Hardware: 5/5 stars
Blue Microphones includes all the essentials to get started with podcasting or recording audio. The box includes the baseball-shaped microphone, a tripod stand, and a USB cable. The tripod extends upwards, rotates a complete 360 degrees, and even allows tilting the head back and fort. Rubber tips on the legs of the tripod are a neat addition as they offer a strong grip and reduce vibrations. The unit also has a standard threaded connector, so it can attached onto any standard microphone stand. There’s a red LED indicator on the front and the USB port resides right below the mode setting switch on the back. The unit stands sturdy and has a unique retro look that catches glances.

Compatibility: 5/5 stars
Starting with Windows 7, the Snowball was detected and automatically configured in seconds. Windows Vista was also able to recognize and setup the device instantly. Windows XP with Service Pack 3 took a bit longer, it required contact Windows Update before it worked. Mac OS X Snow Leopard also detected the device right out of the box. To use the external microphone, I had to either set it as the default device in the control panel or manually choose the device from within an application such as Audacity.

Sound Quality: 3/5 stars
There’s no question that the Snowball is a huge jump up from just about any integrated laptop microphone or cheap auxiliary jack one. It will definitely make podcast recordings, audio chat, and voice overs sound a lot better. In fact a co-worker and I used Snowball microphone to create a screen cast to show off Six Apart’s Movable Type last year. The microphone works great, but it’s still not on par with decent condenser microphones. There are three modes on the Snowball: Cardioid, Cardioid with -10dB to filter loud sounds, and Omni Capsule. There’s a switch on the back to choose between the three modes. If you aren’t too tech-savvy, the manual even has suggestions for which mode to use in which environment. The device does a great job of filtering out unwanted static, wind, and background sounds. Regrettably during the process, I also noticed that vocal sound also seems to be a bit lower. I found myself having to speak close up to the unit and even adjusting levels afterward in my audio recording program. But despite that, for the price it goes for, it’s satisfying.

Conclusion:
The Snowball is a great semi-professional microphone for anyone interested in podcasting or producing better quality audio. It’s also a great tool for video and audio conferencing in for casual and business users. As demonstrated in our video and emphasized by Blue Microphones, it has also been designed to record instruments such as Drums, Guitars, Saxophones, or the Piano in our case. Plus, one of these is available for as low as $70 if you shop around. And it’s an all-in-one solution as well, no other components other than a computer’s required. A decent condenser microphone and mixer will easily cost at least 2-3 times as much. If you are interested in doing any of the mentioned audio related activities, the Snowball USB microphone is a great place to start.

Buy: Blue Snowball for $70
Links: BlueMic.com Snowball

The Hardware: 5/5 stars
Although the HTC Hero shares similar elements of style from it’s European predecessor, this model has a new and revised body. The distinctive bottom lip (Jay Leno chin?) that characterized the original Hero has been replaced with a more traditional rounded edge. I never spent much time handling the chin-ed version, but I’m satisfied with the comfort the new HTC Hero offers. There’s a large illuminated trackball centered below the display. A send and end button are on the far left and right of the bottom portion, respectively. A Menu and Home key are on the left of the trackball while the search and back key are on the right. The mini USB port is on the bottom, the camera is centered on the top portion of the back side, and the headphone jack is on the top of the phone. The trackball was quite responsive and the inclusion of physical keys for answer and ending calls suited my taste. The phone isn’t the most fancy device on the market by any means, but it’s smoke gray coat with gun-metal accents look elegant. The phone’s also has a great grip to it and feels durable enough to survive a few small drops.

Touch Screen Display: 4/5 stars
The HTC Hero features a 3.2 inch 320×480 HVGA display. I should note that this is one of the few Android devices that supports multi-touch gestures. Even the Motorola Droid on Verizon lacks it. The screen is pretty bright and sharp. It isn’t extraordinary, but meets the standard of other smartphone displays. The default touch sensitivity was just right and was quite responsive. Since the phone doesn’t have a physical keyboard, the on-screen keyboard is the only option. It takes a bit of getting used to especially if you are moving over from a device that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. Even with a bit of practice, it’s still isn’t as easy to use as the virtual keyboard on an iPhone. The screen is a bit smaller and slower to respond. Photos and Videos either captured by the phone or transferred over all looked great on the display.

Battery Life: 2.5/5 stars
After using the phone for about a week or so, I have become quite disappointed with the battery life. A full charge should be able to last at least a full day. And of course, bearing in mind that you only run a fair amount of applications at a time. I found myself having to cut back down on checking emails, refreshing Facebook, and browsing Twitter just to save enough charge. Although HTC claims 5 hours of talk time and 360 hours of standby, I can testify that it didn’t last nearly as long. I did however see standby time improve after disabling the GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, however features such as those are what make this phone a good phone. I feel as though improvements could be made as easily as by releasing a software upgrade to manage power usage better.

User Interface: 4/5 stars
The user interface is a distinguishable factor of the phone. Dubbed “HTC Sense”, the interface is composed of seven customizable panels. These provide a wrap around panoramic view of everything going on. The panels are fully customizable offering you the power to select which widgets or application shortcuts appear. I found that the preloaded layout to be quite adequate for the average user, but it’s fun and useful to spend a few minutes and pick the things that fit your needs and taste. I wish more freedom was offered to rearrange items on the home screen. Overall, the interface looks quite wonderful, colorful, and exciting. Plus the widgets offer plenty of information on those panels without even having to open applications. The HTC Hero runs on v1.5 of the Android OS, but rumor states that an upgrade to the v2.0 OS will be possible in the near future.

Messaging + Email: 4/5 stars
The preloaded messaging app has a solid set of features. For SMS, it displays history of conversations between you and your contacts. Following a threaded message is more convenient than a mess most phones call an inbox. The default options such as quick text and attaching files are available. Unlike the the iPhone prior to the 3.0 OS, the Android supports copy and paste. Multimedia messaging worked seamlessly with Sprint’s network. Although the casual texter should be satisfied with the default app and a quick search on the Android Market will uncover more powerful messaging tools for the power users. Email on the Hero was quite remarkable. The setup process was easy and I didn’t have any configuration issues with any of the accounts I added in. The Mail App even provides the ability to consolidate multiple email accounts into a single view. Emails can also be tagged or labeled for organization. The Android 2.0 OS takes it a step further with more features, but even the current version offers just about all the features anyone would want on a mobile device.

Camera + Camcorder: 4.5/5 stars
The HTC Hero offers a powerful 5.0 megapixel camera with auto-focus. Unfortunately, a flash is missing and would have been a welcome addition. Photos can be shot in either landscape or portrait mode. Images max out at resolution of 2560×1920 pixels. There are a number of other features found in the setting including self-timer and timestamps. Photos in your library can also be easily uploaded to web services including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. The camcorder functions almost as well. It wasn’t remarkable, but decent for a phone. Recorded videos can also be uploaded to YouTube or shortened clips can be sent out through a MMS.

Music: 5/5 stars
The Hero comes preloaded with an easy to use and functional music app. A widget displays the album cover and offers a few basic controls. Tapping on it will launch the full application. There’s a cover flow view similar to what iPods offer. There’s also a list view which allows browsing by Artists, Albums, and Genres. The phone even has a built in tool to create custom ring tones with your own music, take that iPhone! Sound quality through the speaker was decent. The quality with standard headphones plugged into a 3.5mm headphone jack is a lot better. No cumbersome headphone adapters required! And since Android can handle multitasking, you can do just about anything else you want while listening to music. This is especially handy with Pandora. Once again, iPhone can’t do that either. The Hero utilizes Amazon MP3 as it’s primary music store just as the iPhone does with iTunes.

App Store: 4/5 stars
The Android Market offers over 10,000 applications. That may sound like a lot, but that’s still a 10% of the 100,000 found in Apple’s App Store. Despite that, the quality of the applications I found were quite impressive. The interface allowed an easy way to browse, find, or search for programs. The reviews and ratings also help making decisions towards purchasing paid ones. Installation is as easy as tapping a button. The Android Market continues to grow and I’m fairly confident that with more Android-based phones hitting the market, there will be even more quality applications coming along.

Other Features: 5/5 stars
The web browser is fairly powerful and is close to what the Palm Pre and Apple iPhone offer. It utilizes the same pinch gesture to zoom in and out of web pages. There’s a tabbed interface to browse through different pages. Although it jerks at times, it isn’t too much of an issue. If you have decent amount of signal, pages load fairly quickly on Sprint’s 3G network. Plus with WiFi built in, everything becomes a whole lot faster. I was happy with the GPS performance on the Hero and the ability to use two very powerful navigation tools is a huge advantage over some other phones. Other features like the Sprint TV and Navigation package is a very nice benefit for being with Sprint. With Sprint’s Everything Data plans you have unlimited access to both.

