Chip Chick » amp

LEDSAUR Dinosaur LED Desk Lamp Sports a Bright Backbone

Ali Heriyanto — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:10:23 +0000

It may not be Pleo but it’s still damn cute. The LEDSAUR Dinosaur LED Desk Lamp is made of hand-carved stainless steel and can be bent carefully into a different shape. It also features energy-saving LEDs that has colors which can be adjusted with the included remote control. Unfortunately, the price will make your roar, since it costs $152.

© 2012 Chip Chick

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T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Now has Visual Voicemail

Chip Chick — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 04:53:11 +0000

T-mobile MyTouch 3G users rejoice! With a simple download from the Marketplace, you’ll now be able to enjoy Visual Voicemail just like all of those AT&T iPhone users do. Once you’ve downloaded and installed the file, all you have to do is run the app and after a few minutes of configuring it goes to work displaying all the voicemail in your mailbox. Take a look at the shots below for the full U.I.

iRock Mini Guitar Amp also Doubles as an iPod Speaker

Chip Chick — Wed, 13 May 2009 12:38:58 +0000

If you play a real guitar and not some plastic one, you full well know that you will need an amp, especially for an electric guitar. Decent ones are usually quite heavy so Ashley International is looking to resolve that problem with their iRock Mini Guitar Amp. Like they always say don’t judge a book by its cover…this mini-amp has all the same features of a standard one. It plugs directly into your guitar and has an overdrive distortion and volume control. You can also plug in an MP3 player or iPod to jam along with or to use as speakers. If you don’t want others to hear you play there is also a headphone jack. Easily portable and super cheap the iRock Mini Guitar Amp retails for $24.95. Check out the demo on the product page.

Mini Marshal Amplifier is Hipper Than Just Any Portable Speaker

Chip Chick — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:00:35 +0000

Usually, mini speakers are cheap little plastic things with not that much style. However the Mini Marshal Amplifier is jumping with personality. This 5″ high Amp is a tiny reproduction of a real Marshall Amplifier. It’s made of a sturdy metal case with volume and tone controls, on/off/ overdrive knobs, a headphone output and it has got a clip on the back of it so that you can even wear the amp as an accessory. The Mini Marshall Amplifier retails for $62 and runs on either battery or AC adapter. And if you’re totally trippin over the Mini Marshall Amplifier, you’re sure to appreciate the Philips Retro Mini Digital Web Cam.

RSS Lamp Shade Feeds and Illuminates Your Room

Chip Chick — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:19:25 +0000

Our nerdy selves are totally digging this lamp shade. It’s really just a simple lamp shade covered in the universal orange RSS symbol. This is probably a suitable gift for the web designer in your life – so that they can decorate their room like one big web site. However, as cute as this lamp shade is, we can’t help but wish that it did something neater than just lighting up a room – like maybe it could project news feeds on to your wall, but it disappointingly does not. The RSS Lamp Shade retails for $70.

New Canon PowerShot SX200 IS – is a Super Zoomy Compact

Chip Chick — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:00:36 +0000

The new Canon PowerShot SX200 IS packs in a lot of features considering that it’s still just a compact camera. For starters it’s got a 12x optical zoom to compliment its 12.1 megapixels. It’s also capable of going up to IS0 3200, it has got a 3.0″ LCD screen, an optical image stabilizer, and for those who dig HD – you can record HD video with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels. The SX200 IS also has HDMI output so you can connect it directly to your TV. Design wise, it’s got a somewhat traditional and boxy looking design which might not appeal to everyone, but it does come in the color choices of black, red, or blue. The Canon PowerShot SX200 IS is available now for $349.99. Overall, this is definitely more of a prosumer compact, and we expect it to make great shots like most of the PowerShot line.

