It’s a simple and attractive design. The mic has a black rubber shell with a grill that flares slightly at the end. It has rubber feet that allow it to stand up or lay flat, although I’m not sure of the advantages to standing up the mic. You’d still have the ‘back’ of the mic to half of the room.

I’m not a big Skype user and I don’t do a lot of conference calls, so I leant this unit to our Program Manager who leads daily meetings between our local teams and a development partner in Belarus. Normally, he would dial in the remote team using Skype on a MBP and rely on the built-in mic and speakers. How did the Revolabs Solo compare?

General consensus from the team on the other side of the world is that the sound was significantly clearer and crisper. The remote team felt like they were ‘live’ and ‘present’ in the room. The Solo could be left on the table as different people gave their status updates and the Solo picked up everyone clearly.

A couple of improvements could be made. The interaction with the Solo takes some getting used to because the feedback is non-standard. When the unit is charging, it’s indicator light is solid green. When it is in use, it flashes green. Flashing usually means standby. This is initially confusing. Also, to prevent unwanted noise while setting up the Solo, it defaults to muted when you remove it from the base. You have to hit the mute button to unmute it before it can be used. Consensus was that this added more confusion than benefit. These are minor nits. The most important thing is the audio quality and these minor complaints don’t detract much from the overall experience.

These units start at ~$160 for the basic model. Tack on another $100 if you want the RF Armor version that drastically reduces interference. With RF Armor, you can put a GSM phone directly on top of the mic and you will get no ‘buzz’ at all.

Revolabs also has a Solo Wearable model for individual use.

Bottom Line: If your business does a lot of audio/video conferencing, the Solo could really enhance the feeling of presence for a reasonable price. If you are a podcasting/skyping/recording individual, check out the wearable line.

Product Page

Last week I mentioned this Golden Tee Golf CrunchDeal and said that I’d even buy it for myself. Well you may have thought, "That Doug, he’s all talk — sitting up in his mansion atop a pile of free gadgets, he’d never stoop low enough to buy a plug-and-play TV game for ten bucks."

I’ll have you know that I did indeed purchase the game and I’m happy to report that it’s a perfect gift to give to someone that you HAVE to get a gift for but want to spend the absolute least amount of money possible while still making it look that you put some thought into it.

So, on to the review…

Price:

It’s $9.94 at Target. You’d spend more than that on a $10 gift card, which is widely thought to be the smallest socially acceptable denomination to give to someone as a gift.

Look and Feel:

It’s solid. Bigger and more substantial than I thought. It doesn’t feel cheap — well, it doesn’t feel $9.94 cheap. It feels more like it should be in the $50-$60 range. The controller is a near-exact replica of the Golden Tee board you’d find in your local bar, just shrunk down to about a fourth of the size. It’s got little hand grooves underneath it on either side and the bottom-middle of the thing is molded perfectly to sit on your leg.

The trackball is quite a bit more stiff than the big-boy bar version but, who knows, maybe it’ll loosen up if I were to replicate some real-bar scenarios like spilling beer on it and rubbing pizza grease all over it. Ewww.

Graphics:

Imagine your Gameboy Advance blown up to your TV screen. Maybe your Gameboy Color, actually. No, it’s better than that, actually. Calling it akin to PGA Tour on the Sega Genesis would be a stretch but it’s a little better than 8-bit graphics. Everything’s top-down, no in-flight ball cam or anything like that. Maybe we could agree on TurboGrafx-16 quality – not actually true 16-bit, but an 8-bit CPU with a tricked-out GPU.

I don’t know. Don’t buy it for the graphics. Buy it for the love of golf.

Gameplay:

The swing mechanics are identical to the bar versions, which is a good thing. You can hit the backspin button before your backswing and apply fades, hooks, draws, and the like by pulling back and pushing forward on the trackball in different directions. You can even pull of the no-backswing swing. Just push the trackball forward and you’ll hit the ball.

You don’t get the behind-the-golfer view like you do in the bar versions. Instead, you get a view of your golfer in a little window in the upper right hand corner of your screen superimposed over a top-down view of the course. It feels a little different, but it’s not bad.

People with no human friends and/or people who are almost 30 years old and still play plug-in TV games (me) will find that, while a table for one can be fun, there’s something missing when you can’t even play against a CPU opponent. You can play together with up to three other human players, so keep that in mind if you indeed foster face-to-face human relationships.

Course Selection:

It’s bad! There’s only one course. It’s nice and varied, but I can see it getting old quickly. My secret is that I bought the game and had it sent to my parents’ house, where I’m currently visiting for the holidays. I’ll leave the game here – brilliant! – and just play it whenever I visit, so it’ll seem new to me because I’ll forget all about it between trips.

Recommendation:

True Golden Tee addicts have so-far scoffed at Radica’s attempt, returning lukewarm customer reviews. But that was back when the thing cost around $50. For under $10, it’s hard to find too much to complain about. These little guys might not last long and, again, they make pretty good last-minute gifts for the marginally-important people in your life.

Radica PTV Golden Tee Golf [Target]

Short version: Don’t buy it at the MSRP of 70 bucks, but for around $40 bucks around the internets, it’s a great alternative to Apple’s own dock. You lose the audio line-out, but you gain an extra USB 2.0 port and a 6-in-1 card reader.

Overview and Features

Take an iPod or iPhone dock. Cram in a card reader (with support for Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, SD, SDHC, xD and CompactFlash) and a 2-port USB hub. While I’d love to say more about it than that, I’d have to start making stuff up.

Pros:

Aesthetically, it looks like a MacBook Pro and an iPod dock got drunk and had a baby making session. The majority of its outside is made up of an aluminum (or, at least, aluminum-ish) material, with the remaining parts made up of white plastic. It oughtta match perfectly with the late 2008 MacBooks and Macbook Pros/Airs, and it’ll look just fine paired up with anything else. Up until I powered it on, I thought they made all the right visual design decisions. (More on that bit about powering it on in the cons section)

As an iPhone owner who travels almost constantly, the idea of freeing up the ultra-precious space currently occupied by the standalone USB hubs and card readers is a magical one. Think about it: now I can fill those pockets with candy instead of stupid extraneous accessories. Both of these aspects of the dock function as one might hope – the card reader reads cards dependably, and the USB 2.0 hub.. hubs.

Griffin includes a bunch of dock-adapters in the box, so you won’t have to spend 6 hours online looking for the best deal on that $1.99 component needed to make it fit your iPod properly. It’ll support the iPhone (3g/2g), iPod Touch (both generations), the Nano (2nd Gen, 3rd Gen[Fat Nano], and 4th Gen[Tapered Edges]), along with the Shuffle, iPod Video, and iPod Classic (80GB/120GB). Folks with iPod Photos or older models are out of luck, but seeing as the vast majority of those have probably already met their end due to a dead battery or hard drive, I doubt that’ll disappoint too many people.

