Publication History For : Paul Smart
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I recently spent a couple of hours at the Broadcast Video exhibition, a great deal of what was on show was very expensive Broadcast equipment but then some stands had almost the opposite. I know Manfrotto for various photographic accessories. I have reviewed portable flash units, tripods and monopods, here something different.
Walking by their stand I saw a clothing rail with a several reinforced jackets and for want of a better word waistcoats – jackets without sleeves – all seemed to be toughened with Kevlar. I asked surely you are not producing these for war zones, I was told no just for normal photographer use. I know some fashion shoots can get tough and of course those photographing Celebes must expect the odd bodyguard to get a bit physical.
This little black offering fits into the smallest pocket but can take HD video as well as rather nice still images. Even if you have a larger and more powerful unit, this can be ready even before that comes from the bag.
The Canon PowerShot S100 measures 10.5x6x2.5cm and weights 192grams. 12.1MP, 5x optical zoom, a highly sensitive CMOS, ability to shoot RAW, GPS function, Full 1080P videos, high speed burst, 24mm ultra wide lens and intelligent IS for better low light capture. The face has the 5.2x26mm lens with the 2x.5cm flash emerging from the top when required and it is never nearer than 4cm from the lens, even then there is a tiny cut out on the bottom left of the flash to avoid flashback.
This sometimes called Mi-Fi - allows you to create a wireless network with up to five devices all using the same mobile signal so if your broadband dies or maybe you live in an area where dial up is your only solution providing you have mobile this could be the answer.
If you run a small business what do you do in a power cut, unless you have a standard BT type phone that will be down, Broadband will be down as your modem requires power, unless you keep your notebook charged you will not even have that. So what do you do, sweep the floor – you certainly can’t Hoover it – as you have no power. This then can keep you going for the - hopefully short - time without power providing you have charge in your notebook or Smartphone.
Internal SATA SSD drive v external USB3 drive. The second is four times the capacity of the first. The first is very fast, but the second is no slouch. The first is a bare drive but cased, the second shiny black and silver with lead.
This small unit overall size 10x7x1cm looks like an external device as it is sealed and other ‘bare’ drives have been exactly that with the component parts on view. This however has just one thing open that is the fitment to attach to a SATA port. A nice idea as some people are less than careful when they handle bare devices and can damage then during installation.
This is a Tablet designed for business use. This means that it will not be cheap and just for once the screen surround will not be shiny black so although the fingermarks will still be there they will not show up unless you look.
I saw a very slick demo early last summer with promises that it will be available ‘within two weeks’ if you made a baby around that time it would probably now be close to birth. Still I remembered the important demo points. While there was a raft of documentation including the thickest ‘safety instructions’ book I have ever seen no documentation.
Small and light is not something that used to be applied to 24inch monitors or for that fact to early 24inch panels, however both can be applied to this offering from Hannspree the HL249 Hanns.G with LED Technology.
The first joy is a not very reflective screen although the screen surround is still a somewhat shiny black finish. The screens dimensions are 55.5x35.5x2cm. It comes with a one screw base that is oval at 29x22cm and this raises the screen 6cm from your desk. There are five buttons sitting just proud of the base near the right side these are there to make any adjustments needed. Power input is just to the right of where the base fits onto the screen. To the left of this are 3.
A lot of phones have naff sound and provide a naff set of cheap earbuds to allow you to suffer in private. Here the sound is better and they provide a set of Monster Beats by Dr Dre so listening to music can be a pleasure.
The HTC Sensation XL measures 13x7x1cm and weights 162grams. The phone is creamy white with a metallic look back only broken by the ‘b’ red circular logo. Sound quality also includes that old fashioned thing that phones used to be for making calls and the caller always sounds clear, it is also possible to increase the sound level higher than with a lot of other such devices.
This is my first look at ArtRage now on version 3.5. Before delving into the manuals I always try to see what it can do with just the icons on the screen, the results are of course strange, sometimes great sometimes not what you thought.