Tom Hanks Betrays Sony, Definitely Uses a Kindle

Chip Chick — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:47:53 +0000

It seems that Tom Hanks is having a problem discerning where his true gadgets alliances are. At CES just two months ago, he made a grand speech about how much he used Sony products. But then he hit a snafu. “Describing his electronic book, Hanks pretended to call out Amazon.com’s Kindle instead of Sony’s product, saying he’s using ‘The Ki … Sony Digital Reader, which is a fine product in its own right.’” Hmm, Tom?
To make matters worse, we just caught this quote in People magazine from Tom.
“I got a kindle for newspapers and magazines, not for books. Quite frankly, I prefer to buy books from my neighborhood bookstore.” (People magazine, March 30th, 2009).
Well Tom, we only have one thing to say for you and it’s this – you can’t go on on like this, swinging both ways – gadgets have feelings too ya know.

Back to the Future DeLorean Toy Has Your G.I. Joes Travelling Through Time

Chip Chick — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:59:08 +0000

Can’t afford a real DeLorean time machine for yourself? Here is the next best thing. The Back to the Future II DeLorean Vehicle is an exclusive from Entertainment Earth. It’s got special wheels that pop up for “flight mode”, the wheels also spin, the gull-wing doors open, and it has got electronic lights and sounds to complement all this action. The description even says that the car can fit in 3 3/4 inch scale action figures such as Hasbro’s G.I. Joes and Star Wars lines. Hey, at least your action figures will be able to time travel now. The Exclusive Back to the Future II DeLorean Vehicle is up for preorder for $34.99.

Solar Powered Ventilated Cap Keeps You Cool in the Beating Sun

Ali Heriyanto — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:53:44 +0000

You won’t be making a fashion statement with this hat, that is for sure. But it will display how committed you are to producing green energy. The Solar Powered Ventilated Cap will help you avoid the sun and keep you cool at the same time as it transforms the solar energy to operate a working fan on the bill of your hat. The hat itself is your typical adjustable baseball hat and there is no need for any extra batteries as the hat charges itself. It’s available only in blue and at Computer Geeks.com

Echo Bot Voice Messenger Records Motion Triggered Messages, Extraterrestrial Style

Chip Chick — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:00:18 +0000

At first glance, we assumed that the Echo Bot Voice Messenger was just another quirky web cam. But upon further inspection we realized that its eyeball isn’t a web cam, but rather a motion detector. The Echo Bot’s sole purpose in life, aside from looking creepy with three legs and one eye, is to record messages which are triggered by the motion detector in his eye. Don’t want anyone to use your computer? Record a warning and leave this little alien dude near your computer. When someone sits down to check Facebook, your threat, err, friendly warning, will be played back by the Echo Bot. Echo Bot also has bendable legs and suction cup feet, so you’ll be able to stick him just about anywhere. The Echo Bot Voice Messenger retails for $14.99.

Spark Nano GPS Tracker is Small Enough to Fit in Your Shoe

Ali Heriyanto — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:45:37 +0000

The Spark Nano GPS Tracker from Brickhouse Security looks more like a toy than a powerful GPS Tracker. Claiming to be one of the smallest and lightweight GPS Trackers out today, it can easily slip into a pocketbook, jacket pocket, or any discreet place so you can track someone or something. The sensitivity of the device will allow for real time location updates on your computer or you can get alerts via text message or e-mail when your Spark Nano has left the building, so to speak. It works off both GPRS and GSM networks so it allows for a better area of coverage. Another nice feature is that it has a built-in panic button, perfect for children traveling on a school trip, so you can watch ever move they make till they come home. The only downside to what is a unique item is that you will have to pay a monthly fee to actually utilize all these great services. You’ll have to pay for a subscription and if you want to use the added features you’ll have to pay additionally for that too. Spark Nano GPS Tracker retails for $299.95. It may just be cheaper in the end to hire a Private Eye…

Pantech C820 Matrix Pro Review

Chip Chick — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:08:52 +0000

The new Pantech C820 Matrix Pro is an update to Pantech’s Matrix Duo, a Windows Mobile smartphone that sports both a numeric and QWERTY keypad. For those looking for a Windows Mobile device that packs in just about everything – the Pantech Matrix Pro C820 runs on AT&T’s speedy 3G network, it sports GPS, a 2 megapixel camera, and a solid feature set overall. Before I delve in to the device itself, here is a little background about my personal experience with Windows Mobile Smartphones. I’ve been using Windows on a handheld since way back – when there were no such things as smartphones at all, but instead there was just Windows CE and monochrome displays. I was extremely proud of my Compaq Aero at a time when Palm pilots were all the rage. Over the years I’ve owned a crazy assortment of Windows based smartphones, my most recent one being the Treo 750V. After that, the iPhone came out and I betrayed my longtime love of Windows Mobile. However, there will always be a part of me that still is a Windows Mobile girl at heart.