The back of the dock features an 5v DC power input, which gives the USB hub a bit more juice for devices that require powered ports.

Cons:

Earlier, I mentioned that the Simplifi loses some points in the visuals department once it’s powered on. Here’s why:

Call it nitpicking (because it definitely is), but seriously: Blue LEDs?. That’s like sticking neon lights underneath a sports car. The Simplifi was obviously built to match the looks of the metal MacBook line, which has long used white LEDs. It does a great job of it, till you power it up – then BAM, LETS RAVE!!

The included cable is surprisingly short – about a foot and a half. That’s no big deal for anyone looking to keep the dock right beside their computin’ box, but for people looking to put it somewhere it can stay indefinitely without getting in the way (for me, that’s about 3 feet away), it’s way too short. Fortunately, it’s just a standard mini-USB, so finding a longer cable shouldn’t be too hard – but it also shouldn’t be necessary.

Of all of this, the only thing I’d consider to be a significant shortcoming is that the 5v DC input we mentioned earlier only powers the USB ports – not the iPod docking port. This prevents it from serving as a iPod/iPhone charger unless it’s plugged into a powered-on computer, which is really too bad. As this makes it fairly useless away from a computer, this also means they’ve dropped the audio output found on Apple’s dock.

Conclusion:

I wouldn’t pay the suggest retail price of $70 bucks for it. That said, you can find it for around $40 bucks, which is just 10 ducats above the official Apple dock. I’d say that’s a perfectly reasonable pricetag for the convenience of an extra USB port and the card reader, as long as you don’t mind the lack of line-out and the out of place lighting. Those things aside, it has definitely found a place in my laptop case.

Short Version: The Philips DC910 is great-sounding system for playing music from your iPod, a USB thumb drive, an SD card, FM radio, or up to two external sources — all for under $150.

 Overview and Features:

• Compatible with iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano 3rd Generation, iPod 5th Generation, iPod mini, iPod with color display, iPod nano 1st Generation, iPod nano 2nd Generation – iPhones will work, but you’ll deal with a bit of interference from the phone’s radio, especially when there’s no music playing to drown it out.
• Place your iPod touch in portrait or landscape orientation
• Play and charge your iPod
• USB thumb drive and SD/MMC card slots for MP3/WMA music playback
• Auxiliary input
• FM digital tuning with presets
• 3-inch wOOx subwoofer, two 1.5-inch tweeters – 30 watts RMS total power
• Alarm clock function for iPod, USB, or radio
• Wall-mountable
• Available online for under $150

Pros:

Wow. Dougie likee. This is a great all-around music system, like the kind you’d put on your wedding registry or buy as a housewarming gift. It’s not too big, yet it gets very loud, it can be wall-mounted, and it handles iPods, thumbdrives, SD cards, and there are two — count ‘em — two auxiliary inputs for plugging in whatever isn’t on your iPod or various flash memory cards and drives. The iPod mount can be swiveled horizontally for some hot Cover Flow action — a nice touch.

Sound quality is surprising. It’s kind of like seeing a smaller person excel athletically. Think of the DC910 as the Dustin Pedroia of music systems – the guy’s like 5’7” and he’s arguably one of the best players in baseball, especially when it comes to hitting. When you first see him, though, he’s relatively unassuming. Same thing with this music system. I opened it, put it on my desk, and thought, “Okay. Here’s another iPod dock.” Once I turned it on, though, I was pleasantly surprised. You could throw a medium-sized party in your house and the DC910 would get plenty loud.

Cons:

Nothing major, just some minor quibbles. First, the power brick is just that: a brick. It’s larger than most laptop adapters. You’ll have to find somewhere to hide it, especially if you’re thinking of wall-mounting this system. Thankfully, Philips provides plenty of cord length so you should have a few options when you’re wrangling everything.

Second, the remote is a little iffy. It works fine, but if feels kind of cheap and the buttons are pretty squishy. It’s not very intuitive at first but it’s not bad once you start using it regularly. The range isn’t all that great, either. It’ll work across small rooms but I had trouble between my kitchen and the adjacent living room.

Finally, the LCD display is useful for simple track information and the clock and whatnot but the system doesn’t ready ID3 info from files playing off of SD cards or thumb drives. You’re presented with a simple folder + track number interface – so song or artist information. I remember that kind of stuff being an issue like ten years ago when hardware players were first starting to emerge. It seems to just be a given nowadays.

Conclusion:

All in all, the pros far outweigh the cons, making the Philips DC910 music system a great choice for any home. Philips is currently selling it directly at $116.88 but, unfortunately, it’s out of stock at the moment. You can find it at most other online stores for well under $150, though. Amazon, for instance, has it for as low as $80 – likely in order to make room for the $180 DC912.

Philips Docking Entertainment System – DC910 [Philips.com]

Quick Version: In a world chock full of streaming music devices, the Philips Streamium NP1100 blends into the crowd as a straightforward, easy-to-use network device.

Overview and Features:

• Wired and/or wireless network music playback
• Internet radio
• Rhapsody online music service
• Connects to stereo/home theater or headphones
• Uses Windows Media Player 11 and/or UPnP to stream music
• MSRP of $179.99

Pros:

The Streamium NP1100 from Philips is a relatively unassuming network music player. You plug it in, turn it on, and it finds the music on your UPnP-enabled computers. It also connects to Rhapsody’s online music service and features internet radio stations from all over the world. Lest you think that “unassuming” sounds negative, when it comes to devices that are meant to play music, sometimes the simpler, the better.

Sound quality is excellent. I tested the NP1100 hooked up to the home stereo, computer speakers, cheap headphones, $100 headphones, and $400 noise-cancelling headphones and the music, whether streaming from my computer, an internet radio station, or Rhapsody, sounded great. If I had an awesome home stereo system, the likes of which you’d see in fancy houses with things like “fireplaces” and “recessed lighting,” the NP1100 would sit handsomely next to the other high-priced audio components and push out high-quality music for me to listen to while I read the evening paper over a snifter of brandy-flavored beer from the gas station.

Rhapsody users, especially, would do well by this device. You can stream all of your personally downloaded Rhapsody tracks as well as search for and play music directly from Rhapsody’s enormous library. You’d literally have an almost unlimited music collection at the ready without having to download a bunch of files.

Cons:

The interface is a little “blah,” which is unfortunate because the device itself looks nice, with a sleek black finish and handsome translucent edges. It’s kind of like buying a nice, shiny new flat panel TV and then hooking up an old VCR to it and watching movies from the 80s that you taped off of network TV. It just seems out of place.