This is another in a range of decent good sized panels recently seen. This one from Viewsonic offers a not particularly reflective screen and joy of joys someone has produced a panel surround that is not reflective shiny black.
The Viewsonic VX2336S panel measures 55x33x6cm but only 2.5cm thick at the edges. The viewable screen is 50x28.5cm giving the diagonal imperial 23inch measurement. Under the viewable screen are five clearly marked buttons to allow any adjustments you may wish to make, these are on the face and not hidden on the bottom edge where knowing what each does means trial and error.
Once again Birmingham has five days of mayhem with the Gadget Show taking centre stage, amongst the outrageous and unlikely are some more grounded items. In the storage arena these are shown by Verbatim on their stand.
You can see everything at the show between today and Sunday although please check before travelling as I understand some days are sold out. So when I say Verbatim what comes to mind, well for me anyway it is CD and DVD media. Of course they also do larger capacity flash drives, SSD drives - review of one such item coming shortly – hard drives, floppy discs - yes some people still use them – digital video cassettes, UDO discs which have a capacity of 30GB three times that of MO discs.
At last shiny black all over is not what all notebooks seem to be. Here a 15.6inch screen offering with a quad core Intel i3 processor. While the base is matt black the lid is patterned grey, sadly the screen surround is still shiny black.
The Acer Aspire Notebook 5749 measures 38x24.5x3.5cm at back and 2.5cm, it weights 2.3kilos. The right side has a DVD multi drive and two USB2 ports. The front has a card port and two 3.5mm sockets for external microphone and earbuds. The left side has DC power input, VGA output, Ethernet, HDMI out and a USB port. Open the lid and the screen can tilt back to around 150 degrees slightly over the back of the casing so no ports there. The viewable screen is 34.5x19.
The first is a board game for teenage to adult based on a popular TV gameshow called The Million Pound Drop. The second is a box of shocks; in fact it is called The Box of Shocks, the idea to get your victim to shriek.
If my memory serves my right the last one of these type of games I looked at was Deal or no Deal and I suspect everyone has watched that at some time or other. Here I must admit that I have never watched – more than a trailer – for The Million Pound Drop. It is a team game for those aged twelve to adult.
A lot of these Smart TVs are too big for the average room but Samsung have a 40inch version. This fits remarkably easily into the space my heavier older 32inch offering took. It has so much more than TV to offer.
The Samsung UE40D6530WK television is a thin 40inch TV, it measures 92x54x2cm, it comes with a stand 47.5x25.5cm that raises the TV 8cm from whatever you stand it on. If you prefer you can purchase a wall mounting kit and it is not as heavy as you may think. The initial tune of this Freeview HD unit found 115 channels made up of 75TV, 24Radio and 16Data. It took around four minutes and gave you the option to exclude Analogue where it also found the standard five channels.
Several people have pointed out to me that it has been a long time since anything from Lenovo has been reviewed so here is one of their latest notebooks a very powerful Intel i5 quad core machine with 6GB of RAM.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Z570 measures 37.5x24x3cm the latter at the rear and only 2cm at the front. It weights 2.6kilos. The viewable screen is 34x19.5cm which gives the notional imperial diagonal measurement of 15.6inches. Mine was two shades of grey except around the screen where it is the normal shiny black. The screen is reflective but a lot less than some. The left side starts with Kensington Lock port, then the DC input, VGA out, HDMI out, e-SATA and finally a USB2 port.
The first such device I remember using was a Sunbeam Mixmaster and that was certainly more than fifty years ago. So how have such machines developed and evolved over that time scale, certainly they have a lot more tools.
This device offers to do almost all the jobs that you do not do by hand and also those jobs that you can do by hand – such as whipping cream – but take time and are tiring. This machine does all those jobs as well as some you may not have yet thought of. It is not just a mixer, it’s a juicer, a mincer and much more, so far the only things it refuses to do are the washing up and hovering.
