I’m pretty fond of my OnePlus X - it’s the first phone I’ve owned that has performance I’m happy to call “adequate”. It runs along nicely, no questions asked. It never really stutters or has a little moan at me. Battery life is a little weak for my use case, but that’s fine. I’m almost always near electricity. I do a lot of work in the Middle East, and before I go I like to clear out my phone, study what I use it for and return it to being a lean device. My standard target has been CyanogenMod, which I’ve been running since it started. That’s no longer developed, so I need to take a little look at alternatives. The OPX mod scene is a little slow these days - the phone is discontinued and never had the biggest sales figures, so there isn’t the most motivated talent pool to keep it up. …

Abroad’s going mostly well. Initially very busy, now things have slowed down and I’m waiting on others. I’ve been fiddling with this tablet a lot. It’s been, much to my surprise, really useful. A Tablet in Industry As I said previously I really like the size and shape of it. I’ve been using it in my industrial context extensively as a document viewer. 16GB is a large amount of documentation, and having it in the palm of my hand (or pocket) at all times is super useful. I can bring it out and show clients, or staff, drawings to describe something, zooming in on specific areas to highlight important details, or giving an overview of the whole system. The machine can be on all the time, with connectivity off, and afford me several days battery life, compared to my work-assigned laptop’s 1 hour. I can hang it from a rail or mount it somewhere and leave the screen on to use as a reference. …