Also, while the NP1100 worked really well over a wired connection, when hooked up wirelessly there was just enough lag and buffering to sometimes make navigating with the included remote kind of a pain. I’d end up trying to skip backwards to earlier tracks on an album only to restart playing the same track over and over again until I could finally double-press the back button quickly enough to get to the previous track.

Finally, an MSRP of $179 seems a bit expensive, especially given the sheer number of competing devices on the market. The NP1100 can be found for less online, though.

Recommendation:

If you like music, want it to sound good, and don’t want a bunch of extra fluff, the Streamium NP1100 is easy enough to set up and use that serious music lovers – especially Rhapsody subscribers – might find the device to be a good fit. The design of the hardware itself is sleek, although it’s evened out by a boring, dated UI. In a world full of music streamers, the Streamium NP1100 falls somewhere in the middle.

Network Music Player – NP1100 [Philips.com]

Quick Version: If you’re a light to moderate sleeper and you can’t seem to wake up on the right side of the bed, the $179 (MSRP) Sleeptracker Pro might be just what you need.

Overview and Features:

• Digital watch monitors your sleep patterns to help you wake up feeling refreshed
• Monitors physical data and wakes you at an optimal almost-awake moment
• Offers vibrating alarm, ringing alarm, or both
• Back-lit, digital display includes day and date
• Includes software to help you track your sleep patterns
• MSRP of $179

How It Works:

You wear the Sleeptracker Pro before going to sleep, setting an alarm time and a window of time before the actual alarm time that’d you’d be okay with getting woken up. The company recommends a 20-minute window.

During the night, the watch monitors your sleep patterns using a built-in accelerometer to tell when you’re tossing and turning, which it characterizes as lighter sleep. If it catches you in a light sleep state within your wake-up window, the alarm will go off. The idea is that if you’re woken up when you’re already in a light sleep state, you’ll wake up more refreshed than if you were in a deep sleep and got woken up by a blaring alarm clock. If you don’t happen to experience a light sleep state during your wake-up window, the watch’s alarm will go off at the regular alarm time.

Pros and Cons:

If you, like me, get about eight hours of sleep every night but still wake up groggy, this thing will work well for you. I wouldn’t say I have any glaring sleep issues – I’m a moderate sleeper, not too light, not too heavy – and the Sleeptracker’s been great.

I don’t necessarily spring out of bed, but I’m definitely not grumpy or groggy in the morning any more. It’s more of an “Okay, it’s morning time. I guess I’ll get up now” disposition versus a “What the hell is that noise?! Oh, it’s my alarm clock. I hate morning and I’d very much like to punch morning time in the Adam’s apple if it were physically possible to do so.” The alarm can be set to chime, vibrate, or both. I have it set on vibrate and it’s easily enough to wake me up. Deep sleepers, however, would likely sleep right on through it. It’s not a jarring vibration and/or noise by any means.

The watch comes with software that allows you to upload your sleep data and enter factors like whether or not you drank or ate too much before you went to bed, how you felt when you woke up, and stuff like that. It’s pretty cool but the watch only saves one night’s worth of data, so you’ll have to be diligent about connecting the watch to your computer every morning.

The price is a tad on the high side at $179. It’ll absolutely come down to whether or not you think waking up feeling refreshed every morning is worth that kind of money to you. Keep in mind that the Sleeptracker isn’t a replacement for sleep – you still have to get a full night’s rest or you’ll risk sleeping right up to the actual alarm time.

It happened to me once on a Sunday morning after I’d gone to a holiday party where I drank too much, stayed up too late, and tried to wake up too early. I was not refreshed at all but, again, the watch isn’t a replacement for sleep (and it doesn’t cure hangovers, either). Every other “regular” night, though, it’s worked well.

Recommendation:

If you’re not a heavy sleeper but you still wake up groggy and/or agitated after a full night’s sleep, you might find the Sleeptracker Pro to be a good investment for $179.

Product Page [Sleeptracker.com]

Guest review: John Ha

I recently bought a Macbook to replace my aging Windows XP laptop. I figured that, like any new computer migration, I would load the applications I needed and then copy the data from my old laptop to the new one. I have a large USB thumb drive and a couple external hard drives, so no sweat – just use them to migrate everything.

So when my brother told me he would lend me his Targus File Transfer Cable for Mac, I scoffed. Who needs this unnecessary cable when I can just as easily use my external drive to copy data from one laptop to another. Plus, I was skeptical of the software. It would probably be crappy and limiting, when I just want file-level access to my data.

So when my Macbook arrived, I used my 8GB thumb drive to start transferring some files over to it. I soon learned that that would take forever, the thumb drive was just too slow at writing and reading. So, I grabbed the Targus cable and plugged the fat business end of it into my Windows machine. I heard the familiar add-device sound that Windows makes and as it recognized and installed the drivers. Hmm, I thought – I don’t have to go find special drivers? That’s a good sign. But I was still skeptical. It created a new drive in My Computer, so I clicked on it.

Then I plugged the other end into the Macbook, and a little EasySuite CD icon showed up on the desktop. I double-clicked the CD to see a folder with three icons, including one appropriately named EasyMacCopy. So I clicked on that to reveal a very nice application with an intuitive split screen layout.

The top half, it was obvious, contained all of the files on my Windows machine, and the bottom half contained all of the local files (Macbook). Nice.

I happily spent the next few minutes selecting and copying files from my Windows machine over to the Macbook. The interface was extremely user-friendly and the transfer speeds were very fast. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised that the little cable was able to copy multiple gigabytes of data without a single hiccup or complaint. The little blue light on the fat end would pulse nicely when idle, and blink when actively copying or reading data.

Satisfied that it worked, I then tried reversing the connection, by plugging the fat end into the Macbook and the skinny end into the Windows machine. Same result. Remote host is in the upper half of the screen, and the local host is below. A couple nice icons at the top indicating the USB version of the local and/or remote machines, USB 2.0 in my case. I didn’t try with an older machine, but I would assume it would say 1.1 with a connection to a USB 1.1 port.

The software in Windows is analogous to the Mac software, with the exception of one menu item called Synchronize. Under this menu, there are three options for Mail, Folder Synchronize, and EasyMover. I wasn’t able to try these features though because their submenus were greyed out. I suppose there may be some functionality (or a plan for future functionality) for two machines to synchronize certain folders or email, but I wasn’t able to test this.

Physically, the unit is compact and comes with a handy hook-and-loop enclosure to keep the long cable tidy. The grey wire itself is nice with a grippy finish.

