I love my job and believe I’m very lucky to do what I do for a living. There is a rather unglamorous side to it, though, and that’s encountering the sheer number of middle-of-the-road products that expect to be reviewed - and struggling to find a reason to review them.

The irony here is that tech has got so good, and the capabilities have plateaued at such a high level, that it’s hard to buy a bad… anything. The devices are just a lot harder to review these days when they’re all so capable. And similar.

Nice problem to have? Of course. I could still be working in the job I hated.

Smartphones are a classic example, and the one I wanted to talk about today. Oppo recently sent me two handsets to check out - the Reno 16 and Reno 16 Pro. The fact they look practically identical doesn’t help, but they are brilliant mid-range phones with superb performance capabilities, great cameras, and lovely build quality. And you know what? I haven’t even turned them on. I don’t need to; I’m that confident I know what I’m talking about here. If you’re considering a midrange phone, they should be on your list.

That won’t make a YouTube video, though. And YouTube, as a platform, has changed considerably over the last couple of years. Views are much harder to come by, and you really have to work extremely hard to keep people watching beyond 30 seconds (depressing, I know). That’s why we need extremely interesting tech, and it’s why devices like Samsung’s Z Fold 8 are so welcome when they come along.

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It doesn’t happen that often. I call them ‘unicorn products’. The Mac mini, the Sony XM4, the MacBook Neo, the Skullcandy Crusher headphones. There’s something about these products which sparks a massive amount of interest that manifests in hundreds of thousands of views and comments against my videos. And it's repeatable. Again, again, and again.

Defining what it is about these products that makes them so popular (or unpopular, incidentally - the audience sentiment is often sliced right down the middle) is tricky. But I don’t care. I just want more brands to make more products like the Z Fold 8, alongside the safe bets.

I have a feeling you do, too.

~ Mark