Bottom Line:
The HTC Hero is a powerful smartphone and has a lot to offer. The hardware is excellent and the Android software is truly flexible. If you are currently in the market for a new phone, I would highly recommend taking a look at the Hero. I would definitely rank the Hero as one of Sprint’s best phones along with the Palm Pre. I wouldn’t suggest it for customers that aren’t tech-savvy, want a cheap plan, or don’t need business features. The packaging includes an AC adapter, a USB cable, a 2GB micro SD card, and documentation. If you are ready to grab one, it’s priced at $179.99 with a new 2-yr contract.

Links: Sprint.com HTC Hero | HTC.com HTC Hero Info

Body Design: 4/5 stars
As the name suggests, the Jabra Halo simply resemble a halo. As I removed it from the packaging, it struck me a luxurious gadget. They felt quite lightweight as I picked them up and the black trim was elegant. After skimming through the product info sheet, I looked at the quick-start guide for directions before trying them on. Ok, easy enough, just unfold and snap in to lock the headphones into position — wait… ’snap’? Although I was a bit worried, I realized that the headset actually had a joint to fold. This wasn’t just to make the device more compact for travel, but it was actually what turned it on and off as well. It’s unique, new, and the sharp look definitely certainly got me a few glances.

Controls: 3/5 stars
All physical controls are on the right side of the headset. There’s one big multifunction button that serves as an Answer/End key and the Play/Pause control. The multifunction can answer an incoming call or end a call in progress. If the music is being played back it then can be used to pause or resume the track. The side of the right ear piece has a touch sensitive strip that allows adjusting volume or navigating tracks. Simply sliding your finger up or down the strip increases and reduces volume, respectively. To skip tracks, you’ll need to hold down on either the top or bottom portion of the strip. This may sound great on paper, but it takes quite a bit of getting used to. It was just difficult to find the position of the touch strip since there’s no groove to help guide your finger. The only other issue was the responsiveness probably due to the Bluetooth Protocol. It often took a second or two to react to a change in volume, track change, or pause. It’s not a big issue, but hopefully there will be improvements in the future. On another note, it would have also been convenient if separated the multifunction button into to dedicated keys: one for answering/ending calls and one for playing/pausing music.

Comfort: 4/5 stars
I generally avoid over-the-ear headphones since they are too bulky to carry around. Plus traditional headphones have messy cables to deal with. That’s not the case with the Jabra Halo. It’s sleek and even folds up into an included pouch. Plus it feels great to wear. The insides are lined with a velvet-like material, which are quite comfortable. It might even help dampen outside noises. The inner lining unfortunately gathers some lint and since it’s black; it’s quite visible. The side ear-pieces can be pulled out further for a better fit. Unless your head is too large, this should adjust to fit just about anyone. Even with extended periods of use, the headphones were quite comfy.

Dual Pairing: 3/5 stars
I’ve had numerous complications in the past dealing with pairing new devices. Sometimes these things just don’t pair right, take too long discover the device, or PIN is nowhere to be found. The Jabra Halo simply works. Just hold down the multifunction button until the light starts to blink. Once once it appears on your device, just key in the default 0000 pin that’s mentioned in the manual. Since this device supports dual pairing, just repeat the process again to connect a second device. That was easy, but the Halo has problems after that. It’s theoretically suppose to be able to handle two devices at once. So if you get a phone call on one, it should be able to answer that, but also handle calls from another phone too. The problems starts with a long delay when switching between devices. It took at least about 20 seconds before the sound was transferred to the headset after pressing the multifunction button to answer a call. It may sound convenient, but it will also truly annoy the caller since they’ll have no idea what’s going on. If it was a little faster, I would happily be able to pair this to my computer to listen to music, but also answer calls on my HTC Hero.

Battery Life: 4/5 stars
According the advertising and info sheet, Jabra claims a 6 hours of music playback. So of course, I tested that claim. After a full charge, I found that I was getting about 4-5 hours of playback at medium volume. That’s certainly enough for a day’s use. They could surely make some battery life improvements in the future, but it works just fine. To charge the device, Jabra has provided a AC wall charger with a standard microUSB tip. It plugs into the port on the bottom end of the right ear piece. There’s an indicator on the inside of the headset that display’s both the battery level and the Bluetooth connection status. Here’s the other neat aspect, the headset supports a wired connection mode. So when it runs out juice, just plug it in with the included microUSB to 3.5mm headphone jack and you can keep on rocking! There’s even an additional microUSB to USB dongle included to re-charge with a computer. The connector was a bit loose, which was an issue since it stops charging if you move it unintentionally. However that might just be an issue with the review unit we received.

Sound Quality: 3/5 stars
For a Bluetooth Stereo Headphones, the sound quality is superb. It definitely sounded better than what came out of the Altec-Lansing BackBeat. Unfortunately the quality rapidly deters the further you get away from the paired device. The range was quite short, sound began to quickly get choppy at about 25 feet. That’s not too great compared to the Altec-Lansing which worked from at least 75 feet away with no physical obstructions. Things however change when you switch over to the wired mode. The audio quality immediately becomes a lot more crisp with better highs and lows. The bass was also at decent level. As for phone calls, the quality was satisfyingly clear for both me and person on the other end. It doesn’t cancel out background noises for the microphone too well. It becomes harder for the person on the other end to hear you in noisy environments. Although you’ll probably have the paired device in your pocket most of the time, it still would have been favorable if the range was further.

Bottom Line:
Overall, the Jabra Halo is still one of the best Bluetooth Stereo Headphones on the market. It offers both wired and wireless connectivity modes. Sound quality is excellent. Although a bit slow to react, it still offers the ability work with two devices at once. The headset even folds up and tucks away into the included pouch. The battery life is decent and the device is fairly durable too. The Jabra Halo is however a bit pricey, costing nearly $135. And there’s a reason for that, these are premium headphones. Competing products such as the Altec-Lansing sell for nearly half the price, but also do lack audio quality and premium features. If you have the cash to spend and are looking for a new pair of wireless headphones, you can’t go wrong with the Jabra Halo.

Buy: Jabra Halo for $130 [ships free + no tax]
Links: Jabra.com Halo

Tablet
The tablet itself is incredibly thin – about the size of a number two pencil at its thickest, with beveled edges for a more comfortable wrist-rest. The four side-buttons are large, accessible, and as I later found after installing drivers, configurable to a certain extent. An LED indicator located between the buttons lights up white when the device is on and changes to a warm orange color when the stylus is within range. I found the small red tag on the side of the device to be a little obnoxious, but it’s supposed to store your pen after use. It can easily tucked away under the device if it’s too annoying.

The drawing area is very generous with an area about 3.5 times that of my Macbook’s touchpad. The Bamboo’s matte texture that feels paper and though I was nervous to test the amount of pen pressure it could handle, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it could handle quite a bit.

In terms of portability, the tablet itself couldn’t be any more perfect to stick in a bag with your laptop. It would have been even more convenient if USB cord was detachable from the device and Wacom threw in a carrying case for protection.

• Size – 5/5
• Design – 4/5
• Portability – 4/5

Software and Drivers
A CD with drivers for both Mac and PC are included in the packaging. I however opted to download the latest driver from Wacom’s website. The setup is quick, straightforward, and didn’t even require a reboot. Although pre-configured, it’s quite easy to customize the tablet. The section in the control panel has tabs for the pen, the tablet, touch speed, touch functions, and a customizable pop-up menu. The customization is however limited; you can’t make new gestures or customize buttons to launch programs or be actions in programs. Despite that, the software seems to run well under the radar, at least on both Snow Leopard and Windows 7. There are no extra icons, shortcuts, junk applications, or bloated process running. My computer runs just as fast as it did without the tablet.

• Installation – 5/5
• Customization – 4/5
• Speed – 5/5

Pen Functionality
My initial impression of the pen was that it runs on the border of feeling cheap.  It is made of plastic and is truly light weight. Plus when I shook it for the first time, the buttons and eraser jiggle. But it works well; the size is appropriate and I have yet to run into a problem with functionality. Although I’m not sure whether it’s the magic behind the pen or the tablet, the pressure sensitivity is fantastic. Even if the pen is barely set on the tablet, the LED indicator lights up with a response. Unlike the Intuos model, the Bamboo Pen and Touch doesn’t have a “pen tilt” sensor. Despite that lacking, I doubt the average consumer, who is the target audience, will need that feature anyway. The pen has two configurable buttons and an eraser on top. I have yet to find a way to configure the eraser to perform an alternative task. The programs I use don’t always have nor need an eraser. It should also be noted that the pen has been intelligently designed to be entirely battery free.

