Oh! Gizmo

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]

By Ian Chiu

Well, everyone yawns at backup software and external hard drives, but it’s fairly certain everyone will also mourn at the loss of their lifetime work when a lighting strike, fire or HDD failure finally hits and obliterates everything he/she worked so hard for. Other people are smart, and actually purchase products like the Seagate FreeAgent Pro. Everything USB has taken a look at what is reportedly ‘the’ backup solution for everyone (except Mac folks). The drive ships with 750GB storage, the highly praised Memeo’s AutoBackup, 2 modules for connecting to USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and eSATA, and a 5-year warranty card. The logo and the strip on the chassis can also glow to remind you of Seagate’s brand, but this functionality can also be turned off, thankfully.

Backups can be such a chore. For the novice computer user, they’re a maze of which folders and backup schemes to pick from. For geeks, they can be slow and inefficient, seeing as they sometimes even have to rely on our memory to press a button! Rather than listen to users scream the proverbial “NOOOOOOOOOO”, Seagate has ramped up the speeds and warranty on their latest external drive, the FreeAgent Pro, and coupled it with Memeo’s powerful yet intuitive backup software.

Pros: Modular interface design; speedy eSATA interface; FireWire interface can be daisy-chained; superb AutoBackup software; silent operation; 5 year warranty.

Cons: Lacks FireWire 800; no Mac backup software; harsh warranty terms.

[Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB External HDD Review @ Everything USB]

By Evan Ackerman

Playaway, makers of a single-serving digital audiobook player, kindly sent us a review unit last week. Being a fan of audio and books (and free stuff), I volunteered to write it up. The particular audiobook that I’m listening to for this review is The Worst Case Scenario Handbook, read by Penn Jillette and Burt Reynolds. It retails from the Playawaydigital.com website for $34.99. Click on through for a brutally in-depth review.

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By Evan Ackerman

I like robots rather a lot, but I never thought I might actually be capable of building one until I ran across a website about photovore robots. Most photovores are small, solar powered BEAM (biologically inspired) bots with a solar panel, light sensors, and a tiny motor or two. In the same way that herbivores eat herbs and carnivores eat carnies, photovores ‘eat’ photons in that their light sensors tell their motors to chase bright light to ‘feed’ their solar panel. I decided to try to build one myself, and bought a small kit from Solarbotics.com.

Full review after the jump.

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By Ian Chiu

You want to enjoy the fullest of your DVDs’ 5.1 surround sound, to give orders to your comrades in Call of Duty and to chat with your mum in Skype. Other than adding a bulky 5.1 set and grabbing a $10 commodity headset, the Tritton AXPC 5.1 USB headset may do all these just fine without adding more cable clutter. The Tritton retails for $55 and as a USB audio device, it bypasses onboard audio that often produces an annoying hiss. The circumaural cans can effectively filter out almost all ambient noises and provide a sealed sound chamber. The mic has a +20dB mic boost feature that is proven to be extremely useful in VoIP. In movies, the 5.1 performance actually puts “…ordinary headphones to shame.” However, a significant problem lies within OpenAL, one that affects a lot of the latest game titles. For full details, follow the link love at the bottom.

Surround sound is like dual monitors and satellite radio. Once you have it, it’s hard to go back. So when your new neighbor calls the cops on you for having the volume too loud, or you’re attending a LAN party with no speakers permitted, it’s imperative to have a backup plan. Enter the Tritton AXPC gaming USB headset, offering true 5.1 surround thanks to 4 individual drivers in each cup, rumble feedback, and a detachable boom mic to keep those late night gaming sessions rocking. Did we mention it’s USB? Full review ahead.

[Tritton Audio Xtreme PC USB Headset Review @ Everything USB]

By Evan Ackerman

It may have taken several months, but eStarling (through Thinkgeek.com) has finally gotten around to replacing their slightly ugly, frequently unreliable, and just generally inadequate version 1.0 frames, of which I was a disappointed owner. If you haven’t heard of the eStarling frame, in a nutshell it’s a digital picture frame that connects to your wireless network and will download pictures by itself, from an email address or RSS feed. I was full of excitement when I unpacked my first eStarling frame, and now, well, let’s call it apprehension tempered by cautious optimism. Here we go…

Read on, after the jump.

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By Ian Chiu

MP3 players are fast becoming a commodity item, if they aren’t already. So, if you don’t have a brand as popular as Apple and a group of loyal users, you may want to come up with some unique designs; the slide-out external stereo speakers found on the Samsung YP-K5 are a good example. Everything USB praised this player for its ingenious engineering, excellent sound quality, heavy bass earbuds and even its integrated speaker output. Being a MTP-compliant PMP, you are stuck with Windows Media Player 10/11, but the YP-K5 won’t play lossless audio and Audible.

Ever felt like sharing that one song’s amazing guitar riff with a friend, only to surrender your earbuds or dangle them between yourselves as you both try to listen in on what has now become a miniscule peep? Short of carrying yet another AA-driven pocket weight at all times, there was never really a better alternative, until Samsung smartened up and did something about it. The end result is the YP-K5, the latest in their Yepp line of MP3 players to have crossed our eardrums and clamor for a review.

Follow the link love for the full review.

[Samsung YP-K5 Review @ Everything USB]

By Ian Chiu

iPod video & PSP owners with a Celery (Celeron as it’s known to some) or a Pentium 4 feel the pain when they try to rip their DVDs into H.264 (AVC) format. The process is painfully slow and tedious. This little USB dongle called the ADS Instant Video To Go will put the smile back on their faces. In this review at Everything USB, a Celeron 2.2Ghz (a more than 3 years old Intel CPU) took about nearly 4 hours to complete transcoding of a high bitrate 30 min. MPEG-2 VOB into H.264 640×480. When the hardware accelerator of the ADS dongle kicked in, the time required to finish the same task was just 36 mins, close to the original run time. The improvement is nothing short of breathtaking. However, those without a duo core won’t benefit greatly from this as software encoder is beginning to take advantage of multi-threads. Read on to find out everything about this hardware accelerator and whether it’s worth $64.

[ADS Instant Video To Go H.264 USB Encoder review @ Everything USB]

By Ian Chiu

You might ask why we need another flash drive. The answer varies among different types of users. Some people need it to bring along a portable Windows XP while others are buying them to get a moderate speed boost from Vista’s ReadyBoost. Personally, I’m looking for a fast 32GB drive so I can put my massive VMWare Fusion’s virtual partition with MCE 2005. I may have to wait another year or so for a thumbdrive at this size to hit retail with a reasonable price. Regardless of your requirement, one’s always looking for most affordable, the fastest and most durable.

Everything USB have found one that seems to have all these characteristics. The Corsair Flash Voyager GT 4GB drive costs below $50, pumps out 32.1MB/s read and 22.5MB/s write, and also withstands a full wash as well as a SUV attack. Just a reminder, if your flash drive is going this fast, I don’t think your USB controller has much bandwidth left for stuff like the Samsung USB monitor.

Incredibly fast and especially durable, what’s not to like? You’d be foolish not to spend the extra $10 for Corsair’s speed demon of a flash drive.

[Corsair Flash Voyager GT 4GB Review @ Everything USB]