Smartphones & Gear

Otterbox on Track to Keep Your Soon-to-be Shipped Shiny iPhone 5 Protected!

Otterbox takes device protection seriously, and their cases reflect a company passionate about doing just that, unsurprising since their About Us page lists “work hard/play hard” as part of the company culture. Now that the Apple iPhone 5 has been announced, Otterbox has just released for pre-order two cases: the Defender and Commuter Series, with the Reflex and Prefix cases not quite available, but coming soon. These cases, most of which offer several color combinations to choose from, should be ideal for owners who want to keep their iPhones very safe but also easily useable, treading the fine line between…


Emergency Cell-Phone Lasts 10 Hours On A Single ‘AA’ Battery

Picture yourself stranded alone during a hurricane. The rain pelts the windows with oppressive vigor. A howling wind lifts lawn chairs off the patio. You reach into your pocket and grab your smart-phone. You’ve never been more desperate to check your twitter feed, but the battery’s already down to 5%. Four minutes later, that one tough level of Angry Birds: Space finally kills the phone. Out of nowhere, an enormous tree branch crashes through the living room window. You try to call for help, but you left your charger in the hotel room back in Atlanta. What’s the solution? XPAL…


Digital Innovations Nest Earbud Protector Review

Unless you are a fan of stereo bluetooth headphones, you have earbuds.  With the iPhone, Android Phones, Mp3 Players and other personal audio items usually shipping with a pair of these, we all end up with at least one favorite pair.  They are the bane of our existence, and  there have been many attempts at taming these cords.  Just take a look below at the mess I usually pull out of my bag. Once I pull these out of my bag, I usually spend the next few minutes untangling them so I can use them.  Well now I, and you — if you…


iStabilizer Dolly Video Demo and Review

The other day we took a look at a neat way to create smooth video with the iPhone. (Check it out here.) That’s not the only iPhone camera accessory we’ve been reviewing and today we’ll take a look at the Dolly from iStabilizer. The Dolly is a great tool for taking panning video or creating a stable yet flexible base for time-lapse picture/video settings. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that it isn’t designed to work with a specific smartphone but rather, thanks to the included iStabilizer Mount, you can use it with a wide selection of smartphones in a…


Motorola Adds Three New Razr Smartphones on Verizon!

Yesterday was a smartphone lovers delight, to be sure. Piling on earlier announcements from other companies, Motorola had an event where they announced three cool looking new smartphones to add to their wildly popular Razr line-up. They updated the Droid Razr with Here are the basics: • DROID RAZR M: An impossibly compact smartphone that puts the world in the palm of your hand. A 4.3 inch edge-to-edge Super AMOLED Advanced offers 40 percent more screen space then the leading competitor. • DROID RAZR HD: This ultra-thin device shows you everything in stunning HD detail that beats the competition. Movies,…


SuperTooth MELODY Bluetooth Stereo Headphones Review

SuperTooth isn’t a well-known company here in the US. They should be. In Europe the company is extremely popular and, based on the SuperTooth Disco Bluetooth speaker we reviewed last year, they make come great products. Most recently, we’ve had a chance to check out the new SuperTooth MELODY Bluetooth Stereo headphones. These on-ear headphones are smaller than we have seen with BT on-ear products and, at $99 they have a lower price than we have seen. But at that price do they FEEL like sub-$100 headphones? Do they sound like sub-$100 headphones? Let’s take a close look. From SuperTooth:…


Sena UltraSlim for HTC ONE X Review

As much as I love using various cases – they add color, style and, often, functionality, my iPhone spends the majority of its time relatively naked. Yes, I usually have a screen protector and some sort of back protection on it but, other than that, it’s just the iPhone. My reason? Simple, I love the feel of the iPhone itself, and even the most minimalistic case adds some degree of bulk. When my iPhone is being used in this state I will either carry it in my Sena UltraSlim pouch or the Creativo Pouch we reviewed here. For about a…


Kanex Sydnee Smart Recharge Station for iPad Review

Our new computer lab will be ready for our students when they return this fall. That means our pre-school will have four or more iPads and our grade school students will, eventually, have access to a dozen or more iPads. That’s all good and well except for the fact that all those iPads need to be recharged. Sure we could get a power strip and put AC adapter and cable after AC adapter and cable into it but that would be bulky, ugly and inconvenient. The alternative would be a multi-iPad charging station. A few exist but most are big and…


The Safetag.me Review

Have you ever lost your keys and not found them?  How about your cellphone? Safetag.me aims to make it easier for you t connect you back with your misplaced keys or phone or anything else you can attach a tag to. Does it work? Let’s find out. The Safetag.me kit comes in a kit of two decals and one tag you can attach to your keys. When you get your kit in the mail, you go to the Safetag.me web site to register your tags. When you do, you will indicate what the tag is attached to and whether you…


OnLive, Moto Mobility and the Harsh Reality of Tech Wars for Real People

Over the weekend we heard about the founder of OnLive basically shuttering the company in order to protect himself and the property by using a California loophole that allowed better creditor repayment than bankruptcy, but for workers … they were totally screwed just as if the company went totally belly-up. But that doesn’t mean all is well for creditors and investors. Today we start to learn about more of the fallout of the OnLive collapse: specifically, that troubled smartphone maker HTC is losing $40 million due to the restructuring. This is the same HTC who recently posted a 58% net…


The Nokia Lumia 900 Gets Updated in US

This has been a busy and bumpy year for the Nokia Lumia 900.  Just released this spring, it was already declared a dead-end device by Microsoft shortly after its arrival as Microsoft announced that Windows Phone 7.5 phones wouldn’t be updated to Windows Phone 8.  Although this wasn’t a complete surprise (due to the hardware limitations of the current devices), many of us hoped some of the features of Windows Phone 8 would eventually make it to Windows Phone 7.5 devices.  As of this writing thought, it looks like a rather limited set of features will eventually appears in the…


