Publication History For : Paul Smart
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There are lots of streaming services out there perhaps the best known is Spotify but that has one big minus good quality MP3 is the best available. Recently I told you about Qobuz that offered better and here TIDAL that offers you FLAC.
They have two subscription price points according to their site £9.99 for MP3 they call it Premium and £19.98 for FLAC which they call Hi-Fi, both those figures are monthly there are other figures given for six month and for more than one person. There is a Free Trial available and during that time you can cancel without any charges being made to your credit card or Pay Pal account.
Being able to try a program for seven days and remain anonymous, or thirty days just for giving a little personal information is a big plus in making a decision as to if this program does exactly what you want it to do, yes it has a free trial.
This package is an easy video editing program, so easy that a single eight minute tutorial gives you all you need to know to link any number of clips together and add captions and even music to make your own efforts look professional for not a lot of work. From the opening screen you have two choices import a video or videos or open an already started project. The import can be direct from a camera or from a file previously imported to your PC. Select all the clips you want to link together.
If you want a PC to browse the Internet and to send a receive Emails there is an option that can avoid Windows. It is a Chromebook. This rather nice offering is from HP and unlike the very early Chromebooks you can still work offline.
The HP Chromebook 14 G3 measures 34x23.5x2cm and weighs 1605grams. The viewable screen is 31x17.5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 14inches. The screen resolution is 1920x1080. It took me a while to get used to the turquoise blue colour of the screen and keyboard surrounds but this does not show fingermarks. The case back is white as is the keyboard. Chrome keyboards have always shown characters in lower case not a problem just different.
Alcatel better known for budget phones have made a venture into Smart Watches this latest version is aimed at the 18-30+ plus market so as someone who is definitely 30+ I gave an early sample the once and twice over to see what it could do.
My sample was white – but I am told other colours will be available. The dial is 3.3cm across by 2.6cm top to bottom; the bottom area is squared off. There are just two buttons, on/off on the right side and touch below the screen to light the display. On first touch of the display you get an analogue watch with a rather nice display which stays for five seconds unless you press something again.
This is the latest version of a trusted Backup program. It is designed to make the job of file backup easy and if it becomes easy then maybe more people will do what is a boring job more regularly. This is not a full system backup just a file backup there is a distinct difference.
This is designed to backup four categories only, Music, Videos, Photos and Documents. You can choose any combination of the four groups and simply give it a destination and let it get on with things, if you wish it will even turn your PC off when it’s finished. This process can be done at whatever intervals you wish, it can be one off or even a continuous job whenever a file is added or changed, you decide.
In the right hands this product can give you amazing results, it can create 3D images from photographs add cartoonish features and much more however it can also create lip sync to audio or voice so you can be there even when you are not.
In my hands it created a reasonable 3D image of me from a forward facing head and shoulders shot and a selfie side on. You just click a number of points around your head to match eyes and mouth end of nose etc. and it does the rest. In total around five minutes from importing the images. This was only rough but the image was quite good.
If you have touch then you should have Windows 10 as it was designed with that in mind, certain things like annotations only work with touch. So a Notebook and Tablet all in one with Windows 10 should be the way to go.
The unit is 29.5x20x1.5cm and it weighs 1176grams. Unlike some devices that are tablets with an attachable keyboard this unit is the conventional Notebook design with it becoming a Tablet when the screen in turned through 180degrees and then the keyboard and trackpad – although exposed – become dead until you turn the unit back into a conventional Notebook.
This is a three in one unit (no fax) it prints, scans and copies. With recent units this can not only be via a PC but also other devices via the WWW. It is unlikely to pass the lounge police so with Wi-Fi it can sit behind the sofa or even in a cupboard.
The Epson ET-2550 measures 46.5cm wide, 41cm tall (with A4 paper inserted in the rear insert tray) and 42cm deep with input and output trays open, so this is nearly a cube. Apart from Wi-Fi you can also link it via USB. Give yourself plenty of time and some old newspapers – not to read – to place under the unit as however careful you are a few drops of ink will spill and better on old newspaper than the carpet.
As most will know Braun and Gillette are under the same ownership. Normally Braun mainly deals with dry shaving and Gillette deal with wet shaving. So this is a combination device that can be used dry or wet when the occasion demands.
Recently I have covered head hair and beard hair. Or course the requirements or shaving cover other parts of the body as well as what is normally on show for all to see. Fashions change and I have heard from younger people in a relationship that if she shaves or waxes the lower part of her body she expects him to do the same. I am aware some prefer to go to their hairdresser for such treatments but most surely get a ‘friend’ to access such areas.
A pair of on/over ear headphones, a pair of rather comfortable on/over ear headphones, a pair of on/over ear headphones giving an excellent sound. Put all these together and you get the PhonAudio Headphones with the less than catchy name of PHN100.
