Reviews

Aqua Jigsaw for iPhone OS Review

Over the summer my family takes a long vacation at our home in the Outer Banks.  One of our favorite past times to do at the beach house is to all gather around the kitchen table with a large piece count jigsaw puzzle.  We usually get one going and then come back to it over the time we’re there and end up finishing a few during our stay. With Aqua Jigsaw from 99 Games, I don’t have to wait until next summer to continue the jigsaw puzzle tradition my family enjoys. I can keep it going right on my iPhone.


RDM+ for iPhone Review: BlackBerry Really Puts Your Computer on Your Phone

You’re out of the office, get a call and the boss needs a quick change on a presentation.  You’re an IT admin, you’re enjoying some time out of the house for the weekend and you need to reboot a server —  while your laptop is back at home.  You want to show off a photo of the kids from vacation while you’re at a soccer game, but then you realize it’s back on your home computer.   What do all of these scenarios have in common?  Each situation used to require you to physically use the computer that is in the…


iPod nano 5th Gen First Look

As I’m sure many of you know Apple have announced their latest refresh of the iPod Touch and iPod nano lines, and while neither were really overhauled the nano picked up a few more features than its big brother. It’s been widely speculated that the iPod line-up would gain cameras, but the rumours were only half right, with the Nano squeezing in a VGA 30fps camera, whilst the Touch had to make do with a performance boost and higher capacities. The look hasn’t really changed much, with the same basic design of the 4th generation Nano. It is still super…


There is a case for that: The OtterBox Defender for iPhone 3G/3G S Review

Oh the joy of acquiring a new iPhone – it’s shiny, sexy, has tons of apps and full of user interface goodness until the unthinkable happens: It is that precise moment with joy turns into sorrow, followed by denial, anger, rage, resentment, depression and reality that $99, $199, or $299 just left your bank account. There is a case for those moments when the law of gravitational pull yanks the shiniest gadget (the iPhone) out of one’s hands. I am talking about the OtterBox Defender case for the iPhone.


Review: Dataviz Documents to Go Version 2.0 for Android

Since I got my G1, I have been interested in viewing documents on my G1.  However that was not possible, except for PDF files.  I was able to quickly find a good PDF viewer in IcViewer.  However, there have been times that I would like to create a Word document or Excel spreadsheet.  Since there is no Open Office port for Android, I had to make do with some note apps, bringing the text into a document once I got back to my desk.  Once that was done, I either had to print to a PDF file to view it…


Yahoo! Fantasy Football ’09 for iPhone/Touch Review

Last week the Blue Plate Special was an app to get us through our fantasy drafts.  I used the app to help me make decisions as well as keep track of the entire draft.  It was much better than trying to find players on paper lists and scratching them off. Game on, wherever you are. Log in from your phone, and manage your team when you’re mobile. Add or drop players, check their stats and see the match-ups from any team in the league. Sign up for StatTracker® on your PC, and get up-to-the-minute stats on game day, on your phone….


Tattoo Mania for iPhone OS Review

Handy Game’s Tattoo Mania puts you in the seat of a tattoo artist in charge of your very own tattoo shop. Every tattoo you paint on your customers earns you points.  The faster and more precise you are the more points you earn. But watch out.  Everyone has their own pain threshold and if you exceed it you might find your shop quickly out of business. Let’s take a look at the game.


CaseCrown 8.9″ Alligator Slim Case

As many of you tech-loving ladies out there know, it can be very difficult at times to find a nice, feminine looking case for your gadgets.  I love clothes and accessories just as much as I love technology, and I hate putting a gadget in a boring case into a cute handbag.  I just don’t understand why tech accessories have to be boring! When I saw the CaseCrown Alligator Slim Case, the first thing I noticed was that it was stylish looking and came in PINK…not just soft baby pink, but bright hot pink!  I knew I had to try…


Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: Week Two into the Rosetta Stone TOTALe Program

Oh this week was harrrrrrrd. Let’s see…when we last left off my goal was to get through four more lessons this week, and be up to number seven. Well guess what? There is no seven, and it basically took me all week to get through lesson four. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the way the TOTALe program is set up, but better late than never. Evidently the lessons are broken into Units, and Unit One (at least) is broken into four major sections, each composed of separate lessons. The sections start off easily enough, and I got…


Case-Mate Barely There Chrome for iPhone 3G/3GS Review

In addition to the Smooth Case Case-Mate recently sent me for review, they were also kind enough to include one of their Chrome Barely There Cases for the iPhone 3G/3G with a mirrored screen protector. With visions of 20″ chrome spinners on a tricked out car from some episode of Pimp My Ride I slapped the case on my iPhone 3GS and took it for a test drive. The version of the Chrome Barely There I was sent included a mirrored screen protector and sells for $24.99. A similar version of the case is available from Case-Mate without the mirrored…


Case-Mate Barely There for Blackberry Bold Review

Yesterday Larry took a look at the Case-Mate Smooth for iPhone 3G/3GS. I would say he liked it! I too have long been a fan of Case-Mate’s products. In fact, a Case-Mate case was the very first cases I got for my original iPhone. The company doesn’t limit itself to iPhones however. They offer solutions for protecting a wide variety of handhelds including, as luck would have it, the Blackberry Bold I began carrying last week. I always tend to prefer a minimalist approach to protecting my devices. I like a “real” case so invisible skins don’t do it for…


Alchemize for iPhone and iPod Touch by Schiau Studios Review

When I saw the press release on this title proclaim that the game “deserves critics attention”, I got myself all ready to dislike this game automatically. Yeah, it’s not fair, but when someone insists that I must like something I’m immediately put into a negative mood. Well now I have spent a bit of time with this game and I may have to change my original ideas. What did I find? Let’s have a look.


