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Whether your TV has finally carked it or perhaps you just want to upgrade to a bigger and better screen, eBay’s got your back with up to $860 off its Samsung 4K smart TV range.
Samsung isn’t just a top Apple competitor on the smartphone front. It’s also renowned as one of the world’s top TV brands for introducing its QLED range, which stands for “Quantum Light-Emitting Diode”. While it’s very similar to an OLED, a QLED is just an LED LCD TV that’s added quantum dots to its formula to create a more vivid display. Unlike OLED (which emits its own light), QLED is transmissive, so it relies on an LED backlight contained in the film to produce a better and brighter colour.
If a bright and colorful display is your preference when binging your favorite shows, then a QLED TV is your best bet. In exchange, you may sacrifice contrast — but that might not be so bad if you live in a home that’s filled with lots of natural light, since you won’t suffer from as much glare.
We’ve rounded up the best deals on eBay Australia right now, so you can hook up your living room with a new Samsung TV.
Image: Samsung
At a paper-thin 26mm, this TV almost looks like it’s not there when you look at it from side on. It also features built-in cable management so you suffer less clutter and no bulky bezels to put more emphasis on screen size.
This TV can also transform its boring, blank screen into a stunning 4K photo wall of your favorite memories and people.
Shop it here for $2,349 (RRP $2,499).
Image: Samsung
The only non-QLED TV on this list, this Crystal UHD one will offer an arguably better picture. Since Crystal UHDs offer a wider color gamut, they tend to have better color accuracy than what you can experience with a QLED TV.
That doesn’t mean that a QLED isn’t as great as it is, but QLEDs tend to have screens that are washed over thanks to a bright filter.
This Samsung TV still offers all of the spicks and specs such as voice assistant compatibility, an air-slim design and auto-device detection.
Shop it on sale now for $2,299 (RRP $2,499).
Image: Samsung
While the 85-inch model is about a grand more than the aforementioned 75-inch Samsung TV, going bigger will still let you save $548 off its full RRP if you want to enjoy some sport or a film at maximum screen size.
It’s not missing anything the first model possesses, so it’s up to you to decide if you can afford the extra 10-inches in your TV budget.
Shop it here for now $2,917 (RRP $3,499).
Image: Samsung
Take your viewing experience to the next level with Samsung’s 8K Ultra-HD smart TV. If you want a humorous gaming TV for your console, you won’t be disappointed. If you want to future-proof your TV for the next few years, grabbing an 8K TV now would be a smart plan.
In our review, we found that the graphics and color were bright and clear on its big screen. Since it’s well-known that most QLED TVs don’t handle contrast well, we were pleased to discover that the dark reproduction was solid when playing games like Cyberpunk 2077 or destiny 2.
As for streaming quality, the colors popped out of the screen without seeming oversaturated. We couldn’t find much to fault it for, although it’s RRP isn’t the most affordable. That’s why we were sold when we discovered that eBay had this Samsung TV on sale for a generous $1,364 off.
Shop this Samsung QLED TV on sale here for $3,931 (RRP $4,799).
Nick Kyrgios has powered into the third round of the Citi Open in Washington, after demolishing American 14th seed Tommy Paul 6-3 6-4.
Kyrgios needed just 85 minutes to advance, continuing the good form he showed in progressing to last month’s Wimbledon final.
He won 37 of 44 points for the match when he made his first serve, and was just as impressive when returning Paul’s serve, breaking three times during the match.
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There was a brief hold-up when Kyrgios brought up his first match point, with Paul serving at 4-5 in the second set.
The chair umpire indicated there was a power loss, with a clearly bemused Kyrgios questioning exactly what was impacted, given the stadium lights were still working.
Paul was able to save that match point, after which Kyrgios was given a code violation for ball abuse.
“What about, code violation, bad idea by you to slow the game down?” Kyrgios retorts.
A double fault from Paul, his second of that game, brought up another match point for Kyrgios, who sealed the win when Paul sent a forehand long.
Nick Kyrgios suggested the umpire should give himself a code violation in Washington. (Getty)
Kyrgios will play another American, fourth seed Reilly Opelka, in the third round. Opelka holds a 2-0 career record against Kyrgios, having beaten the Australian on clay in Houston earlier this year, as well as at last year’s Canadian Open.
