Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

While a truly ‘paperless office’ is still many years away, it seems a completely wireless one is almost within our reach. As long as you ignore the need for power cords, you can pretty much eliminate all the other wires through the use of cell phones, bluetooth and of course wifi.

The latest devices to at least cut one of their cords are printers. Thanks again to wifi, those annoying and limiting parallel port, USB and network cables are a thing of the past. While I have seen wifi printers in stores before, Lexmark seems to be the first manufacturer to be really gung-ho about the idea, and have released an entire line of affordable wifi printers with no extra hardware or adapters needed.

I had a chance to look at the Lexmark X4550 All-In-One printer which is one of the company’s first wireless models. You can read my impressions and full review after the jump, or just look at the pictures if you feel you’ve already done enough reading for the day, I’ll understand.

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By Evan Ackerman

Boy was I excited when a box from Dragonlasers showed up at my door yesterday. I don’t mind telling you that I giggled like a little girl as I opened up the box to reveal a 250mW (!) green laser. I’ll be, um, experimenting with it over the next week or so, and I thought I’d ask you guys if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see. No, I’m not going to do anything dangerous, expensive, illegal, or immoral. And yes, I’ll be wearing eye protection.

Just to get you started, 250mW has a visible range on the order of 100 miles (halfway to the ISS) and is easily capable of burning or melting anything that’s non-reflective. We’ve reviewed high powered lasers in the past (here and here), but the Hulk is the most powerful thus far.

Post suggestions in the comments, and I’ll see what I can do.

By Andrew Liszewski

While the Apple Newton was really the first gadget to introduce handwriting recognition to the consumer world it was far from perfect. From my own experiences the technology really only became useful with the Palm Pilot’s Graffiti system but even then the user had to learn a special variation of the alphabet and could only write the characters on a designated area of the screen. It was definitely far from true handwriting recognition but it was still quite usable. (My trusty Handspring Visor still sits on my desk to this day.)

Fast forward to today and most stylus driven PDAs and tablet PCs contain a fairly robust handwriting recognition system but at the same time they’re not exactly cheap. And that’s why the FLY Fusion Pentop Computer was so intriguing to me since it offered a certain level of handwriting recognition in a small form factor and at a reasonable price.

After playing with the pen for a few weeks now I’ve come to the conclusion that some of its features will appeal to a younger demographic while other features might be useful for the older crowd. You can check out my full review of the FLY Fusion Pentop Computer after the jump.

*Update: In my original review I claimed the FLY Fusion was not capable of recognizing or converting cursive writing, and could only be used with printed text. Upon further testing I’ve discovered this was not completely correct and I’ve updated the review, including my conclusions, accordingly.

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By David Ponce

When I got the email inviting me to Milford, Michigan to drive the 2008 GM lineup around, I thought it was a joke. But sure enough, it wasn’t, and I’m happy to say, I haven’t had this much fun in a while. I’ll let you know what GM is up to in this article, and just what kind of fun we had, but first, a disclaimer: GM paid my way there, but all the opinions that follow are purely mine.

Other than a retelling of facts, what can you expect in this post? Well, there’s a video, for one. It’s me as a passenger in the ‘vette, while it’s being floored. Expletives ensue. Then I’ll tell you about StabiliTrak, GM’s version of traction control, as well as the surprise of the day: the new Saab 9-3. Oh, and a bunch of pictures.

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By Evan Ackerman

New backpack smell always takes me back to the first day of school. And since I’ve been out of school, I haven’t put much thought into replacing my ancient JanSport. But ever since Mobile Edge sent me a couple of their laptop backpacks to check out, my sense of style, my laptop, and my back have all been demanding something new. I was able to meander about with these backpacks for several weeks on a trip up to the Pacific Northwest, and I’ll review them both separately over the next few days. You can be assured that these reviews are unbiased since I had to send the backpacks back (grrr); but it’s worth noting that I was disappointed to have to do so, ’cause I really did (mostly) like them. Read my full review after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

Every laptop on the market includes some alternative to a mouse whether it be a touchpad, track point or the now rarely seen trackball. (I still miss them.) And while those options are a great alternative when you don’t exactly have a lot of desk space at your disposal (like when on a plane) they’re just not as comfortable to use as an actual mouse.

So for years manufacturers have been producing smaller, more compact mice specifically designed for use with a laptop while you’re on the go. In recent years they’ve even managed to cut the cord and today I’ll be looking at a wireless notebook mouse from Logitech called the VX Nano. While the mouse itself has a fairly basic design the real innovation here is what Logitech has managed to accomplish in shrinking the USB wireless receiver. Not only is it ridiculously small but I really don’t know how a USB receiver could actually get smaller and still be usable.

Frequent readers of the site might recall that our own Shane McGlaun already gave us a first ‘hands on’ look at the mouse shortly after it was released but I’m here to provide a more in-depth review complete with additional photos right after the jump.

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By Andrew Liszewski

It’s no secret that I’m the type of person who takes very good care of their gadgets and while at times it might border on paranoia in the end it usually pays off when I get bored with the device and want to sell it for a decent return. It’s also no secret that while the iPhone was one of the most anticipated gadgets to come along since the invention of gadget blogs it’s also turned out to be one of the most fingerprint prone devices I’ve ever touched.