Hardware:
The Pantech Matrix Pro’s hardware is solid and feels sturdy. The Matrix Pro sports a metallic finish and curvy top and bottom. Unfortunately the Matrix Pro’s screen tends to attract fingerprints and smudges, so you might want to keep a wipe handy. Overall, it is not the most attractive phone in the world, but definitely pleasant looking, especially considering that many phones which manage to fit in two keypads end up being pretty fuggly.

The Pantech Matrix Pro is on the small size for a smart phone, width and height wise (4.17 x 2.0 x 0.85 inches) – so it will fit in your pocket easily. However, it will also bulge out of your pocket a bit because the inclusion of two keypads end up making it pretty thick. Though the Matrix Pro weighs 5.3 ounces, which isn’t all that much, for some reason the handset also feels a bit hefty in your hand. It’s also got a 2.4” screen with a 240×320 resolution. The screen is clear and pretty bright, and is pretty much on par with other similar Windows Mobile smartphones.

The keyboard on the Matrix Pro feels good to type on and key presses feel slightly stiff but comfortable. The keyboard surface area is smaller though then lets say the T-mobile G1, and is made up of just 3 rows, and as a result it is a bit more cramped. However I still found it comfortable to use. The numeric dial pad is made up of totally flat keys, sort of RAZR style, but they are also comfortable to dial with. The sides of the phone sport dedicated volume controls, a camera button and a record button. Its front face holds dial and end keys as well as a circular navigation key that looks like it’s ready to be a scroll wheel, but it’s unfortunately not one.

In the box you get a sync cable, software CD, charger, 3.5mm headphone adapter, a case and a manual.

Interface / Home screen:
One of the strongest aspects of Windows Mobile 6.1 over its predecessors are the slick updates to the home screen layout which includes a new slide panel layout that now lets you easily access things like recent calls, get access to your voicemail, text messages, mms, email, appointments, AT&T services (xpress mail, instant messenger, media net, media mail) and settings (profile wireless manager, ringtones, background image and task manager) without leaving the home screen. You can now also scroll through, and play music from your Windows Media playlist. The slide panel home screen can even show off the album art associated with the track you’re playing. While this new home screen option is very welcome, the rest of the Windows Mobile 6.1 interface is starting to look old.

Overall, navigating through the OS didn’t feel sluggish and overall the phone had good pep, though there were pretty minor delays, like a second or so delay when switching between landscape / QWERTY and portrait views. The handset comes ships with just 256MB of ROM and 128 megs of RAM, but it sports an SDHC slot for up to 32GB expandable memory.

For those of you looking for a touch screen, the Matrix Pro does not have one, however between both keypads you don’t feel like you’re missing one. Also, the OS is designed well for phones without touchscreens. That said, we do wish that the circular navigation button on the front face doubled as a scroll wheel.

Call Quality:
Call Quality was very good on the Matrix Pro, testing in New York City, I could hear callers clearly and vice versa. I generally had full bars as well, but then again I only have gotten a chance to test in an area which is known to have good coverage. The speakerphone worked ok, but often callers on the other end said they had some difficulty hearing me when talking to them on speakerphone. Also the speakerphone does not get quite loud enough for noisier environments. Overall, the phone’s battery can manage to last a few days with light use and even over a day with moderate use. In contrast, most smartphone I’ve worked with tank out after a day of even moderate use.