These are designed for use with ‘i’ devices, so if you have a recent iPod, iPhone or iPad then the full range of functions are available. For other devices then you have a very decent set of on/over ear headphones. The rubberised lead is 1.3 metres long. I cannot tell you about the box or anything else it may or may not contain as I was sent just the headphones and detachable lead. 30cm down the lead is a single button control on one side and a range of presses will do most things.
I am sure we have all misplaced our keys, I know the last time I did it cost £160 for a replacement lock and yes you’ve guessed it they were then located. Here something that may help in the more mundane task of finding them around the home or maybe even further away.
Voila has been developed by Philippe Stark who is known as an iconic designer. This looks like a USB stick it is 6.5cm long, .6cm wide and 2.2cm across. The top end has a hole with which you can attach it to your keyring, the bottom end has a 1cm area in a transparent plastic in one of four colours mine was orange. You can have different colours for different things and they show up in that colour on the App.
Until recently mobile phones could accept up to 32GB micro SD cards which gave you another way of storing data, photos and most likely videos. Now the majority of recent phones will accept larger capacity Micro SD Cards up to 64GB and possibly even more.
Recently I ventured halfway up The Shard for a presentation by hard disc manufacturer Toshiba. It covered what Toshiba do, with the essence on their recent hard drives including a new 8TB desktop unit and while there I requested their mid-range external USB unit that I will tell you about when it arrives.
I have already outlined the ‘phone’ part of this latest offering from Huawei on the 18th April. At the time I said I would tell you about the cameras when I had more time to study them. So here goes the camera are very good as they are made by Leica.
Perhaps if you think of this as a camera first and everything a phone does for you second then that gives you an idea of what it can do. Very early on I took a picture of the local lake and right at the top of the image was a branch of a tree that spread almost by mistake into the picture, every nodule of the bark of the branch showed up and although the lake a fountain and the wildlife on the lake were clear and sharp I still remember that branch.
Having recently resurrected the cassette player groov>>e now think that the portable CD Player still has legs. Certainly while I have downloads the majority of my audio collection is still on CD but is that only a generation thing.
The Groov-e GVPS110 retro CD player measures 15x12.5x2.5cm and weighs not a lot. It runs on ‘2xAA’ batteries or a DC power supply neither are supplied. There is a small circular display that shows track number and elapsed time. The majority of the unit is black apart from the top which is a silver grey colour.
Like most people I think I can just install the battery, check it has power and then insert a Micro SD card. I go outside, the garden is not looking too bad at this time of year, shoot a few test short clips and then expect to view them.
You know what I am going to say next, yes you are right, it defaults to 4K and my PC screen will not show 4K so all I got was the sound. So RTFM and find out how to work through the menus. It is small and light at only 135grams. It is 9.5x5x3cm with the normal lens cover fitted, slightly longer with the underwater one on. There is a small TFT on the top 3x2.
I have used Samplitude Silver for some time; I probably use only a small amount of its ability in my regular adjustment of .wav files. Here it’s very big brother ‘think Twins’ and this Arnold to Danny. So exactly what can this powerful product do?
I have always liked manuals especially printed ones, I read them in bed, in the bath or in the smallest room, these days there are no printed manuals but at least with notebooks you can still read in bed. This offering is just over 1000 pages long so you see this is no trivial product. I use what is called Samplitude Silver a very small sibling to this and spend all the time in editing .
In my youth I had a beard which came to a nasty end when the chef I was working for took a dislike to it and removed one side of it with the fish scissors, such things today would end up in a court case. So while I often go a day or two without shaving going several weeks in order to test this was something my neighbours had not seen before.
Certainly after not having a real beard for nearly 50 years it felt strange and what was a dark mid brown offering which used to bear the name ‘goatee’ now is a grey mess which would take far longer to become something worthy of the name beard but it did allow me to test the ability to set the length or should I say shortness of cut/trim. It is 16.5cm long, 4.5cm wide at the head and a maximum 4,2cm just below the head, it weighs 177grams.
Bluetooth audio systems able to play music from your phones, here a device that you just link via Bluetooth and the music plays as long as you have charge no lead is required.
These are lightweight on ear headphones weighing only 180grams. There is 3cm of movement in each arm and the measurements I am giving are when the arms are fully extended. From the base area in between the earpieces to the top of the headband is 19cm, the earpieces themselves are circular at 7cm across and 3.5cm deep. When I wear them I tend to use about half the expansion and being old I wear them in the old way on top of my head.
Larger Sainsbury’s stores have their mobile phone shops and this more basic level product is one offering available from them. However when you look at it you see something chunky that would be ideal from the older person to have.
The F24 Power from Archos measures 12.5x5x2cm and it weighs 156grams. The viewable screen is 3.5x5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 2.5 inches. However despite its small screen size it is far more than a phone and text system.
