Publication History For : Paul Smart
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A lot of homes will have a Dimplex radiator, they are ideal for an extra splurge of heat. The latest offering does exactly that and a bit more for a start it can be remotely controlled by Bluetooth and an App but while earlier offering had a thermostat not much else, with this you can set in advance the times to go on/off automatically and still have a manual override.
In the past most electric radiators were oil filled, this offering from Dimplex has no liquid in it at all and test show this heats up a room quicker and for less cost than the oil filled alternatives, it has another plus it is lighter to move around. Open the box and remove the radiator it is 42x55x13cm, it has two feet (each with two castors) and these increase the width to 30cm and add 6cm to the height.
As this printer is designed to print square images then the best results will be when you set your phone to capture square images which on most will be called 1:1. However I also printed some more normal 16:9 and 4:3 images.
Often setting Wi-Fi linking between printer and SmartPhone is a lot harder than it should be. Here it was just a case of downloading the App from the iOS or Android store selecting the image and saying print. The FujiFilm battery operated printer is 13.5x11.3.5cm and weighs 366grams. The App for some reason is called Instax Share which given all the different Fuji Apps is somewhat confusing and indeed you need to download V3.
I have a Prime account and this enables me to get quicker delivery and also avoid delivery charges on most items under £20 even when the items are from some of the Amazon affiliates, the socks in this review are a case in point.
Do read the small print as another – non Prime – seller had them 5p cheaper but for the same delivery option that I had you would pay a mouth-watering £13.98 delivery charge but in fairness if you were willing to wait six days they would deliver for free. I have been Diabetic for 25 years but it’s only in the last two of three years that I had noticed how much the tops of my socks bit into my legs.
This new phone from the company that are making Samsung and Apple look over their shoulders does not have the eye watering price of some of the recent offerings in fact this is available on PAYG 1 from Vodafone for only £229.
This lower price point means that for a lot of people a Huawei phone is now in their price range whereas before they were something to dream of. It is 14.7x7x.7cm and weighs 144 grams. The viewable screen is 12.7x6.5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial screen measurement of 5.65inches. The screen is FHD+ 2160x1080 but for those whose sight is less than perfect it can be changed in settings to HD+ 1440x720. Apart from Android 8 it has a EMUI skin for some extra functionality.
This is more than just an enclosure with Bluetooth speakers. The Teufel One M is a Bluetooth speaker that can be linked to any device to output its sounds but it is also – via the Teufel App – able to do much more including play Internet radio.
So many of these latest crop of bulbs have screw fittings and even if you have a suitable fitment they tend to be too fat to screw in, so when I was offered a pair of Bayonet fitting units that can be used either with a SmartPhone App or a remote control I said yes please.
The bulbs themselves are about the same size as a 60watt filament bulb but do weight around three times as much. If you fit one in they will turn on normally with a white light but the magic happens when you use the supplied remote control or even better with the SmartPhone App as you then have any shade of white or any colour you want you can even set them to strobe - ideal for a party.
Regular readers will know music – jazz – is my passion and photography is my hobby. My photographs are unlikely to win awards as I tend to want realism. I once took a photo of a friend with a camera I was reviewing and sent him the result, his reply ‘you can see every crease and wrinkle I look about 200’ luckily it was not a lady friend or she would no longer be a friend.
However when you spend a long time trying to get the perfect shot and something just spoils it I can see why you would want to remove the ‘spoil’ factor. In today’s bloatware world a program that is less than 400MB to download is pure joy, and if you already have something like Photoshop it can even become a ‘plug in’ to that package.
For those who have an interest in photography then a specialised ‘RGB’ unit such as this offering from BenQ could well solve the problem of getting the colour correct, this unit guarantees 99% correct Adobe RGB colour space.
While this unit can operate as a standard panel for all the normal home and office tasks the extra top and side shields when fitted give that exact colour that the photographer craves. Having recently unhooked a 4K offering it’s nice to be let down slightly more gently with a QHD 2560x1440 offering as a stop before returning to my own HD offering 1920x1080. It is 64x37x2cm without the shield in place.