Software:
The Matrix Pro comes with plenty of software including an instant messaging app that gives you access to AIM, Yahoo and MSN messenger, a weather app, a PDF program, a Java VM app for running other Java based apps, a mobile banking app as well as AT&T’s optional specialized services like Xpress Mail and MobiTV, and AT&T’s Navigator application which takes advantage of the built-in GPS. Office Mobile is also included which contains Excel, OneNote, Powerpoint and Word Mobile. Oddly, there are some apps, like the Mobile Banking app which have icons in the menu system but aren’t actually installed on the device yet until you manually download them. The handset also comes with a great selection of games, including Guitar Hero 3 Mobile, Brain Challenge, Bubble Breaker, Jewel Quest II, Midnight Pool, Ms. Pac Man, Scrabble, Solitaire, and Tetris. Unfortunately many of these like Ms. Pac-man and Guitar Hero 3 are just demos, which is a bummer.

Internet:
The Matrix Pro does not have Wi-Fi abilities, instead you have to rely on only 3G for surfing the net speedily. The Matrix Pro comes preloaded with Internet Explorer, of course. Using DSLReports’ Mobile speed test, the Matrix Pro came up with a 120kbit/sec result. Surfing the net with AT&T’s 3G network in NYC felt pretty fast, even when using bloated Internet Explorer. However, I would highly recommend downloading the free Skyfire browser which is a lot faster than I.E. and also emulates the closest desktop surfing experience possible on a Windows Mobile smartphone. Skyfire also renders web pages better than Internet Explorer and overall takes better advantage of AT&T’s 3G network. In order to understand just how much faster Skyfire is, check out the loading time comparisons below.

Internet Explorer:
1:05 for ChipChick.com
8 Seconds for m.cnn.com

Skyfire:
23 Seconds for ChipChick.com
5 Seconds for m.cnn.com

E-mail:
Windows Mobile of course integrates with Microsoft Exchange beautifully and does a good job of playing nicely with imap and pop3 accounts. However, the Matrix Pro also comes with support for AT&T’s Xpress mail which is a $4.99 a month push email service that lets you get your mail as soon as the email server receives a new one. It’s compatible with most personal email accounts including Yahoo! Mail, AOL, Windows Live Hotmail (MSN, Hotmail and Live), Comcast, EarthLink, and others. Xpress Mail also saves the devices from running scheduled sync if there is no mail and it enables you to to sync contacts and schedules with your phone.

Multimedia:
A trial of MobiTV is included. MobiTV offers the ability to stream TV popular TV shows to your handset. I was able to watch streaming episodes of Lost without a hitch. Granted the screen isn’t big enough for watching video for serious lengths of time, but it was awesome being able to watch some TV while waiting for the train. Other notable preinstalled multimedia apps include Pandora for free music listening, a trial for XM radio Mobile and for MobiVJ which provides access to music videos, and there is also access to AT&T’s music shop.

As for audio and video playback, the device comes with the standard Windows Media Player which lets you access your music by artist, album, and genre. Album art and star ratings can also be viewed while listening to tracks. Unfortunately the Matrix Pro comes uses a proprietary headphone jack. The T-mobile G1 is guilty of the same offense. We can’t understand why companies would bother making a multimedia handset with anything but a 3.5mm jack. However, to their credit, at-least Pantech does ship the Matrix Pro with a 3.5mm adapter.

Camera:
The Matrix Pro sports a 2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom. Both the camera and video recording/camcorder function give you a nice amount of options such different choices for white balance settings including Auto, daylight, cloudy, and fluorescent. You also have options for special effects: Normal, gray, sepia, and negative, and a self timer. The video recording is nothing to write home about with just a 176×144 resolution. But it’s a nice feature to have regardless. The camera photos also were just mediocre and like most other average camera phones, photos taken in the daylight came out much better. And unfortunately, the camera sorely lacks a flash.

Conclusion:
I have to be honest and admit that until now, I hadn’t paid all that much attention to Pantech’s handsets. But after spending time with the Pantech Matrix Pro, I have come away pleasantly surprised at what a solid phone it is overall. For those looking for the best of both worlds as far keypads, an affordable price tag, and a solid feature set for a business phone with decent multimedia capabilities, the Matrix Pro doesn’t disappoint. The Pantech Matrix Pro C820 retails for $179.99 with a 2 year contract from AT&T. Alternatively you can pick one up from Amazon for just $99 with a 2 year contract.

