Devices
What is actually inside a smartwatch, and why the battery is the whole design
Every decision in a wearable — screen, sensors, radios, thickness — is downstream of a cell the size of a coin.
Devices
Phones, laptops, watches and what is actually inside them.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 1 of 2
Devices
Why your phone slows down, and which explanation is actually true
Several real mechanisms get collapsed into one conspiracy. Separating them explains what you can fix and what you cannot.
More in Devices
Devices
Your phone camera is mostly software, and that is not cheating
The sensor is smaller than a fingernail. Almost everything that makes the picture look good happens in the fraction of a second…
Devices
What a higher refresh rate actually buys you
The number describes how often the screen redraws, which is only one of the delays between your finger and a response.
Devices
Why two laptops with the same chip perform very differently
A processor model number describes the silicon. What it can sustain depends on the cooling the manufacturer put around it.
Devices
The nanometre number on a chip stopped being a measurement
Process node names were once a physical dimension. They are now marketing labels for a generation, and the industry says so.
Devices
What a waterproof rating actually promises, and for how long
Ingress protection numbers describe a laboratory test on a new device. Most of the ways people get devices wet are not in the test.
Devices
How a touchscreen knows it is a finger and not a raindrop
Capacitive sensing measures a change in an electric field, which explains gloves, water, screen protectors and phantom taps in one…
Devices
Why the storage in your device is slower than the number on the box
Flash memory has several tiers of behaviour hidden behind one advertised figure, and the fast one runs out.
Devices
More memory does not mean more apps stay open
Phones and laptops manage memory by predicting what you will need, and the prediction is tuned for battery life as much as for…
Devices
OLED and LCD fail in opposite ways
One emits light per pixel and one filters a single backlight, and almost every difference in behaviour follows from that.
Devices
Why your device is glued shut, and what the glue is actually doing
Adhesive is not laziness. It is load-bearing, and understanding what it carries explains why repair got harder.