Having looked in the past at a couple of other offerings from Sphero I was keen to add this smallest offering from Sphero to the list. It is a small round object that is controlled by an App that you can even learn to code to make it go through routines.
The Sphero Mini is a 4cm ball that has no connections at all it is simply a round ball. It is weighted on the inside and without power if it is moved around it will always roll to that one spot. There are three simple instructions on the inside cover of its small box. The two parts of the ball twist apart to enable you to charge it and that process will let you link it to a mobile App and then it is no longer simply a round ball.
While this can be used as a notebook the keyboard is not fixed and the screen would need propping so this Latitude device is really a Tablet with a keyboard attached so probably best described as a Tablet/Notebook to be accurate.
The Dell Latitude 5285 measures 29x21.5x1.3cm and it weighs 1251grams. It has an 82 keyboard with the alpha keys being full size. There is a hinge behind the keyboard that can have the screen upright and no space between the function keys and the screen or the other way and over 1cm gap between the two. Around 1.3cm is the gap between the edges and almost 8cm clear in front of the keyboard with the 10x5.5cm trackpad mounted 8.5cm from the left and 10.5cm from the right side.
The latest in a range of small pocket recorders not just for voice but also with the quality to handle music with the special crossed microphones that Olympus brought in a few years ago. It comes able to use either Ni-Cad or Alkaline battery.
The Olympus LS-P4 Audio Recorder measures 11x3.7x1.4cm and weighs 72 grams. The face has a 2.7x2.2cm black on grey display. Below this three bar buttons and then two round buttons Stop and Record. Next is the ubiquitous five position joystick control and finally near the bottom of the front two further well marked buttons. The reason I have only mentioned Record and Stop by name is simply they are all you need to know about to make recordings. The right side has two 3.
I asked to look at this - solely on price - as most camera carrying Drones are not cheap – I am thinking three figures – but this offering is less than £20. In fact only just over a year ago similar items were well into the middle hundreds.
I looked at one very small drone last year that was suitable for children, yes suitable for children as it had blades that were fully protected and was very easy to hover. This unit is larger and will either need parental supervision or children of an older age as it needs to have more ability to fly it – yes even I could fly it – and the blades although plastic could do damage. It is circular and a maximum of 32cm across and up to 5cm tall with its camera attached.
Do you suffer from poor Wi-Fi coverage then Zyxel may have a solution for you. This Tri-Band Router allows you to increase the area covered over that offered by the majority of other similar devices simply by not sticking to one waveband.
Unlike most this is an easy setup and everything required – even a good length Ethernet lead is supplied, just plug the Multy X into your modem insert the power supply and download the App – yes App – and then once the App is linked to the Multy X you get a white light on the Multy X and you just plug in whatever you want to and it works. It is even possible to get Amazon Alexa to control Internet time for children using Multy X.
Braven do a range of speakers that do not object to getting wet, in fact they can even be waterproof. However the most important feature should not be that but the sound quality and here it is rather good from such a small enclosure.
This wireless speaker from Braven measures 18x9x8cm and gives a sound that makes you think you are listening to a CD through good speakers rather than MP3 being streamed from a SmartPhone, and this was with the default settings out of the box. It weighs 810grams. The Ready Pro is number two – smallest to largest - in a range of four outdoor speakers from Braven. It has a 2600mAh battery which lasts for around 14 hours at a good volume level enough to fill the average room with sound.
Watching an expect demonstrator can persuade a lot of people to buy things. I saw one sharpening with this product all kinds of knifes with edges - even serrated examples – then for effect - I am sure - an old axe was produced and this too was sharpened and then a soft tomato was sliced up thinly with it, everyone was suitable hooked.
What I have yet to do is carry out some of the other things he demonstrated on other garden tools perhaps the most strange a builders cement trowel that he also then proceeded to cut a ripe tomato into wafer thin slices. Why a ripe tomato well try it yourself I suggest you do not wear anything like a decent shirt or dress as tomato stains are not easy to remove.