The Good:
Dual keypad form factor is very cool, great messaging and email abilities, good overall performance, fast internet browsing and multimedia streaming, good call quality, solid feature set.

Bad:
No Wi-Fi, lacks dedicated 3.5mm jack for audio, Windows Mobile isn’t the hot shot OS that it used to be, camera lacks flash and its photos are mediocre.

Rear-View Computer Mirror Helps you See Prying Eyes

Chip Chick — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:09:38 +0000

The perfect solution for any nosy collegue or boss. Never fret again about checking out this site during work…The Rear-View Computer Mirror is convex and gives you a wide enough angle to see anyone around you who maybe too interested in what you may or may not be doing on your computer. It easily attaches to your computer by Velcro and measures 3″ in diameter. The best part, it comes in various fun colors that will add a dash of color to your cube. So not only can you protect yourself from wandering eyes but its colorful too. The Rear-View Computer Mirror retails for $13.95.

Climate Change Chocolate Educates Your Sweet Tooth

Ali Heriyanto — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:43:12 +0000

Who says you only get calories and pimples from chocolate? Climate Change Chocolate bars are as educational as they are delicious with a glass of milk. Each one comes with a wrapper with 15 tips for easing your impact on the environment. Each tip teaches you how to save energy by making small changes to your everyday habits. “Climate Change Chocolate comes with a verified TerraPass offset of 133 pounds of carbon dioxide reductions, the average American’s daily carbon impact. ” Even the carbon emissions of each candy bar has been measured and balanced out. Climate Change Chocolate Bars retail for $14.50 as a gift set at TerraPass.

Monster’s Beats and Other Headphones To Have 3G iPod Shuffle Support

Chip Chick — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:35:40 +0000

Monster has just announced that within the next few months, all of their popular heapdhones will have support for the new third generation iPod shuffle with VoiceOver. That includes the Beats by Dr. Dre family, the Turbine In-Ear Speakers, as well as upcoming models. Monster will also be soon offering an adapter for adding iPod shuffle VoiceOver control to any pair of headphones. We’re happy to hear that Monster wont be leaving Shuffle users out in the cold, now if only Apple would be as considerate.

New Hello Kitty USB Hub and Keyboard Are All About the Polka Dots

Chip Chick — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:37:48 +0000

We’ve got two new Hello Kitty peripherals to share with you and if you’re in to polka dots than you’re in luck. The first is a red and white keyboard that comes with a cover decorated in polka dots. The cover is there so that you can keep your keyboard safe from dust, spills and stains when you’re not using it. The second new kittylicious peripheral is a pretty adorable USB hub shaped like a Super Mario like mushroom with Miss Kitty sitting on top of it. The hub only sports two usb connections, which makes it almost shameful for costing $49.99 – but Miss Kitty does look quite cute perching on it. The keyboard retails for $89.99.

Matt & Nat Luxury Laptop Bag Giveaway

Chip Chick — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:35:48 +0000

Matt & Nat’s chic laptop bags are good to the environment – as a matter of fact they are so good, that they are made of recycled plastic bottles. But you would never guess it because these bags are beautiful and happen to be some of the trendiest laptop bags we’ve ever laid eyes upon. We’re giving away Matt & Nat’s Archive, a luxurious laptop bag made of black vegan leather and 100% recycled gray faux suede lining (retail $315). Want to win this bag for yourself? E-mail us a note about what would you do if you had to unplug your laptop and phone from the internet for a day, what would you do and why?? Put Matt & Nat in the subject.

Read on below for a full description of Archive.

Black vegan leather laptop carrier with 100% recycled gray faux suede lining, tone on tone stitching, antique silver hardware, and MATT & NAT logo bar. The Archive features top double zip closure, 2 external zipper pockets on front and 1 external zipper pocket on back. Interior includes zip, cell phone and PDA pockets, 3 pen holders and protective laptop sleeve. Comes with detachable, adjustable shoulder strap

Regulations: Matt & Nat and ChipChick.com are not responsible for any lost packages or incorrect shipping addresses. The prize is not redeemable in cash and must be accepted as awarded. Approximate value of prizes may vary. By claiming the prize, the winner authorizes the use, without additional compensation of his or her name and/or likeness and/or voice/photograph and municipality of residence for promotion and/or advertising purposes in any manner and in any medium (including without limitation over the internet and picture data storage).