How to Root the Nexus 7; And Some Good Reasons Why You Should do it

  The Nexus 7 is no doubt one of the hottest tablets to hit the Android Community. Running a bloat free Google OS on top of a Tegra 3 platform has proven to be a crowd favorite. So why take the possibly “warranty voiding” steps to gain Root access to the device? Even if you are not an enthusiast there are many benefits to rooting the tablet past the obvious flashing of custom roms and themes. Some of the best Android apps require root access to work, so without root you can  pretty much use the tablet to its full…


The Waiting (for Android Updates) is the Hardest Part

I have a Motorola Droid 4 – and I really love it. That said, it is lousy being not just one but TWO VERSIONS of Android behind … I mean, this is the sort of thing Google said they were eliminating. Anyway … that is about to end! Yesterday I read that the ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ update was finally approved and a ‘soak test’ commenced, meaning that the full update would be released soon (unless something bad happened). Then later last night I heard that it was starting to ‘roll out in phases’. Motorola Mobility tweeted about it: 4G LTE…


CROON Audio’s Original Sound System Looks Great, Promises to Sound Just as Good

I went into the office today after a few weeks of vacation. While returning email I decided to listen to some tunes. My set up at work looks like this- I have an excellent Altec Lansing Speaker that Judie gave me for Hanukkah a few years ago connected to an Airport Express which, in turn, is plugged into the wireless ethernet post that comes into my study. It was that Airport Express that provided WiFi in that part of the building. More than that, however, it also takes the standard, docking stereo and turns it into an Airplay-enabled speaker. I…


How Nokia Wants to Create the Perfect Smartphone for Women (and Everyone Else!)

Several years ago, I owned the worst phone in the world, the Samsung Epix. Seriously, it was an evil, possessed phone. After sending one Epix after another back to AT&T because of all the issues, they finally relented and let me exchange it for a different phone. I ended up with a Nokia E71x, and while the AT&T “adjustments” to the software were less than welcome, I adored the hardware. Nokia may have had their ups and downs, but they know how to make an amazing phone. Nokia has now thrown their support behind Windows Phone, and I had an…


USBFever Releases Universal USB Hub and Card Reader for iPad & Galaxy Tabs!

You know, I wonder what they put in their coffee or beverage of choice over at USBFever, because it never ceases to amaze me the constellation of gizmos that pop up in their online offerings. Take for example USBFever’s latest item, the Universal USB Hub and Card Reader for Apple iPad / Galaxy Tabs. USBFever claims that this USB hub will support 90% of the tablets out there, but what exactly does this Universal USB hub do? Does it slice and dice or even julienne? No, but this hub is getting darned close with its three primary functions: – With…


Harman Kardon Bluetooth Wireless Over-Ear Headphones Review

Harman Kardon recently released their first line of headphones. The company has a long history of offering quality audio components and has now taken their experience and applied it to the burgeoning headphone market. As we recently brought word, their headphone line runs from in-ear to on-ear to over-ear styles. They were kind enough to send a pair of their BT Bluetooth over-ear headphones for review. Let’s take a look. As we note in the video review, the packaging is impressive. The company clearly gave a great deal of thought to the entire experience when someone purchases the headphones and…


Noreve Saint-Tropez Leather Case for Lumia 900 Review

What is it about fine leather that so many people just love? Is it the look? The smell of a well-made leather product? The tactile quality? All of the above? I don’t know, but I do know that Noreve Saint-Tropez satisfies all of the above as evidenced by the Nokia Lumia 900 case I received from them. For those unfamiliar, Noreve Saint-Tropeze of Saint-Tropez, France, nestled in the south of France on the coast between Marseille and Cannes, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. (For the culinary inclined, this is loosely referred to as part of Provence.) For the history buff,…


Seidio Desktop Charging Cradle/Dock for EVO 4G LTE, HTC One S and X Review

If you have a HTC EVO 4G LTE, HTC One S or HTC One X this sync/charge dock and cradle is for you. Seidio’s newest dock, the Desktop Charging Cradle/Dock lets you easily dock your smartphone in landscape and, for example, become a bedside alarm clock. Here’s a quick look and then your chance to win the review sample. From Seidio: Our newest Desktop Cradle combines familiar elements from our classic Innodock Jr. and convenient Desktop Cradle. The matte finish on this Desktop Cradle provides elegance to your desk or nightstand, while the sleek LED light indicates that the cradle…


In an Apple and Everything Else Funk

Lately I’ve been in a funk.  I thought, at first, it was an Apple funk.  I thought it might be about the fact that Apple today doesn’t seem to have the same excitement  and vision as it did under Steve Jobs.  I thought it might be about a sequence of products that is becoming very evolutionary instead of revolutionary.  I thought it was about Apple and where it might be heading. But it’s more than that.  It’s about where the mobile industry as a whole is heading.  It’s about what kinds of things we think are important (and it’s not…


Instant Business Card to Contacts Conversion with INTSIG’s CamCard App

If you’re a member of the professional world, you’re probably used to pocketing business cards like a pro. You slide them right into your pocket, only to fumble them out later for the information you need. It’s not a terrible system. If you’re a smart phone owner, however, you’ll know how time-consuming it is to manually enter business card information into your contacts. INTSIG’s CamCard app makes that process a lot faster and easier. Using your smartphone’s camera as a rudimentary scanner, the app targets the necessary information from the photo and converts it into your address book. The app,…