These days, gadgets rarely meet my expectations, and I am happy to report that this little gizmo easily exceeded them both in terms of easy of use and performance. With a MSRP of $49.99 and street pricing around $39, I would highly recommend this device for people wanting to quickly and easily transfer files between two computers.

Product Page

Quicksilver isn’t known for their technical wear outside of the water, but the Opus is one bitchin’ jacket with a couple nerdtastic components. It’s made from Schoeller fabric and Quiksilver’s own Quik Repel material; it’s water-resistant and shields the body from low temps and wind. I did a little bit of research into Schoeller and they seem to be pretty big in the performance/technical fabric world. It’s been chilly in NYC this last week, so it was a perfect time to test out the Opus.

I wouldn’t suggest wearing this out in sub-30 degree weather but I only wear t-shirts, so it might suffice with a couple layers. It did keep me warm in temps hovering in the 30s and low 40s with a bit of wind. It streches dependingin your body position and repels water really well. I wasn’t walking about in a torrential downpour, but a steady sprinkle didn’t seep to my core. The water beads up and rolls off. There are two zippers so you can access pant pockets and avoid that embarrassing coat boner when you sit down. You know what I’m talking about.

The interior is soft and fleece-like. The exterior has a tendency to make swishy noise when your arms brush against your body when you walk, but the street traffic or music blasting through my in-ears drowns all of that out.

The nerdtastic features I mentioned earlier exist in the deep, deep pockets that can hold a loaf of bread, a 40 ounce Olde English and pack of condoms and maybe a sandwich. There’s a lot of room in them pockets and there’s no fear of your phone or keys falling out after having a seat. There’s an internal pocket meant for your MP3 player or whatever you feel like putting in there, really. There’s a rubber grommet-like opening (is that what these are called?) for your headphone cable to slither through. The pocket didn’t sag too bad under the weight of my iPhone, so that’s a plus. No one wants a saggy pocket that makes the exterior look funky, right?

The Opus is a great jacket, but the $400 price tag is a huge hurdle to overcome. It looks great and performs well for an everyday, around the city jacket and I’d recommend it to anyone willing to spend $400.

Product Page

There are only a handful of gadgets in my possession that can’t be charged over USB: TV/Cable/Blu-ray player remotes and my DSLR. My Xbox 360 controller was a battery hog once upon a time, but the Nyko Charge Base took care of that. The remotes aren’t as taxing on batteries as my SLR — that puppy is constantly draining my supply of batteries. I could always cut back on the amount of photos I take, but life wouldn’t be as much fun and I’m all about fun.

Trying to be as eco-friendly as possible, I decided to embrace rechargeable batteries and went with Energizer’s 2500mAh rechargeables. Because my camera drains the juice so quickly when using the flash in my dark apartment, I also opted to pick up the 15-minute AA/AAA Battery Charger. It holds up to four batteries and glows red when depleted batteries are docked. A fan swirls for the next 15-20 minutes and subsequently shuts down when the status indicator goes green. Energizer claims to recharge batteries up to 90 percent in 15 minutes. They also suggest you keep them in for an additional 10 minutes once the intitial 15 minutes is up for maximum results.

Now the way I chose to test whether or not the batteries were charged was to plug them into my Xbox 360 controller and check the battery meter in dashboard. I played for an hour or two and checked again and it was still going strong. Obviously, I tested with my SLR under similar conditions and results were mixed. I believe this is due to the changing amount of light that seeps into my apartment, subject placement, and other circumstances. They all averaged out in an acceptable window of use, though.

Safety precautions abound in this charger, with bad battery detecion, short circuit protection, overcharge protection, and surge protection, among many others. So don’t worry about burning down your house or zapping the rechargeable batteries you do have.

The kit comes with 2 AA and 2 AAA batteries along with a car-charging adapter. It can be found for as low as $32. Picking one of these up will save you money in the long run despite the rather high intitial investment.

Product Page

What’s worse than having your Xbox 360 controller die during the middle of a game? Not being able to find replacement batteries, of course. Rechargeable batteries are a viable option, but those don’t seem to last as long as we’d like, right? They can be spendy as well.

With that in mind, Nyko has a rechargeable charging dock solution for those with at least one, but no more than two wireless 360 controllers. Nyko boasts up to 25 hours of fun for the NiHM batteries and my testing revealed that to be true. I logged roughly 23 hours in between charging cycles, but that’s not to say I couldn’t get another 30 to 60 minutes out of them. Since I only have one wireless controller, I was unable to test the recharging time for both packs, which Nyko claims takes four hours total or two hours per. Because of my ADD I always missed the two-hour mark, but packs that were recharging were lit green on the charging dock denoting that it was full.

The packs themselves match the cream color of the regular Xbox 360 controllers and take a tiny bit of muscle to plug into the back of the controller. There is a set for those with the Elite, but it’s sans charging dock. It’s a just a charging port for two battery packs. I can deal with mismatched colors. But the secondary battery pack isn’t quite hefty enough to sit in the cradle on its own. I suppose you could place something on top to get the juices flowing. Nyko should add some sort of locking mechanism so that you can recharge without a controller.

Nyko’s charging solution is priced the same as Microsoft’s Quick Charge Kit but that one only comes with one rechargeable pack. An additional pack is $12. The choice is quite clear. Nyko offers a solution equal to that of the official Microsoft kit, but at a better price. Grab one for your gamer (or yourself) this holiday season.

Product Page
Charge Station 360 (Black)

Yeah, I know, it’s a USB hub. But this little guy from Targus is pretty neat. It’s geared towards the Mac crowd with its color scheme, but that shouldn’t deter Windows or Linux folk.

The Hub is compact and has four USB 2.0 slots that are concealed behind a rubbery wraparound cable. The wraparound cable is what plugs into your USB port (duh, I know). I have nothing bad to say about this hub other than the rubber cable attracts all sorts of lint and dust from my bag. What I liked the most about this one is the length of the wraparound cable and how it just dangles about without taking up a lot of real estate around other ports on my laptop. I don’t see it being ripped from the hub itself very easily, either.

You can find other hubs on Amazon for cheaper, but it all boils down to form factor and what you’re looking for. I don’t really think $20 is too much to ask for a 2.0 hub, though. And other hubs from the likes of Belkin and Kensington are priced the same.

Product Page

Amazon

We’ve reviewed a lot of home audio solutions, and they all offer different benefits and drawbacks. The big trend is “music everywhere”, whether through powerline networking or wirelessly. Most of these products require a specific music source to feed into the system. Sonos brings something rather more complete to the goal of “music everywhere”. Read on for the complete review of the Sonos solution.