So even before I asked the salesperson at the Apple store if they had any iPhones in stock I first made sure they had screen protectors available since I had no intentions of even touching the phone until it was properly protected. While at the Apple Store I was also tempted to buy a protective case for the phone but being a fan of WaterField Designs I figured I would wait and see what they were cooking up instead.

Thankfully after only a brief wait the company released their iPhone Smart Case and iPhone Suede Jacket Case which I had the opportunity to take a look at. If you’ve been in the market for a case for your iPhone and haven’t been that impressed with what’s available at the Apple stores you can check out my full review of WaterField Designs’ offerings after the jump.

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By Ian Chiu

Seems the LCD industry has been trying to convince S&P 500 companies to put a second or third monitor on their employees’ desktop. Well, their customers’ IT representatives haven’t been so keen on spending many sleepless nights upgrading thousands of video cards on their PCs. Of course, that’s a market begging to be filled right there and new start-up DisplayLink is doing its bit with an improved USB video card solution that combines a lossless decompression engine, 32MB DDR and a 16-bit graphics co-processor. Basically the data used to stream across PCI Express is now flowing through the USB pipe into the monitor.

So far, IOGear, LG, Samsung and Toshiba have shown interest in this solution. Samsung has raced to be the first to ship a 19″ monitor with USB interface in addition to DVI and VGA. Also unique to this solution is the ability to daisy-chain up to 5 additional monitors via USB. Everything USB has taken a good look at the SyncMaster 940UX 19″ LCD and was quite pleased with the 2D performance. As DisplayLink employs lossless most of the times, text and image clarity are preserved. However, you can notice the lines are more pixelated during full-screen video playback in PowerPoint when the video chipset switches to lossy compression.

Samsung’s SyncMaster 940UX makes for a wonderful monitor in a typical office environment, with great color accuracy, sharpness, and even backlighting to boot. The pixel response time of 15ms+ may not be the best for hardcore gamers, although weekend warriors and light movie watchers will find it more than suitable. The scalable USB interface promises and delivers with its ease of setup and hands-off driver installation, and can keep up with most video tasks albeit with some artifacts and occasional frame drops. Just don’t expect the USB interface to play nicely with 3D games and CAD design programs.

[Samsung SyncMaster 940UX USB Monitor Review @ Everything USB]

By Andrew Liszewski

I actually upgraded my trusty Nokia E61 to the HTC S710 over a month ago and while I really wanted to write a full review of the phone I haven’t had the time thanks to my ‘day job.’ Thankfully Thomas De Maesschalck over at DV Hardware did have the time to write one and overall he gives the phone an 8.5/10. For the specifics you can read his full review but here are my own impressions of the S710 after playing with it for a month now.

While the E61 was one of the best phones I’ve ever used I decided I wanted something a bit smaller and more importantly a phone with more 3rd party applications. Even after being out for over a year the list of apps available for the E61 was pretty dismal. At the same time I still wanted a dedicated keyboard so when I saw the S710 with its nifty slideout keyboard I knew it was the perfect fit.

So far the phone has been pretty good. Having been away from mobile versions of Windows for many years I can’t comment much on the upgrades made to Windows Mobile 6 but like most MS operating systems there have been a few hiccups here and there. Definitely more than the E61 ever had. On the plus side though there’s a mountain of 3rd party applications available which I really like. As for form factor for what the S710 is capable of it’s still remarkably small and pocketable. It is a bit on the heavy side but at the same time it tends to make the phone feel more solid than anything. And I have to say I’m especially impressed with what HTC has been able to pull off in only a few short years. The company entered an already crowded cellphone market and as far as I’m concerned are now producing some of the best Windows Mobile phones available.

For the complete specs on the S710 you can check out the product page on the HTC website.

[ DV Hardware reviews the HTC S710 ] VIA [ Krunker ]

By Ian Chiu

There’s a bewildering array of choices in the digital music player market, yet everyone seems to pick the iPod nano. We think the iriver clix gen 2 is a great alternative, one that has finally caught up to and in some areas surpassed the market leader. To sum it up, the Clix has has a truly original minimalistic design, starting eith an effective D-Click navigation and not some iPod wheel knock off. It supports both MTP and UMS, plus the ability to rebuild ID3 DB from files - something that is extremely handy for those who prefer to drag and drop their music into the player. With Flash lite support, you’re guaranteed there will be a decent selection of free games. The downsides are the lack of AAC, line-in recording and slow music transfer. If the iRiver still doesn’t impress at least you’ve still got other nice choices, like the Meizu M6 SE. From the review:

Simple navigation, killer sound quality, smooth video, vibrant photos and the brightest, most vivid display I’ve ever seen on an MP3 player put the new iRiver Clix 2 ahead of the competition in most regards. Free games, FM radio and text capabilities sweeten the deal, but what really sets the Clix apart is its ability to operate in either MTP or USB Mass Storage modes with automated database rebuilding. At last, the freedom to switch between Rhapsody, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, iTunes, Mac and Linux without hassle. The only things that could really use improvement are the transfer speeds for music and the bundled headphones. Still, the Clix gen 2 is highly recommended, and finally succeeds in stealing the limelight away from the current market leader.

[iRiver Clix gen 2 4GB Review @ Everything USB]