GadgetSpeak Articles
GadgetSpeak has close to 5,000 product reviews and other articles. You can use this page to find others opinions on anything from mobile phones to computers to the latest kitchen appliance
This is an alternative to in/on ear offerings ideal when ‘small’ is required, great for personal listening. The battery should last up to six hours so ideal for studying as a clue to when to take a break, two hours to recharge it and also your own personal battery.
It is a 6.5cm cube with sound coming from the top and both sides. The rear has 3.5mm socket for Auxiliary input, a micro USB socket for charging and an on/off button with LED in it. The bottom has four tiny feet to stop the possibility of the case scratching anything it sits upon. This is primary a Bluetooth unit and linking to your SmartPhone is simple, once paired when turned on it will immediately find your device.
A catch phrase of a comedian of a previous century was "Are you listening Mother?" In modern times, everybody seems to be listening.
According to the American singer/songwriter, Paul Simon, there is a "Sound of Silence". However a recent survey conducted on behalf of Mastercard paints a different picture as we, in the UK, appear to be a "Nation of Good Listeners". It seems, as members of the "Always on" generation, we spend the equivalent of 27 days a year listening to music, podcasts and audiobooks while our individual spending on "audiotainment" rose by 14%, up to £125, in the last year.
I do not watch much live TV on commercial channels but two adverts stick in the mind, the first one for a remote doorbell and the second where a lady has a range of garden ornaments and once one was stolen she installed one of these Hive cameras and now tells the thief – when he returns – to get out of her garden.
Unlike a lot of small external cameras this does not run on batteries so it requires the supplied USB lead to be connected. The lead supplied is 7.5 metres long so should be able to reach a mains outlet in most homes without problem but of course it does mean drilling a hole through a wall, a door, or a window frame to use it. The camera is a 6cm cube with a 4cm magnetic fitment that attaches to its rear; just below this is where the supplied 7.5metre micro USB to USB lead attaches.
The Philips 222B9T 21.5 inch 1920 x1080 touch screen monitor with its 16:9 aspect ratio has been built to the IP54 environmental standard for dust and water protection so it can be used in more arduous situations for point-of-sale (PoS), information kiosks or workshop applications rather than just in the office.
"The Enthralling Realm - The Witch and the Elven Princess","e-FunSift"
While a short snappy title might suit a particular game, a longer title, such as “The Enthralling Realms – The Witch and the Elven Princess”, can give you some idea as to what you are in for when taking on its challenge. This lengthy title offering makes a return to the environment that featured Avis, the master alchemist who has his own school of alchemy, and two orphaned girls, Coral and Iris, who became pupils of Avis.
“Game of Thrones” may have concluded but its influence could still cost you money.
I must confess that I have never watched a single episode of the popular “Game of Thrones” television series. Furthermore I have never been remotely interested in entering this epic fantasy world of feuding parties, turmoil, blood letting and inhabited by Dragons. While this might not seem so surprising, I should add that I am a fan of another series based on a world inhabited by humans and Dragons.
This panel could answer all your viewing requirements. It’s big enough to watch a film comfortably and its range of connections work for a PC or a Notebook/Tablet and even your phone as it even has a USB ‘C’ connection. I used it in HD and a range of other screen sizes up to 4K and it can work in both landscape and portrait modes.
It is 71x41x1.6cm, its stand is circular with one edge flattened this makes it between 23 and 26cm across it raises the panel by between 5 and 24cm from your desk in landscape mode and up to 9cm in portrait mode. The connections are in a line on the back; to the right of the connection arm is the mains lead. To the left of the connection arm are two HDMI then Display Port, USB ‘C’, Ethernet, four – two by two – USB ports and finally Display Port out.
When looking for a bargain handset, you might like to consider an Alcatel unit.
As you might surmise from its title, the Alcatel 1x is an enhanced version of the on this site Adopting the familiar candy bar appearance, this Alcatel 1x smartphone is available in either Pebble Blue or, as in the case of my review unit, Pebble Black. According to the information supplied to me, this particular smartphone is currently available from Carphone Warehouse SIM-free listed at the bargain level price of £99.99. With dimensions of 148.4 x 68.8 x 8.
While I have restored files and folders which have become corrupted the only REAL test is when your computer fails to boot and at the very least this is not a trivial process. Yes my hard disc crashed, so first job is to get it removed from the computers case, second get a replacement drive and then with the aid of the Acronis disc a chance to do a complete restore.
Whether it is a fable or fairy tale, a mother will do anything to rescue her young son.
WWhen magic makes an appearance in a game you can be sure that matters will not always be what they initially seem. For example Chronicles of Magic - Divided Kingdoms, developed by House of Fables, categorises itself as a Hidden Object game but it could easily fit into the Adventure Hidden Object genre as it tells a tale of good and evil.
