hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4414.txt

Episode: 4414
Title: HPR4414: Bellroy Tech Kit Review
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4414/hpr4414.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-26 00:25:30

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This is Hacker Public Radio episode 4,414 for Thursday the 3rd of July 2025.
Today's show is entitled Bell Ray Tech Kit Review.
It is hosted by Kevve and is about 10 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Kevve shares his thoughts on the Bell Ray Tech Kit.
Hello, hello, this is Kevve from the TuxJum podcast and you are listening to another
episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Now, wouldn't that summer is here?
Many of us will be starting the travel and of course, being of the techy fansort,
and really speaking that I would say that the majority of things Geeks will have in their
travel bag is a week after a pouch for all their cables and of course, I'm no different.
Now, after quite a few years of just having a cheap one that I got from a certain well-known
big company online, it had fallen apart and I decided I'm actually going to splash out
a wee bit and actually pay a bit more for hopefully one that will last a bit longer.
So I decided to go for the Bell Roy Tech Kit.
Now, it has two sizes.
There's a Tech Kit and there's the compact Tech Kit, but I decided, no, if I'm going
to do this for what I need, I didn't want to skimp out.
So I went for the Tech Kit and that was £55 in the UK and that was including delivery,
which was very quick.
I got it within off the website, I ordered it and I got it within 3D's, which I'm very
impressed with, especially given it's to the island.
So it was more or less dispatched either that night or the next morning, so full marks for
that.
Now, the Tech Kit itself, to be honest, I probably should actually have gone unmeasured
it.
In fact, here I go, I'm just going to measure it just now.
So in millimetre, it is 230 millimetre in width, it's 60 to 65 in depth, the reason I'm
saying about is it is not a hard case, it is a cloth case and it is about 135 millimetre
to 140, you know, about there.
In length, now, the one that I chose was actually classed as the colour, was Arcade Grey,
which has quite a nice checkered background, it's almost like a, imagine a huge knots
across the scheme and it's as if everyone's playing X, but it's all grey with the lines
going to be more white kind of colour.
I'm not really describing that very well, but I'll have a link in the description.
So you can actually check this out.
Now, I've been using this now for just coming up to seven months, I got it at Class Christmas,
so it has actually had a good few uses.
As far as the actual, what I have in the Tech Kit, so just to give you a rough idea, so
when you open it up, it has got two pouches on one side, and I currently keep in them
some of the, I've got two of the USB plug adapters, and I've got my steam deck dedicated
one there.
You can charge the steam deck on a, through a USB-C, but it's very, very slow, so I keep
the dedicated one in there.
So those fit comfortably in there.
As far as the slots, there's one, two, three, four, five slots for cables, and two of the
slots are really big, so you can actually get two cables into those.
The smaller ones, it is very much one cables all you'll get.
Yeah, so just to again give you a run through, I've got three and a half audio jack cable,
that's for when the batteries in my wireless headphones die, I have got a micro USB cable,
I've got a USB-C cable, I've got a dedicated one, I can't remember the code of that one.
That is for the retro flag Game Boy style device, retro, I can't remember what it's called,
but it's a dedicated one, so that was rather annoying, the fact that wasn't a standard.
I also keep a charging lead for my wife's Garmin smartwatch, which has its own connection,
and I've also got a USB-C to USB-C cable in there.
Now, if you're looking through it, you've got three different parts for pins, I don't
currently keep any pins in it, because what I don't have any use for pins that are present
in this charging thing, but two, I'm always wary about keeping pins, especially when they're
inside a bag that keeps moving, just I've had bad experiences of pins bursting,
so I decided I did not want to risk that in this, just because I didn't really want them bursting
all over and spoiling the look of it, because it is a nice looking case, that's one thing I will say,
it's very nice, and I didn't really want it to risk ruining that.
Now, if you look behind the cable holders, then there's a magnetized slot there, and that's where
I keep a charging block, so I've got the charging block there, and it's also got almost like a hidden
pouch, which again, I'm not sure it's a magnetized, is it just elastic, but it's really good for keeping
anything flat, you could keep some money in there, some notes, or the thing that I tend to keep in
there is microSD and SD cards, because it does seem to pop, I don't know, like I said, I can't
follow them out of it, it's just a tight fit, or if it's actually got a bit of magnetism here,
but it does slot and it does keep these things in there.
Now, as I said, I've been using it about seven months now, so what do I like about it? I like the
style, I like the size of it, it may not be for everybody, I mean, I'm using it to it's kind of
almost full potential here, I don't think I get too much more than, yeah, I could get the pens
of I already wanted to, but I couldn't get that many more cables in here, I couldn't fit, I've got
three plugs, so like I said, the steam deck takes up a whole slot in its own, and I have got two USB
to wall adapter, and that's pretty much taking it up fully, like I said, I've got the power pack as
well, that bulks it up quite a bit. It is not a hard case, that's one thing I will say, so it will
tend to shift about a wee bit, if you feel like you need the protection of a hard case, this will
not be for you. The one negative point I would say, is the connections that hold the leads,
they still hold them very well, but after only a few uses, I didn't notice, they really did lose
their shape quite quickly, I mean, it's not functionally, it's not an issue, it's more aesthetically,
which is a wee bit of a shame, because I was kind of hoping that this would last a wee bit longer,
just looking aesthetically nice, it doesn't look worn, it's just when you pull out all the cables,
it almost looks a bit saggy, but they do still, they're still more, I'm still more than happy with how
firmly they hold, I haven't had any cables falling out, the one bit that I would say that I was
a tad bit disappointed is the two big pockets where I keep my steam deck charger and the
two USB to wall adapters, they have no closing or option to close at all, with the steam deck
charger, the things huge, that's not falling out anywhere. However, if they fit nice and snugly,
the two adapters beside each other, when I take one out, the other one more is rattles around,
and it will be very easy, especially if you let this thing open up like a book and open up all
the way, I think it would fall out very easily, so I would like to see some form, I don't know,
would I say draw a string or just a clip or something, but some way of tightening that to avoid
that happening, so overall, I'm very pleased with it, like I said, it looks nice and the thing is
it still looks nice, it's certainly not the cheapest on the market, but I am hoping that, given
I have paid a wee bit more than I did for my previous one, that it will last a bit longer,
there, you can get, I've noticed some, which say that they are entirely leather free, I think this
one actually is, this one is all fabric and even round the zip is a recycled material,
some of them do though, be wary if you'd vegan or if you're strongly against leather use,
it's, the some of them do contain leather, so just be wary of that, oh in fact, I'm actually looking
at this one, yes, the arcade grade actually stays in brackets after it in the colour, leather free,
so although to be fair, I actually didn't choose it for that reason, I chose it because I actually
like the design, so overall, if you're looking for a new cable holder and you're regularly traveling,
I would personally recommend this if you've got a moderate amount of cables,
if you're a heavy user of tech, even more so than I am and you have got way more than that,
then I would suggest Luke elsewhere, but overall, this one gets a thumbs up from me,
so I hope you've enjoyed this episode and please tune in to model for another exciting
episode of Hacker Public Radio.
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