Case-Mate Smooth for iPhone 3G/3GS Review

Slider cases have always been my favorite type of case for the iPhone. Silder cases are generally made up of two pieces. The phone slides into the two and they connect at some point, usually near the bottom. This allows the bottom piece to be easily removed so that your device can still be used with an accessory item requiring access to the dock connector, such as a cradle or external speaker. Case-Mate is not new to the iPhone accessory market. They’re already established themselves as one of the leaders. Their version of the slider case, the Smooth, is one…


MYINE Ira Internet Radio – Review

Let me tell you about Elana’s radio. (Yup, that’s it in the clip.) Elana cooks… a lot! and when she does she listens to the radio. Sometimes she listens to music, but often she chooses talk radio. And she listens to it on an old-style Sony radio. The thing hasn’t changed since I was a kid. It has one speaker and sounds… well… it sounds horrible. I have asked Elana if she wanted me to set it up so her MacBook could drive speakers in the kitchen, but she didn’t want the hassle or expense. So for YEARS I have…


Life+Gear 6IN1DC Flashlight Review

It never fails.  The power goes out in the middle of the night and your flash light is out of batteries.  Now that we are getting to the heart of the hurricane season, before the next storm hits maybe you should  get your family a Life+Gear 6IN1DC. The 6IN1DC is touted as a quad power device. The device can run on 3 AAA Batteries,  a DC Adapter (not included), an AC Adapter (also not included) and backup power. 


SphereXYZ Review

Next year the Rubix Cube turns 30, so the fact that I was working part-time in a retail department store to support school / books / music / games / friends/ etc when it came out means a couple of things. First it means that there is a certain nostalgia attached to the Cube. OK, so it also says I’m old! Anyway, when I had the opportunity to try out the SphereXYZ, a challenging puzzle that invokes the spirit of the classic Cube, I jumped! So let’s find out of the game lives up to the classic and if it…


iBlink Earbuds Review

Back when I was much younger headphones were headphones – of sure there was a wide range of quality, but in general you were getting two padded speakers that clapped over your ears. Later, when the Sony Walkman and other portable products arrived around 1980, much smaller on-ear headphones arrived to support those products. The 1990’s brought us earbuds and other varieties of on-ear, around-ear, and in-ear products. Ear-canal audio products are the most recent, offering the portability of earbuds with a better frequency response range and noise isolation. There are so many products of each type that a trip…


Life+Gear 200 Hour Glow Sticks Review

We have all seen the cyalume glow sticks that you snap and then shake to get a chemiluminescent glow.  Kids love them, but there is one downside: You can’t turn them off.  Imagine having a glowstick that you can not only turn off, but at the press of a button you could make that glow stick into a regular flashlight.  That is essentially what we have with the Lifegear 200 Hour Glow Sticks.


Scosche soundKASE Review

If you are going to go jogging, nothing beats using the current generation iPod shuffle. It is small, light, has a built-in clip and holds a good amount of music. It works great. Sometimes, though, you just don’t want to use any device other than your iPhone or iPod touch. Sure, it is rather sizable and weighs a whole heck of a lot more than a shuffle. But then again, the shuffle won’t let you make calls or listen to internet radio the way you can from your iPhone, or carry 32GB of music or podcasts the way you can…


Plantronics Voyager 855 Review Redux – Still Awesome

I read a post on jkontherun the other day about the trend away from Bluetooth headsets. As luck would have it, I had recently come across the Plantronics Voyager 855 I reviewed for Just Another Mobile Monday last summer and had started using them again. The experience was/is… well… awesome. The headset is comfortable, sounds great and offers a degree of flexibility that is all too rare. Even though I reviewed them a year ago the Voyager 855 remain in Plantronics’ catalog. There is, however, a major difference now… Amazon has the $150 headset for under $35. That makes it a…


Pzizz for iPhone/iPod Touch Review

Feeling worn down, stressed out, or just not getting enough quality sleep?  Guess what — yep! — there’s an app for that. Pzizz (pronounced puh-zizz) may be just what you need.  In the most simple terms, Pzizz Relax is a power-nap app. Using the application religiously over the past two weeks I can say it is much more. The application is  new for the iPhone/iPod Touch, but it’s been around for quite some time for the  Mac/PC — and those earlier versions have been reviewed by Gear Diary as well as the original “Pzizz player” on the Gadgeteer. So, is an…