So while you may see less of a single brand due to a disagreement with Mr Trump, others may benefit and one such brand is Samsung. Here I am looking at the latest offering from Samsung the Galaxy S10, so what does it have to offer.
It is 15.5x7.5x.8cm and weights 177 grams. The notional diagonal imperial screen measurement is 6.4 inches. The screen resolution is FHD+ 2280x1080 but can be cranked up to 3040x1440 if your eye sight is better than mine using an option in Display. There is the front facing camera towards the right edge near the top of the screen, with the other normal things like clock, Wi-Fi, battery state and 4G indicator to its left.
Do you remember those days of carrying your game collection in your pocket? Now you can relive the experience.
Last year I reviewed a Retro Handheld Console developed by Orb Gaming. This product, designed to fit in a pocket for use in various locations, formed part of the Thumbs Up’s extensive catalogue of novelty and useful offerings. Since my original review, the Retro Handheld Console has undergone a number of cosmetic changes to its original design appearance.
I recently told you about two accessories the Arlo Doorbell and Arlo Chime that work via an Arlo Base Station and that comes with the HD wireless camera that is what I looking at in this review as well as the all-important Base Station.
Setting up the base station is just a matter of attaching the supplied mains lead and plugging the supplied Ethernet cable into the router and the base station. As with most recent items it is controlled by your SmartPhone via the Arlo App that you download from the iOS or Android store, next create an Arlo account. Now with the camera within a metre of the base station follow the onscreen instructions to link them together, that’s it.
Edifier adds some additional input methods to its latest speaker system.
The latest speaker system to arrive in the Fereday household for review is the Edifier XM3BT, This combination of letters and a number, is a piece of kit, that consists of a pair of satellite speakers and a toe-stubbing subwoofer if care is not taken with its positioning. when setting up this product As can sometimes happen, the set-up of this speaker system did require some re-arrangement of my computer and home audio layout in order to check out this kit.
TheBat! V.8 is the latest incarnation of a versatile shareware email client which is available in both Professional and Home versions.
There are ghostly figures about with a selection of puzzles and Hidden Object game play, as you tackle the mystery of Mournful Loch.
antasmat: Mournful Loch is a graphics Adventure and Hidden Object game. Published by Big Fish Games, this Eipik developed title attempts to put the player in the correct mood with a flashy opening video sequence and an appeal to turn up your system’s volume level for the maximum effect. You can, from within the game, adjust various levels for music, sound effects, voice dialogue and the music used for cut-scenes.
At the start of April a review of a sibling unit to this one can be found on Gadgetspeak. So here what is quite a similar product on the face of it, however there are surprises like a fingerprint reader that is normally invisible on the screen.
It is 15.5x6.5x.8cm and weighs 159 grams. The viewable screen has the optional diagonal imperial measurement of 6.4inches. Unlike some recent phones that have no edges here there is approximately .3cm on all sides. The display is still over 90% of the screen and ideal for those Apps that require touches near the edge. The top has a central notch on the screen, which drops down into the display in a teardrop by up to .5cm. The back is shiny and moves from Blue to Purple from top to bottom.
Adding to its range of ear buds, RevoNext has developed its QT5 offering.
Well known for its work in exploring the technology involved in the development of personal, private acoustic listening devices, and with a company name being formed from the combination of two words, RevoNext has released its QT5 product. Featuring a dynamic driver and balanced armature design, the QT5 is a set of in-ear headphones that come with the promise of delivering a superior Hi-Fi sound quality.
Finding a small tower is not easy, Dell describe this as a ‘Small Form Factor Workstation’. I was asked to find a sub £600 small Tower. This however does not actually fill the request but it is a very powerful system that would do everything you need. On the face of it the price is only just over that figure but as it’s sold as a business unit VAT has to be added.
It is 29cm tall 8cm wide and when cables are inserted in the back 30cm deep, so it is very small. However it is very powerful with Intel i3, i5 and i7 processor options. The front has a vertically mounted optical drive and the on/off button to the right of this should be a multi card socket (not on the unit sent to me), below this a 3.5mm headphone socket two USB ports side by side and below these a USB3 port and a USB ‘C’ port.
When looking for a portable computer that will not take up too much room in your luggage, this next product might fit the bill.
Avoiding any obvious confusion between the terms “laptop” and “notebook”, when is a laptop product not a laptop? One possible answer to this conundrum is when the device under consideration, belongs to the Ideapad 300 series of units that come with the tagline of “being thinner and lighter with a narrower bezel than your everyday laptop”.
Brush up on your Match 3 game playing skills as you return to the Impossible Universe.