Here two items from different companies that apart from their individual uses also will work extremely well together. E6 is a headphone amplifier so is great when output is just too low, and, Bondi will hold lots of things like an iPhone in position for all sorts of uses.
This is a tiny amplifier supplied with two 3.5mm jack leads – different lengths - and a USB lead to charge the internal solid battery. Connect one 3.5mm lead to the earphone outlet of the device that needs a boost, connect the other end to the input on the E6, next connect your earbuds/headphones to the output on the E6, switch on the E6 and your music device and you can have a much raised volume level. A simple one purpose device that does what it should. It is 4x4x.
Another in the range of All In One units from Canon. This is a five ink offering (two sizes of black), if you of Goff persuasion the all black finish will delight, for everyone else apart from the lounge police who cares about colour just performance.
The Canon Pixma MG5350 measures 43x35x16cm, these figures are with paper in the rear paper tray but with the exit tray closed, opening that (a task that happens automatically at print time) adds 10cm to the middle figure and you would also need another 10cm clear in front for output to stack. The scanner lid would need around another 6cm to let you insert or remove items. So total area required to use it would be 43x55x22cm, the last figure the height means a strong shelf should be fine.
While there are more expensive earbuds around than the second set to be looked at here, I doubt there are too many named earbuds sold for a more reasonable price than the Cygnett Groove Atomic that I will look at first.
I went to a rather uninspiring press/dealer event towards the end of last year and when I got home I found these in the bag of information everyone was given at the event, here some time later it’s the most memorable thing. The earbuds are cylindrical 2cm long and 1cm across. One day when my own earbuds had hidden themselves more thoroughly than normal I took these off the shelf and was surprised with the sound quality they gave. The cable length is 1.
I first heard of this last September, unfortunately the PR promises seem shall we say optimistic and it only arrived with me this year. Not the longest wait for something but certainly worthy of a reason as to why it was delayed.
The first PogoPlug – strange shape and colour – appeared in early 2010 and was probably before most had discovered ‘cloud’ storage. This unit is a far more sensible black in colour and is far smaller and better balanced but at the cost of extra connections. It is 10x12x3.5cm and without connections the little black box weights only 175grams. Looking at the front there is a bar LED under the logo when power is on. The left side has an SD card slot.
Here I am looking at two different but similar small keyboards from Brando in Hong Kong; the first is Wireless with IR Remote. The second is a wheel micro wireless keyboard mouse with added presentation abilities.
About the size of a TV remote at 14x6x1cm, it weights 107grams. However the functionality does not end there as it not only a 75key keyboard, to its right is a track pad under this two mouse key buttons and the ubiquitous five position joystick. Believe it or not this little marvel is not finished yet as the back has another five position joystick with no less than another ring of six controls outside this, also a slide out section where the wireless USB connector is.
PowerShot are the larger of two small Digital Camera ranges offered by Canon. This unit is larger than most and on first glance could be mistaken for a DSLR unit. The main difference is that its lens is not interchangeable.
The Canon PowerShot SX40HS measures 11x11x9cm but the width can increase by another 6cm when fully zoomed, it weights 605grams without neck strap. The right side has a door behind which are HDMI and AV sockets, there is also neck strap anchor point. The left side has only the other neck strap anchor point. The base has solid battery behind a door where any SD card you might use also resides and there is also a tripod screw. The face has the 35x zoom lens (4.3-150.
Certain things take a long time, this certainly in one such item, I remember seeing a pre production unit in the late spring with promise that it would ship in September 2011 but it arrived with me after the start of 2012.
The Archos Tablet G9 is a rather nice 10.1 inch Tablet running Android 3.2.5; the overall size is 27x16.5x1cm and it weights 640grams. The screen has a resolution of 1280x800. The viewable screen is 21.5x13.5cm giving the notional imperial measurement of 10.1 inches. There is 8GB of storage and 512MB of RAM. I never saw the Archos 80 (8 inch version) but I am told the inside was exactly the same. For a dual core Android Tablet with version 3.2.
