Discount Store Tech Reviews

Reviews of products from places like Dollar Tree and Five Below. Some of these products were purchased a while ago and may not be available anymore.

Boombox Mini Speaker $1 - Dollar Tree Bought this speaker so I could listen to music on a headless Raspberry Pi as an MP3 player. Unfortunately, the Pi's aux output is really quiet so I wasn't really able to use it that much. It's overall what you'd expect from a cheap speaker. The 3.5mm plug folds out, which is neat. You'd probably be better off using internal speakers, but if there isn't anything else, it could work.

Micro USB Dock $1 - Dollar Tree I used this with my old phone, which had the micro USB port on the bottom center. It worked quite well, although the port was kind of tall. My new phone has its charging port on the bottom right, so it doesn't exactly fit anymore, and the slight wobbling I noticed with my old one intensifies greatly; the dock isn't charging the phone unless it's in that perfect position. It very much depends on the phone you use. While I used it, I thought that it'd be nice if I could use my own Micro USB cable for power input, as the built in cable is on the short side.

Auxilary Cable $1 - Dollar Tree Works just fine. No complaints.

Multi-Color Bulb with Remote $5 - Five Below Jealous of those people with Phillips Hue lightbulbs? Now you can have all of the excitement of turning a lightbulb on and off again over infrared for as little as $5! Installation into a lamp was the same as any lightbulb. The white color looks more blue-ish, but that's to be expected. The remote doesn't come with a battery so you'll need to run over to the dollar store to get one.