In earlier action, Australia’s Daria Saville upset reigning champion, world No.7 Jessica Pegula, 7-5 6-4.
“I just beat a top-10 player, so I’m feeling pretty good,” Saville said. “I think if I keep going this way, I can go as far as the finals. That’s the goal.”
Saville missed most of the 2021 season after having surgery on an Achilles problem, an injury she says has given her greater appreciation for wins like this.
“The reason why I really wanted that surgery, I was like, ‘This is just not giving me a chance to see my whole potential.’
“I was hurting. So now I’m like, ‘OK, you have a chance now every week to see how far you can go, how much improvement you can make.’
“These little wins I take every single day or every single week.”
Elsewhere, Yoshihito Nishioka downed Alex de Minaur, 3-6, 7-6, 6-2, while Alexei Popyrin was beaten by Taylor Fritz, 6-4, 6-3.
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The backstories and controversies that have ignited feuds involving athletes
Musician Gleny Rae has been reunited with her beloved 87-year-old German-made Roth violin more than 24 hours after it was stolen from outside a restaurant in Alice Springs.
Key points:
Gleny Rae has been reunited with her 1935 Roth violin after it was stolen along with her car
The violin and vehicle were found in Hong street close to the CBD of Alice Springs
Ms Rae has called the man who found her car a hero
“I have to say that it was directly attributable to the ABC story,” she said.
Ms Rae said that the local man who found her car, a 1999 Toyota troop carrier, was working in his yard with his sons when he heard some activity in a street close to the CBD.
“(He) went out had a look and sure enough there were three young fellas mucking around,” she said.
“As soon as they were interrupted they did the runner… But of course, they got away.”
The gentlemen who only would like to be known as Stu, realized that Ms Rae’s high-top Troopy was like a second home as it was adorned with photos of family and friends.
“Then he saw the violin. And he was like, ‘Oh, somebody is going to be in deep distress’,” she said.
desperate to return
Gleny Rae, her 1935 Roth violin and Stu — the gentleman who found the car and violin.(Supplied: Gleny Rae)
Ms Rae said that Stu did everything to try and return the vehicle and the instrument to the rightful owner, including reporting it to the police.
“He was desperately trying to find some way of contacting me.
“He ended up contacting me through the ABC Alice Springs Facebook page,” she said.
Ms Rae said she could not believe the news.
“My heart just about jumped out of my chest,
“I just felt this surge of adrenaline and excitement and hope through my body,” she said.
When reunited with her “best friend”, Ms Rae said she checked the condition of the violin and serenaded Stu with an Irish jig to reflect her celebratory mood and relief at finding the instrument she had owned for 35 years.
“Stu is a very humble gentleman… and just a brilliant person.
“I am so lucky; I am the luckiest person on this planet,” she said.
loading
Ms Rae said that she had assumed the car had been hot-wired in record time before learning what happened.
“Stu found a bunch of old Toyota keys just on the ground,” she said.
Ms Rae said the thieves had broken a window before trying random keys.
“Try this one, try this one, try this one — bingo. It starts and off they go,” she said.
Worn-out keys
Rick Hall is an Alice Springs mechanic and has been working in car yards all his life.
Dual cab LandCruiser utes are popular both as work and recreational vehicles. (Supplied: JP Engineering)
He said that he commonly uses older keys in Toyota vehicles up until 2005, especially when presented with cars with missing keys.
“Old Toyota keys get worn out and old ignition barrels also get worn out,
“You do find keys that aren’t necessarily the key for that particular car but if it is close enough to the original key, it will work,” he said.
Mr Hall was surprised to hear what had happened.
“Where did they get access to a whole bunch of keys?” he said.
His advice is to retrofit a kill switch.
“It’s the easiest solution and will only cost a couple of hundred dollars,” he said.
A map showing locations where Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will conduct military exercises and training activities including live-fire drills is seen on newspaper reports of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, at a newsstand in Beijing, China August 3 , 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
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BEIJING, Aug 4 (Reuters) – China’s People’s Liberation Army has begun military exercises including live firing on the waters and in the airspace surrounding the island of Taiwan, Chinese state television reported on Thursday.