• Quality – 3/5
• Customization – 4/5
• Battery Free – 5/5

Touch Functionality
There are a couple sides to this model: it’s a drawing pad and a multi-touch pad. So, in addition to the pen, you can use your fingers to manipulate objects on the screen. With a single finger, it can be used like a normal touch pad to control the cursor and even select with tap. With two fingers, it can be used to perform a variety of gestures. Dragging two fingers to up and down or left and right scroll a page. Pinching or spreading two fingers zoom out and in, respectively. It even rotates content by holding one finger still and moving the other one around it. These gestures work well in most programs. The rotation feature didn’t work at all in Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Illustrator CS3, and Mac Office 2008. However later tests with the tablet using Adobe Photoshop CS4 on different machine running Windows 7 worked just fine. With some practice, using the pen and multi-touch features together will truly make for an efficient and intuitive work-flow.

• Touch Sensitivity – 4/5
• Gestures – 4/5
• Efficiency – 5/5

Conclusion
I’m also sure that when I use the Bamboo Pen and Touch that I look like a hunt-and-peck typist that I would make the creators at Wacom cringe. To my credit, I was able to come up with a great configuration for drawing in Photoshop within an hour of experimenting with the tablet. I set the four buttons to the key-combinations for “Undo”, “Brushes”, “New Layer”, and “Free Transform”, and I was flying through my work. Not only that, but since I was spending less time fidgeting with the keyboard and mouse, I had fun doing tasks I would normally consider arduous and repetitive. I am not experienced with a pen tablet, but as a web and graphic designer, the Bamboo Pen and Touch made my work flow feel proficient. If you are looking to get started with a tablet, this Wacom product is a great place to start. Plus it has a lot to offer at a reasonable price of $99 MSRP; if you shop around it’s available for even less.

Buy: Bamboo Pen and Touch for $85 [via Amazon]
Links: Wacom.com Bamboo Pen + Touch

Precision and Responsiveness
Microsoft’s new Mobile Mouse 4000 works on both PCs & Macs using the USB 2.4 GHz wireless receiver. It features Microsoft’s new and advanced BlueTrack Technology, which is the biggest selling point for the device.  The BlueTrack Tracking Engine diverges from the typical wireless laser mouse. It uses an advance incoherent Blue LED.  With a wider beam and high angle optics, it can track on even granite, marble, and glossy surfaces. So I put it to the test. And it worked on my black mouse pad, a somewhat glossy desk, the carpet, and even the textured wall. It worked just as advertised. The next time you are at a coffee shop and decide to use a shiny magazine as your mouse pad, you can be assured that this mouse won’t fail. This is a great improvement from the last generation of mice, but competitors are already another step ahead. For example, competing products from Logitech sport a new technology called Darkfield that work even on glass. Although the Mobile Mouse 4000 can not match that feature, it is also a much more affordable device and won’t disappoint.

Battery and Connectivity
Microsoft’s other enhancements that truly make the Wireless Mobile Mouse an excellent product include the Nano Transceiver and the Battery Life. The Nano Transceiver on its own is an amazing advancement for wireless mice. It isn’t new, but is a welcome inclusion. Unlike other USB receivers, this one barely extends out of the USB port. There are less chances of snapping  the receiver or damaging your USB port. In addition the entire transceiver fits into a small compartment under the mouse. It is released with a quick push of a button besides the slot. Microsoft’s Mouse runs on a single AA battery. A small indicator light on top will change from Green to Yellow when it’s running out of juice. You won’t have to worry about it dying unexpectedly. There’s also a power on-off switch underneath to help maintain battery life. Microsoft claims a 10 month battery life and I think that’s a reasonable lifespan. It doesn’t add to much bulk to your bag when you are on the go and it will last a long time.

Shape and Design
The device has plenty of benefits overall, but does have a few drawbacks. First, it’s a relatively small mouse with a symmetrical shape. This is great for ambidextrous users, but a bit too small for the average person. I probably wouldn’t use this as my main mouse, but there’s no question it’s great for travel. It would also suit children and teens just fine. The layout is fairly typical, with a left/right click, a scroll wheel in between, and an extra button on the upper left side. That extra button functions by default as a back button. It’s a great idea and worked just fine for me, a right-handed user, but would definitely be in an awkward place for lefties. I also was slightly disappointed with the scroll wheel.  It isn’t notched too well and constantly slips causing my documents to scroll slightly. Plus if you were to attempt to press it inwards to initiate a middle-click or free-scroll, it once again often slips. Overall it’s not the best mouse for full-time use unless you’ve got small hands, but does the job for traveling.

Customization
The IntelliPoint software software included with the mouse enables a whole new set of features. It’s easy to customize and will be appreciated. Any button on the mouse including the scroll wheel can all have their functionality tweaked. With the default settings, the scroll wheel will activate Vista’s 3D Flip function and the side button will be the Back button for your Web Browser. What makes the software powerful is the program specific customizations. It will allow the mouse to be configured differently based of what program you have active at the time. For example the pressing in the scroll button can be the middle-click when using Firefox, but at other times launch the 3D Flip. These types of settings help increase productivity greatly. The one thing this mouse does lack is a Forward button to complement the Back button. It would have made a lot of sense to put it at a symmetrical position on the other side. Once again, competing products feature both a Back and Forward button.

In Conclusion
Microsoft’s Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 is an excellent compact mouse with the basic and essential features. The new BlueTrack technology allows flexibility to use the mouse on a larger variety of surfaces. It’s precise, has a sleek design, and an ultra compact transceiver. The IntelliPoint software offers plenty of neat custom settings. The addition of a Forward button on the right side and a better notched scroll wheel would have been truly appreciated, however it still works. It’s available in Black, White, Ocean Teal Blue, Lime Green, and Berry Pink for a reasonable price of just $39.99. If you are looking for a new mouse to pack with you when you are on the go or for youngsters, look no further, Microsoft’s product is an excellent choice.

Pros

• BlueTrack Technology
• Nano USB Transceiver
• IntelliPoint Custom Settings
• 10-Month Battery Life

Cons

• Too Small for Average Person
• Side Button isn’t Left Hand Friendly
• Oversensitive Scroll Wheel
• Lack of Forward Button

Buy: Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 for $39
Links: Microsoft.com Mobile Mouse 4000

As the name suggests, this product is the portable version of Kensington’s larger Battery Pack and Charger for iPhone and iPod. While the larger version offer a more powerful battery, the unit is almost the size of an iPhone and requires a cable to connect to your device, which is a bit messy. On the other hand, the Mini Battery Back is only about one third the size of its counter part and plugs directly into your devices dock connector. It clings on well enough that you can continue to use your device while it’s getting charged. The unit is roughly the width and thickness of an iPhone but is only two inches tall, small enough to slip away into your pocket or purse. An included plastic cap prevents dust from building up on the dock contacts and also doubles as stand. It is supposedly suppose to be able to hold your device upright to watch a movie, but it’s quite flimsy and I wouldn’t count on it. Irrespective of that small quirk, it doesn’t deter from the quality of the rest of the product. Kensington also includes a USB cable, which winds up itself, for charging the battery pack.

Kensington uses a lithium-ion polymer battery cell in their device. The Mini Battery Pack is compatible with any iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPod with a dock connector. (Except for 3rd generation iPod.) If you are on the go and your device runs out of fuel, the Mini Battery Pack extends run-time for another 30 hours of music, 6 hours of video, or 3 hours of talk time for iPhones. I tested the battery pack by charging my 2nd generation 32GB iPod Touch starting with fully drained batteries. It was able to bring my dead unit back to a full charge with more power left to spare. Plus it impressively took just about the same time it would have taken to charge my device with my computer. An LED indicator displays how much power is left in the Battery Pack. You can charge both the Mini Battery Pack and your iPhone/iPod Touch at the same time using the included USB Cable.

There’s one major downside for iPod Touch owners, the location of the headphone jack. Since both the headphone jack and dock connector are on the bottom, you won’t be able to plug your headphones in while charging the device. iPhone users on the other hand are safe from this flaw since the headphone jack is on the top. Either way, that won’t stop you from playing games, browsing the web, or using the tons of available applications while recharging.

The Kensington Mini Battery Pack is convenient and compact product, which is great for those who are heavy iPhone or iPod Touch users. It’s also great for road trips or planes when there’s no access to a computer with a USB port for charging. iPhone users will love this as it almost doubles the battery life of their device for tasks such as movie playback. Overall, if you are someone who uses your iPhone enough that it keeps running out of power before the day ends or just travels a lot, this is an excellent solution. It’s available for an affordable price of $32.99 on Amazon.

