For Better Coffee, Tidier Carry-Ons and Less Tinny Sound | Vol. 5

A typewriter is one of those objects that has somehow escaped becoming embarrassing. Nobody needs one to write a memo, and yet its keys, carriage, and ribbon still suggest that the next sentence might be important enough to wear a cardigan. LEGO Ideas Typewriter 21327 understands this irrational affection and commits to it with 2,079 pieces.

This is an adult-oriented build of a machine from the era when a document had physical momentum. Pressing its keys raises the central typebar and moves the carriage from right to left. A brick-built platen roller accepts a real sheet of paper, while a black-and-red fabric ribbon supplies the tiny detail that stops the whole thing from reading as “gray desk appliance, but make it bricks.”

We think it earns its place because it has an actual premise. Plenty of display sets are recognizable; this one recreates the odd choreography of a typewriter rather than simply borrowing its silhouette. That makes it a fine choice for a shelf, desk, or home office where the existing décor has become a little too competent.

There is, naturally, a catch worthy of old machinery: LEGO currently labels 21327 as retired. This is not the set for someone seeking a straightforward, current-catalog purchase. It is for the builder who sees a large mechanical model and thinks, correctly, that a nonessential project involving a fabric ribbon is exactly how a weekend should get away from them.

A normal kettle has one job: make water hot without creating a committee meeting. The Fellow Stagg EKG Pro politely declines that simplicity. Its 0.9-liter electric gooseneck format comes with a high-resolution full-color LCD screen, temperature controls, a brew stopwatch, scheduling, and an adjustable hold setting. Water, apparently, has been promoted to a managed resource.

We think that makes sense for the particular household where pour-over coffee is a real ritual, tea gets more attention than a work email, and the morning routine already contains a scale, a dripper, and at least one person saying “wait, let it bloom.” The Stagg EKG Pro does not need to make every cup into a science project; it simply gives the science-project crowd the controls they were going to want anyway.

The useful bit is that its added features are concrete. Scheduling can prepare hot-water timing around a routine, the Brew Stopwatch gives a brew process a dedicated reference point, and selectable Fahrenheit or Celsius units avoid mental arithmetic before caffeine. Adjustable 15-, 30-, 45-, or 60-minute hold periods also let the kettle remain ready without pretending everyone makes coffee on a single immaculate timetable.

This is not the sensible choice for filling a lineup of oversized mugs at once. It is a deliberately smaller, more involved countertop tool for people who care about repeatable hot-water setup. That is a narrow problem, admittedly. So is owning a burr grinder, and yet here we all are.

The ordinary tote has one major design principle: toss everything into a soft-sided cave and begin excavating when the train arrives. Keys migrate. Chargers breed. A laptop enters the same ecosystem as a banana with no adult supervision. We think the Peak Design Everyday Tote V2 earns attention because it tries to impose a little civilization on that nonsense.

This is a 15 L everyday tote with a laptop sleeve, wide top access, internal and external pockets, and FlexFold dividers. That is a notably practical collection of features for anyone whose bag has to move between a desk, a commute, and whatever errand appeared at 5:40 p.m. because modern life enjoys ambushes.

The crossbody or shoulder carry options make the design less locked into the traditional tote pose: one arm occupied, one strap slowly plotting its escape. Meanwhile, the weatherproof shell gives it a more considered brief than a canvas bag that regards a wet sidewalk as a personal betrayal.

Our verdict is not that every tote needs to become a carefully partitioned equipment cabinet. Some people genuinely thrive in bag chaos, apparently. But the Everyday Tote V2 is a sensible secondary carry option for people who want tote convenience without surrendering their laptop and smaller essentials to the void.

Portable speakers tend to arrive with a grim little choice: bring the tiny one that is easy to carry but sounds like a phone trapped in a cereal bowl, or bring the larger one that turns a casual afternoon into equipment logistics. The Marshall Emberton II occupies the sensible middle ground, which is less glamorous than a rock-star entrance but considerably more useful when the bag already contains sunscreen, snacks, and someone else’s abandoned water bottle.

This is a compact Bluetooth speaker at 0.7 kg / 1.5 lb, measuring 160 mm wide, 68 mm high, and 76 mm deep. Marshall specifies two 2-inch, 10 W full-range drivers, two passive radiators, stereo output, and a 60–20,000 Hz frequency range. We like the proposition: proper speaker hardware in a size that does not demand its own seat in the car.

The Emberton II’s real pitch is freedom from the cable nest. Bluetooth 5.1 has a stated range of 30 feet, the battery is rated for more than 30 hours of playtime, and USB-C handles charging. There is also an IP67 rating, with Marshall stating submersion at 3 feet for up to 30 minutes. That is a notably unflappable spec sheet for an object likely to be parked beside beverages and damp towels.

The catch is refreshingly clear. This is Bluetooth-only: no wired connection, Wi-Fi, microphone, or voice commands are listed. We think that is entirely reasonable for a grab-and-go speaker, but not for anyone planning to plug in older gear or turn it into a smart-home butler. The physical multi-directional knob and optional Marshall app EQ presets keep the controls from becoming a small software project, which is exactly the level of civilization a portable speaker requires.

The Divoom Ditoo Pixel Art Speaker addresses a problem nobody had until desk setups became miniature apartment complexes: a normal Bluetooth speaker can play music, sure, but it cannot also display pixel art while quietly judging your cable management. Ditoo’s 16x16 app-controlled LED front screen makes it a small, deliberately unserious object with actual audio duties attached.

Under the retro-game visual gimmick sits a 45 mm driver with a 10 W output rating, Bluetooth 5.0, TF-card playback, and a stated 10 m wireless range. The companion app works with iOS and Android, which is useful because a pixel screen without an app would be less “creative desk accessory” and more “mysterious glowing brick.”

There is also a practical streak buried under all that arcade-cabinet energy. The Ditoo can handle one manually configured alarm, offers more alarm options through the app, and records a voice memo up to 60 seconds long. That memo is erased after playback, making it ideal for reminders with the permanence of a sticky note found in a washing machine.

Our take: this is not the choice for someone seeking an invisible, weatherproof audio utility. It belongs indoors, away from wet surfaces, heat, flames, and direct sunlight. But as a compact speaker for a desk, shelf, or nightstand that needs a dose of pixelated mischief, the Ditoo makes a remarkably coherent case for its own nonsense.