The drills, spread out across six locations, are due to end at 12:00 pm (0400 GMT) on Sunday. The exercises followed US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, a trip condemned by Beijing, which claims the self-governed island as its own.
Significantly, in the north, east and south, the exercise areas bisect Taiwan’s claimed 12 nautical miles of territorial waters – something Taiwanese officials say challenges the international order and amount to a blockade of its sea and air space. read more
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The locations encircle the island in an unprecedented formation, Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the National Defense University, told Chinese state television, describing how an actual military operation against Taiwan could play out.
“In fact, this has created very good conditions for us when, in the future, we reshape our strategic landscape conducive to our unification,” Meng said.
Chinese forces in two areas off the northern coast of Taiwan could potentially seal off Keelung, a major port, while strikes could be launched from an area east of Taiwan targeting the military bases in Hualien and Taidong, he said.
The “doors” to Kaoshiung could also be closed by Chinese military off the southwestern coast, Meng said.
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Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong & Simon Cameron-Moore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
A chef revealed his foolproof way to get perfect crispy bacon every time.
“If you want perfectly crispy bacon you have to boil it,” said chef Roice Bethel in a TikTok video.
“I know that sounds like it wouldn’t work, but it does.”
I have explained the unlikely method works because it adds time to the cooking process, the new york post reports.
“The muscle cooks extremely quickly, the fat takes a longer time to render out,” Bethel, who has over 665,000 followers, said.
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Adding water to the pan and boiling the bacon means the temperature won’t get too high too fast.
“Once the water completely evaporates … the meat’s not overcooked or burnt and the fat has perfectly rendered so it’s nice and crispy,” the chef told viewers.
So far, the video has had 2.9 million views.
Some people in the comments section were amazed at this hack and vowed to try it for themselves.
“Tried this morning and it was a game-changer,” one person commented.
Others tried to compete with their own methods of cooking bacon.
“Baked bacon is by far the best bacon ever. Hands down,” one person said.
“Three minutes in the microwave between two sheets of paper towels will do the same thing,” wrote another.
But some commenters just didn’t like the idea at all.
“This is just training wheels for people who don’t know how to control the temperature of their bread,” one read.
“Or just make it properly,” read a second one.
This story originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission
At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you’ll like it too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.
Solid State Drives, more commonly referred to as SSDs, are a great way to speed up your computer’s loading times. A portable SSD will also make moving files from PC to PC a breeze, instead of something you need to set aside time for.
However, buying an SSD can be somewhat tricky if you aren’t across all of the confusing technical jargon. With a vast amount of options available, it can be hard to figure out which SSD is right for you, let alone compatible with your PC.
Here’s everything you need to know about SSDs, so you can choose the right one for you.
What is an SSD?
Image: iStock/Believe_In_Me
When SSDs first burst onto the scene, there were two easy ways to tell them apart from their mechanical hard drive ancestors.
Firstly, they were generally smaller than the SATA mechanical drives that were the style at the time, but secondly, and more importantly, they were way more expensive. SSDs promised speed for sure, but you didn’t half pay for it.
As with any technology, time has been very kind to SSD prices, and the quantity of storage you can get for much more modest prices has risen astonishingly in just a few short years. If you break it down to a per-GB price, mechanical drives can still come out as a cheaper option, but that’s a difference that is rapidly reducing in importance, while SSDs become more reliable and stay way faster than mechanical drives will ever be.
Still, if you’re looking into buying an SSD, whether you’re upgrading a desktop rig, configuring a new PC for someone else to build for you or just comparing specifications on pre-built systems, it’s worth knowing what to look for to ensure that you’re getting the best value for money.
The key factor here that you can boil down to is still going to be that cost-per-GB basis, and if you can score a good deal on a lot of SSD storage for not much money, go for it.
As SSDs have evolved, the full picture of what you need to consider when comparing SSDs has become a little more complex. We’ll run through the terms you’re likely to see when SSD shopping, and why they might matter to you more or less depending on your needs.