Seagate FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player Review

Chip Chick — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:12:27 +0000

The FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player is a pretty unique product, and in some ways it’s the first of its kind. There are an assortment of multimedia hard drives out there that are designed to carry multimedia content like videos and music from your computer that will play on to your TV. However, with these types of products you are locked in to that specific hard drive. The FreeAgent Theater on the other hand is just a hub. In a way you can think of it as a DVD or VHS player with its own built in software that plays movies off of a medium. In this case, the medium’s format is actually the popular Seagate FreeAgent Go Harddrives.

The FreeAgent Theater hooks up to your TV to play video, photo and audio files off of a docked FreeAgent Go Hard Drive. So lets say you downloaded some videos (torrents, cough) that you would like to watch on your TV instead of being constrained to your computer, all you have to do is sync the video or photo or audio file on to your FreeAgent Go hard drive and then dock the hard drive in to the FreeAgent Theater which in turn connects to your TV. If you have several FreeAgent Hard drives, you can easily swap them out. Want to set a side one FreeAgent Go hard drive for photos, while another one just for your Dr. Who collection? You can keep it organized in that way too and when you’re ready to play the files, just plop it in to the FreeAgent Theater. You can even rip DVDs on to the hard drive so that you can essentially play DVDs on the FreeAgent Theater, complete with menus and subtitles. The FreeAgent Theater also sports an impressive amount of support for different file formats. Here are the specs from Seagate themselves.

Supported Formats:
Video: MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (AVI/VOB/ISO), MPEG-4 (AVI/DivX /Xvid)
Subtitles: SAMI(smi), SRT and SUB
Video resolutions: NTSC 480i/480p; PAL 576i/576p, supports video (HD and upscaling) up to 720p/1080i*
Audio: MP3, AC3 (5.1 audio – Dolby® Digital) WMA, WAV, OGG
Photo: JPEG files up to 20 megapixels
* supports MPEG-4, Xvid up to 1280 x 720 60fps and supports MPEG-2 and photos up to 1920 x 1080i 30 fps

Design:
The FreeAgent Theater itself is easily portable, and pretty lightweight. It’s got a glossy black exterior that wlll blend in well with most home theater systems, yet it’s much smaller than your average home theater component – size-wise it’s on par with that of a portable DVD player. You can easily transport it to a friend’s house and share your videos and multimedia, by just hooking it up to their TV. A small black remote is also included with the FreeAgent Theater.

Set-up:
The FreeAgent theater comes with simple fold out set up guide and a software disc containing Windows-only software. The FreeAgent Theater software lets you manage the different FreeAgent Go drives you may be using with the FreeAgent Theater. It also enables you to easily sync your media files on to a FreeAgent Go Drive, automatically or manually. The software is straightforward and easy to use. However, Mac users are out of luck. Also, even though the device supports VOB files from DVDs, the system does not come with DVD ripping software, so you’ll be left to your own resourcefulness if you want to transfer the contents of a DVD on to the FreeAgent Theater.

Interface:
The interface is clean and very easy to use. It is designed much like other Media Center software, though not quite as sleek as something like Windows Media Center. Even novice users will be able to get up and running with the interface right away.

Video Quality:
The device has the ability to playback HD videos up to 720p/1080i via upscaling. In practice, video files and photos – especially HD video, looked good on my 42″ 720P Samsung Plasma. We played back a 720P AVI file that had been filmed on a digital camera and also tested a HD DIVX movie file. Both played back without a hitch and were pleasant to watch on screen. Photos looked good on screen as well. The FreeAgent Theater will automatically turn your photos into a slideshow.

You can connect the FreeAgent Theater to your TV via Composite, S-video, or Component video connections, and for audio – the FreeAgent Theater provides Stereo, and coaxial S/PDIF connections. AV Cables are included to connect the FreeAgent Theater to your TV. However, if you have an HDTV – you’re gonna want to use component cables if you really want to experience the best image possible.

