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
Fed up with terrestrial landscapes then venture further afield with Distant Landscape
Play your ipod through your car radio via an FM channel. Still illegal in this country. But only just.
I recently took delivery of a beautiful shiny white 30GB Apple ipod and was anxious to use it to it's full potential, which of course mean't playing it whilst out driving. I had run my last MP3 player via a cassette adaptor, but was determined to make the ipod in car experience as wireless as possible. Skimming through the internet for solutions brought up the Griffin ITrip FM transmitter.
Use any MP3 player in your car via an FM channel. Illegal (just) but worth doing.
So the search went on for the ultimate ipod incar experience, you may have read my earlier on this site and how I was non too impressed with it's performance. Well my search took me to Maplins electronics store in my home town where I spoke to a staff member about my mission to find an FM transmitter for the ipod that retained clarity and reduced background hum.
With space at a premium an All-In-One is often the answer here I am looking at a unit not much larger than a lot of printers, but it also scans and copies. The latter without needing the PC connected.
The is 41x27x16cm when not in use. The 27cm depth just about doubles when the drop down tray that is the paper input and output is lowered and extended. You need a few centimetres of clearance above to place items on the flatbed to scan but apart from that it can happily sit on a shelf it weights a tad over 5Kg.
Why wait to print your digital photographs when you could use a portable photo-printer.
The rise in the popularity of digital cameras has seen the development of printers designed specifically for the purpose of printing the images captured by these devices. Generally referred to as photo-printers, these units are generally compact for easy portability and provide several methods of receiving data. One such device is the PP500 from Kodak's EasyShare range of products.
A futuristic coffee machine that has special coffee and dried milk capsules (pods) that quickly combine to make currently four kinds of coffee that are top notch.
Currently the comes with a starter pack of coffee and dried milk capsules as well as a cup/saucer and glass to give that coffee shop appearance. However the main thing with this machine is the speed of making a Cappuccino or Latte Macchiato both of which require a milk and a coffee capsule or an Espresso or Caffe Lungo that are drunk black and require just a single capsule. If the machine is switched on cold water is turned into a hot drink in around 20 seconds.
An eight megapixel camera for under £200 is possible with the Kodak C875
The C875 is a digital camera that forms part of Kodak's Easy Share range. Classified as a "point and shoot" model, this is an eight mega-pixel camera with 5x optical zoom and 21 pre-programmed scene modes. Emphasising the "point and shoot" nature of this camera is Kodak's decision to provide a basic wrist-strap rather than a more sturdy travel pouch for carrying this camera when out and about - it is immediately available for those impulse photographs.
This is a compact All In One unit, however while it is small and the controls are easy to use, all is not as it should be.
The is 39x35x16cm and light grey and black in colour. There are a total of 15 buttons all at the right side of the front edge of the top along with a rather poor LED display that you always seem to be at the wrong angle to view what it is saying. The front has two card slots as well as a PictBridge one. It is nice to see a proper paper tray - rather than an open shelf-printed results are delivered face up on a shelf just above the paper tray.
Both of the products reviewed here are new versions of old favourites. Monopoly using a credit card rather than cash and a 1990s version of Trivial Pursuits.
The latest LG phone has pretensions of being your personal DJ.
LG entered the UK mobile phone arena around three years ago. Since then the company has increased its mobile product portfolio to its current level of 35 models. One of these is the LG U400 unit which adds a 2.0 mega-pixel camera and DJ-style music compatibilities to its telephonic features. This phone, at the time of writing exclusive to the 3 network, is predominately black with silver and blue trimmings.
There are two versions of this phone the E50-1 with camera and the one I looked at the E50-2 without the camera.
This is a small but solid neat phone that looks businesslike, not having a camera seems a little strange but some companies prefer it as then employees cannot photograph documents, I was amazed when I heard that but I am told it is true. The dimensions are 11x4x1.5cm and it weights around 100grams. The 4x3cm screen is bright and easy to read. This is required as the top 1.
Containing features that could be described as small, fiddly, sexy and slow, this music player is also not over-endowed with storage capacity.
One thing you can always say about Maxfield products is that this German company does try to be different when it comes to the packaging. When a small silver coloured box, measuring 100 x 100 x 75mm, arrives you wonder, or maybe hope, that some kind person has sent you some quality chocolates or perhaps a personalised cake. But the labelling on this box quickly reveals that this is a Maxfield music player that goes by the name of MAX-SIN Touch.
This is probably just too big to fit in most pockets but the lack of a case is not vital as the lens is covered and the screen is capable of being rotated 180 degrees as with a lot of camcorders.
The is 11.5x6.5x5cm and weights around 350grams. This is an 8mega pixel unit with 4x optical zoom. The SD card supplied is only 16MB (down probably to pressure from retailers) but I was very surprised to find it comes only standard with (4) AA batteries. Canon PowerShot A630 The TFT screen is all but 5x4cm and is described as a 2.5 inch LCD. The lens is 7.3-29.2mm giving the 4x optical.
