Welcome to CrunchGear’s Gala Best of 2008 Awards featuring the Best Gear, Gadgets, and Software of 2008. Best of all, we tallied your responses and collated them in the People’s Choice awards. Now that I’m wearing my tux, let’s get right to the awards.
Short Version: The Philips DC910 is great-sounding system for playing music from your iPod, a USB thumb drive, an SD card, FM radio, or up to two external sources — all for under $150.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an audiophile. I enjoy music and I enjoy good sound but I have yet to be bitten by the high end audio bug. I understand that good audio gear is expensive but have also yet to feel that headphones are worth $1,700.
And yet, why am I so fascinated with the Ultrasone Edition9 headphones, a pair of closed-back cans with natural surround sound and an 8-35,000 Hz frequency range? What makes these headphones better or worse than anything else? What have I been missing?
Quick Version: In a world chock full of streaming music devices, the Philips Streamium NP1100 blends into the crowd as a straightforward, easy-to-use network device.
The Quick Version: The DVDO Edge will restore amazement and wonder to your high definition TV. It’s that good.
For months now, I have been trying to play .MKV and other video files on my living room front projector. At first I tried to connect a laptop directly to the TV. But this didn’t always work, the audio was crappy, and it was awkward to have a laptop connected to the projector.
I started using my XBOX 360 to play video files. At first I wanted to stream the files across my network. This worked every once in a while, but mostly it was an exercise in frustration. And I got miserable fast forward and rewind capability because of the network bottleneck.
Read More
We’ve reviewed a lot of home audio solutions, and they all offer different benefits and drawbacks. The big trend is “music everywhere”, whether through powerline networking or wirelessly. Most of these products require a specific music source to feed into the system. Sonos brings something rather more complete to the goal of “music everywhere”. Read on for the complete review of the Sonos solution.
Read More
Short Version: The EOS wireless audio system is dead simple to set up and use, although a high price tag and so-so sound quality might keep some people away.
Short Version: Are you an iFamily? Got lots of iDevices between you, your iDo, and maybe some iKids? Is your house sooooo big that it’s just too much trouble to walk to where your computer is to charge said iGadgets? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the Griffin PowerDock 4 is 4U. If you are Brady-sized, you will need two of these.
Read More
To the point: A nice plasma that offers a quality image, good colors, and a great scaler. Too bad it’s overpriced.
Short Version: A full-featured 22-inch HDTV with a built-in DVD player for under $400, the N2201w from ViewSonic is a great option as a bedroom TV, office TV, or dedicated gaming TV.
As a dilettante musician I enjoy the concept – if not the process – of recording my reedy, whiny voice to digital files. Until recently, that process was fraught with trouble and high quality recording equipment was difficult to obtain and expensive. Now anyone with a six-string and a dream can record fairly acceptable audio with something like the Belkin GoStudio.
Why do you need a pig-shaped iPod dock? I don’t know, but it exists and it’s a sensible little device. The pig blows out some thin music but it’s nice and heavy on the bass and it looks great in a kids room. It is audiophile quality? Absolutely not, but it comes with a mini-remote that controls most iPod features and it costs about $150 – probably less when it comes to retail stores. Best of all, the website encourages you to make your neighbors jealous:
This speaker can be placed anywhere: on a shelf , a desk or any place you want in your rest room, study, sitting room……it will never makes you disappointing, but the only thing you should care is your neighbor’s jealousy.
Bottom Line
Great iPod dock for kids, the porcine inclined.
Quick Version: The $99.99 Pure-Fi Anytime is a good choice as an alarm clock and single-room speaker system. If you’ve got your life on your iPhone, you’ll appreciate this gadget as it pulls double duty as a bedside phone charger and music player.
The Pinnacle Video Transfer is a $99 device that promises easy one-touch recording to a myriad of devices including USB memory sticks and external hard drives as well as direct recording to the Sony PSP and iPod Video, Nano, and Classic devices.
In short, it’s super easy and it works well.
There hasn’t been a gadget that I was initially interested about more than the ZvBox. In my world of 250 press releases a week and thousands of random gadgets, that’s something. The device hijacks a QAM channel over your home’s coax network and streams digital media through it. Since most people already have coax ran, at lease close to their HDTVs, the concept is solid. With that being said, it was like Christmas morning when I received the review unit, but quickly turned into Christmas ’89. The year the big package under the tree turned out to be luggage rather than the PowerPad I was expecting. Yeah, I am that disappointed with the ZvBox.
In fact, when I was initially done testing the unit, I was convinced that I was going to send the unit back to the company, as I didn’t want to embarrass anyone. Then a few minutes later it hit me that I do not review products for companies but rather for you, the reader. There are some fine aspects to this product but you really should read on to hear the rest.
These Wi-Fi radios have come a long, long way. Case in point, I have an old Linksys WMLS-11B from almost five years ago that requires me to spin around in a circle two times, add a single drop of blood to exactly 6.3 ounces of room-temperature tap water, and paint the Toyota Camry logo on my chest backwards before I can get the thing to reliably stream music wirelessly. Fast forward to the present day, and I just hooked up the Aluratek AIRMM01F and had it streaming music in under a minute.
My TV has two HDMI inputs but I have four HDMI-based entertainment devices I’d like to hook up to it. What’s a girl to do? Boy! I meant to say “boy” instead.
Welcome to the exciting world of HDMI switchers! Today we’ll take a look at the HDS-41Rv13 HDMI switcher from RT COM.
I’m new to the video review thing, so forgive me if the thing above is too long by half, which I’m pretty sure it is. I’ve included a traditional text review as well, in case you don’t want to look at my smirking video-face. Anyhoo, I’m reviewing Razer’s Piranha gaming headset. If you’re in the market for a headphones/microphone combo, this is a pretty solid bet; click below for details, pictures, and so on.
Everyone wants to have parties outside, music thumping under the sun. It just feels classy. Plus you get to show your neighbors how many friends you have. Thing is, most boom boxes turn to breathless junk as soon as they’re outside and, between wiring and weather proofing, rigging up a high-quality speaker solution outdoors is a bit past the average consumer. The $699 OutCast speaker is Soundcast’s answer to these problems. Wireless and weather-resistant, it’s built to party by the pool.
The Soundcast OutCast had the unfortunate luck of arriving on my door step just days before I flew to Asia for a month. There it sat in my garage, sans melody, waiting longer to be poked and prodded than any gizmo should ever have to. I would have brought it with me if I could, of course, but I don’t think Homeland Security would have appreciated me carrying a 60 lb electronics-filled metal cylinder onto a plane.
Now that I’ve returned, it’s time for the OutCast to let its voice be heard. That it does – and it does it well.