Buy: Kensington Mini Battery Pack for $32
Links: Kensington.com Mini Battery Pack

Just like the standard SanDisk Cruzer, the Ultra Backup model retains a the same traditional form factor. The Ultra Backup is a bit larger the standard Cruzer, but makes up for the size difference with faster data transfer speeds. I copied copy a 465MB file over to the drive in about 30 seconds writing at speeds reaching 15MB/s. Copying a 700MB file off the flash drive also took 30 seconds with a read speed of about 24MB/s. The USB connector recedes into the plastic casing when not in use. A pleasant orange LED flashes when data transfer is in progress.

The best part of this flash drive is the backup utility that doesn’t require installing any software. The entire application resides and runs off the flash drive itself. The first time the Backup Button is used to launch the utility, a quick setup will automatically determine what files should be included in the backup. The interface is user friendly for even the most novice computer users. If you wish to further customize what should be included in the backup, there’s a easy configuration tool to select types of files such as text, music, videos etc. The data is also organized on the flash drive retaining folder structure, which makes things easier when retrieving a file.

Asides from the Backup functionality, the flash drive is still works as a normal flash drive should. Users do have the ability to disable the U3 Launcher, however that would mean that the Backup button would be rendered useless. Some password protection settings are also thrown in for additional security. Your files will most likely be safe if the average person finds your flash drive, but that’s probably not the case if it falls into the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. The Ultra Backup also features a built in Application Store which lists tons of games, media software, and other random tools. For the most part, just about all of the tools were ridiculously over priced and just seemed like an major waste of time to even try. There are fortunately a few good application such as Firefox listed.

Overall the SanDisk Ultra Backup is a reliable, fast, and easy to use flash drive. The Backup utility is the highlight and is excellent for making a copy of important documents in case of data loss. I definitely found the convenience of the physical Backup button useful. SanDisk offers the flash drive in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities for $49.99, $97.99, $166.99, and $277.99. Yes, those MSRPs are a bit ridiculous. If you pick it up from stores such as Amazon.com, it’s available for a fraction of the price.

Links: SanDisk.com Ultra Backup
Buy: Ultra Backup for $29 (no tax + ships free)

The SanDisk Cruzer model for 2009 retains the traditional form factor of a flash drive. The unit looks simpler and stylish compared to the previous generations. The unit seems durable and will survive plenty of handling. The USB connector recedes into the plastic casing when not in use. The white button used to slide the USB connector in and out lights up orange when connected and blinks when data transfer is in progress. Coping a 700MB video file (DiggNation HD Podcast) over to the flash drive took about 1 minute and 20 seconds. Read speeds on the other hand were much faster, I copied  the same file back to my computer in just 20 seconds. This variation between write and read speeds are expected and normal for average flash drives on the market, high end drives ones will offer much faster write speeds.

The Cruzer now comes by default with a pre-installed launcher to manage a set of programs on the flash drive. This a quick and easy way for the average student to access simple applications and manage there files on the flash drive. There’s a little built-in application store to grab both free and paid portable software. Most of the items listed seemed mostly useless, however some great tools including portable versions of Firefox, Avast!, and a few other tools were also listed for free. For those of you that despise having pre-loaded software on their flash drive, SanDisk has finally included a removal tool on the device. In the past, users would have to hunt down the removal tool by either searching the web or finding it on SanDisk’s website. That option is truly welcome and appreciated.

Overall this is an excellent and reliable flash drive for the average person. It doesn’t have anything too special, but instead it’s affordable and simple. Extremely cheap flash drives may often seem like a great deal at first, but they often result in data being corrupted. Whether you are a transporting office documents or multimedia, the SanDisk Cruzer is a quality product from a reliable brand name. The unit tested in this review, provided courtesy of SanDisk, was 8GB model; however a lower capacity 4GB model and higher capacity 16GB/32GB models are also available. The original MSRP by SanDisk is usually high, but they are almost available for a fraction of the price if you shop around. I’ve included links to Amazon’s pricing below which starts at just $12 for the 4GB model.

Links: SanDisk.com Cruzer
Buy: 4GB $12 | 8GB $22 | 16GB $33 | 32GB $67

If you own an Apple iPhone 3G or 3GS you were provided an “Apple USB Power Adapter” in the box. It’s a great little device mainly due to the fact that it’s so small. The charger doesn’t add much bulk to packing and just simply works. It isn’t just for an iPhone, but can also charge most other USB-powered devices. Here’s where my dilemma came in, I wanted a second one so I could charge my iPhone both at work and at home. After spending a minute or two on the online Apple Store to realize that they charge $29, I decided to hold back from purchasing another. If you add tax and basic shipping to the equation, it totals in at just about $36. I felt that was just a bit too expensive for just a USB charger.

I soon came across the Ultra-Mini USB Charger, a third party accessory, that caught my attention. Not only did it look exactly the same in the photos, but it only cost $3 and would be shipped for free. After taking a look into the online retailer, DealExtreme, I decided to take the $3 plunge after deciding it was a fairly reliable site. Everything worked out just fine, I was charged the correct amount and even received the look-alike USB Charger within a week. I was a bit worried to attempt charging my expensive iPhone 3GS, so I tested it on some older USB devices first. After those all charged just fine, I plugged in my iPhone 3GS. It worked no differently then Apple’s $30 charger and took no longer to fully power my iPhone’s battery. What was even more stunning was the design, it was literally identical in terms of size and color. If you held them up to someone, they probably wouldn’t think they were both the same.

If you are looking to replace a broken Apple USB Power Adapter or just purchase an additional one, I highly recommend taking a look at the Ultra-Mini USB Charger. I’ve been using mine for a little under a month and it’s been great. Considering the bottom-line that Apple charges between $30 and $36 depending on whether you buy it online or at their retail store for the same functionality, the Ultra-Mini is great deal. Although I faced no issues, I highly doubt the Ultra-Mini will be put through as much quality testing as Apple’s Charger, so be warned if you run into a faulty one. Nonetheless, if you want to save some cash during this economic downturn, give the Ultra-Mini a shot.

Buy: DealExtreme.com Ultra-Mini USB Charger | Apple USB Power Adapter

LG enV Touch VX-11000 Specifications:

• Provider: Verizon Wireless (1.9 GHz /800 MHz CDMA)
• Displays: 3-inch 800 x 480 pixels & 1,600K colors
• Camera: 3.2 Megapixel Camera w/ Autofocus, Flash & Image Editor
• Music: MP3, WMA, Unprotected AAC/AAC+
• Memory: 250Mb (internal) / 16GB microSD (external)
• Battery: 260 Minutes Talk Time & 408 Hours Standby
• Other: Bluetooth 2.1+EDR | Stereo Speakers

The Body: 3.5/5 stars
There is no doubt that the enV Touch is a large phone; 4.5 inches tall, 2 inches wide, and over a half inch thick. Despite being a tad bit too large, it actually looks a whole lot more attractive than the Voyager and the Dare. The back of the phone features a soft rubberized texture with a unique engraved pattern which offers a decent grip. The left side has the camera trigger, volume toggle, and the display lock button. A 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD slot can be found on the right side. On the bottom you’ll find the microUSB connector which serves two purposes: charging and data transfer. The face of the phone has a large 3-inch touch screen and three “brushed metal”-looking physical buttons at the bottom: send, clear, and end. The clear key seconds as the voice command button when on the home page and initiates voice memo recordings when held down. When you flip open the phone you are introduced to another 3-inch display, stereo speakers, a full QWERTY keyboard, and a navigation D-pad. Compared to the Voyager, the keyboard now has larger keys and remains well spaced at the same time. LG has finally placed repositioned the “space bar” to the center of the keyboard instead of two “space bars” on the bottom left and right as they were on the LG Voyager, LG enV2, and LG enV. Overall, though the enV Touch isn’t the most compact phones I’ve had for what it offers, but remains functional and isn’t too large to fit into an average sized pocket or purse.

The Displays: 4/5 stars
We were quite impressed with the resolution and the colors of the displays. The enV Touch’s 800 x 480 pixel display has a higher resolution than the iPhone’s 480 x 320 pixel screen. Both photos and videos look great on both screens. The external display also uses a sensor that dims out the screen as you hold it up to your ear, but I found this to be sometimes problematic since it often didn’t turn back on if I were to try to use the interface during a call. The only way I managed to get the screen working again was to either flip open the phone or by placing my finger over the sensor for a second and then moving it away. Other than that small annoyance, the displays are bright, sharp, and even looks decent outdoors.

User Interface: 4/5
The enV Touch has a similar interface to the Voyager and like its predecessor, duplicates features on the external and internal display. However, not all features on the external work from the internal, and vice versa. For example, photo editing only functions on the external touch screen. To unlock the phone you must slide up an overlay on the screen or press the lock/unlock button on the side of the phone. The home screen has 5 permanent icons on the bottom: messaging, dialpad, menu, phonebook, and favorites. The favorites menu allows you to set 10 favorite contacts for quick access. In addition 3 “widgets” can be placed anywhere the main page; memo, calendar, and clock. The memo is very similar to a sticky note on a Macs. On the right side of the home screen there is an arrow which links to the shortcut menu, which manages all application/utility shortcuts. Mostly any tool on the phone can be placed in the shortcut menu or can also be placed as an icon on the homepage. The interface on the internal display has a more traditional interface, familiar to that most Verizon Wireless phones. The D-pad can be customized to launch various applications when on the home screen. One major problems I ran into occurred when an application on the internal display then closing the phone would exit out of the application and return to the home screen instead of moving to the outer display. Overall, the interface is very intuitive and for the most part it works seamlessly between the two displays.

Messaging: 5/5 stars
After many iterations of the enV lineup, LG has mastered the messaging feature of this phone. The physical keyboard does not need much of an explanation, it works as it should and feels great. The external display also supports messaging, with support for both a portrait and landscape virtual keyboard. The virtual portrait keyboard does the job just fine for quick responses, but is a bit impractical for typing long messages. The horizontal virtual keyboard works a whole lot better than the portrait and is a viable option. The interface enlarges the letters you hit as they are typed and provide haptic feedback as well. The size of each virtual key and spacing helps the usability experience as well, however the internal physical QWERTY keyboard is by far the best solution for messaging.

Camera & Camcorder: 5/5 stars
The enV Touch has an extremely feature packed camera and camcorder interface not found on other phones. The 3.2 megapixel camera can take photos up in various resolutions up to 2048×1536. It features an unusually bright LED flash, which can automatically turn on in low-light situations. The camera uses the auto-focus setting by default, but can be switched to macro for close-up images as well as a manual focus option. The camera has white balance, brightness, color effects, and self timer settings. In addition to these settings the camera has a couple of “goodies” that you will not see in the typical phone camera. One would be the panorama mode, where the phone will actually guide you through the process of snapping a panoramic photo with on screen instructions and then stitching them together. Another would be the smile detection, where the camera will only snap the photo only once the subject smiles to get the best picture. My favorite by far was the NameCard reader, which lets you snap an image of a physical business card and it uses OCR to extract the name, email, and phone number into your contacts. A built in image editor allows cropping, draw on the image, and adjusting the brightness of the photo.

The camcorder can record clips with a max resolution of 640×480 and offers custom white balance, brightness, and color effects. Most phone’s camcorder functions are rendered useless in the dark, but not the enV Touch. The camcorder can switch on the LED flash during a recording which turned out to help a lot. Finally, the enV Touch does a great job with video editing. One of the much hyped feature on iPhone 3GS was video trimming and this plus much more can be done on the enV Touch. The trim feature allows a simple crop, after choosing a start and end point. But say you wanted to cut together multiple parts of a video, that’s where the multi-trim feature comes in. You can cut together up to 3 different parts of a video (3 different start and end points) and the phone will merge these different parts together into one video. The camera in the enV Touch really stands out because of the depth of options presented and puts it clearly ahead of many other phones in the U.S. Market.

Music: 3.5/5 stars
The enV Touch was designed to work as a full time mp3 player with a set of  internal stereo speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The music player is organized by Artists, Genres, and Albums. It can also display album artwork which looks good in its sincere imitation of “cover flow”. The player can create on-the-go playlists and manage music storage between the microSD card and internal memory. Music playback supports shuffle and repeat modes. For listening options, the Dolby settings allows you to toggle between preset equalizers, such as bass booster and classical. Audio playback on the speakers was clear with no crackle, even when turned up all the way. One of the features I liked the most was that music application can run in the background. Performing other tasks such as look up a contact or texting is possible without having to exit the music player. I decided to use my enV Touch when I went for a jog. I found it extremely difficult to use the external display to navigate through songs. In addition to the poor visibility due  to sunlight, it was difficult to even manage to click the next button or pause my music. Some external controls for music would have gone a long way. Overall the music player felt solid, keeps getting better, and usable but not polished, it needs to be put back in the oven for a bit longer.

Syncing: 4.5/5 stars
The enV Touch uses a standard microUSB port to connect to a computer. It can be used in data mode, which shows up as an USB Mass Storage Device on a computer and allows you to manually transfer photos, documents, and music to the microSD card. The other option is to use the phone in music mode, in which it can be synced with the Verizon V Cast Music with Rhapsody program or with Windows Media Player as an MP3 player. The charger is also modular, the AC adapter is actually a USB charger. The same cable needs to be disconnected and is used to sync with your computer. One small quirk I noticed was the fact that the phone significantly heated up while charging. It wasn’t too hot that I’d be concerned about the phone getting damaged, however constant heat isn’t good for batteries, meaning a reduced lifespan.

Document Viewer and Other Features: 4.5/5 stars
The phone offers many other features including the now standard world clock, tip calculator, and alarm clock. The one feature that stood out the most was the document viewer, an application not usually found on a non-smartphone. The viewer can read, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xslx, .ppt, .pptx, .pdf, and .txt files. The documents loaded fairly quickly and were fairly readable once zoomed in. I found using the Document Viewer more pleasurable than the iPhone. Mainly since I could simply copy them straight over to the phone’s storage or microSD, rather than having to email them to myself as you have to do on the iPhone.

Conclusion:
After using the enV touch for a few weeks, it has left us with a very good impression. I would say as of now, it is the best non-smartphone on the Verizon Wireless network. It has an amazing display, two displays to be correct,  and excellent media features. It supports a full HTML web-browser, VZ Navigator, V-Cast videos, voice commands, and text to speech. If you are looking for a new phone and just can’t justify paying those required high rates for data plans associated with smartphones, the enV Touch is a no brainier. It has a solid set of features that just about everyone from a casual consumer to a tech-junkie can appreciate. It is available online and in Verizon Wireless stores now for $150 for new customers. Existing customers eligible for upgrade should be able to knock off about $50 to $100 based of the type of calling plan they currently have.

Buy: $99 for LG enV Touch
Links: Verizon Wireless

I personally wasn’t a fan of the idea of having content that would normally be on a TV brought over to my laptop’s display. I’m also sure that this isn’t exactly an idea too many others either. But there are many scenarios that the Pinnacle PCTV HD is an excellent solution. For example take a college student who may not have enough space in their dorm for a TV unit or the cash to afford one. For a minimal price a student can turn a laptop which they most likely already have purchased into a multifunctional device that doubles as their TV. As a bonus, most computers running Windows Vista are bundled with Media Center which can instantly turn their machine into a DVR that can automatically schedule and record shows.

When I opened the packaging the PCTV HD Mini came in, I was astounded by the size of the device. The USB device which is about the size of an average flash drive was supposedly capable of receiving Full HD content and playing it back on my laptop. The last generation of tuners were much larger and would even hog up any extra room around USB ports, Pinnacle thoughtfully also threw in a USB extension cable to prevent the tuner from rendering any other ports useless in case it were to be obtruding. The largest component of the package was the antenna and its base. Putting everything together was quite a cinch, with some intuition, you’ll have all the hardware setup in a few minutes even if you don’t have much familiarity with technology. A CD is included which is fairly straightforward, just pop it in and follow the onscreen instructions. The software will automatically scan for digital channels in the area. Positioning the antenna is quite important; placing it a location with minimal obstructions will result in better reception, more channels, and image clarity.

Once it’s all set up, one would assume that you could pickup that tiny fun-sized remote and enjoy your TV, however that wasn’t the case. The TV Center Pro software provided by Pinnacle was more troublesome than not. The interface was poorly organized, the was a bit too messy, and was quite difficult to navigate. Although advertised to have numerous features, I gave up after spending about 30 minutes trying to get it to work. After speaking to a colleague regarding the nuisance they call software, he suggested using Windows Vista’s Media Center. Giving Windows Media Center a shot was the best decision I made. The interface was fancy, simple to configure, and easy to navigate. Within a few minutes I had finished scanning for TV channels, had unselected weak signals from my lineup, had downloaded the latest TV Guide for the next week, and best of all, I was able to watch TV!

The quality of the content was choppy on certain channels, but channels with a strong signal broadcasting in HD were beyond amazing. I was truly impressed that my computer paired along with such a tiny device was able to playback High Definition content so well. Recording shows is literally a one-click solution with Media Center. I was able to schedule my favorite shows to record automatically when they air during their prime-time slot each week. I found that even if my computer was in Sleep Mode, it would automatically wake up and use the Pinnacle PCTV Mini Tuner to record my show. One slight downside I encountered were the massive file sizes for the recorded HD content. A 30 minute program would often take 5-10 GB of space on my hard drive. Some TV Tuners decode the HD content into different file formats that consume less space. Despite that small quirk, most people have fairly large hard drives these days so I doubt that will be an issue.

Overall the Pinnacle PCTV HD Mini is an excellent tuner that works wonders. The quality is superb and is available for a decent price. It’s also incomparable to the price you would be paying for a HDTV if you already have a decently sized monitor and computer. The only fault in regards to the whole product would be the included software. I would suggest just installing the drivers and begin using Windows Media Center immediately. You’ll have a much more pleasurable experience and avoid any annoyances that way. Another suggestion would be to purchase a more powerful Digital HDTV capable antenna. Even a cheap one that will run you under $25 will provide a much better experience by letting your receive more channels with stronger signal strengths. Pinnacle also bundles a remote control, a pigtail converter for coaxial cables, an antenna, and a pouch for keeping it all together. If you are in the market for a USB TV Tuner the Pinnacle PCTV HD Mini is definitely the way to go.

Pinnacle has had a long history of producing brand name hardware and software products for multimedia production, editing, and playback. On a side note, Pinnacle sold its TV Tuner segment to Hauppauge towards the end of last year, a company well known for producing quality TV Tuners for consumers.

Rating: 4.5 / 5 Stars
Links: Hauppauge | Pinnacle

The Specifications:

• Connectivity: 2.4 GHz wireless (USB Adapter)
• Power: Two AA Batteries
• Sensor: 848nm Adjustable-dpi laser
• Special: DPI Controls & Stealth Thumb Button

The Buttons: – 5/5 stars
The best part of the MX 1100 is the large amount of buttons it features without becoming overwhelming for those who don’t plan on using anything past the essential ones. The mouse is a bit larger than an average sized mouse, but is quite comfortable to use and both the left & right click buttons provide great tactile feedback. A button below the scroll wheel allows switching between a “notched scroll” and a “frictionless scroll”. The standard “notches” setting lets you feel each bump while scrolling, whereas the “frictionless” setting allows flicking through pages rapidly. The scroll wheel supports 4-way scrolling, so leaning it to either side will allow scrolling in that direction. Pushing in the scroll wheel functions as a middle-click, which is great for opening links in new tabs. A plus and minus button at the top left of the mouse allows increasing or decreasing the DPI settings to adjust sensitivity. It’s quite neat to be able to change the sensitivity at anytime without having to dig through the Control Panel. Directly above the thumb rest are the forward and backward keys. Although well placed, they were a bit too soft to offer enough feedback in my opinion. The final neat feature is the “stealth thumb button”, located in the thumb rest, which has been configured by default to launch Vista’s 3D flip interface to switch between open windows. And as always, installing Logitech’s SetPoint drivers and software will allow customizing any button to do just about anything you would like it to do.

Accuracy and Transmission: - 5/5 stars
Despite being a wireless mouse, the device maintained a strong connection with the transmitter. There were no problems getting it to work from even over 20 feet away. The MX 1100 is also quite accurate, movements are almost flawless and the adjustable DPI doesn’t disappoint. Hard-core gamers will probably still complain about accuracy, but for most consumers this will end up being the most accurate mouse they have used. That doesn’t mean its bad for gaming, it was better than any of the mice I had and was excellent to use while playing a game of Counter-Strike.

Battery and Charging - 3/5 stars
The way the mouse gets it’s juice is probably the only drawback. The Mouse runs of two AA batteries and Logitech claims it will last about nine months. The mouse automatically goes into a power-save mode, however Logitech still says by using the “on/off button, you save even more power.” There is a battery indicator on the mouse that lights up when turned on, but fades away after a couple of seconds. A re-chargeable version of this mouse is available, however it can only be purchased as a part of a Cordless Desktop Wave Pro keyboard-mouse bundle. Unfortunately we can’t test the mouse for nine-months, but from experience I can say that the lifespan could be much shorter or longer based of how many hours it gets used each day.

Conclusion:
Overall, the Logitech MX 1100 is a top-of-the-line mouse and is probably one of the best ones I have used to date. It is extremely comfortable, completely customizable, and just works. If you do happen to be a “lefty” (left-handed), you are out of luck. It would be quite difficult to use this mouse comfortably with a left hand. For a retail price of $79.99, while being available for as low as $65 online, it’s affordable and offers just about everything you could ask for. I only wish it was rechargeable, but despite that most owners will be truly satisfied by what Logitech’s MX 1100 has to offer.

Links: Logitech.com MX 1100
Buy: MX 1100 For $65 (no tax + free shipping via Amazon)

Acer Aspire One Specification:

• Processor: Intel Atom N270 1.60 GHz
• Memory: 1GB DDR2 (533MHz)
• Chipset: Intel Mobile 82801 GBM
• Video: Intel GMA 950
• Storage: 2.5 inch 120GB HDD
• Card Readers: SD Card (1) & Multi-Card (2)
• OS: Windows XP Home Edition
• Display: LED 8.9 inch 1024×600 (WSVGA)
• Webcam: 0.3 megapixel camera
• Wireless: Acer 802.11b/g
• Ports: 3 USB, LAN 10/100 Mbps, VGA, & Audio in/out
• Battery: 24W 2200mAh 3-cell Li-Ion (3 hours)
• Input: 84-key Keyboard & Touchpad
• Weight: 2.19 lbs with 3-cell & 2.78 lbs with 6-cell
• Size: 9.8″ (W) x 6.7″ (D) x 1.14″ (H) inches

The Body: 3.5/5 stars
With the lid closed, the Acer Aspire One has a stylish glossy finish over its blue body. The bottom of the notebook is made of one piece of plastic except for perforations for air flow and a small cutout for access to the RAM. The external build is elegant, robust, and has a tiny footprint. The inside looks fairly good with a black keyboard and a blue surrounding, however there’s a large gap that appears between the lower and upper portion of the notebook which just looks unusual. There are two shinny orange pieces on the hinges, which stand out too much and takes away from the look in my opinion. The screen is surrounded by a highly glossy black frame which provides a nice contrast in some situations, however can become irritation when light reflects back at you. Most of the components are in the right places and are easy to access. Overall, the durability, feel, and looks of this notebook won’t be an issue.

The Screen: 4/5 stars
Like most sub-notebooks, the Acer Aspire One has an 8.9 inch display with a screen resolution of 1024×600. This resolution is just large enough to be able to view and use most standard-sized websites. I ran into occasional issues with some windows for certain applications being too large so the bottom or top wasn’t visible, but it wasn’t too bad. The LED backlit display is quite bright, sharp, and the colors produced are pretty vibrant. The viewing angles were fairly good. The colors faded much faster with slight change in either vertical direction; however horizontal angles remained intact for longer. The screen looks great for watching movies or viewing photos.

Operating System: 5/5 stars
The Aspire One is running Windows XP Home edition which is probably the most widely used operating system today. So there shouldn’t be any complains there. The machine boots up and is ready to go in about 55 seconds. Launching applications such as Mozilla Firefox takes just a second or two. With 1GB of RAM you can have plenty of applications running at once without any issues. Just about all the applications I use on a regular basis are available for download, but if you have any programs that come on a CD or DVD, you’ll need to find an external USB drive to install them. I was also excited to see that Acer had already upgraded XP to Service Pack 3, which will save everyone the time and hassle of having to install too many updates. Having run XP on a machine with a 900 MHz processor and 256 MB of RAM, I can testify that XP is a very flexible OS and will run without any issues on this laptop.

Keyboard and Mouse: 3.5/5 stars
The keyboard is large enough to use comfortably. With a bit of getting used to, you can begin to type pretty fast without any issue. I was also glad to see that the keyboard didn’t have any weirdly sized or misplaced keys as I have seen on many other sub-notebooks. The main issue I had with the usability of the notebook was the awkwardly placed left/right click buttons. The left/right click buttons have been moved to the left and right sides of the touchpad, instead of placing them below. It was quite awkward to use and I often found myself clicking in the wrong spot only to realize that there weren’t any buttons there. Most people will begin to tap the touchpad to initiate a left-click, but will have no choice but to reach over to input a right-click. If Acer had moved the keyboard up just enough to allow room for normally positioned left/right click buttons, the Aspire One would have been much easier to use.

Speakers & Headphones: 4/5 stars
The speaker is located on the bottom-side of the Aspire One. It can get loud enough and remain fairly clear, but are nothing to brag about. The main issue would have to be that everything sounds quite muffled. Everything sounds different based of whether it is being held in your hands, on your lap, or on a flat desk. As for use with a headphone jack, the audio quality is excellent and will offer exactly what you would expect out of a laptop with a built in sound card.

Microphone & Web Cam: 3/5 stars
The Aspire One has a built in microphone and webcam making it a great little VoIP device. I made a few test calls using Skype over a WiFi network and the results were good. The microphone didn’t pick up to much background noise and the web cam was just clear enough to make out faces. The webcam performs quite poorly under poor lighting conditions. Both components are low quality pieces of hardware, but will do the job for communicating when away from something better.

Ports and Expansion: 4/5 stars
The Aspire one has a fairly good selection of ports. It unusually has two memory card readers, one just for SD and the other is a 5-in-1 reader. The reason for two was originally intended for the model with the 8GB SSD model since it allowed expanding the storage onto the SD card using the Linux OS. However they carried it on over the HDD version running XP, which happens to be quite unnecessary. On the front of the notebook you’ll find a switch to toggle WiFi on or off. The right side has the audio input/output, two USB ports, and the multi-card reader. The left side has the power port, VGA port, fan exhaust, ethernet port, another USB port, and a SD card reader.

Performance: 5/5 stars
The Aspire One is a fairly fast notebook. It actually has better specifications in just about every category than the 14 inch Sony Vaio I had been using up until just about two years ago. The HD Tune benchmark tool displayed an average of 49 MB/s data transfer rate, which is excellent. The wPrime 32 CPU test took about 124 seconds to complete which is better than most other sub-notebooks with other processors. The Aspire One is fast enough to do just about all the basic things you would need to do on your laptop on a daily basis. It obviously shouldn’t be used for video editing or gaming, but is great for multimedia playback, internet apps, email, chatting, note taking, and much more.

Battery Life: 4/5 stars
The Aspire One I reviewed only had a 3 cell battery; however 6 cells are also available. Unfortunately a 6-cell will protrude from the notebook. Benchmarks always vary, so I put it to the test in a real-life situation. With WiFi enabled and the screen at half-brightness, I was able to get about 2 hours and 40 minutes of juice out of it on average. I was mainly writing articles, browsing the web, or streaming media the majority of the time. The hours I got might not be entirely similar to what others may receive based of whether they are using hardware intensive applications or not. The battery life was around what other notebooks such as the Lenovo S10 receive, however I do wish it could fit a 6-cell without sticking out like the Asus EEE 900 does. Despite that, it’s fairly good amount considering that it’s got a standard HDD.

Conclusion
After having a chance to play with a couple of other main stream sub-notebooks such as the EEE 900, the Acer Aspire One is currently my favorite. Especially impressive since due to the fairly powerful hardware specs while it’s MSRP is now just $350 for the model in this review. And as I mentioned before the notebook doesn’t lack on looks either. However, my opinion might soon change as Dell and other companies are beginning to roll out more sub-notebooks with competitive specifications and pricing. Just about everything from the operating system, the hard drive space, and speed was satisfactory. The main downsides are probably the awkward positioning of the mouse buttons and the battery life. Overall, most of you folks who are looking for a cheap portable laptop will get exactly what you are looking for and won’t be disappointed with Acer’s Aspire One.

Buy Now: Best Buy $350 | Amazon $400 | Circuit City $330 (SSD Model)
Links: Acer Aspire One | Wiki Page

During the Games Convention in Leipzig, Sony announced a new accessory for the PlayStation 3. This little keyboard snaps onto any SIXAXIS or DUALSHOCK 3 controller to make inputting text easier. The Wireless Keypad accessory is quite similar to what Microsoft rolled out for their Xbox 360 controller over a year ago, however it’s got a few extra features. In addition to making it easier to chat with others and use the browser, it also features a few shortcuts and a special touchpad mode. The shortcuts allow quickly accessing the friends list and message box through the XMB while in games. And the touchapad mode turns the entire face of the keypad into a touchpad to control the pointer when using the browser.

The Wireless Keypad doesn’t seem to communicate with the controller at all, but rather just clips onto it. It has to be paired directly with the PS3 using a USB cable the same way a controller is. And it’s just using the standard Bluetooth 2.0 technology that’s built into the PS3, so no additional equipment is necessary. One bummer might be that this QWERTY keyboard doesn’t seem to be backlit, which the Xbox accessory does. According to the press release the keyboard will become available in North America in November, however pricing hasn’t yet been mentioned.

Links: PlayStation 3 Wireless Keypad

Early this morning, Dell announced over seven new models to their Latitude lineup during their press event. Although each of the models has some amazing new features such as their 14-inch laptop with 19 hours of battery life, I’ll be focusing on their 12-inch Latitude E4200 which weighs just 2.2 pounds. Dell has taken a whole new approach to everything from battery life, hardware, security, software, and style before building these machines and it is all looking pretty good.

Starting with the tech specs, this laptop has got just about all the latest circuitry. The Latitude E4200 uses the Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage Processor running at 1.4 GHz which is the first aspect to conserving battery life. Next, the 12.1 inch WXGA LED backlit display and the 128GB Solid State Drive, which supposedly performs better than a standard 7200RPM HDD, also demand less power than their traditional counterparts. Since this laptop comes with a flavor of Vista, most consumers will demand a good amount of RAM. With the new chipset, the E4200 Latitude has 1GB built-in onboard and supports up to 4GB in the extra slot. In addition to the standard goodies that come with most laptops the notebook also has USB port with “PowerShare” which allows charge devices even when the laptop is turned off and an eSATA port for high speed data access to external storage. The laptop is completely networked with Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/g/n, Mobile Broadband & GPS, and Bluetooth 2.1. Every Latitude series is also compatible with a set of newly designed docking stations. You definitely won’t be left in the dark with lack of ports, however one thing this laptop does lack is a built in optical drive.

Even with all these features packed in, the laptop weighs around just 2.2 pounds with the standard battery pack making it the lightest consumer laptop Dell has ever produced. If you are aiming for 16 hours of battery life, you’ll need to attach an extended battery and a new “battery slab” which attaches to the bottom of the laptop, meaning it won’t be so “lightweight” anymore. Also, for the first time, customers will have the opportunity to customize their Latitude with their choice of color: Regatta Blue, Regal Red and Quartz Pink. The ultra portable Latitude also comes with optional features such as a backlit keyboard with ambient light sensors, a contact-less Smart Card reader, a Trusted Platform Module for encryption, and a fingerprint reader. Since such a large number of laptops are stolen, another item Dell focused on was protecting data. They do that by offering hardware-based encryption to prevent data from being viewed by those without proper access. In addition they include services which will help track & locate a stolen laptops and offer the ability to remotely command a wipe all data if it were stolen.

Finally, Dell also included new instant Operating System entitled “Dell Latitude On,” which may or not be a hit. But according to Dell, it boots within seconds and offers access to email, calendars, contacts, files, and the web without having to load your full Vista operating system. This instant OS is much faster and demands much less power for performing most simple tasks such as watching a movie or listening to music. Dell claims that by using this technology along with the new low-voltage processors and new batteries their laptops can offer “multi-day battery life.” This laptop isn’t yet available for purchase, but should appear on their online store within a couple of weeks. We are also trying to get a unit for review, so check back for more updates!

Links: Dell.com – Latitude E4200

The main reason for the existence of this product is the way keys have been designed. The first time you use this keyboard you will immediately love the way it provides tactile feedback with the press of each key. I personally found the “clicking” sounds that comes with the press of each key quite irritating in the beginning, but came to like it after some time. It might be a problem in some situations, say if you are working around others or if someone in the room is asleep. If you don’t like the idea your keyboard sounding like a type writer, this is not the right keyboard for you. I can guaranty that most people who use it will find it extremely comfortable for brief or extended periods of use.

For those of you who are gamers, you might be interested in the Das Keyboard’s “n-key” rollover feature which accepts up to 12 simultaneous key presses without any jamming. I put this feature to the test by pressing all the keys in the “QWERTY” row down at once. It did indeed succeed to input them all into my text editor instantly. My $10 Logitech keyboard on the other hand constantly failed to accept over four simultaneous key presses while my laptop keyboard would jam after six. So not only does the keyboard feel and sound good, but the designers kept technology in mind making it a very accurate keyboard.

As for the visual aspect, the keyboard is pretty darn minimalistic. The Keyboard has the standard QWERTY layout and a numeric keypad with a total of 105 keys. There are no special programmable buttons or other features of any sort. There are blue LEDs to indicate the status of Caps Lock, Scr Lk, and Num Lock. The Das Professional is actually one of the heaviest keyboards I have seen to date, which may be a good thing for desktop users since it will remain steady on your desk. There are also two pop-up feet on the bottom to create an angle for typing if desired.

The Das Keyboard Professional is compatible with Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. All you need is a functional USB or a PS/2 (adapter not included) port to plug it into. The Keyboard has a high quality 6.6 foot long cable which is useful for plugging into machines far away. The two USB 2.0 ports can be used to connect flash drives, mice, or even charge gadgets. If the overall power demand is too high, the hardware automatically shuts down one of the ports to prevent full failure. Although I found it interesting to see a USB hub on such a simply designed keyboard it is none the less a neat aspect.

The Das Keyboard Professional is now available for purchase for a retail price of $129 on the company’s website. This device is definitely much pricier than most keyboards on the market. There are plenty of decent keyboards available for a much more affordable price. However if you are looking for something which truly feels comfortable for long durations of typing and is extremely accurate, this is the way to go. I have gone through many keyboards over the years and this is probably the most comfortable one I have used to date. If you know of or use a more affordable or better keyboard, please point it out.

Links: Das Keyboard

The main reason for purchasing an ultra-portable drive is to be able to carry it on you at all times without having to worry about extra baggage. The Super Talent Pico allows doing just that. The flash drive is slim enough to fit into a wallet without any noticeable bulge. Others may prefer to attach it to a key chain with the included chain. The flash drive is quite robust and won’t bend even the slightest amount even with a good amount of force. As a bonus the drive is completely waterproof so you can be sure that your data won’t be lost if it ends up getting drenched. There are no movable parts or caps, the front of the Pico fits into the bottom portion of a USB port. Not only is this drive small, but it looks pretty stylish too.

As for performance, the drive attained an average of 22.0 MB/sec transfer rate with an access time of just .8 milliseconds. The Pico-C was on par with the performance of the SanDisk Cruzer Contour which reviewed recently and was much faster than the SanDisk Cruzer Micro. Despite the tiny size, this flash drive is probably now one of the fastest drives I have used.

Regarding drawbacks, there are a few I should mention. First the drive lacks an LED indicator meaning you should always eject the drive in your computer prior to removing it since there’s no way of knowing whether any data is being transferred. Second, the drive is often tight and hard to fit into certain USB ports and exerting force might be required, which is never a good thing. Third, I noticed that with certain powered USB hubs, the drive heats up to very high temperatures making it almost impossible to hold for a few seconds. Despite these issues, the Pico won’t cause any problems for most owners.

The horribly simple packaging might worry some regarding the quality of the product; however my experience proved not to disappoint. The drive is actually quite affordable; the 8GB model I reviewed is available online for as low as $29. Super Talent also manufactures 2GB and 4GB models which are available for just $10 and $15, respectively. The Super Talent Pico (C) will produce the “wow factor” just about any time you pull it out, has a large storage capacity, great performance, and is fairly cheap so you’ll get just about everything you can ask for in this tiny package.

Buy Now: Super Talent Pico 2GB $10 | 4GB $15 | 8GB $30
Links: SuperTalent.com – Pico Information

The Cruzer Contour is a bit heavier than most flash drives, but this is due to the aluminum encased back-side. The top front was made of glossy plastic, which unfortunately had a “cheap” feel to it. To open the drive, you’ll have to slide it backwards then forwards. To close it, you’ll have to slide the top forward then back. Overall the build quality was superb. It isn’t an IronKey, but it is more than enough for the average consumer. I also personally felt that this looks much better than most flash drives I’ve seen. The only other physical caveat I had was that the “cheap” plastic on top kept creaking when opening and closing the flash drive. I also appreciated the fact that SanDisk threw in a leather protective case with a key chain loop along with the flash drive. The whole package looks “executive” enough for me.

As I mentioned previously, the unit’s performance is an important factor. SanDisk officially stated that the drive has 25 MB/sec read speeds and 18 MB/sec write speeds. I used a benchmarking tool (HD Tune) and found that the transfer rate was actually 22.1 MB/sec, about 4 MB/sec faster than they had stated. The read and write speeds were sure enough much faster than generic SanDisk Cruzer Micro I had lying around, but was on par with the IronKey. SanDisk included a set of U3 applications on the drive, these included: Avast! Anti-Virus, Skype, HP Photosmart, some games, and a password manager. I wasn’t a fan of the idea of the launcher starting up each time I plug in the drive nor to have applications I don’t plan on using on my flash drive. As a result I downloaded and ran the U3 uninstaller, which I was able to easily find on SanDisk’s website. All traces of the launcher and applications were quickly erased leaving me with space for my data and media. Keeping the U3 apps would allow me to encrypt the drive, however the downside would be that I would only access my data on a Windows-based machine, no OS X support. Despite that, from some quick tests proved that the default security was quite robust. The partition on the flash drive with encrypted data was completely inaccessible without the correct password.

Overall all the entire idea of the SanDisk Cruzer Contour deserves a thumbs up. Although I happened to not be a fan of the pre-installed apps since I preferred to use my own tools and encrypt my data with TrueCrypt, most consumers will appreciate it. As for the unit’s lifespan, I won’t be able to say how long the flash drive will survive under standard wear and tear, however I would assume it will keep running much longer than cheap generic flash drives. Fortunately it comes with a lifetime warranty, however that won’t cover any data lost due to defects. As for the physical aspect, I found the opening and closing to be a bit tricky at first and is a bit difficult to operate with one hand, however it isn’t an issue after a couple of uses. The unit I reviewed had 4GB storage capacity, however SanDisk also has 8GB and 16GB models available. The drives are available for purchase for as low as $43 for 4GB, $55 for 8GB, and $112 for 16GB on Amazon, however MSRP is much higher for each of the models.

Buy Now: SanDisk Cruzer Contour on Amazon
Link: SanDisk Cruzer Contour Flash Drives
Related: IronKey Review

The Battery Pack – 5/5 stars
The Proporta Rechargeable Battery Back seems to be an excellent idea all around. The unit is fairly small (about the size of a iPod Classic), quite robust, lightweight (4.2 oz) and fairly good looking. There is only one button on the device which also contains an LED indicator inside. The indicator turns red while charging and goes green when complete. You’ll have to click the button to begin charging a connected device and the light remains green until it completes charging. The front side has a mini-USB input to charge the battery pack and a standard USB port to output power to your gadgets. The battery contained inside has 3400 mAH of storage and can output energy at 5v (700mA). I was able to fully recharge a completely depleted Creative Zen and a Apple iPod Nano without having to recharge.

Charging The Battery Pack – 5/5 stars
I was quite impressed to see that Proporta had provided many useful ways to recharge the Rechargeable Battery Pack. First method would be to use the included AC Adapter which has a USB port on the bottom. Just connect the battery to it using the included USB cable and it begins charging. Proporta provides pins for four major countries for the AC adapter, so you should be covered in some regard. The second method to charge the battery would be to use the cigarette car charger. You’ll have to use that standard cable in this situation as well. And if you have not already guessed the third method, it would be to just plug that USB cable into a computer.

Charging Gadgets With The Battery – 5/5 stars
Proporta outdid themselves in this category as well. I was able to charge just about every gadget I owned with this battery pack. For example I was able to use the USB cable that came with my iPod Nano to make the connection between the two. I used the included mini-USB cable to charge the Creative Zen and Motorola RAZR. I was also able to charge the LG Dare and LG Chocolate 3 (review units) with the USB cables that came with those phones. The best part about this being a USB interface might be the fact that when the device has received enough power, it sends a signal to the battery pack to shutdown, which saves battery for other devices. Proporta also includes a set of adapters for major brands of devices, these include: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Apple iPod, Samsung, Mini USB, Micro USB, and a 4.0 DC. Proporta even sells additional adapters for other gadgets online, if needed. In my situation the included accessories for the battery was able to cover just about all the devices I had. In addition as a bonus, since one end of all the adapters is a USB head, you can charge any of the devices you would have been able to charging using the battery pack with either the AC Adapter or Car Charger.

Conclusion
I would have to say that this is probably one of my favorite accessories I have used or reviewed. The entire product was well thought out and just works. It is quite practical and thanks to the widespread use of USB this has become possible. As long as the lifespan of the battery pack last at least a couple of years, this should be an excellent accessory for long trips or commutes. Proporta even includes a designer Ted Baker soft case to hold all the components of the kit together, so you’ll never have to worry about loosing them. I will definitely packing this with me on the next trip I take. The Ted Baker Charging Kit is available for purchase on Proporta.com for $49, however since you are a Skatter Tech reader you are welcome to use the coupon code ’skattertech’ (no quotes) to receive a 10% discount.

Links: Ted Baker Rechargeable Battery Pack
Coupon Code: skattertech
Related: Proporta.com/Power