Starting your own watch company is hard. Unlike, say, hiring a factory in Taiwan to make a bunch of MP3 players for you, creating a watch takes patience, an understanding of the history of horology, and a willingness to risk failure. Thankfully, Buscum Ducis’ Svan van Der Zande has all of these attributes.
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Quick Version: We take a look at three different iPhone/iPod chargers from Kensington, RichardSolo, and i.Sound, weighing the pros and cons of each.
Short Version: The $99 Samsung Highnote is a capable music phone with a 3.5mm headphone jack and built-in stereo speakers. If music’s your thing, the Highnote could serve you well.
Short Version: The $99-after-rebate Quickfire from AT&T is an appealing alternative for the Sidekick crowd, but the promotion of AT&T’s music features without including earbuds or even some sort of adapter for the proprietary connector a real head-scratcher.
Quick Version: Mail-based role-playing for those who love the sound of many-tentacled hellbeasts in the darkness.
Short Version: The Kensington 4-Port USB Charger is an ideal solution for people toting multiple USB-powered gadgets who want to charge more than one of those gadgets at a time without looking for open USB ports and wall sockets.
Quick Version: Starting at under $40, the Sansa Clip from SanDisk makes an excellent wearable MP3 player if you’re looking for something small that still has plenty of features.
Short Version: At well under $600, the 25.5-inch ViewSonic VA2626wm is a good monitor for those of you who want to get into the huge LCD game at a reasonable price. While considered to be somewhat inferior to the comparable Samsung 2693HM, the ViewSonic carries an enticing $50 mail-in rebate until the end of November. Also, it’s good as a computer monitor but it’s even better hooked up to an Xbox 360.
I’ve always had a thing for Tokyo Flash, but it’s always been from a distance. She was so alluring and yet so perplexing. I was awed and mystified. We’ve finally gotten together with the new Tibida. The best thing is how she looks on my arm, sleek and dark. When people see her, it’s all ‘wow’ and ‘cool’ and ‘how much did she cost you?’ She’s bright, much brighter than I thought she’d be. Staring at her one can’t help but be blinded by her blue-ish white radiance.
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Quick Version: The Samsung Rant is an excellent phone for text messaging addicts who want to be able to do a bit of light web browsing over a high speed data network but don’t want all the feature overload of a full-fledged smartphone. And at $49.99 with a two-year contract, it’s priced to move.
Click through for the full review.
Cramming a 14.7-megapixel sensor into something the size of a deck of cards is no small feat, but that’s exactly what Samsung’s done with the TL34HD digital camera. Add to that the ability to record 720p high-definition video at 30 frames per second, a three-inch touchscreen, and an MSRP of $329.95 and you’ve got a camera that appeals to people who want to get a little more out of their point and shoot.
I know Mossberg ‘reviewed’ the service a while back, but he was on the plane by himself with a cornucopia of devices. That’s not a real world situation. I was skeptical of the whole thing like most of you were, but after yesterday I’m completely sold. It’s not earth shattering or anything. I mean, it’s only Wi-Fi on a plane, but it’s finally here and better than expected.
Let’s start with the good. Getting yourself set up is super easy, but there is one caveat. Managing your Gogo account from a mobile device is limited and you’ll need a laptop to get everything up and running. It’s also not really worth it to pay $13 if you’re only going to be using your BlackBerry, iPhone or Windows Mobile device, but I digress. Setup is simple, but if you do run into some problems there is a 24-hour help desk that’s available to you via IM regardless of whether or not you’re connected. I actually used it yesterday and they got me squared away in a matter of minutes. Also, for the next month or two there will be Gogo reps from Aircell wearing mint green polos on board to help customers out. After that there will be telephone CSRs at your beck and call.
Speaking of Symbian we just got the latest from Nokia, the N78. A fairly sexy candybar, this phone has built-in A-GPS, music playback with built-in FM transmitter, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. It runs on WiFi or HSDPA and includes a 2GB microSD card.
Symbian is cleverly made over in this version with nice transitions between menus and a snappier UI. One problem: the keys are really small and I’m kind of worried I won’t be able to hit the buttons. I’ll give it a try for the next few days and report back with a full-review this week.
Well, it’s the end of our little keyboard extravaganza. I thought I should summarize and link to the various reviews in case you missed one and are in the market for a nice, shiny new keyboard. Click the pictures to check ‘em out, or click “more” to get the capsule version of each review.
What is your hand on right now? No, other hand. That’s right, it’s sitting on the home row of a cheap, dirty keyboard. Probably the one that came with your computer. For shame. There is a world of keyboards out there — wireless, media-controlling, programmable, waterproof, there are keyboards that are all of these things and right now I’ve got a baker’s pair of ‘em. That’s “three” to you non-bakers out there.
We’ll be taking a look at three this week: Today, the Razer Lycosa. Tomorrow, the Microsoft’s Wireless Desktop 7000. And Thursday, SteelSeries 7G. They’re not all aimed at the same market, and they’re all quite different, so join me on a wonderful journey to explore some of the awesome keyboards you could be typing on tomorrow.
Update: OMG! Late entry… a commenter mentioned the famous (and newly updated) Das Keyboard, which I will be including as well now. Now are you excited?!
Here are some actual screenshots of the Netflix Player by Roku. As you see, the set-up is quite simple and icon oriented and the whole box is elegant and suffers no extraneous eye-candy.
I recently got the chance to test out a few solid state drives sent to me by Texas-based DV Nation.
I tried a super fast MemoRight GT 32GB 2.5-inch SSD, and two 32GB Mtron SSDs, one 3.5-inch and one 2.5-inch. I also tested a standard desktop and a standard laptop hard drive to see how they stacked up.
Here’s what I found.
By now we’ve beaten the Curve into the ground but that doesn’t mean Verizon can’t try their hand at selling it. The 8330 on Da Big V has VZ Navigator, BroadbandAccess, and a 2 megapixel camera with flash. Thrill to Mobility Today’s rousing video review.
A few weeks back someone unloaded a few BlackBerry 9000 devices on eBay and everyone assumed they were fake except a few people. Kevin over at CrackBerry.com was not one of them. He dropped, roughly, $828 based on a few pictures and the belief that not everyone on eBay is a complete scumball. He got lucky and here’s a brief synopsis of what he found.
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Kodak announced a number of entry- to mid-level point and shoots at CES and the Z1085 IS is one of the higher-end monsters. It is just now shipping and I got the chance to sit down with some Kodak folks to discuss what makes this model better than the rest. Basically, the camera performs considerably more post-processing on the pictures than competitors. We tested it a few times in backlit scenes and the effects were sometimes startling. For example, this shot of PHa was taken against a window. What initially appeared to be a fairly dark, blown out scene was instantly modified by the on-board software to a rather nice shot of a young blogger in the wild.
Expect a full review coming up but right now this model has a 10-megapixel sensor, 5X optical zoom, HD video recording, and it costs $249.95 online.
Hit the jump for a nicely repaired backlit photo. This was taken in auto mode without editing.
