Publication History For : Paul Smart
Click to see this members public profile
Older articles
Until recently apart from trips to hospitals the only thermometers that I have used were the glass ones with mercury in them that went under the tongue. Then last year in a roundup of medical devices one that went in the ear so much quicker, but still not perfect, here something that takes only a second to use and will work even with a wriggling child.
This item from Netgear even looks sinister as you remove it from the black box that this switch comes in. The matt black finish and the areas made up of triangles and rectangles add to the illusion that this device is somehow not a friendly one, add to that the dark blue ‘V’ of LED light when switched on it becomes more menacing.
It is 19.5x14.5x3.7cm before anything is plugged in to the rear of it, so add another 3cm to the middle figure the depth. It weighs 765grams main because the case is Zinc-Alloy. The base has four small 1.5x1cm rubber feet to make sure it stays flat on your table or desk and it has to be used in this way as unlike some routers it is only stable in this formation.
When I went to a recent Bosch event that featured items like fridges that were connected the one item that seemed out of place was a tiny chain saw, ideal for use in the home or even the garden but it works in the same way as it would on a tree branch but for smaller items.
Having recently tested a powerful hedge trimmer I took one of the thickest items it had cut at 2.5cm across and cut into it with ease with the Bosch saw looking at the two ends bore no resemblance, the Bosch saw cut was smooth the hedge trimmer end was a work of three slashes to get through. Certainly in the home you do not want anything but a smooth finish. Bosch call it the EasyCut 12 cordless NanoBlade saw.
This is modestly called ‘The World’s First 3D Printing Pen’ but as far as I know it is. It is certainly the first 3D printing pen I have seen or used. Given the price of 3D printers a pen that can extrude onto a flat surface in 3D it is well unique.
While anyone can draw a 2D image drawing a 3D is different and in theory anyway you could use this kit to replace any broken plastic part. The instructions make it sound easy, I followed them and they worked, the one thing I was lacking was any real artistic talent.
In hot weather a cool bag is very useful either to keep your lunch, shopping or even picnic cool or maybe allow frozen food to stay frozen. Most are insulated bags with a cool brick or two inserted but those bricks take up valuable space.
Here I am looking at a small version called a Lunch Bag and one more than twice the capacity called a Picnic Tote. These bags are different in that the coolant is between the outer and inner layers and you actually fold the bag up and place it in your freezer overnight and then in the morning pack your lunch/picnic or take the bag with you when you shop the next day.
This is a small Mono DAB/FM from Alba a budget brand now sold by Argos. So what can you expect without having to spend that much money? The first surprise for me was that it is both mains and battery operated so immediately a plus.
It is 16x10x5cm and weighs 306grams (without batteries). With 4x‘AA’ batteries not supplied add another 96grams. It has a seven piece rod aerial that will increase the 10cm height by 42cm when fully extended. There are two rows of five buttons Power, Scan, Menu/Info, Prev and Alarm on row one. Row two is Mode, Preset, Select, Next and Snooze. There is also a large twist know that is simply volume. The rear has the battery bay, an on/off slider, earbud socket, and DC input.
An electric drill is something that has been around for years, I have an old Black and Decker one that was my father’s and I think it still works. However in recent years the technology has improved not just in gearing but also in other ways.
Here the latest offering from Bosch, not as some recent offerings are cordless but mains powered so not work time limits between charges providing of course you have mains power.
When a dog is at home you normally know where it is, when it is in your garden likewise – unless or course you have a very big garden – however if you let your dog off its lead when out for a walk/run and you lose sight of it maybe not.
This unit is unlike many other collar attach devices I have reviewed that just tell you where you dog is assuming the device has not been removed. It also tells you how far your dog – according to size – should walk as a number of steps as well as other things to keep your dog healthy. The box has a statement on each side ‘Your pet is never lost’, ‘Your pet is always connected’, Your pet is always healthy’ and ‘Your pet is worth it’.
