Reviews: January 2007 Archives

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.

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...

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...

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...