I’ve been testing the Sonos Bundle 150 with Loudspeakers combined with a Sonos ZoneBridge, and I have to say that this is an absolutely kick-ass product. The Sonos selling point is the idea of “zones” (read: rooms) each of which is capable of playing music from independent sources, all managed with a full-color handheld wireless controller. You can play the same music in every room, or give each room its own soundtrack.

Sonos Bundle 150 with Loudspeakers
The Sonos Bundle 150 with Loudspeakers is a complete solution for pumping music into two rooms. It includes the ZonePlayer 120 and the ZonePlayer 90, along with a Sonos Controller and a pair of bookshelf speakers. The ZonePlayer 120 provides power to the bookshelf speakers (or your own speakers), while the ZonePlayer 90 connects to your home theater or stereo equipment for output.

Both of the ZonePlayer units have RCA inputs, so you can feed it music from an existing audio source. They also both have a 2-port Ethernet switch, so you can connect one of them to a broadband router to access a variety of network-based music sources (Last.fm, Rhapsody, Pandora, Napster, or your own music collection on a Windows share). You can use the two-port switch to squeeze these devices into an already-full switch, which is a helpful addition for folks with way too many network-connected devices.

There is no interface on any of the ZonePlayers other than simple volume controls. You use the Sonos Controller to manage everything. You can also use the Desktop Controller software to manage your zones from your PC or Mac, or you can use the free iPhone application to control everything.

The Controller is a hefty handheld device. You can plug it directly into AC power to charge the battery, which takes about 2 hours, or you can use the Charging Cradle, which I strongly recommend — especially since it’s currently being included for free with any bundle purchase. It has an accelerometer inside that detects movement, so it usually comes to life as soon as you pick it up. That’s a really nice touch. If you leave it lying around it’ll eventually go into a power-saving mode, requiring you to press one of the buttons to wake it up. Wake up time take a couple of seconds, but not so long as to be really annoying. The battery life of the controller is great: I’ve left it out of the dock for about a week now, using it at least a couple times a day, and the battery has just now depleted.

Sonos ZoneBridge

The ZoneBridge provides no audio output. It has two Ethernet jacks and that’s it. You use the ZoneBridge to connect to your Ethernet network. If you don’t have an Ethernet switch, you can place the ZoneBridge between your broadband router and your PC; or you can plug it into a port on your switch. The ZoneBridge then brokers all the Internet access required by the other devices in your Sonos setup, since presumably your audio equipment isn’t likely to be located in the same room as your networking gear.

Setup
Set up is extremely easy, and the Quick Setup Guide is surprisingly helpful. You can use the supplied software to set everything up, or you can do it all directly from the Sonos Controller. I chose the latter. Plug everything in — there are no power buttons on any of the devices — and then turn on the controller. It discovers the devices nearby, and asks you to press both the mute button and the volume up button on any of them. This puts the device in “configure” mode, and then you use the Controller to give it a name. Repeat this process for each device in your Sonos network. Since the controller is wireless, you can easily walk from room to room configuring your setup in a couple of minutes.

You can register your setup with Sonos directly from the Controller after setup, which I found extremely handy. Once registered, the system can automatically download software updates. Sonos has put a lot of effort into making this thing “just work”, and I think they’ve succeeded admirably.

I was able to easily connect to a share on my home server. The music was indexed, and ready for me to play within a couple of minutes. All the ID3 tags on my mp3s were read, allowing me to navigate my music collection by artist, album, genre, composer, track title or folder. It also provides a search function.

I have a pretty boring collection of music, so I next added last.fm. After keying in my account name and password, I was able to play my neighborhood, or manually key in tags or artists. I’ve found myself streaming a lot of last.fm into my living room since I hooked up the Sonos.

Usage
You can group your zones together, so that they all play the same music at the exact same time. Even without setting up specific groups, you can activate “All Zones Party Mode” to play the same music through all of your Sonos gear.

Each zone can have its own queue of music, which you can control. You can add new music — single tracks, whole albums, or all the music in your catalog — to the end of an existing queue, or you can replace the current queue with your selection. You can set up and manage specific playlists within Sonos, as well as feed it playlists you might have created in .PLS, .M3U or .WPL files.

You can listen to broadcast radio, which surprised me somewhat at first. You’re certainly not going to buy this thing just to listen to your local radio station, but it’s a nice feature to have handy.

Another nice feature is the alarm mode, which lets you specify what music you want to play in which zone(s). Multi-zone alarm clocks: cool! You can wake up to one music source, and you can wake the rest of the house up with another music source. The Controller allows you to snooze for 9 minutes, just like a normal alarm clock.

As for input:

Support for compressed MP3, WMA (including purchased Windows Media downloads), AAC (MPEG4), Ogg Vorbis, Audible (format 4), Apple Lossless, Flac (lossless) music files, as well as uncompressed WAV and AIFF files.

Native support for 44.1kHz sample rates. Additional support for 48kHz, 32kHz, 24kHz, 22kHz, 16kHz, 11kHz, and 8kHz sample rates.

Wireless
Each Sonos device will get an IP address in your network. They speak to one another over “SonosNet, a secure AES encrypted, peer-to-peer wireless mesh network.” For giggles, I pointed nmap at each of them. The only open port it found was 1400/tcp, which was reported as cadkey-tablet. nmap reported that they’re each running Linux 2.4.18.

Curious, I ran wireshark for awhile as I used the Sonos, to see what sort of traffic I might see. The only thing it collected was lots and lots of Spanning Tree Protocol packets, presumably for the mesh networking. I got bored after that, and went back to listening to music.

Shortcomings
In a word: price. These things are expensive. The Sonos Bundle 150 with Loudspeakers is $1149.00. You can shave off $150 and just get the Sonos Bundle 150 if you already have speakers to use with the ZonePlayer 120. The ZoneBridge is $99. A spare controller is $400, and the Controller dock is $40. You’re getting an awful lot of functionality for the money, but it might be too high a price for some folks to stomach.

The other notable shortcoming is that these things don’t speak iTunes. It’s not an AirPort Express, but rather a whole lot more. Still, I’m somewhat surprised that you can’t stream iTunes to the Sonos. Similarly, you can’t play Apple FairPlay songs. Nor can it play WMA Lossless files.

UPDATE: I just got a call from the folks at Sonos, and they wanted to make it clear that while the Sonos gear won’t speak the DAAP protocol used by iTunes, it will play non-DRM media in your iTunes library if you make it available via an SMB share.