Most people think of Acer for their comprehensive Aspire range which varies hugely from entry level to really powerful business machines, they also have the Predator range of gaming systems and as I recently found another range call Nitro, here I am looking at the Nitro 5.
The Acer Nitro 5measures is 39x26x2.5cm and weights 2.454kilos. This is of course a powerful machine likely to be used by gamers. This means that battery life may not be that great, the best I got streaming video was around four hours. I see the figure quoted is ‘up to 8.5 hours’. So going around the outside has a Kensington Lock port, an Ethernet port, USB ‘C’, HDMI, USB3 and SD Card socket. The front is clear apart from the speakers that are under the cut away corners.
This is a large panel with high resolution that should – for most – be just plug and play, it certainly was for me, my Desktop system normally has a 21inch panel running at 1920x1080, this unit was plugged in and the HDMI lead connected and I was looking at a screen showing 4k resolution that’s 3840x2160 and while icons were smaller all I had done was plugged in and switched on.
Yes it was a Windows 10 system completely up to date and the Auto display was at 150% but everything worked correctly. For some reason some of my desktop items moved to unusual places on the screen but once put back and ‘refreshed’ they stayed in position, a couple of older programs – note programs not Apps – failed to scale up but nothing that made them unusable. It is 74x44x2.5cm; the viewable screen is 70x39.
Having recently told you about CUE also a fun coding solution for older children here I regress slightly to tell you about an offering for children from six years upwards. This one is called DOT, again a Robot for the child to control.
Remembering how easy CUE was to extract from the box left me somewhat frustrated that the same system was not used here and sadly although I took time to remove DOT without ripping the cardboard apart I doubt I will ever get it back in place. DOT is 11cm across, 7.5cm from back to front and 9cm tall, it is a basic ball shape with extensions either side and on the base.
The latest range of USB3 small external drives from Toshiba sees the Canvio Advance (highest specified of three) cross my desk to be given the real world test over a matter of weeks, using transfer by USB2, USB3 and this time also USB ‘C’ for good measure.
As I was testing this with Windows PC’s and I had used similar products all I did was unbox the drive and connect the supplied USB3 cable. Unlike earlier USB drives this takes the small amount of power required from the USB port so it is true ‘plug and play’. While this is stated to be 2TB and by the 1000 calculation method it is but Windows used the 1024 calculation so it only shows as 1.81TB this is normal.
There are a number of music streaming Apps out there and while most will perhaps settle on one, I get the chance to try several for an extended period. I first looked at Deezer four years ago and things have progressed since then.
Motorola used to send regular phones to be reviewed and then they became part of Lenovo who have a different reviews team, so it’s been a while since one has crossed my desk and this only because it is one of a range promoted by Vodafone.
The Motorola Moto Z2 Play measures 15.5x7.5x.6cm and weighs 168grams. It has a matt black back with a grippy pattern. It is an all metal body with the sides being gun metal grey the screen is shiny black but does not show finger marks that much. The viewable screen is 13x6.5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial screen measurement of 5.5inches with over 400pixels per inch. At the base of the front is the finger print sensor surely a better place for it than on the rear of the phone.
A tiny device that arrived in a small plastic sleeve and this still in a not large clear plastic envelope with the lettering USB ‘C’. It is designed to fit in any device that has a USB ‘C’ port like the majority of recent mobiles or some recent lightweight Notebook/Tablets, that are lacking the thing that most people still require a full size USB port.
It is 2cm long, 1cm wide and .1cm thick, it weights well under 1gram, yes 1gram and only just 2grams in its protective plastic holder which has a hook on one end and it clips into it. All you need to do is remove it from its holder and fit it into any USB ‘C’ port and then attach any standard USB drive and it is read by the phone or Notebook/Tablet that it is connected to.