As you can probably surmise, Mundus Impossible Universe 2 is the follow-up title to the similarly named Mundus Impossible Universe. Both titles, developed by Rumbic, fall into the Match 3 category of game play as you are taken on a journey by the Great Shaman to visit and explore some of the worlds making up this unique environment. In the case of this follow-up title, the worlds that form your travel plans start off with one that is, and remains, unnamed.
When struggling to cope with different USB formats, this next device might help.
Standards, especially in the field of computers, can prove useful as different companies build their kit to fit in with, and take advantage of the currently accepted methods of achieving device partnerships. However, due to their popularity, the family of Standards does tend to grow. An obvious example of this is the USB Standard which started life as a device that could be daisy-chained but that it never happened. Now we have several different USB connection formats.
There are a number of video door bells on the market, here something different a door bell that probably still allows your original bell to function but it also allows you to communicate with the caller from your SmartPhone which could be with you miles away or in your lounge and the caller never needs to know if you are there or not, so cold callers cannot test their patter on you.
If you want video views of your callers then Arlo also has a range of offerings, but here I am looking at a door bell that works both locally and via the internet. It is 9x4.5x2.5cm and as such is less noticeable as anything more than just a door bell. If you already have a mains doorbell then you probably can just remove that and put this in its place and in a good percentage of cases the original bell or chime will still function.
Neos might not be a familiar name to regular reader of Gadgetspeak.com but its product might be relevant.
Whereas certain companies, offering security insurance, will tie their subscription rates to those customers who have installed security facilities developed by third parties, Neos has taken this type of partnership a stage further. Instead of concentrating purely on the insurance aspect, Neos has produced a SmartCam device to sit alongside its insurance offering.
This phone is one for those who like to watch films as the format is taller and slimmer than most, of course it still does everything that a phone should it’s just the screen shape that makes landscape use the most likely way to use it.
The Sony Xperia 10 measures 15.3x6.5x.7cm and weighs 162 grams. Startup is 20 seconds and shutdown is 2.5 seconds. The notional diagonal imperial screen measurement is 6inches. Going around the outside the top has a 3.5mm headphone socket, the right side has the on/off button fingerprint scanner and volume up/down rocker. The base has the speakers with USB ‘C’ socket in the centre of the bottom.
Let us step back in time with a quick detour into the future with this next game.
Guard Duty is a graphic adventure game developed by Sick Chicken Studio. This game started life as a hobby project back in 2014 when Nathan Hamley and Andy Saunders-White decided to realise a childhood dream of making a graphic adventure game.
Often a tall or wide building has problems receiving a Wi-Fi signal from a single point, one solution is power over Ethernet giving a connection to a loft or other far flung place but this could still cause problems with anything that is handheld as signals can be lost. Another possible solution is what I am looking at here Zyxel Multi U.
It works in a different way, one unit is connected to your router and can then connect to the next unit and even a third unit but if the signal is stronger from the third to the first it find this so the three units work together with all movements being transparent. For those who still need Ethernet each unit has the ability to connect via that, so not only can you roam around with a handheld device anything that is static can be connected via cable.
Although not providing sustenance for the body, the ThumbsUp avocado can power other devices.
Moving on from an animal basis (mythical and real), ThumbsUp remains in the field of nature with its next product for review. In this case, arriving from ThumbsUp is an Avocado. This is, as you might expect, an electronic rather than natural and edible version of the avocado which is some areas is referred to as an alligator pear or button fruit.
Size matters and here this is a small tower that can deliver as much as most large towers except of course take up far less desk space. So if you need expansion then this unit can give it as there are three slots although one is occupied in the setup sent to me by the graphics card. So what has Acer squeezed into this small format desktop tower.
It is 34cm deep, 16cm wide and 33cm tall. There is a vertically mounted optical drive 6cm down from the top just right of the centre of the front, above this is the turn on button. Towards the bottom of the front on the right edge a pair of always on connections USB ‘C’ and USB3 and below these 3.5mm sockets for headphone and microphone. On the front edges at the top are two small flip out handles to hold your headphones as for a gamer hearing tiny sounds can be life or death.
Adding to its range of smartphones, Sony has released its Xperia L3 model. As is often the case, my review sample of the smartphone handset has been provided by Vodafone for the purpose of this review.
In familiar fashion the front of the handset is dominated by the unit’s display 5.7 inch screen delivering a 75.6% screen-to-body ratio. The Sony Xperia L3 is fitted with an IPs LCD capacitive touch screen that is capable of displaying 16M colours. With a resolution of 720 x 1440 pixels at 18:9 ratio, the screen has a ppi density of ~282. Providing protection for the screen, in the case of accidents, is a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
Older articles
Main Menu