StarTech were a name new to me but as I know their PR company through the good things of a totally different item I said I would look at the product offered, initially I failed as the item offered had limited availability of the cards to use in it. Then I was offered this offering which if you have USB C on your mobile device is very useful.
It is 7x6.5x1.5cm and weighs 66grams. It has a hard wired 20cm USB C lead emerging from the back. The front of the unit has Compact Flash on the top and SD and Micro SD under it. Before you say everything is SD or Micro SD these days – and you are probably correct – there are still some top of the range cameras that have Compact Flash alongside SD to capture images and videos.
While a hedge trimmer is useful in all gardens that have hedges and small trees, having a professional unit such as this cordless offering from EGO might be a luxury, but for a gardener or landscape technician it is a tool that is an essential not a luxury.
It is 114cm from the end of the cutter to the back of the unit. It is described as a 65cm unit that is the length of the cutter arm so it will go far deeper than all ‘home’ units I know. It will also cut far thicker branches; one such I lopped was 2.5cm thick.
Walking around a recent show in London found several interesting stands, one of the most interesting was one from a firm based in Birmingham that had a range of interesting electrical items, here is the first of three that I selected from their wide range.
A lot of modern homes do not have a conventional oven, so this small unit could enable things to be made that otherwise would only be childhood memories. It can also be used instead of a conventional oven when cooking for one at a far lesser cost. For those of us old enough the remember the Breville Sandwich Toaster this is a slightly larger unit and you just plug it in and cook. The maximum dimensions are 29x27x17cm and it weighs 2.64 kilos.
I think of Bosch for power tools but they also do a whole other range, shortly I have been promised an external camera a small circular chain saw and an electric drill, but they are in a lot of other sectors both in the home (consumer) and business fields.
Here a small battery powered screwdriver for those jobs around the home and it even has a light for those occasions when you need three hands. With ‘My Bosch’ once your product is registered you get a three year warranty. It is 15cm from back to front, 12cm bottom to top and a maximum of 4.5cm wide, it weighs 318grams. I see from the Bosch website that this is the fifth incarnation of the small pistol grip screwdriver but it is the first I have seen.
A recent visit to a show in London found me with time on my hands before an arranged meeting and wandering round the other stands found several interesting products not least the AnySharp stand who have scizzors that can cut bone and a sharpener that can give anything metal an edge.
These curved sizzors (their spelling) can open bottles, crush garlic, crack nuts and best of all cut through most materials including bone. They are ‘dishwasher safe’ usable in both hands so ideal for those of us who are left handed. They are 23cm long 8.5cm wide at the handle and around 1.5cm wide. The curved blade is 9.5cm from the pivot. I tested the bone claim on chicken and it worked correctly, do not however expect them to cut through a leg of lamb.
This is a very small A3 All In One unit. For my review time it sat on top of my own A4 All In One and only overlapped by a small degree. So it can of course still print A4 as well as the larger A3, it is a six ink offering and for good measure will print on CD’s and DVD’s.
It is 46x36x14cm when closed, A4 paper is stored internally near the base, A3 paper will need the sit up poke up from the back tray so more height will be required for that and unless you are adept at poking a sheet of paper into the lift up scanner bed then a little extra for that especially if you are scanning from a book.
Having recently told you about a Dell small Tower system with Windows 10 v1703 the next item to cross my desk again from Dell is a notebook in the same Vostro series that also comes with the latest incarnation of Windows 10 v1703.
While it is described as a ‘business’ unit I see no reason while it should not also be a ‘home’ unit. It is 33x23.5x2cm and weighs 1605grams. Apart from the hinge and the rubber strips that form the feet – which are black – it is totally grey, silver grey for the top and bottom and dark grey for the screen surround and keyboard area. This means finger marks tend not to show.
Who has heard of EU GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation), you may say with Brexit this does not apply to the UK, rightly or wrongly they do as they came into force in 2016 and complete implementation comes into force in 2018. This replaces a 1995 (yes the date is correct) directive.
