2022 has been a great year for consumer tech – from foldables, wearables, laptops and smartphones. I got to check them out and even reviewed some of them and here are my favourite tech products from this year.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4
Looks like 2022 was a year for foldables as you’ll see in this piece but my favourite was the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4.
The South Korean tech giant went with a theme of incremental updates over its Galaxy devices with the focus touching on the Z Fold 4. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 brings all the improvements that the Fold 3 needed. A new modified design, new software for the large screen, battery life improvements, and new camera and processor upgrades.
The Z fold 4 starts at Ksh 257,000 for the 12GB/512GB option at official Samsung retail stores countrywide. It is also available on e-commerce sites like Masoko.
Read our full review as we compare it with the Z Fold 3.
ASUS Zenbook 17 Fold OLED (UX9702)
Asus continues to push the boundaries of its laptops and for the UX9702, they went the foldable route. The laptop features a 12 Gen Intel chip, which in this case is the Core i7-1250U, powerful enough, with 2 performance cores and 8 efficient cores. It can max out at 4.7 GHz. This is a mobile chip, but it can support vPro Essentials such as hardware shield and device management. Other than daily tasks like word documents, online research and enjoying watching multimedia content, the most I was able to push it was editing 4k video.
Battery life on the Zenbook 17 Fold, is excellent. Asus advertises that you can get up to 14 hours before the cell dies, but I managed to get around 10 hours, which is double the life I get on my primary computer. And to imagine this is on a 2k OLED screen, is impressive.
OPPO Reno8 5G
The OPPO Reno8 5G brings much-needed upgrades over its predecessors like ultra-fast charging, faster processor, better camera sensors. It comes with a streamlined unibody and slim design.
It sports Sony’s 50MP IMX766 sensor for the main camera and 8MP ultrawide and a 2MP macro sensor.
To the front, we have an OPPO-exclusive 32MP SONY IMX709 sensor for the selfie camera. This sensor has an RGBW filter for taking better and sharper selfies even in lowlight. It lets in upto 60% more light with 35% noise reduction. OPPO Reno8 5G has a 6.44″ AMOLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate. OPPO Reno8 5G upgrades the processor to the more capable Dimenstiy 1300 chipset and pairs it with Mali G77 MC9 GPU and 8GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 onboard storage. You also get additional 5GB of virtual RAM.
OPPO Reno8 5G packs a 4500mAh battery that charges up using 80W SuperVOOC Flash Charge. It’s super fast as you can go from 17% to 90% in 20 minutes.
Read our full review.
Infinix Zero Ultra
The Infinix Zero Ultra has been my favourite flagship. Infinix went big on their latest device in the Zero line. It comes with a 120Hz curved AMOLED superbright screen, luxurious clean design, superfast 180W fast charging, incredible performance, photography performance worth its name featuring a 200MP camera and excellent battery life.
It Is not only a distinct upgrade over its rivals but also its predecessor. The company has refined its hardware and software strategy to give consumers more value for money with the Infinix Zero Ultra.
Read our full review.
TECNO Spark 9 Pro Sports Edition
TECNO Spark 9 Pro Sport Edition is the latest addition to the Spark 9 series and it looks really beautiful. I mean look at it back.
The design refresh is a feast for the eyes and it has a blue and white colour scheme that takes its cue from an icy crystal talisman.
It has a Twin Camera design, which features a 50MP triple camera array that includes a 2MP depth sensor and VGA camera.
We also have a 32MP front-facing camera making it one of the best affordable selfie camera smartphone.
The TECNO Spark 9 Pro Sport Edition with the bold design gives it an upper edge over its siblings and rivals in the same price category. Aside from the refresh, it boasts dependable performance when it comes to its cameras and how it handles daily tasks plus the additional all-day battery life.
Oraimo Watch 2 Plus
I wouldn’t end this list without mentioning one of my favourite wearables from this year – the Oraimo Watch 2 Plus. This is a light smartwatch with a 1.69″ TFT display with 24 sports modes.
The interface is easy to use and you can make calls with it.
Apart from the large screen, I also loved the call quality from the watch. Most people I called or called me said I was pretty clear and I could hear them clearly too from the speaker on the watch. The watch can save up to 100 of your contacts.
The Oraimo Watch 2 Plus is an interesting and affordable smartwatch packed with a ton of features and you don’t have to break the bank to get it. It ticks most of the checkboxes you’d want in a smartwatch – good design, long-lasting battery, large screen, solid build quality with IP68 certification, ability to take clear calls on it, health sensors and a range of sports modes to choose from.
It goes for Ksh 4500 on Oraimo’s website and you can buy it here.
ASUS Zenbook 14 Flip OLED
Another flip joins the list and it is the ZenBook 14 Flip OLED(UP5401). My best feature isn’t that it could flip all the way to 360 degrees – it was the 2.8K OLED screen that had me wowed like a small kid.
The display has 550 nits of brightness coming in a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 90Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 2.8K(2880 x 1800 pixel resolution) and this is the base model – you can get a 4K resolution model too. This high resolution made it enjoyable for not just binging movies but also gaming.
This is a convertible laptop with the choice to use it as a tablet plus the stylus provided. The keyboard is comfortable to use with a depressed power button that has an embedded fingerprint reader for unlocking it.
The laptop runs on a core i7 11th Gen CPU coupled with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD and integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. It has incredible battery life going up to 8 hours on light use and 6 hours on heavy use. The 63Wh battery charges from empty to full in 90 minutes by the 100W Type-C charger.
Oraimo Traveler 3 Vision
Late last month, we got to check out Oraimo accessories powered by its AniFast charging technology.
The accessories include the Firefly 3 compact charger, the Toast 10 Flash 10,000mAh power bank and the Traveler 3 Vision 27000mAh power bank with the latter being my favourite.
The Traveler 3 Vision has a capacity at 27000mAh equivalent to 99.9wH with two dual outputs with the left Type-A port using AniFast Tech at 12W while the right is a regular Type-A port at 10.5W. It has triple charging inputs including a 10W micro-USB port, a 10W Type-C port and a 10W Lightning port which means you can juice it up with your Apple charging cable.
My favourite part is the 120 Lumen LED flashlights that come with 3 levels of brightness with 2 additional modes for use in emergencies.
Long pressing the power button turns them on from with the default high-level brightness at 120 lumens. Medium and Low brightness levels reach 63 and 16 lumens respectively. You can therefore use it when you’re camping outdoors or when lights go out at night as it gets really bright for your regular use.
Watch our review below:
