Archive for the ‘ Reviews ’ Category
Korg’s Kaoss Pad is a professional audio sampler, effects processor and MIDI controller. They are characterised by their lit touchpad,
The Kaoss Pad is used by a wide range of artists and DJs, including The Prodigy, Enter Shikari, Muse, Radiohead, Slipknot, The Mars Volta and Beardyman… Read more
The HTC HD2 is the flagship Windows Phone, with some impressive specs. Launched in Europe in November 2009, it won’t reach the North America market until well into 2010. There’s a lot to boast about, and a few pitfalls to consider. But will the HD2 win you over? Read more
At CES last night, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the public beta for Windows 7.
MSDN, TechBeta and Technet subscribers can download the software now, whilst the rest of the public can get their hands on it on Friday 9th Jan (tomorrow) from microsoft.com/windows7
I’ve been using a pre-beta build of Windows 7 (build 6801)as my main PC for a month or so now. With the exception of a couple of drivers missing (which also don’t exist for 64-bit Vista), and the system bluescreening when I overclocked too much, there have been no problems. At all.
It has been a lot more stable than I’ve ever seen Vista, and appears to be just as fast as a ‘used’ installation of XP. Now imagine what the final build will be like!
It has loads of nice features, and seems to be much more logical than Vista. All the changes are necessary and concise, rather than anything feeling like they changed it because they “could”. The new taskbar (which you can enable in 6801) took a small amount of getting used to, and can be slightly confusing if you don’t see the orange glow, or you can’t tell if a programs running, or you accidentally bring up the menu instead of the list of windows. But overall it’s a good feature.
I suggest that anyone who ever tries out new operating systems gets the Windows 7 beta. Your faith in humanity (and Microsoft) might just be restored…
Check out our (small) Windows 7 Image Gallery, or google for images.
EDIT: You can now download the beta version of Windows 7 here – choice of 32 or 64 bit. The server seems to be busy (and refusing requests), and there are only 2.5 million downloads available, so you might not be lucky!
EDIT: It’s gone! “Due to very heavy traffic we’re seeing as a result of interest in the Windows 7 Beta, we are adding some additional infrastructure support to the Microsoft.com properties before we post the public beta. We want to ensure customers have the best possible experience when downloading the beta, and we will be updating this page once the beta goes live. Stay tuned! We are excited that you are excited!”
EDIT: “Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal — we’re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.”
EDIT: The links are still down (Saturday 4pm GMT) but the downloads are actually still available on the Microsoft servers. Click to download 32 Bit or 64 Bit Windows 7.
The TVonics DTR-Z500 is a digital-terrestrial Personal Video Recorder (PVR) – basically a Sky+ or V+ box for recording free-to-air digital TV; also imaginateively known as Freeview+
It has several advantages over Sky+ and V+, since they both require a subscription to their services. According to TVonics, Sky+ installation costs up to £150, and there’s a minimum subscription of £16 per month. However, the Z500 works off terrestrial digital TV (not cable or satellite), which is free to receive and watch. The Z500 costs just under £200, so is instantly cheaper on paper, if you use it for more than a couple of months.
As for features, there’s another big difference – the Z500 has a 500GB hard drive for recording TV to, which works out to 250 hours of digital TV. This is massive in comparison to Sky+, which can only offer 40 hours. Other features are equally impressive – the Z500 can record two channels whilst watching a recording (or record one, and watch/record a second), pause and rewind live TV, and schedule recordings using the in-built Electronic Programming Guide (EPG)… Read more
The Oral-B Triumph with SmartGuide, also known as the ProfessionalCare 9000, is cited as Oral-B’s most technologically advanced toothbrush. But it’s less of a brush, and more of a total dental healthcare system.
Just looking at what’s included is enough to make any dentist squirm for his job. As well as the brush unit, charger, brush container and travel case, there’s the SmartGuide wireless display. This wirelessly connects to your brush and relays a lot of useful information. It’s battery powered and sufficiently waterproof to live on the side of your sink.
The SmartGuide shows you how long to brush each quadrant of your mouth for to reach the recommended 2 minute total brushing time, and your brushing time is coutned on the screen. It also warns you if you’re brushing too hard (with a bright red triangle), tells you when to replace the head, and even has an icon to show which brushing mode you’re using. And when you’re not brushing, it’s a useful digital bathroom clock, which actually comes in handy when rushing to work and need to shorten your beauty regime… Read more
The BT Stratus 1500 is a very stylish cordless landline phone set, coming into the middle of the cordless market, between £40 and £90 for the various sets. The unit we tested was the standard single unit, with one handset and a base.
The 1500 has all the features we expect from these phones, such as a 100-number phonebook, polyphonic ringtones. It also features text messaging, and fairly good battery life. However it does lack a colour screen which other comparable devices do feature.
The handset features a white on black screen, and sunken buttons for a smooth streamlined finish. The Stratus’ functions include text-messaging, polyphonic ringtones and a 100 name and number phonebook.
The Stratus 1500 has a range of up to 300 metres outdoors and 50 metres indoors; and boasts battery life of up to 10 hours talktime and 100 hours standby time.
The handset feels firm and comfortable; and although light, feels robust and worth holding. However other people who have tried our unit have complained that they have to grip the phone, due to it being quite thin, and that it is awkward to hold between ear and shoulder. The buttons are the silly type of U-cut in the faceplate, which means that only around half the button actually pushed in. They don’t have to be pushed in far, and the click and beep is useful to reassure that it has been pressed… Read more
If your office is anything like ours, stuffy doesn’t come close to describing it. Spending all day in a darkened room with computers generating insane amounts of heat may be fun, but your nose won’t forgive you for it. It’s not just bad smells, but dust gets everywhere and there is quite a high risk of spreading pathogens and allergens in this environment.
The Cleanaer from Aerstream [sic] is a handy little device for dealing with the internal elements. It silently disperses electrostatically charged droplets which attach themselves to dust, smoke, odours and other flying paraphernalia in your office or bedroom. This makes those particles heavy, so they instantly sink to the ground and you don’t breathe them up. Amazingly, this same treatment works on flies and other flying insects. Apparently pet odours, cigarette smoke and fungi are all removed too.
Admittedly, I was sceptical at first. Why does the world need another glorified air freshener? Surely ones that puff out choking industrial-strength solvents in time with your favourite songs is enough? Alas, the Cleanaer certainly surpasses my expectations… Read more
The Pantone Huey is a relatively simple screen correction device. Quite simply, it measures your monitor and corrects the colour so that your screen displays true colours.
Why would you want to calibrate your monitor? If you are in the print, web design or gaming industries then there’s a good chance that you are designing things for display onscreen or in print. If your monitor is not displaying colours in their true form, you are at risk of producing designs that look great on your monitor but are unbalanced on others or in print. The Pantone Huey is a simple and effective way of tuning your monitor to display colours more accurately. It’s also a great way just to get you seeing graphics better, and a well-calibrated monitor can really make gaming seem more intense than the out-of-the-box default settings… Read more
Mobile phones are with us all day – for many people they are an integral part of everyday life. Recent legislation in the UK has banned driving whilst holding a mobile phone, yet this law is regularly flounced. Bluetooth is a great technology, allowing devices to securely communicate with each other both ways over short distances, and the most common use for it is with mobile phones.
I’m not pretending that the Jabra BT125 is the first bluetooth headset available for mobile phones – that would be ridiculous. There are hundreds of models on the market, and you can even get them free with certain phone deals. However, surely that proves that this is a worthwhile technology, and if we can find a device that performs the functions we want for a relatively low price, then that’s great for everybody.
So let’s suggest you wanted a bluetooth headset – something to wear whilst driving, or just so you could keep your hands in your pockets whilst on the phone in winter. Whatever your reason, you don’t want to be spending hundreds of pounds on gimmicky features like a scrolling screen, 100-metre range or inbuilt QWERTY keypad. You just want a nice low-priced decent headset that can answer calls… Read more
When I first got wind of the RIM Blackberry Pearl it didn”t have me chomping at the bit to get my hands on one as its bulky design and “no thrills” approach has failed to impress today”s consumer.
So when I received a smallish cylindrical tube with the words “looks can be deceptive” written across it, they certainly weren”t lying. I thought some one had made a mistake and perhaps forgotten to send me the actual phone, I mean nothing as clunky as a Blackberry could fit in that, right? !. Wrong!
They say that first impressions count and that was certainly the case when the phone dropped out of the cylinder into my hand – it screamed buy me. If it hadn”t been so cold out I might have been tempted to head down to the high street and grab one. With its stylish black and chrome finish, it oozes class and sophistication “” but that aside RIM have provided all the whistle and bells one would expect to find on any consumer smart phone. Read more
The LG KF600 is a modern, stylish slide phone, following on from LGs Chocolate with an adaptive touchscreen navigation and control system taking up a third of the screen area.
Other features include Bluetooth 2, supporting A2DP, which is the current standard for Bluetooth stereo audio; a 3.0 Megapixel camera; and a Micro SD slot inside the phone, which inconveniently requires the battery to be removed.
Overall, the KF600 is a very usable phone. I recently used it for a week, and found it the most pleasurable I’ve used. The phone has excellent build quality with incredibly satisfying feedback from the sliding mechanism.
The touch screen was very informative, and took just the right amount of pressure to make it function, but a worry was that the soft plastic used for the touch screen was used for the rest of the screen as well. One great function was when images are being reviewed, the touch screen displays a thumbnail of the image, allowing speedy navigation across it whilst zoomed in… Read more
The Nokia E90 communicator is the eleventh-generation Communicator phone, which are all essentially large high-spec mobile phones with wide screens and qwerty keyboards inside. Unlike the previous generations however, the E90 is on a par with competitors in the field, rather than lagging a few years behind. Launched just over a year ago, the E90 features quad-band GSM, 2100 WCDMA, UMTS, WiFi b/g, 3.6Mbps HSDPA radios, Bluetooth 2.0, A2DP for bluetooth stereo audio, a 3.2 megapixel camera (with flash), a second VGA camera inside for video calling, GPS and Nokia Maps. Inside it has an ARM11-based TI OMAP2420 processor running at 330 MHz, 128 MB of RAM (80MB available), a 800×352 screen inside and 240×320 outside. It has a full-speed USB 2.0 connector for data transfer and an SD card slot, although it also came with a MicroSD adapter… Read more
Apple has never been big on two-buttoned mice. Ever since the Lisa in the 80s, they have always shipped a one – button mouse with their desktop computers. Apple admirers claimed it was for simplicities sake, and critics said it was because Macs were for idiots, and as such they could only use one-buttoned mice. However, Apple recently announced a new mouse. They jumped the gap and went straight from one button to four, surprising everyone.
The OoBE (or ‘Out of Box Experience’) is typical Apple – small, stylish and very nice. There’s not really a lot to say about the packaging; it has some pictures of the mouse and an Apple logo on it, and thats it. Opening it up reveals the Mighty Mouse tucked away in a cardboard holder.
The Mighty Mouse utilizes USB 1.1 or 2.0, and has an 800dpi optical sensor (with a red LED underneath). However, there is a wireless version available which uses Bluetooth and has an invisible laser sensor instead (this review applies to both models since the wireless version is virtually identical)… Read more
The N800 is described by Nokia as an ‘Internet tablet’ – its a handheld touchscreen device capable of browsing the Internet through WiFi. Unusually for Nokia, it isn’t a mobile phone, althought it is capable of making calls over the Internet.
The specs of the N800 include a TI CPU, two SD slots, 128 MB RAM, 256 MB flash storage, 4.1′ 800×480 touchscreen, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3.5mm headphone jack and mini-USB port. The device sports an integrated pop-out VGA webcam, a kickstand and a slot for the stylus. It also came with a 128mb miniSD card (and SD adapter), protective pouch, mains charger, USB data cable (not for recharging), spare stylus and earphones… Read more
The good: 2.0 megapixel camera with Autofocus function, A2DP,
The bad: Grainy digital images, uses Memory Stick Micro
Shockgadgets verdict: Putting aside the disappointing performance of the camera this neat and attractive handset is very user-friendly – packed with features it’s pretty good value for money.
Full Review
Sony Ericsson launched a glut of new phones earlier in the year in an effort to appeal to a much broader audience – the result was the launch of two Cyber-shot-branded handsets – theK550i and K810i. We have the lower spec K550i to play with this time round and we are expecting a great deal from the camera totting phone even if it is the lower spec of the two…