Understanding SSD jargon
A traditional 2.5-inch SSD with a SATA connector. Image: Samsung
You’re probably aware that traditional computers – as distinct from the astonishing but brain-bending category that is quantum computing – think of everything as ones and zeroes.
Where traditional mechanical drives use platters to store all those single digits, rather like a stack of LPs, SSDs instead store everything in non-volatile flash memory. The reason why SSDs are so much faster has to do with the nature of writing directly onto flash memory that can keep storage even when power is cut.
Where a traditional drive has an access head – again, our LP analogy works pretty well here – that has to seek out bits on the drive, an SSD can simply send that data as an electrical signal directly to where your PC needs it to go. This is a lot faster, a lot more energy efficient and fair more durable too.
It’s important to note that while SSD storage can retain data even when power is dropped, it’s not immortal. Early SSDs also compared poorly to their mechanical counterparts because there’s a limit to how many times you can write, delete and rewrite to flash storage, although this is something that has improved markedly in recent years.
The bigger durability gain for SSDs is that they have no moving parts, which means that they don’t care at all if your laptop is moving while they’re trying to write. You can drop an SSD while it’s writing with few issues unless the impact cracks it or similar, whereas a small bump on a mechanical drive can lead to serious write errors. Many mechanical drives have fancy drive head parking mechanisms to limit this problem, but SSDs have simply never needed that kind of trickery.
Early SSDs, and some still on the market do still borrow from mechanical drives in terms of interfaces, with plenty of drives still using either SATA (internal) or USB (external) connectors for compatibility reasons. It’s great to be able to easily plug in an SSD and have it work, but the downside of these interfaces is slower transfer speeds, with the best SATA only hitting a maximum of 600MB/s.
Newer SSDs use what’s called NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express), a term you may see in marketing materials alongside PCI Express (PCIe) when discussing speed. NVMe can more directly address your computer’s processor, which means that it can ping data around at rates that are considerably faster than SATA can handle. At current peaks with an NVMe M.2 drive you could hit 3,500MB/s at peak – way faster than that SATA peak.
If you’re still paying attention, you probably noticed that we snuck in a new bit of jargon there in the form of M.2. That’s also a term you’ll see in SSD marketing materials, and it refers to a connection type and build size for SSDs specifically.
Whereas old school SSDs aped the style of mechanical drives with SATA connections, M.2 form factor drives are even more compact and rely on having the right connectors on a motherboard and typically NVMe on board, although you can get M.2 SATA drives as well. If you’ve got a laptop with an onboard SSD, especially a more modern ultrabook style model, the odds of it having an M.2 drive are very high.
One trap to dodge for laptop upgrades even if you’re sure your current system can take an M.2 drive is to ensure that you can actually take out the existing SSD. Some manufacturers solder their drives directly to the motherboard, thus making internal upgrades impossible.
Yes, Apple, we’re looking straight at you. If you want to run an SSD upgrade on a MacBook, you’ll either need a a lot older MacBook model or make do with an external SSD drive.
How Do I Match An SSD To My Needs And Budget?
We’re going to use a few practical examples here with drives available right now from Amazon and eBay to give you an idea of where certain models fit in the market, and why they might be a good or poor choice depending on your needs and budget . SSDs can be a better or worse fit for your needs, and it’s important to keep an eye on prices over time, because what you can get for a fixed sum is generally improving.
Crucial MX500 SATA 2.5-inch SSD, 250GB
Image: Crucial
pros: It’s cheap and uses SATA, so it could be good if you’ve got an older motherboard without M.2 sockets.
Cons: It’s relatively slow – 560MB/s read and 510MB/s write and low capacity.
Who is good for: If you’re giving a much older PC one last gasp of life, this could be a simple way to make your primary Windows partition quite a bit faster if it’s struggling on an older mechanical drive, with actual document storage in the cloud or on a secondary mechanical drive.
Where to buy: Amazon Australia ($49) | Dick Smith ($65.95) | eBay ($66.90)
WD Black SN770 NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen4 SSD, 250GB
Image: Western Digital
pros: Much faster – read speeds of up to 4,000MB/s and write speeds of 2,00MB/s as a full NVMe M.2 drive.
Cons: No SATA3 compatibility, so you’d need a newer motherboard that supports it to work at all.