‘In case of a data breach businesses will face fines of up to 4% of their annual global revenue or 20 million euros (whichever is greater) and must inform their national supervisory authority’. So for any business that should cure any personal constipation. Last year Kingston Technology purchased Ironkey who market encrypted USB drives and they are now fully part of Kingston Technology.
This is the latest item from Gillette which can make shaving, beard trimming and sideburn tidying up simple and because it’s all battery driven the shaving head or the blades do the work you just point it in the direction required to do the work.
First my moan – it’s my job to moan – while the packaging makes it look great on the retailers shelf and you can see everything you get there is a lot of plastic items that are never going to used once the items are extracted the possible exception is the power unit holder which has space in the rear for trim heads or spare blades, the rest sadly will all need recycling. The total package weighs 282 grams, the contents are less than half that.
Tablets are great when you are out and about but when you put it down on a table or desk you start to want to view it at a different angle, one solution is to find something to prop it against but this is not always a viable option so try this offering from Filofax.
The product has the name of eniTAB360º Tablet Holder and I was sent the small <8.4" to be used with own 7" screen tablet It consists of a single piece of plastic – grey in colour – hinged and with a turntable at the top end of the hinged area. The base is 16cm long and 7cm wide, then the hinge and the top part is 12cm high and the same 7cm wide till the 7.
I think we all know Samsung took a big hit with last year’s offering The S7 although when I got to see one when all the initial problems were sorted it seemed a nice phone. Here is this year’s offering that you will have to have been away from all advertising to have missed news of it so what does it do and perhaps most of all is it worth all the hype?
It is 15x6.5x.7cm, the viewable screen is 5½ inches, the screen resolution is 1080x2200 so better than the average PC but still sharp, should you wish you can set lower resolution at 720x1480 or a higher resolution at 1440x2960 but not all Apps may like the change the default is clear and above all easy to read.
Verbatim have recently launched some larger capacity drives, while it was not possible to get these newest items in for review their PR person assured me the smaller capacity ones sent to me were identical in all but capacity.
So the two drives getting a look at are both external drives the ‘Store ‘n’ Go and the Store ‘n’ Save. I was sent a 500GB portable drive, the first problem is extracting it from the shelf pack and once your scissors have cut your way in there is still another layer of protection to remove. Having plugged the supplied USB3 lead into the drive you find four files on the drive – two each for MAC and PC.
Qobuz in 2017 (part one)
Published in Entertainment
on
16 Jul 2017
Qobuz is both a streaming and download service dependant on your subscription. I first heard about it two years ago in 2015, then in 2016 they gave users with Android a chance to sample their offerings, so now what is new in 2017.
There are monthly and annual subscriptions, these vary according to the quality. The Qobuz difference is the quality, most other companies’ services offer you MP3 and if you are lucky the quality is roughly one tenth of what you get from a CD. Their Premium service – this is their entry level – costs £9.99 a month and you can test this with a 15 day trial. Next up is their Hi-Fi offering at £19.
This is a flat panel to fit easily on your desk; it protects your eyes for those of us who need to look at a flat panel for hours each day. This latest offering from Philips is a full HD offering at 1920x1080 and the actual viewable screen is 23.8inches.
The screen is 53.5x31.5x1cm and the screen is raised 8.5cm by the 20x20cm stand which clips into a link which has a thumbscrew connection so less than a minute to assemble. As with most recent panels Windows finds a perfectly acceptable driver and really your only choice is whether to connect by VGA or HDMI. It is called an edge to edge display, the top and sides have a very small border with the bottom one being around 1.5cm.
Recently I told you about the first system that I have seen with Windows 10 v1703 installed when it arrived from Dell, I was not aware that v1703 could be publicly downloaded, with my delving and an extra week of review time from Dell’s PR agency and my own Tablet/Notebook with its small hard drive and limited 2GB of RAM I tell you of my own experiences.
First you will need a fully updated Windows v1607 system and then follow the link and possibly clear out some space you will need at least 8GB of free space to do the upgrade. My Tablet/Notebook was running build 14393 and to get windows v1607 upgraded to Windows 1703 the version you get build 15063. Three things are checked CPU, Memory and Disc Space. In my case I needed to manually delete v1511 (6.55GB). This left 10.6 GB of free disc, space I started at 12.
This is the latest electric shaver from Braun. As with most of their recent offering it can be used as a standard dry electric shaver or when the skin is wet as you would with a traditional blade based razor giving you the best of both worlds.
It has an internal NiMH battery that should give enough power for up to 45 minutes of continuous shaving. It is 15.5cm from base to top of the shaving head, 5.5wide just below the head and a maximum of 4cm wide at the trimmer blade 2.5cm below the shaving head. It weighs 204grams. The head has two cutting bars each 4cm long and around .
These look in dimension terms identical, the coffee in them is manufactured in the UK so they should taste almost the same. The difference is that both the base of the container and the lid are compostable and therefore unlike the pods made by Nespresso especially their foil lids are not recyclable.
While I do possess a Nespresso machine and as regular readers will know my day runs on the amount of coffee I consume I have not used it for a while whilst I have tried the delights of Tassimo pods and Krups offerings. I dusted it off – not literally as it resides in its box but once fired up and ready that’s the way it stayed.
This is not just another phone, nor even another phone for the hard of hearing, I grant you that it looks like a standard smart phone and it has volume levels that would make most with good hearing jump but this unit goes one step further in that …
It is 14x7.2x1cm and most importantly for those who want to keep their hearing loss to themselves it looks perfectly normal, the standard black screen surround and the back is a matt silver colour. It weighs 180 grams and the notional imperial diagonal screen measurement is 5inches. This is the nearest thing to a standard smart phone that I have seen which is suitable for someone with substantial hearing loss.
This is the latest non Windows PC from Acer, it’s the Chromebook 11. From the outside it looks identical to most other notebooks open it and one look at the keyboard tells you immediately that this is a Chromebook as the alpha keys are all lower case.
For those that want to surf the Web, collect and send emails and even write the odd tome then a Chromebook is fine. In fact the Chrome store now has a growing amount of Apps – I counted over six hundred - so you may be able to do more than already described. What it cannot do is run Windows programs or Apps and if that is required then Acer have lots of Notebook and Tablets that will do so.
It’s a very long time since I have reviewed anything from Dell and even longer since I have reviewed a Tower system from anyone, in fact if my memory is correct after my last Tower review I actually purchased it and that was running Windows 7. Here this system is running Windows 10 and version 1703 at that.
The Dell Vostro 3650 Desktop Mini Tower is 28cm deep (34cm with leads attached), 15cm wide and 34cm tall. The face has the on/off button, optical drive, two USB3 ports and an SD Card slot. The back has three audio sockets, video connections for VGA and HDMI, two pairs of USB ports and an Ethernet. Four internal external bays and near the base a kettle style mains lead socket. Dell describe the Vostro as a ‘Business System’.
This is a pair of over ear noise reduction headphones. They come from a company who are stocked by high end and mass market stores, the former as entry level items and the latter as their top of the range quality headphone offerings.
With 5.5cm travel in each arm even those with the largest heads can be accommodated. My only query is for a child with a small head as not only will the closed arrangement be large on them so also will the full size over ear earpads. I think my head is about average and while tight I can wear them with no extension of the side pads. Also for those with lack of on head hair is the large amount of padding across the headband.
This is a rather fine phone, not like some that are almost too large to hold, this fits easily in the adult hand. Like other recent phones it arrived courtesy of Vodafone. As I am aware of certain black spot areas south of London these areas always get tried for phone and also 4G coverage as part of my tests on the phone and service offered by Vodafone.
It is 14.5x7x.7cm and weighs 159grams. The viewable screen is 11.4x6.4cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 5.2 inches. The edge to edge display shows 1920x1080 (portrait) resolution. This is the first phone from Vodafone that did not immediately work correctly, I was able to do the basic setup of country, then input by Wi-Fi and put in Gmail settings.
Main Menu