A minor nuisance is the scrollwheel on the controller. It works, but it can be a bit laborious to enter text using this thing. In fact, the interface on the controller is a little awkward in general. You have the scrollwheel, shortcut buttons for “Zones” and “Music” along with a “Back” button above the wheel, and simple music controls for “back”, “play/pause” and “forward” buttons beneath the wheel. Along the left are mute and volume. Then under the screen are three context-sensitive buttons. It’s these buttons that I found annoying: you need to actually look at the screen to find out what they do, and they sometimes do what you would expect the center button on the wheel to do. It’s not a deal breaker, by any stretch, but it would be nice to see a slightly more elegant interface in such an expensive product.

The bottom line: if you can afford it, I think Sonos offers the best multi-room wireless audio solution we’ve reviewed yet. Robust support for local and Internet audio sources, an extremely functional wireless handheld controller to manage all your zones, and a plethora of extra features make this a complete package.

Short Version: The EOS wireless audio system is dead simple to set up and use, although a high price tag and so-so sound quality might keep some people away.

Overview and Features:

• Base station with iPod dock transmits audio to wireless speakers up to 150 feet away
• Features 3.5-inch auxiliary input for connecting to other music-playing devices
• Speakers are 2.1 stereo — left and right channel, plus back-firing subwoofer
• Uses proprietary 2.4GHz transmission to avoid interference
• Core kit comes with base station and one wireless speaker for $249 – additional speakers are $129.99 each

Pros:

Setting up the EOS system couldn’t have been easier — if you can plug things into wall outlets, you’re 95% there. The speakers are designed to either plug directly into an outlet and “float” or you can detach the AC adapter from the back of the speaker if you want to move it away from the wall to, say, a bookshelf or countertop. I had everything set up and playing in about five minutes. It’s super easy.

Wireless audio transmission was absolutely interference-free, which is refreshing for a wireless system. The EOS speakers sounded pretty good, although it was still somewhat obvious that they were wireless. You’d probably be able to fool regular folk, though, as each speaker features both a left and right channel and a subwoofer, which is far more ambitious than most wireless speakers setups.

Cons:

First and foremost, the EOS system is a bit pricey. The kit I tested consisted of the core system – which consists of the base station and one speaker – plus three add-on speakers. Total out of pocket cost for that setup would be $249.99 plus $129.99 per extra speaker ($389.97), for a grand total of $639.96.

Granted, you can just buy the base system and add speakers as you go, but keep in mind that the system only supports up to four total wireless speakers, so you’d be somewhat limited in your coverage if you have a big house.

And the sound quality, while free of interference, is still a bit tinny on the high end and songs with deep bass end up sounding pretty muddy. I ended up testing some bass-heavy songs with an iPod Touch, with the EOS plugged into my computer, and with the EOS plugged into a SanDisk Sansa Clip and the speakers bottomed out and distorted with each device when trying to handle songs with low, low bass.

Recommendation:

If you’re not put off by the price tag and you’ll be listening to relatively tame music at moderate levels (or podcasts and other voice-only stuff), then the ease of use as far as setup and functionality are concerned make the EOS system worth a closer look.

Product Page [EosWireless.com]

Like this video? View more here…

eStarling offers the Impact7 (7″, 480 X 234 pixels) and Impact8 (8″, 800 X 600 pixels), a pair of WiFi-enabled digital photo frames. They’re easy to use, functional, and nice to look at. They include a remote control, and each frame gets its own email address to which you can email photos. You can also easily subscribe to RSS feeds of photos (your own, or any public feed). Read on for the whole review.

Both frames are functionally identical, as far as I could tell.  The Impact8 offers substantially more pixels, though, so I’d strongly recommend that you consider it over the Impact7. Once set up, I didn’t have a need to use the remote control on either unit, so just tuck it into the recessed portion of the stand arm to keep it out of your way.

You can use removable media in these frames, but the real value comes when the frames use a WiFi connection to get photos from the Internet.  When you first turn on the frame, you’re walked through connecting to your WiFi network.  My network is open, so it was no challenge at all to connect.  After that, the screen displays a registration number, which you need to type into the SeeFrame.com website. Click the big “Activate Your New Frame” button as shown below.

Both the Impact7 and the Impact8 come with a remote control, so I selected that option from the next screen.

Type in the 14-digit registration number to activate your frame.

Finally, create a user ID for yourself to use to control your frame. I found it mildly annoying that I couldn’t use the same account to manage both frames, but I suspect that’s not going to be a common use case. I created an account for each frame — it’s not like it was hard.

Now you’re all set, and can start sending photos to your frame!

The SeeFrame site provides a pretty handsome selection of pre-defined RSS feeds from which to choose, most of which pull from Flickr.  I found the “Birds” and the “Urban Landscapes” feeds to make a nice combination, and have left it running on the Impact7 for several days, enjoying the beauty of random photos.

You can connect to an account on a number of social networking sites. Flickr was easy, in which case you get a constant stream of updated photos from your contacts. You can hit Facebook, PhotoBucket, Picasa and, interestingly enough, Twitter.  That’s right: you can read your friends’ tweets on your digital photo frame.

The images are really crisp, and the default settings cycle through images at a comfortable pace — not too fast and not too slow. I subscribed to my Flickr feed with no trouble, and enjoyed reliving my recent trip to Barcelona again and again.

As mentioned in the teaser, each frame gets its own email address, to which you can email photos.  One nice feature of the SeeFrame web site is that you can set email filters, so that only approved senders can display photos on your frame.  This is a good way to prevent jokers from sending tubgirl to the frame in your parents’ living room.

You can use the SeeFrame site to set up group frames, which “allows multiple frames to share the same email address. All uploaded photos and photos sent to the group address … will be sent to all of the members in the group.” Or you can set up a virtual frame, which allows other people to see the photos being displayed on your frame.  This is done through either an RSS feed or a downloadable application. I suppose you could use this to duplicate the “group frame” functionality, such that you’d subscribe one frame to the feed of another frame; but you could also use this in a variety of other creative ways.

Surprisingly, the eStarling frames run a web server listening on port 80. It reports itself as the Micro-Web server running on Oasis Firmware. I didn’t spend very long poking around, but I suppose an enterprising hacker will quickly port Doom onto these things.

Bottom line: a great digital photo frame. This is definitely one I’d buy for myself.

Short Version: The first time you put on noise canceling headphones, you can’t believe your ears. When you flip the noise canceling circuitry on, it’s like hitting a mute button on the world (note: does not work on significant others, only constant noise. And no, your SO’s blathering does not count as a constant din.) I never realized how loud my office was until I put on these JVCs. Now it’s hard to sit at my desk without them.

These are different from the earbuds that you jam in your ear to block out the sound. These headphones listen to the ambient noise and generate sound waves that are 180 degrees out of phase with the background noise to effectively cancel it out. They can do this without effecting the sound you want to hear.

