I’m kind of picky about my headphones. The Sennheiser HD 202 sound decent and are a bargain at $22.
I have two or three pairs kicking around the house. Whenever I recommend them to a friend they are impressed. It’s true what some of the reviews say, they can be a bit tight on the noggin but they will loosen up a bit with time. I have no problem wearing them for a few hours.
I was in the market for a second GPS unit. I was going to buy the same Navman usin that I already have. Howver I am enperienced GPS user now and I know what feature were lacking in my old unit. A couple of features I was looking for include
text to speech
Ability to avoid highways
Ability to enter my own route if I know a certain road has a ton of lights or contruction
Live traffic
A detour feature
Based on the recommendations of some friends I was looking at the Garmin 750 & 760 gps units, After a bit of research I discovered that somting about the Nuvi line. The Avoidances menu can be used as a round-about way of forcing the nuvi 760 to exclude highways. Unfortunately there’s no way to avoid, or exclude, specific roads or highways – a feature sorely missing from Garmin’s entire nuvi product line.
I then turned my eye to the Magellan 4250 which I saw at buy.com for $119 refurbished. The live traffic feature has a free trial for 3 month ans then is $60/year. That’s not too bad.
Most GPS system make you choose avoidance options (avoid highways, avoid tolls etc..) as part of the main menu system and it applies to all routes you enter. The 4250 et’s you choose a route method while entering an address. After you can further tweak the chosen path by browsing the maneuver list and excluding any roads you want to specifically avoid. You can also use the methos for detours bu there is also a dedicated detour option.
It looks easy to enter multiple stops (way points) if you want to plan a trip to different points on the same trip.
This is a lot of GPS for only $119.
Walmart appears to be jump starting the holiday season with a pretty good deal on a Compaq CQ50-139WM laptop for only $298. As is typical with Walmart this seems to be configured specifically for Walmart. The laptop has a w/ Intel Celeron Processor 575, 160G drive, 2G of ram and Vista Home Basic.
I was looking for a portable field recorder and decided to give the Zoom H2 a try. I payed $169 for this unit. There are competitive units out there but they really do not match the value that the Zoom offers for anywhere near this price point.
Some of the features I like are:
The Zoom H2 come with everything you need except batteries. The unit includes headphones, a case, wind screen, a neat little tripod for table top usage and more!
I removed the unit from the packaging and was able to figure out this unit without the manual. My type of gear! Zoom does include a quick start guide and a full fledged, very complete owners manual.
The included 512MB card can record well over 3 hours of 320Kbps MP3 audio. You can also use up to a 16GB for insane recording times.
Zoom H2 Sound Samples
Hear are untouced sound samples from The Zoom H2. Notice the nice stereo image. You can also hear crickets in the background of the recordings.
Zoom H2 Sound Samples – Dog Barking
Zoom H2 Sound Samples – Cars on the road
Overall I’m impressed. The Zoom H2 makes is a great choice as a recorder for students, videographers and musicians
I was strolling through Best Buy today and noticed the Asus – Eee PC. This wasn’t the first time I heard of them but I never saw one in person. The model was the EEE PC 900 and was $449. This model has windows XP loaded on it. The keyboard was a nice size and the thing was light as hell. The 8.9″ screen seemed a little washed out. Maybe it could be corrected with some adjustments.
I imagine most people are buying these as a second computer and basically want an internet appliance. For about $50 less you can get the linux version which is fine for surfing the net.
My Ipod Nano got the ole broken screen defect. Being the handy man I am I decided to order a kit from ebay and replace the screen myself. I have more degrees in electrical/electronic engineering than I can shake a stick at and I consider myself somewhat talented at fixing things.
Everything was going beautifully until I tried to attach the ribbon cable to the main board. I broke the little connector on the main board. I got frustrated at this point and gave up.
My advice. If your Ipod breaks send it in for a repair.
If you’re in the market for a compact digital camera take a close look at the Casio EX-Z77. For many people Casio isn’t the first name they think of when it comes to digital cameras. Many people don’t realize that many cameras in this price range share the same sensor made by Sony. For the most part differences in picture quality are negligible.
What sets the Casio apart from other cameras in this price range is the amazing 2.6 inch LCD screen. Casio makes some of the best screens in the business. The screen is easy to see even in bright outdoor sunlight.
Another feature that sets this camera aaprt for it’s competitors is the quality of the movies it takes. The movies are encoded in the H.264 format as opposed to motion Jpeg that is found on other cameras. What this means is that the Casio can create much better quality movies in a smaller files size. The built in microphone does pick up wind noise outdoors.
Everyone that sees this camera loves it. It is small and light weight. It can easily fit into pockets on jeans and if you place it in a shirt pocket you barely know it is there. It’s as easy to carry as a small clamshell style cell phone.
This is a perfect camera for teenagers. It comes in cool colors, is rugged and is priced well below $200 at many online retailers.
Awesome.
I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical when Apple unveiled the new Ipod Nano. I thought they lost the people that like to use the Nano for exercising.
A friend just bought the new Nano and I have to admit it’s cool as hell. It seems to be as thin and lightweight as the older Nano, though I didn’t have one to compare directly. I placed it in my front pocket and I really couldn’t feel it was there. It would make a nice little unit for exercise.
The games that come with it are pretty fun too.
I’m no Ipod fanboy, but I have to give apple credit for this slick mp3 player.
Casio is rolling out two new cameras that are YouTube ready. The Exilim EX-S880 and EX-Z77. From the specs it seems like these cameras are very similar to existing models in the Exilim line. Specifically the Exilim EX-Z75.
You then slip the camera into a dock, which comes with the device and plugs into your PC. This automatically starts a video management application on the computer and grabs the movie files. The application can be set up with a YouTube account, default title name, and other settings, so getting the video online involves simply clicking the upload button. Alternatively, you can enter information specific to the clips, then upload them.
Obviously this is all an exercise in marketing and branding. I fail to see how this is any easier than plugging your memory card into your PC an uploading your video to Youtube the normal way.
I’ll be posting a bit more about the Casio Exilim line. They are an excellent line of digital cameras.
A few weeks ago I saw a story about layoffs for Sony’s USA Playstaion Division. Now there is news that the chief architect of Sony’s PlayStation has stepped down.
I find it a little ironic that Sony is on the receiving end of being overtaken in the console game market. In my neck of the woods the Xbox 360 seems to be teh new hawt. I rarely hear of anyone saving up for a PS3.
Sales figures for the Nintendo Wii has been a big surprise to me. It just proves that “it’s the gameplay stupid”.