It's no longer $120 a year. It went up to $15.99/month a few months ago (in the middle of my annual billing cycle).
As a hobbyist photographer who sometimes does a lot with photography and sometimes very little I despise subscriptions, I'm putting the effort into learning Darktable and look forward to canceling my Adobe subscription.
I went to bingo years ago and there was a glass partition between the smoking and non, but it didn't go to the ceiling. So you'd sit in the non and just watch a wave of cigarette smoke roll over the top of the glass into your area... I only went once because of that.
I think that depends on what sites you are using/things you are doing with it. The only time the fans turn on for me is one specific dashboard in Home Assistant. Nothing else I connect to even moves the needle on temperature/CPU use
I use mine so I own my own data. Almost nothing I use talks to the internet but I still have a smart house (that runs just fine when my internet is out).
And while it took some tinkering to setup (back in the "edit all the yaml" days), I barely touch it anymore, I have it set how I like it and that's that.
You must have some funky electricity at your place, I have two smart bulbs (a TP-Link wifi and a generic Zwave) that get daily use and have been running fine for 7 years now.
Same, 5800X in my X470 AORUS mobo and it's been fantastic, no desire to upgrade (already had the 64gb ram, so the CPU swap was simple, I think I got $50 from my old 2700 cpu)
There's loads of things at Microcenter you CAN hold in your hand though, plenty of keyboards, mice, game controllers out on display you can handle and see what you think. Their 3d printer section usually has all the printers running and printing something so you can see the speed and judge how noisy it is. Same with their computer cases, out on display so you get a feel for how big it is or how easy it is to get to the drive cages for example.
There's a lot of products there you can inspect in a way that online just doesn't do.
I have an N100 miniPC that I'm using as an OPNSense firewall, claims to be fanless but it killed an NVME drive.
Now I just have a small usb-powered fan aimed at it and it runs fine. Fortunately for me it's in the basement so I don't have to see or hear it, but the fanless versions run super hot in my experience.
I have one of the Brake Free lights and it uses an accelerometer, it's NOT just a basic tilt switch. Nor does it rattle when riding, it's a very solid unit.
I've had friends following me (both in cars and motorcycles) who comment later they can't believe how much more visible it makes me.
It does attach to a helmet and require that you periodically recharge the battery but I'm very happy with the purchase (as opposed to just flashing the brake lights on the bike when slowing)
As a hobbyist photographer who sometimes does a lot with photography and sometimes very little I despise subscriptions, I'm putting the effort into learning Darktable and look forward to canceling my Adobe subscription.