Not a totally new name to me as I have looked at a couple of sets of headphones from them last year but this is something different environmentally friendly rechargeable batteries, not just the fact that rechargeable is more friendly than single use.
I was sent both ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ batteries together with a charger that works with both these sizes of the batteries. The batteries are stated to be the only non toxic rechargeable batteries. A review of this type takes time as only by charging and recharging and measuring time between charges etc can you decide if the batteries are as good – or better – than the offerings by other companies that produce rechargeables.
With downloads becoming more popular is the CD in danger of going the same way as vinyl? In one of my occasional forays into my passion of jazz I tell you about one such release that is only available as a high quality download, while a couple of others are CD or download all are from the British label NAIM.
By download I do not mean low quality MP3 or even the higher quality 320kbps often used as downloads from places such as iTunes. In fact the download quality is more than twice that of Wav files found on CDs as it is 24bit and 96kHz. Mind you the downloads will be big the one I did is available in WAV or FLAC and in the WAV format is 1.8GB for a CD of just under an hour.
I first saw this early last autumn at the impressive restaurant at OXO tower. I took some great images from their outside balcony over the Thames and have been impatiently waiting to get my hands on one to give it a thorough review.
My memories were correct this is a super camera. It is a little larger than a digital camera that fits in the pocket but smaller than a DSLR unit. It is 11x5.5x9.5cm and the weight with the supplied 18-55mm lens fitted is 475grams. Even with my initial test photos the quality was superb and when used at various gigs as I always do as part of all round testing the results were stunning.
This Android device will easily fit in a pocket or purse, the screen is however larger than you think as it hinges in the centre giving a view that is far larger than the overall size of the Tablet and certainly worth a look.
The Sony Tablet P measures 18x8x2cm the last figure is at the centre as the unit is a squashed ‘o’ shape and the edges are only 1cm it weights 365grams. The viewable screen is 12.5x12.
The BETT (British Educational Technology Trail) has in the past proved to be a fruitful source of information and products ideal for the small business user, after all a school is certainly a business for those who attend.
This was a little larger than a normal inkjet but it does have something that most home or small office machines do not have that is the ability to receive emails – yes it has its own email address - and print them to be precise you can send items including images from anywhere in the world – now that is a wide network – and it will print them out on receipt. It is 45x44x33cm. The front edge has 26 buttons and three LED’s as well as the ubiquitous joystick around the 5x3.
First something ideal for iPod or iPhone users it requires no power source and gives a good sound the Travel Speaker System from Griffin. Second the JBL on Tour Micro a single speaker that connects using a standard 3.5mm lead.
This is ideal when you do not want to use earbuds or headphones as the sound is amplified to give a decent sound level but it takes power from your iPod or iPhone so you do not need any mains or computer source nearby. It is 18x10x3cm and is slightly convex, your iPod or iPhone fits in the centre 6.5cm part and the amount it protrudes above the top depends on which model of iPod you are using.
Not slim, not sleek and the cream colour makes it look a little strange. However the important thing is image quality and here I have no complaints, in fact this ultra compact model has other features not always found with other small cameras.
The Pentax Optio RZ18 compact digital camera measures 10.5x6x3.5cm, the last figure can increase by as much as a further 5cm when fully zoomed in. It weights 190grams. This is certainly not another small digital camera the MP size can be up to 16MP but the real star is the 18x optical zoom. The still capture sizes are 16MP, 12MP 1:1, 12MP 16:9, 7MP, 2MP 16:9 and 640x480. If I do not state they are all 4:3.
For those who always think the weather forecast is wrong or who always think your own personal weather is different from what they say this may just be what you are looking for - your own personal weather station from Oregon Scientific.
With so many things needing a PC or Internet connectivity this rather bucks the trend in that it does it all in the modules supplied so once you have it in position you can tell wind speed and keep you own count of rainfall and more. Everything you need is in the box apart from a screwdriver and something to drill holes; all the washers’ screws and batteries are supplied as well as the various modules.
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