With USB dominating connectivity issues, extra ports will always prove useful.
Say it very quietly I am looking at something that is pink, in fact worse than that its a series of things that are pink and at least one of them will not be able to be used behind locked doors.
Apart from the fact that it is obviously aimed at the female this is a rather good small portable DVD player. The claimed time for use on batteries is only two hours but I never got less than 165 minutes and on one occasion I got 174 minutes. You can of course run it from the mains and should you wish you can plug it into a TV.
A meteorite has landed preprogrammed with games that are truly out of this world, find, memorise and push the twelve buttons to control the ten different games
clear all ten games to play the final showdown.
When you realise that Lindy Electronics started life making petrol lamps in the 1930s, it is not surprising the companys latest offering has a glow.
As the prices of LCD fall the idea of picking one of the cheapest is perhaps not as stupid as it seems. A 32inch LCD TV for less than £600 and with free delivery.
Firstly this has all the connections at the rear including D-SUB and HDMI. It is an analogue unit, however if you attach a Freeview box to it you are all but up to date. I would have loved to have used the excellent DigiFusion FVRT200 box (29/3/06) but that was long since returned as it also has a built in PVR and has a dual tuner built in.
Described as the easy way to create video and slideshow disks sounds just like DVD MovieFactory 5 Plus is the type of software we need to check out.
There are not many things left that a mobile phone cannot do however this is the first I know that you can watch live TV on, I mean live and not a link via who knows where.
It is 11x6x2cm and weights only 150grams. Apart from a slight bulge on the right side it looks like a lot of other mobile phones. The screen is 4.5x3.5cm with a single button on that bulge on the right saying TV on the button. Below the screen there are 18 keys and five position controller. The left side has two buttons - volume up and down - while the top has the on/off button and the right side has a single button to activate the camera.
Broadband, Internet and mobile phones all come together with a new initiative from Hutchinson Whampoa.
A rainy day in London brought together some of the major movers and shakers from the IT community. It is not often that your intrepid reporter gets to rub shoulders with high up members of Skype, Sling Media, Yahoo!, eBay, Nokia, Microsoft, Orb, Sony Ericsson and Hutchinson Whampoa. Yet here we were, sheltering from the British climate, to celebrate a new vision for the communication future.
Most people think that PDF is the sole property of Adobe, however other companies make packages that can create and convert PDF files, here I am looking at packages from Abbyy and Nuance (ScanSoft), both cost a fraction of the Adobe product.
Want to cut down on the clutter in your pockets? The Sony Ericsson k800i can replace your phone, iPod, digital camera and personal organiser with a single, neat, light weight gadget!
I've just upgraded (painfully) my venerable . I've had it for over 4 years now and unfortunately the battery is now giving up the ghost. It's cheaper to get a new phone than a new battery - crazy? Probably. My choice this time round is the . I wanted a phone that did everything and was likely to last another four years. This phone meets the former requirement - only time will tell on the latter! Physically the phone is smaller than my old Nokia at 105x47x22mm and a little lighter at 115g.
If you feel your computer does not appreciate you then perhaps you need to add a glow to the relationship.
If asked to list the top ten features I would look for, or hoped to be included, in a desktop set (keyboard and mouse) then I can honestly state that a feature regarding illumination would not be included. Belkin, however, would appear to be of a different opinion. The company's latest desktop set has both the keyboard and mouse providing an illuminated display.
These used to very expensive and only really for a graphic artist, now apart from the specialist companies some others have produced them at reasonable prices one such is the Hyper Pen 12000U as sold by Gizoo.
Looking for a multi-purpose D.I.Y. tool then maybe this next product might be of interest.
Recently I reported on a gadget that combined the features of an AM/FM radio with a torch, now from the same source, , it is the turn of a device that comes with the offer of four separate functions found within a single product. This multi-function device, bringing together a calculator, tape measure, memo pad, and a white LED light, is listed as a tape measure with press-up calculator on the company's website. www.gadgeter.
Once again the yearly round of new product updates has started and the first of the 2007 crop to come my way is Microsoft Encarta 2007 Reference Suite and Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference Suite.
Paint Shop Pro has undergone a slight name change with the latest version of the software.
With the latest release of , Corel has not only increased the version number (still sticking with Roman numerals) but also added the word "Photo" to the title. I'm tempted to say that you certainly get a lot of "P's" for your money but perhaps not.
Fancy a special Genre of music then RadioTracker 2 can help you to find your choice and automatically record tracks in MP3 mode onto your hard disc.
Countdown was the first program on Channel 4 when it launched, now there is another quiz show on that channel that has a huge audience Drummond Park licence two versions of the game in the UK.
One of the gems I saw at Dream Toys this year a certain hit, maybe almost as big 'can I have a 'P' please Bob' in case you are not old enough that was an ITV quiz called Blockbusters. There are two versions of this game a board version and a console version, the latter is the one for me. First a disappointment it requires 4xAA batteries and they are not supplied.
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