lot these days. It is 1GB more than the phone it could replace.

In terms of fixability, it has a two-year warranty which means I would not have to start fixing it myself until the end of 2026. However, it is a highly mainstream phone so all the mobile phone repair shops near me will probably be able to get it up and running should something happen to it.

This phone appears to be a good replacement choice but it is a bit pricier than my currently recovering rainy day fund would like.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐⭐ (8/10)

Honor 200 Smart

Like the Galaxy A15 this features an 8-core CPU but with mixed frequency scaling (2×2.2 GHz Cortex-A78 & 6×1.95 GHz Cortex-A55). It apparently launched on my birthday which might be an influencing factor for me.

There’s no external card slot so the 256GB is all the storage you get.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐ (7/10)

Honor 90 Smart

Like to 200, the 90 has a mixed CPU set that is fractionally better in terms of raw numbers (2×2.2 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55).

The camera is compelling even if the phone itself is not hugely popular. At +£10 over the 200, it might be the winner from the Honor set.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐⭐ (8/10)

HMD Pulse Pro

All the HDM smartphones come with an extra star as HDM embraces right-to-repair and offers a full fix-it-yourself catalogue. That’s a big plus in my book.

The Pulse Pro offers a 50MP camera both front and back.

Sadly, the Pulse Pro is limited to 4G.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐ (6/10)

HMD Pulse+

The plus comes with a mixed-speed 8-core (2×1.6 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.6 GHz Cortex-A55). In most other respects it is very much like the Pro.

It has a smaller price tag going for it.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐ (7/10)

HMD Fusion

Coming in at £199 from the HMD website, this is the priciest but possibly most attractive of the smartphone offerings. The HDM right-to-repair support is a big plus.

The Fusion is cheaper than the Galaxy A15 (when shopping around), supports 5G, and is designed to be fixed and customised. Also, Argos – the only one to carry the Fusion – have a really nice offer of £159.99 for the 4GB model. I suspect that upgrades are possible.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (9/10)

NGL, I think this might be the smartphone for me. I’ll review the rest and then decide.

Honor x7 range

Another one with mixed CPU (4×2.4 GHz Kryo 265 Gold & 4×1.9 GHz Kryo 265 Silver). This is a non-5G phone priced more than the HMD Pulse range which has similar limits.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/10)

Motorola G34

Another mixed 8-core CPU phone (2×2.2 GHz Kryo 660 Gold & 6×1.7 GHz Kryo 660 Silver).

This is a perfectly serviceable mid-range mobile phone. With specs similar to the others I have seen, it mostly competes on price. Priced at £103.95 from Amazon, this is a contender.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐ (7/10)

Nokia G22 Meteor

This smartphone does not support 5G which is a shame and it features underwhelming 1.6GHz clock speeds on a mix of CPU cores (2×1.6 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.6 GHz Cortex-A55). Price-wise, this is competitive. However, there’s not much to excite here.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/10)

Moto g14

This phone’s biggest selling point is that it costs under a hundred. It does not have 5G and lacks anything else to make it stand out. It features a mixed 8-core CPU (2×2.0 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.8 GHz Cortex-A55) and that’s about it.

I might have been getting tired at this point but I just wasn’t impressed with this offering.

My initial interest: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/10)

Round Two: Deeper details

For round two, I eliminated all smartphones lacking 5G support. That leaves five contenders which I will be scoring on a list of defining details. These are weighted to reflect how important I think the feature is.

Here are the surviving smartphone candidates:

• Galaxy A15
• Honor 200
• Honor 90 Smart
• HMD Fusion
• Motorola G34

In this table, I rate how well (compared to the average) each device spec rates. I’ve linked my source for the details of the specifications. I’ve taken it on trust that they are correct.

Spec	Galaxy A15	Honor 200	Honor 90 Smart	HMD Fusion	Motorola G34
Camera [x2]	+1	+1	+2	+2	+1
Battery	0	+1	+2	0	0
Fixablity	0	0	0	+2	0
Positioning GPS & GALILEO	GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, BDS, QZSS [+3]	GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS [+2]	GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, BDS, QZSS [+3]	GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, BDS [+2]	GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, BDS, QZSS [+3]
Selfie Cam	13 MP [+2]	5 MP [0]	8 MP [+1]	50 MP [+3]	16 MP [+2]
Video Main Cam	1080p@30fps gyro-EIS [+1]	1080p@30fps No IS [0]	1080p@30fps No IS [0]	1080p@30fps gyro-EIS [+1]	1080p@30fps No IS [0]
SD Card	microSDXC [0]	None [-1]	None [-1]	microSDXC [0]	microSDXC[ 0]
Charging	25W wired [0]	35W wired [+1]	35W wired [+1]	33W wired, PD, QC [+2]	18W wired [-1]
Features	Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, v proximity, compass [+1]	Fingerprint, accelerometer, proximity, compass [+2]	Fingerprint, accelerometer, v proximity, compass [+1]	Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass [+2]	Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass [+2]
GPU	Mali-G57 MC2 [0]	Adreno 613 [+1]	Mali-G57 MC2 [0]	Adreno 613 [+1]	Adreno 619 [+2]
Interest Score [x0.5]	+8	+7	+8	+9	+5
Final Score	13	11.5	15	22.5	11.5

Conclusions

From the final score table, it seems that the HMD Fusion is competing in a higher class than the other phones. This seems about right as I specifically sought out a device from HMD with 5G.

There’s not a lot in it between the Galaxy A15 and the Honor 200.

Depending on budget and how long I am prepared to save up, the HMD Fusion (either from Argos or direct from HMD) is my current favourite. My earlier instinct about this one proved to be spot on. It’s got better charging, a better camera, a better GPU, and rates highly on the “designed to be fixed” scale. I can see myself making one last a long time.

Thoughts and comments? Please leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts on affordable smartphones. Is there a phone I missed out that you would have included? Have you, perhaps owned one of these? Let me know in the comments below.

To all the lovely people I was meant to text this week, if I’ve not got back to you it is because my phone perished rather suddenly.

It was okay yesterday and I thought it had simply run out of batteries. However, it is refusing to turn on (and so is probably not charging). Indicator light, yes; everything else, no. I have tried all the reset things. I’ve even had it open and done the whole disconnect the battery trick. That has worked in the past but not today. Ditto for reseating the connections.

This is doubly annoying as all the things I have finally given in and accepted two-factor authentication for are now locked until it is replaced. Not to mention all the notes I had stored on the thing.

Then there are all the people waiting for a text or WhatsApp from me. They will all have to wait while thinking I am rudely ignoring them. If that’s you – I am so sorry. I have suffered an unexpected critical hardware failure.

To be fair, the Redmi 6 is no spring chicken. Even so, I didn’t expect it to give up the ghost while sitting on my desk without any warning.

Long story short, my phone is currently as dead as the picture I picked to go with this post. And I am annoyed about it.