Having recently told you about their rather good Sounddeck here are a pair of speakers that can be used in several ways and that even includes multi room use. With these speakers the sounds on your phone will never have sounded so good.
The pair of speakers are 17.7x10.5x12.7cm each, and they weigh 1407grams each. If you currently buy the pair you also get the Wi-Fi extender included, this is 11x11x2.5cm. You can have them in Black or White or should you wish one of each which could help identification and possibly even satisfy the lounge fashion police.
A 27inch flat panel that is light but solid, the silver grey stand is in the shape of a squashed C with an extended bottom part makes it very solid but it also takes up very little desk space and everyone knows how that is always at a premium.
This LED flat panel display from AOC measures 62x36x1cm and sits on a stand 32x17cm that raises the screen 8cm from whatever you sit it on. The viewable screen is 61x35cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 27inches. Unlike most recent panels the stand is fixed so you take it out of the box connect the leads for power and signal and you are ready to go. There is virtually no surround on the top and sides and it is only 1.5cm at the bottom.
Both these devices have 32GB of memory, both are there to store and easily transfer data. The first item from Kingston is a fast access SD or micro SD card ideal for videos. The second is a nice looking USB able to clip to your keychain or purse.
This is a 32GB Micro SD Card designed for the rapid acceptance and playing of video without frame drop in the latter and stutter in the former. The figures are 90MB/s read and 45MB/s write so while you are recording to say your head cam while zooming across rough terrain in death defying action it is all being captured for your mates to enjoy and your mum to clip your round your ear for doing it in the first place. These are available in 16GB, 32GB as I was sent, and 64GB.
This is an Android phone so everything should be the same as every other phone? However LG have never been one to conform, I remember their white phone of many years ago. Here there are no buttons on the phones sides.
The Leon from LG has one button just above the centre middle of the back. Sorry if this is not a new feature but sometime ago LG stopped sending out review units so the only way I have to review such items is via people like Vodafone. This is not the largest of phones at 12.7x6.5x.8cm and it weighs 138grams. The viewable screen is 9.8x5.5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 4½ inches. Both sides are clear the base has mini USB for charging and the top has 3.
This device turns an Audio System without Bluetooth into an Audio System with Bluetooth providing you have either RCA jacks or a 3.5mm audio input, however it has an extra not found on a lot of other devices it also has Wolfson DAC.
The One For All Bluetooth Music Receiver measures 10.5x6.5x2cm and you should add another 2cm to the middle figure to allow for whatever cables are inserted into it. Supplied in the box is a DC lead to small power brick this lead is 1.8metres long, also a 3.5mm to 3.5mm lead that is 1metre long and a small RCA pair to 3.5mm plug that is 10cm long.
Early last summer I attended a Google launch I have already told you about Chromecast and Chromecast Audio. Here is a Chrome phone running Android Marshmallow (Android 6) – also launched at that event - from Nexus part of Google but made by Huawei and this one is from Vodafone, follow that, good.
The Huawei Nexus 6P measures 13.8x7.7x.7cm and weighs 177grams. The viewable screen is 12.6x7cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 5.8inches. On the right side are the on/off button and below that the volume rocker. On the base the USB 3.1 power connection. The left side towards the top is where your Nano SIM is inserted. The top has a 3.5mm socket for headphones.
I thought I would have reviewed my last cassette player quite a long time ago but if someone now brings one out they must think there is still a demand, perhaps the mix tape as a way of breaking the ice with a partner may be making a comeback.
A visit to the Wearable Technology Show had me feeling less fit and able than normal. This device was one of the worst offenders simply because the people wearing them were the exact opposite of me in three ways, young, fit and healthy.
The chest belt is the hardware but more important is the software that knows what you have achieved previously and indeed how hard you are working. So in theory even an old decrepit specimen like me could become less decrepit assuming the effort did not bring on a fatal heart attack.
A Tablet is becoming more popular, some say they will overtake sales of Desktop or Laptop systems. Most Tablets I get to see run Android or Chrome but this one runs Windows 10. Tablets have touch screens which is a big part of Windows 10.
The Archos 90 Cesium measures 23x15x1cm and weighs 459grams. The viewable screen is 19.2x12cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 8.8inches the screen resolution is 1280x800 pixels. Assuming you are using it in portrait mode the right side has on/off and volume rocker. The base is clear the right side has connections for an external keyboard attachment (not supplied).
Having reviewed other Roku items the Roku 2 seems something that until now has passed me by so when offered one to review I thought I would put that oversight right. Roku are one of the big companies in streaming things to your TV the box claims ‘1500+ channels’.
When you get to my age the bald look is in, not by choice but simply because hair stops growing on top, it makes up for this by growing extremely vigorously around the sides and out of most other orifices, so a Hair Clipper still has it uses.
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