The audio quality of these headphones was very impressive. The sound was full and undistorted. The bass was prominent without being overpowering. They are also very comfortable. The foam cups are worn on your ears as opposed to completely covering them. This makes these headphones a bit smaller for travel, but also means they won’t physically block as much noise as larger headphones will. The ear cups rotate flat for storage and to enable a comfortable fit on your ears. The band holds these headphones in place without pinching my rather large head (not Sputnik sized, but close). The JVCs ship with a semi-hard case with a zip pouch for the included cable, airline plug adapter, and 1/4″ adapter. John has been using Bose for years now but these are on par and considerably cheaper.

The Bose Quiet Comfort line is probably the most well known active noise canceling headphone on the market. I was curious about how these JVCs would stand up to the Bose. My boss lent me his Quiet Comfort 3 (retails for $349) so I could compare. While there are some noticeable differences, you need to be doing a side-by-side comparison to notice them. The Bose do block out slightly more noise and has a slightly fuller mid-range. The bass is tighter in the Bose and more emphasized in the JVCs. This is more a matter of taste to me than quality. Both are very comfortable to wear.

Another smart design decision is that the cable is completely removeable from the headphones. This allows you to use the noise reduction function without connecting it to an audio source and not have the cable dangling in the way. The real benefit is that if the cable wears out or if you want a longer cord, any Radio Shack cable will do. That’s smart design.

The JVCs retail for $199 but can be had for ~$110. Given how close they are in performance, I would recommend the JVCs at a fraction of the price of the Bose.

Bottom Line: Great sound, great value.

Product Page

Quick Version: The QuickCam Vision Pro from Logitech is perhaps the easiest-to-use webcam I have seen in a while. There is no software required to run it, so you simply plug it in via the 6-ft USB cable, and you’re good to go. It works automatically with MSN Messenger, Yahoo, Skype, and other applications.

With 720p video resolution and a 2-megapixel camera, you’ll get a much better picture than most webcams. I set up two laptops side-by-side and logged into separate MSN accounts so I could see it in action, with pleasant results. The amount of detail is impressive, and crisp. There is very little lag when there is movement, and the auto-focus lessens the burden of fooling around with manual adjustments every time you alter your distance.

It comes with a universal clip that you can hook on to any flatscreen or laptop. It functions okay as far as hanging onto the top edge of the screen, but I would have preferred something a bit more stable.

My only real gripe is with the pictures you take. It looks like you need to be using some kind of software in order to capture still pictures. While in MSN Messenger, if you click the button on the left side of the webcam, the picture will freeze for just a second, then video will resume. But searches throughout My Documents and other places yielded nothing. It wasn’t until I right-clicked the USB Video Device and selected Get Pictures that I was able to then take still pictures. You can take one or several, then have it save to a location of your choice.

Despite that frustration, the pictures themselves aren’t bad at all. The camera is a bit more sensitive to movement than a full-size one with all the lighting options, but the quality here is good.

It’s easy to recommend this webcam just for its’ picture quality, but it’s also pretty compact, yet durable. Despite some brief frustrations taking still pictures, the QuickCam Vision Pro is very solid.

I know, I know. The VGA HD AV cable has been out for three years, but I was in between TVs and only had a monitor to game on. I’ll keep this review short and sweet.

My gaming setup consisted of my Xbox 360 Elite, Razer/THX Mako 2.1 speakers and a Viewsonic VX2240W monitor. The monitor itself has no built-in speakers, so I had to connect the audio to an external system. Luckily, there’s enough separation between the VGA cable and the RCA cable so the speaker system didn’t have to sit on top of the monitor. Perfection.

The kit claims to support video resolution up to 1080p and I have to say that it works as advertised. I streamed Netflix and even hooked up my HD DVD player just to make sure. Viewsonic’s monitor has a 1680X1050 resolution, so I’d say the content was as close to full high def as you can get.

On that note, I might as well give you a run down on the VX2240w. I believe the specs are relatively impressive, but I’m not much of a peripherals guy.

Overview and Features:

• 22-inch (diagonal) widescreen LCD at 1680×1050 resolution
• 300 cd/m2 brightness
• 1000:1 static contrast ratio, 4000:1 dynamic
• 170° horizontal, 160° vertical viewing angles
• up to 2ms gray-to-gray; 5ms black-to-white
• Connections: 15-pin mini D-sub/DVI-D (with HDCP)
• Only 2.4-inches thick (not counting the stand; 8.8-inch with) and 14 pounds (including stand)
• Three year warranty
• MSRP of $450, although it can be found for less than $300 in many places

There’s no visible blur/smear when viewing high frame rate video and the contrast ratio is high enough that the colors are very distinctive. You’ll have to calibrate for a bit to get it right, though. The viewing angle is weak so you’d better be sitting right in front of the monitor for optimal viewing. The round stand that comes with the VX2240w is limiting (ugly) and only offers tilt adjustment forwards and backwards.

Overall, it’s a decent monitor but considering the price and specs it falls into the ‘worth buying’ category. Other monitors with similar specs are priced about the same. You can find it on Amazon for as low as $250.

I already reviewed the Makos this year, but it was nice to get them out of the office and really crank them up in my apartment. I love these things.

Xbox 360 VGA HD Cable

Viewsonic VX2240w Product Page

Razer/THX Mako 2.1 Product Page

Short Version: The Dirt Devil AccuCharge 15.6 Volt Stick Vac is a powerful, cordless, rechargeable vacuum cleaner that really, really sucks. It’s priced quite nicely at $65.99, too.

Overview and Features:

• AccuCharge Technology: Longer Battery Life, Charges 2X Faster, Utilizes 70% Less Energy
• Energy Star Approved
• Cordless Rechargeable Convenience
• Powerful 15.6 volt Cordless Vac
• All Surface Cleaning: Motorized Brush for carpet cleaning and Brushroll Shutoff for safe bare floor cleaning
• Fold-away handle for convenient storage
• Charging stand
• 2 Year Warranty
• MSRP of $65.99

Pros:

If you hate vacuuming as much as I do, this Dirt Devil offers the path of least resistance. It’s cordless, so you don’t have to plug and unplug between every room, while at the same time being powerful enough to suck up most ordinary everyday crumbs, debris, and spills. When you’re all done, it’s got a nice little recharging base.

The vacuum works on carpet and bare floors. We have an area rug in our place but not much else that isn’t either tile or hardwood, so I’m not able to thoroughly test it on a fully carpeted room, although it seems that it’d definitely be strong enough for your average, everyday vacuuming. It’s able to grab crumbs, coffee grounds, and various other crap off of our linoleum kitchen floor with the greatest of ease. A single charge lasts about 20 minutes, which should be more than enough for most small homes and apartments.