If you have a phone of Tablet that you no longer use you could couple it with this App from Manything to let you know what is happening when you are not there, it allows your phone or tablet camera to keep you updated on who eat the last sandwich, left the milk out of the fridge or even wrecked the lounge was it Brutus or just maybe it was innocent little Simon.
Some will say this is spying, others will say if it’s your home then it’s your rules but you need to make that choice yourself. Manything offer a range of offerings with the basic one of ‘Liveview’ being FREE. Place your old mobile in the position most likely to confirm your suspicions and assuming it’s your home then you are probably entitled to see what is happening when you are away.
Currently there are a range of four products that has their own ‘V’ by Vodafone SIM that keeps you connected to your Pet, Car, Bag or the device here I have been looking at a Arlo Go camera that sends information to your phone of any movements detected wherever you have placed the Arlo Go camera.
I saw this at the launch last year and despite two representatives of ASUS saying it would be available from tomorrow, it has taken a whole lot of tomorrows to pass before I managed to finally get one into my hands to review.
ZenBook means it is both a Notebook and Tablet and unlike a couple of recent machines this has a good amount of storage and indeed it arrived complete with V1709 of Windows 10 the latest update that has finally very recently struggled onto my own PC despite it trying to upgrade to it since mid December. It is 30.5x21.5x1.2cm the last figure at the back but this is half that at the front and it weighs 1110 grams. The viewable screen is 29.3x16.
How much does your Internet Security software impact on your daily use of your computer, does it slow you down, does it warn you of various sites, does it put up messages on the screen, does it demand you click again to continue or does it just sit quietly and do its job.
Of course we all think we know best and only if a ‘nasty’ gets through do we then say that it’s the fault of the Security Package. I still know some people who have no security and others who rely of that supplied by Microsoft assuming they are running Windows 10. Sooner or later they will be hit and dependant on what hits them it might mean someone ‘tweaks’ their credit card or takes their identity or just cause havoc on their PC.
Listening to music on your mobile phone probably means headphones or earbuds, it seems quite popular among the young to share a set of earbuds, not perhaps great hygienically but if you need to share output an external speaker can improve the volume.
Brando are selling Mi-Amp a device that sits on top of the phones speaker and increases the sound in my tests this can be up to treble the normal output level. It is round at 8cm and is 4.5cm tall, inset in the base are the on/off button and entry point for the supplied micro USB lead, outside this a rubber 2cm circular disc to give both a smooth surface to place onto your phones speaker and also provide a solid connection.
Most people will have either an iOS, Android or even a Windows Phone, their used to be another option called BlackBerry and now there is again, now surfacing from the dead with Android, so you have what looks like a BlackBerry offering but running Android.
BlackBerry were originally a business tool and came with a real keyboard below the screen, not having used one for a while even entering my password for Google had me scratching my head for how to get to the non-alpha keys. The unit is 15x7.2x1cm and it has a 9.8x6.5cm viewable screen which gives you the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 4.5inches in a 3:2 display ideal for emails, with the four line keyboard under this.
This is a new range of products from Vodafone, in short form they connect your Pet, Bag, Car or Home. Here I am looking at a sample from one of the first three that are all products that go on products that may on occasions go missing.
What I am looking at here is an Alcatel product that is designed to attach to a bag but it could also go into the pocket of someone who might be in the early stages of Dementia for those occasions they become less sure of their location and could therefore be safely tracked. I know most parents would like to track their children but they might be less willing to let them use this technology. This product is the Alcatel MOVETRACK and sold by Vodafone and comes with its own Nano SIM in the box.
Often the time between product request and its arrival is extended as was the case here so when the box arrived I first thought – before I opened it – that it was a speaker and even when I opened it I was unsure, removal from the box did not require destruction, already a plus point with me.
If you imagine three balls in a triangle with another on top of them you have the shape each is round at approximately 8cm, the two front units have grooved wheels and the rear one just a small steering option. The top unit lights up, revolves and has both the power of speech and hearing. To remove from the box move two catches apart and then find a flat place to put CUE down as it goes through a quite amusing configuration routine, after that everything works with Bluetooth via an App.
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