Conclusion:
Another notable feature of the FreeAgent Theater to its credit, is that it can connect to other drives via a USB connection. However, one aspect of this system that does concern us is that while the FreeAgent Go Hard drives do have a solid shelf life, eventually the FreeAgent Go hard drives will be updated with new models. So our question is, what will happen when you want to buy additional hard drives to use with the FreeAgent Theater for docking? We hope that Seagate has the foresight to make future hard drive models compatible with the system as well.

The FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player delivers an easy to use home theater experience for those who want to easily playback their multimedia files on their Televisions. It’s a great affordable alternative to complex media center PCs and other wireless solutions. The device is easy to set up and to use, and it also is conveniently portable. Unfortunately we’re disappointed in the lack of Mac support and we long for at-least a native resolution of 720p and an HDMI port so that users could really appreciate the advantages of bringing their multimedia files on to the big HDTV screen in their living room. That said, we imagine that the FreeAgent Theater will be popular with pack rats who have a lot of saved and downloaded media that they’d like to unlock off of their PCs and experience on the big screen. Also, in a way, the FreeAgent Theater is the answer to a modern day projector. Thus, it should also be popular with families who want to easily share and present movies, photos, etc without too much expense and complication involved. The FreeAGent Theater HD Media Player retails for $129.99 without a FreeAgent Go hard drive. Packages with a 250GB drive and a complimenting FreeAgent Go dock are available for $229.99 and a version with a 500GB hard drive retails for $279.99 .

The good:
Very easy to use, Solid amounts of files supported including Divx support, can play off ripped DVD files, portable, good video quality, good user interface

The Bad:
Software not available for Mac, would have liked to see HDMI included.

Update 03/09/09: While the FreeAgent Theater does not support MOV formats out-of-the-box, third-party software is available to convert MOV (H.264) video to either MPEG-2, Xvid or DivX format which can then be viewed using FreeAgent Theater. The FreeAgent Theater media player also supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats, and DIVX files with video resolutions for NTSC, PAL and HD up to 1080i and even provides support for subtitles.

Update 03/17/09: It turns out that Mac users are not totally left out in the cold if they want to use the FreeAgent Theater. If someone wants to use their Mac with the FreeAgent Theater – they must connect a hard drive to it that is a FAT 32 formatted drive. In which case they could connect an external hard drive via the USB port on the FreeAgent Theater, or they could reformat a FreeAGent Go drive to Fat32 and then be able to use their Mac to drag and drop files on to it.

Be.ez LArobe Allure Laptop Sleeves Add Stripes to Your MacBooks

Ali Heriyanto — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:15:03 +0000

I could probably wallpaper my house with all the laptop sleeves we have blogged about over the last few years. That said, we’re happy to welcome a new set of pretty laptop sleeves from Be.ez, especiallt for those folk who dig stripes. The be.ez: LArobe Allure offers stylish notebook protection in the form of a neoprene notebook sleeve with memory foam for added protection against impact. There is an inner lip for protection and it will fit MacBook Pro 15″ & 17″ or a MacBook Air. Available in Black, Moka and stripes, the LArobe Allure gives a professional and protective finish to your laptop and retails for $14.95 to 39.95. If this line is up to your standards. be.ez has a wide range of sleeves for any taste and sized laptop.

Rugged Argus Bean Rugged Camera is the Perfect Compliment for the Avid Hiker

Ali Heriyanto — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:31:02 +0000

If you are planning on an adventurous getaway – then you might consider the Argus Bean 5 or 3 MP camera. This durable (not exactly fashionable) camera can clip on to your belt as you hike up that steep mountain. Its rubberized shell will withstand drops or inclement weather. The camera doesn’t have much of a flash so you will be depending on the sun to get some decent shots through its 1.5″ LCD display, but here is to hoping you only do dangerous hiking in the daylight. The memory is expandable with an SD Card Slot which is good considering it only has 16MB of onboard memory. The Argus Bean 5MP retails for a very affordable $57.59 at Amazon and is also available in a cheaper 3MP version.