Plus, at $65.99 you’ll likely be surprised at how well it works. I’d expect it to cost over $100 for what it’s able to do. It feels well-built and isn’t an eyesore while sitting out on its base. The handle folds down behind the container for easy storage, too.

Cons:

Not too many glaring cons here. It’s loud, but that’s to be expected given how powerful it is. Also, you might find that it’s not great for tougher jobs. We use it as our main vacuum cleaner, but we don’t have any pets or children – just a boring married couple. All in all, I’ve been really impressed with this vacuum.

Recommendation:

The Dirt Devil AccuCharge 15.6 Volt Stick Vac is a great choice if you need a powerful, yet portable vacuum cleaner for moderate cleaning in a small home or apartment.

AccuCharge 15.6 Volt Stick Vac [Dirt Devil]

Casio’s G-Shock recently celebrated its 25th anniversary and for good reason, they’ve been constructing solid time pieces that are technically sound and built like tanks. Types like John won’t be giving up their fancy Omegas or whatever other watch that has a ginormous face, but they’re not meant to. Come along as I take a look at five unique pieces with varying degrees of functionality. My only problem with the G-Shocks is that I don’t know which one I want to wear when I get up in the morning.

Two of my go-to pieces are the DW5025B-7V (white) and DW5025D-8 (grey), which are the same exact watch. These are both Limited edition classics re-released for G-Shock’s 25th anniversary. They’re both very basic with an alarm, countdown timer, stopwatch, backlit electro-luminescent and water resistant up to 200 meters. Oh, and they’re shock resistant, too. Being limited edition pieces, you’re going to want to grab these ASAP assuming they’re still available. Amazon has the white version for $130 and the skeleton one for $95.

Next is the Gulfman (G-9125A), which is geared towards folks who surf, sail, fish, or have interests that are dependent on tides and moon phase. This is the one that I take when I go to surf on Long Island and it’s probably going to be the one I take to El Salvador when I go on vacation next week. It’s rust and corrosion proof with titanium screws and pretty sturdy.

There are 3-multifunction alarms, a countdown timer, stopwatch, calendar (programmed till 2099) and 29 time zones spanning 48 cities. The battery is said to last seven years. It’s not the prettiest thing and I wish the backlight stayed on longer so I could see the tiny moon phase dial. The tide display is easy to view at a glance and jumping into the tide/moon feature reveals the tide height by the hour and moon age/phase by day.

The model I have doesn’t seem to be available anymore, but you can get different colors (blue, black/red) for as low as $63 on Amazon. There’s also a bright orange search and rescue themed version for $130.

The next Gulfman is a special edition G-Shock (GW9101K-7) that supports the Dolphin & Whale Eco-Research Network, which is a project run by I.C.E.R.C. (International Cetacean Education and Research Center). A portion of sales from this $250 piece goes directly to the project. This is the fourteenth model dedicated to the project and features a translucent resin band with markings that denote the Dolphin & Whale Eco-Research Network. Titanium adorns the screws meshing around the bezel and back plate.

Aside from all the other features of the Gulfman sans moon/tide this Gulfman has built-in Multi-Band 5 Atomic Timekeeping that receives standard radio waves from five time transmitters around the world. Locations of the five stations are as follows: Fort Collins (CO, USA), Rugby (UK), Mainflingen (GE), Fukushima (JP) and Kyushu (JP). When the Gulfman picks up the radio signal the 5-pod dial fires up and rests on the pod nearest my location.

It’s also a Tough Solar watch that can last 9 months on a full charge. It charges with the faintest amount of sunlight or fluorescent light. There’s a power saving mode that turns off the display after a certain amount of time.

Definitely one of my favorites. Find it on Amazon for $247.83 (only three left!).

The MT-G (MTG1000G-9A) is a high-end chronograph for the line that also features Multi-Band Atomic Timekeeping as well as Tough Solar technology. This is the one I wear when I go out for the night. The band is a combination of stainless steel and resin and continues the look of the watch face. Chronograph watches have always confused me but that’s probably because I never take the time to actually read the manual. The MT-G is a good looking watch with plenty of features that you can wear out on the town or out and about on Mother Nature’s playground.

You can find this one on Amazon for $280, which is a $120 saving over the list price of $400.

And last but not least is the Riseman (GW9200-1). This one has all the bells and whistles you’d ever need or want. On top of the Mutli-Band 6 Atomic Timekeeping (extra station in China and receives signals up to six times a day) and Tough Solar technologies, the Riseman measures altitude, barometric pressure and temperature.

It’s way more watch than I need while living in NYC, but when I venture home to Oregon and California it comes in handy when I go hiking. Of course, it’s not like I’m climbing Mt. Hood or anything, but it’s neat to know vital stats like temperature and altitude. Another neat feature is the ability to record altimeter measurements in conjunction with the stopwatch for cumulative ascent and descent altitudes and such. It’s super technical, so probably not the right choice for the average joe. There’s also a power saving mode that shuts off the display when it’s been in a dark location for a certain amount of time.

Check out the full G-Shock lineup here.

Mophie’s Juice Pack for the iPhone 3G is without a doubt a must-have if you can swallow the high price tag of $100. But I’d gladly pay the extra $100 knowing that I can leave the office or my apartment and gallivant around town without fear of having to find a power outlet by mid-day.

Pros
It comes fully charged right out of the box.
Four blue LEDs on the back indicate battery levels.
A single charge, which takes roughly 3.5 hours from dead will sufficiently juice up your iPhone 3G from the dead twice over (almost).
Recharging your iPhone 3G with less than 20 percent juice left takes anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes.
The Juice Pack charges over USB, but still syncs with iTunes.

Cons
It’s a bit bulky and does nothing to really protect your iP3G.
It costs $100.
When you initially put the phone into the Juice Pack it vibrates to let you know that it’s connected. When the Juice Pack’s battery is depleted the iPhone has trouble recognizing that and starts to freak out by signaling that it’s connected and then not and so on. So, if you’re a light sleeper or one that keeps this near your bed it could give you a mild heart attack because I almost had one.

Overall
Despite the price tag, I’m going to have to recommend the Juice Pack because it flat out works and doubles your battery life. While the case itself is a bit large, it’s not so big that you wouldn’t throw it into your bag. But I wouldn’t want to put it in my pants pockets either.

Despite claims that 2.2 improves battery life you’re still not going to make it through an entire day without having to recharge. I sparingly used my iPhone 3G before getting the Juice Pack and now I use it till the cows come home and don’t sweat the fact that it’s almost dead by noon.

Product Page