Who is good for: Those with motherboards that have unpopulated M.2 slots looking for just a little more storage, although this SSD is also available in 1TB and 2TB capacities (with higher read/write speeds).
Where to buy: Amazon Australia ($78.77) | Dick Smith ($81.87) | eBay ($97)
Sandisk Extreme Portable NVMe SSD (V2), 500GB
Image: Sandisk
pros: Ruggedised external storage with a USB-C connector, so it’ll plug into just about anything, doesn’t need an external power supply. USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface gives it read speeds that top out at 1,050MB/s.
Cons: You could get a lot more storage from an external mechanical drive.
Who is good for: If you want a super-light external drive you can shuffle between systems, this could be a good match, although we’d certainly compare priced options in external mechanical drives if we were considering this option.
Where to buy it: Amazon Australia ($153.95) | Dick Smith ($149) | eBay ($159.95)
Western Digital WD Green 2.5-inch SATA SSD, 240GB
Image: W.D.
pros: A good amount of storage for the money, WD’s Green drives use low power modes.
Cons: Stuck with SATA speeds.
Who is good for: Folks upgrading older laptops where it’s still possible to swap out the SATA drive, because WD’s Green drives sell themselves on their low power draw.
Where to buy it: Amazon Australia ($41) | Dick Smith ($65.95) | eBay ($58.95)
Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe V-NAND SSD, 2TB
Image: Samsung
pros: 2TB is a lot of storage, and Samsung’s V-NAND technology can push up to the full 3,500MB/s on supported systems.
Cons: You have looked at the price, right?
Who is it good for: System builders who want a very fast and high-capacity M.2 SSD.
Where to buy: Amazon Australia ($280.97) | eBay ($297) | mwave ($299)
This article has been updated since its original publication.
NRL great Cameron Smith has called on the Newcastle Knights to “be better” as further details emerged related to prop David Klemmer’s incident over the weekend.
Klemmer allegedly refused to leave the field and verbally abused trainer Hayden Knowles during Newcastle’s 14-point loss to the Bulldogs last Sunday.
The star forward was also dropped for this weekend’s crunch clash with the Wests Tigers, amid reports he could have his contract torn up by the Knights.
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The Daily Telegraph’s Brent Read understands that the former Blues representative has apologized to head coach Adam O’Brien, as he acknowledged that he could’ve handled things differently.
The Telegraph reported on Thursday further details of Klemmer’s spray, claiming he called Knowles a “c***” and told him to “shut the f*** up”.
The report also revealed an exchange of messages between a Knights player and a senior member of staff about Klemmer, in which the member signs off with “FEC”.
“Confidential understands is an acronym for “F*** every c***. It suggests that the language was part of everyday life at the Knights and largely driven by some members of staff,” the report adds.
Weighing in on the news on Thursday morning, former Australia captain Smith couldn’t believe that a formal complaint had been submitted against Klemmer for an incident which he suggested happens regularly.
Klemmer sanctioned for abusing trainer | 02:55
“Well it’s strange really. If words were spoken between a player and a trainer, that’s happened a thousand times before,” Smith said on The Captain’s Run on SEN on Thursday.
“I’ve seen it first hand, I think you have as well. It’s not a new thing. I’m really confused as to why this is such a huge problem.
“The way I’ve seen it dealt with and sorted out in the past is that if there’s an issue… it’s dealt with in-person after the match.
“It’s just unnecessary. Like seriously, how bad have the words been spoken between David Klemmer and this trainer, to have a formal complaint made. It’s just ridiculous. Deal with it man to man.
“Do we go running to people now to double on each other? Like seriously, footy clubs, you’ve got to be better than that.”
Smith, who holds the record for the most NRL games played with 430, couldn’t understand why the Knights would make the complaint considering their form.
The Telegraph have reported that Newcastle players will be involved in the investigation, as they provide witness statements of what they heard.
Newcastle are currently 14th on the ladder, but they would drop back to second-last with a loss against the Wests Tigers on Sunday.
“The football is one thing, they’re not going great, they’re not going great at all,” he added.
“Even their performances at home, they’ve let their members and their fans down at home, who are extremely good supporters.
O’Brien’s time at Knights running out? | 02:43
“We’re starting to come to the end of the 2022 season, they’ve had a bludger of a year, they’re trying to get their season done as best they can with the remaining games.
“Now their starting prop, one of their enforcers, he’s been stood down. They’ve got several players now being pulled in now to be part of this investigation, and give their account of events.”
Smith played a lot of rugby league against and with Klemmer, with the pair helping the Kangaroos to a tense 6-0 win in the World Cup final against England in 2017.
The former Melbourne Storm hooker described Klemmer as “very respectful”, and felt that he would’ve worked through the situation alongside the club if given a chance.
“I’ve had a little bit to do with David Klemmer, like I’ve played many, many times against him, and look he is one of the most competitive and passionate blokes that I’ve played against in my career. He loves footy, he loves playing for the teams that he represents.
“But once the games over, he’s a very, very respectful man. He’ll deal with those situations the way he needs to deal with them respectfully. I don’t know why they’ve gone down this path.”
The Parramatta Eels reported attempted to sign Klemmer on a loan deal for the rest of the 2022 season, but the move was blocked by the Knights.
Klemmer is currently on a deal worth up to $900,000 at Newcastle until the end of next season, but a number of teams could be interested in acquiring his services if he becomes available.
A driver spotted a bloodied woman screaming for help inside the cab of a tractor-trailer on a Jersey highway Wednesday in a disturbing scene straight out of a horror movie.
Officers are now searching for the woman who the witness said was bleeding from her face inside a white semi-truck pulled over to the side of Route 130 near Dayton Toyota, South Brunswick Police said.
The passerby said the woman called out for help before the male truck driver pulled her back into the cab and drove away around 2 pm The truck turned off Route 130 at the Ridge Road exit.
The woman is believed to be white or Hispanic and in her 20s. According to the witness description, she has long brown hair and was wearing a brown flannel shirt.
The driver is a white older man who is bald and has a white beard. He was wearing a blue shirt at the time of the incident, police said.
ALERT-NEED PUBLIC HELP Police looking for white tractor cab in video. At 2pm woman seen yelling for help, bleeding from cab on Rt 130 headed towards Ridge Rd. Suspect – Older white male, bald, white beard. Victim- white/Hispanic female,20s,long brown hair. INFO CALL 732-329-4646 pic.twitter.com/7MJN775Jzd
Ready to begin the five hour flight from Sydney to Perth, Clare Vertannes had her Apple Airpods and noise-cancelling headphones on when she was approached by a Jetstar flight attendant.
At first, the actress and events co-ordinator thought she was being upgraded to first class.
Unfortunately, reality was less desirable.
“I was sitting there minding my own business, and then she was like: ‘Can you please come with me?’” Ms Vertannes told news.com.au, speaking of the flight she took in April 2022.
“I was getting really excited because it genuinely didn’t cross my mind [that I was about to get kicked off the plane]. It’s wasn’t until we walked off the plane, that I started asking questions.”
‘A very dangerous item’
Once her and the flight attendant were on the tarmac, the Perth woman was informed that staff had found a “very dangerous item” – a battery pack – in her checked luggage.
While portable chargers containing a lithium ion battery are banned from check-in baggage, Ms Vertannes was certain she had not packed hers in her suitcase.
“I held up my battery pack and told them I didn’t have a second one,” she said.
“The flight attendants that kicked me off the plane were really rude. I understand they have jobs to do but they didn’t even give me the time of day to explain.
“I asked them to call someone to confirm because there was nothing in my suitcase but I was told to go to baggage claim.”
At the same time she was told she would miss her existing flight and she’d have to pay for her next one.
She claims the flight attendant told her she wouldn’t be reimbursed “because you’ve held up everyone on the current flight”.
On her way to baggage claim, Ms Vertannes began crying.
“It was like I was going to the principal’s office. It was so terrible,” she said.
However, she remembers the surreal moment when she realized the airport had made a terrible mistake. As she was walking to the baggage claim, she claims to have overheard a staff member on the phone.
“She was like: ‘Why would she do that? What’s wrong with you people? I told you to wait for confirmation,’” said Ms Vertannes.
“She then saw us walking towards her she just stops and says into the phone: ‘I think the lady you’ve kicked off is in front of me and she is not impressed.’”
A missed flight and a miscommunication
That’s when she was told that there had been “a miscommunication”. While airport staff had initially found something dangerous in her bag, it turned out to be a false alarm.
“There was nothing in my suitcase. I was actually hoping that there had been something wrong with my luggage, especially after all this drama,” joked Ms Vertannes.
“I said look: ‘Thank you for your apology but I need to get home. Can I get back on my flight now?’”
However, in the time Ms Vertannes had reported to baggage claim, her original flight had taken off. She was then told the next flight wouldn’t be until tomorrow.
While Ms Vertannes said the airline initially refused to pay for another flight that day, she was determined to return to Perth.
“I literally just sat there and stared at her. I know the airport staff was doing their best but I knew that nothing was going to get done unless I just sat there,” she said.
After “an hour or two”, she was approached by a Qantas staff member, who are the parent company for Jetstar. In another twist of events, she had been offered a flight for that day free of charge, however it was scheduled for 8pm, which at that point was around eight hours away.
Looking back at her airport debacle, Ms Vertannes said she was surprised by the lack of services given to her by the airlines.
In a statement to news.com.au, Jetsar says they “sincerely apologize for any misunderstanding and are looking into what took place”.
Much to be desired
Despite the “miscommunication,” she claims she was told she was unable to check in her luggage early. While she decided to meet up with her boyfriend from her back in the Sydney CBD, she was told that she would have had to pay $50 to store her luggage from her at the airport.
Another blow came as she was sitting in her Qantas seat.
“I’m sitting on the Qantas flight and I get an email from Jetstar. It says: ‘thank you so much for your purchase of a pie. That’s $10,’” she said.
“Someone on my flight had charged on foot to my seat and I got that invoice. I was done.
“I remember getting that on the flight and not even being surprised.”
The experience left much to be desired.
Now, in the four months from the ill-fated flight, Ms Vertannes says she’s finally ready to talk about her it.
“When I got back I genuinely needed to recover from the trauma,” she said.
Sharing her experience on TikTok, Ms Vertannes amassed more than 67,100 views, 5100 likes and 285 comments.
Despite this, she hasn’t been thrilled with the airline’s response.
“The flight really upset me. It had an effect on my mental health and it was really stressful. [I asked for] two return flights to a destination around Australia,” she said
“I wanted some form of compensation and I thought I was being quite reasonable.”
To date, in documents seen by news.com.au, Ms Vertannes has been given a $116.22 cash refund and a $350.76 voucher which Jetstar says aligns with the purchase methods used to buy her flight from Jetstar to Qantas.
Later, when she tried to get reimbursed for the $50 taxi fare into the city, she was told they were “unable to provide you with any compensation nor cover your out of pocket expenses”.
“I kept on being in all these phone calls but everything just got too annoying so I took the voucher,” she said.
“But all I wanted was just some compensation and to not be left on the phone for two hours. It’s not that hard.”
Nothing Phone (1) was launched in India last month and went on the first sale on July 21, 2022, followed by second sale last week. The London-based smartphone maker has now announced that the next sale of the handset will take place tomorrow via Flipkart. Nothing Phone (1) To Go on Sale Today in India, Check Offers Here.
Nothing Phone (1) is priced at Rs 32,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model, whereas the 8GB + 256GB variant costs Rs 35,999. The 12GB + 256GB model retails at Rs 38,999. It comes in black and white colors. Nothing Phone (1) features a 6.55-inch FHD+ OLED display, a resolution of 2400×1080 pixels.
Nothing Series #5. We launch Phone (1).
See how we put on a Nothing Event. Go behind the scenes of our parrot photoshoot. And get a glimpse of what’s next.
It is powered by a Snapdragon 778G+ SoC paired with up to 12GB of RAM and up to 256GB of internal storage. For optics, it gets a 50MP primary camera and a 50MP Samsung JN1 ultra-wide-angle lens. Upfront, there is a 16MP selfie camera. The handset packs a 5,000mAh battery with 33W fast charging support.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 04, 2022 11:34 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
