Friday, July 8, 2011
ASUS's WX-Lamborghini wireless mouse is €38, cheaper than actual car
The mouse will be available in either black (as seen in the FCC) or white with black highlights. It will also come in a limited edition yellow, whose garish and bright colors seem to be Lamborghini's signature, not that I would complain if you gave me a hot pink Lamborghini to drive. In terms of design, the mouse has stayed true to the Lamborghini's shape with bold lines and sharp features.
Measuring in at 106.5 x 68 x 36 mm, it comes with 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity with a range up to 10 meters. It also features a 2500 dpi laser sensor, four buttons, and here's the kicker – a scroll wheel that resembles the rims of the Diablo sports car while featuring leather-like side grips. We can't really speak for the comfortability or performance of the mouse, but if you care more about the Lamborghini branding, then we're guessing that this mouse will most probably suit you. However, given its specs, it does sound like it could also be used for gaming as well.
source: Ubergizmo
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Zoom ZDTV Wireless Keyboard review
Small and lightweight, the Zoom ZDTV Wireless Keyboard is designed specifically with media-centre enthusiasts in mind. Merging a laptop-style keyboard with a small, multitouch-capable touchpad, it’s small enough to live with your other remotes without getting in the way.
As with most wireless peripherals, the ZDTV connects to your PC via a small USB dongle, and we were able to make it work successfully from a distance of up four metres. That’s pretty good, making it practical to use in all but the largest living rooms. Alas, the ZDTV doesn’t keep up the good work.
The keyboard itself both looks and feels cheap. And while the compact size may at first seem a good idea, we feel that Zoom has taken this a step too far. The smaller-than-netbook design has severe implications for ease of use, rendering typing at speed impractical, and requires your full focus at all times to avoid spelling mistakes.
The touchpad is equally small, and thus difficult to operate. You often have to remove your finger from the unit and reposition, before continuing to scroll across the screen. However, doing so results in jumpy and skittish behaviour from the mouse, causing navigation to be far trickier than it ought to be.
As a keyboard intended for media-centre use, the lack of multimedia hotkeys is also disappointing. Similarly priced units offer volume rockers among a slew of other media-based controls, yet the ZDTV Wireless Keyboard offers only four – one of which is a branded hotkey, launching proprietary software that’s of very little benefit, and entirely riddled with adverts.
Although compact, then, this isn’t a keyboard we’d recommend. It’s fiddly to use, build quality is suspect and it lacks essential features. Considering the numerous alternatives available at this price and cheaper, the ZDTV Wireless Keyboard is a bitter disappointment.
Author: Andrew Eldridge
PCPro
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Samsung Droid Charge (Verizon Wireless)
Verizon customers now have two 4G Android smartphones to choose from: the HTC Thunderbolt ($249.99, 4 stars), our current Editors' Choice, and the $299.99 Samsung Droid Charge, which is Samsung's first LTE device, and first officially designated Droid device for Verizon. The two cell phones are pretty similar, but not identical. While the HTC Thunderbolt retains a slight edge, you'll be thrilled with either device.
Design, Screen, and Call Quality
The Samsung Droid Charge measures 5.1 by 2.6 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 5 ounces. That makes it almost an ounce and a half lighter than the HTC Thunderbolt, but even slightly taller. The Droid Charge isn't as impressive looking, though, mainly thanks to its all-plastic design (save for the glass screen). The chrome trim around the edge and the glossy, tapered cover on back feel a bit cheap and seem to scratch easily.
The 4.3-inch, 480-by-800-pixel, Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touch screen is just as vibrant as other recent Samsung phones. The deep blacks and vibrant colors look great, and overshadow even the Thunderbolt's excellent screen. There are four plastic buttons beneath the screen. I like these better than the Samsung Galaxy S's finicky touch buttons, but HTC's haptic feedback-enabled design beats them both. Typing on the on-screen QWERTY keyboard was easy in both portrait and landscape modes, and dialing phone numbers was very fast.
The Droid Charge is a dual-band EV-DO Rev A (850/1900 MHz) and 4G LTE device with 802.11b /g/n Wi-Fi. With the LTE radio, Verizon says to expect download speeds in the 5 to 12 Mbps range, and upload speeds between 2 and 5 Mbps. We've gotten even higher speeds in some tests, though. You can also use the Droid Charge as a mobile hotspot with the appropriate plan; it can support up to 10 devices when running 4G, or five devices when in 3G mode. Interestingly, Verizon is promising to throw in the mobile hotspot feature for a limited time, instead of charging an extra $20 per month; that's a great deal, assuming you want that feature (and you do).
Voice quality was very good: crisp, clear, and loud in the earpiece. Callers had no trouble understanding me, either, although one caller said that I sounded a little thin through the microphone. Reception was solid. Callers sounded clear through an Aliph Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset ($99, 4 stars). The speakerphone went loud enough to use outside, but it sounded over-compressed and muffled. Voice dialing took several tries over Bluetooth to get the right number. I'm not sure why this is, but it could have something to do with the way the Droid Charge activates and deactivates its power-saving algorithm, as some of the Jawbone Icon's voice prompts were partially cut off.
We got some strange battery life results in our tests. The Droid Charge has a larger battery than the HTC Thunderbolt, 1600mAh compared to the Thunderbolt's 1400mAh. We saw very good standby and regular-usage time on the Charge - after a full day of sitting around, its battery life didn't drop much. But we repeatedly got short talk time results of between 4 hours, 15 minutes and 4 hours, 28 minutes, which is much shorter than we got on the Thunderbolt. Seeing those, we can't recommend this phone to people dissatisfied with the Thunderbolt's battery life; we'd expect the two phones to have similar experiences.
Hardware, OS, and Apps
Under the hood, the Droid Charge has the same 1GHz Cortex A8-based Hummingbird CPU found in half a dozen Galaxy S handsets over the past year. By now, it would have been nice to see an upgrade. The Droid Charge runs Android 2.2 (Froyo); there's no word yet on an Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) update. On our benchmark test suite, this phone tested slightly slower overall than the Thunderbolt, which packs a second-generation 1GHz Snapdragon CPU.
Samsung treads a bit more lightly than HTC with its UI layer. Most of the apps are stock, albeit with minor color or graphic enhancements. This is good and bad; I missed HTC's excellent address book layout, which looks livelier and makes it easier to access a contact's history than Samsung's does. The Droid Charge continues Samsung's tradition of wrapping menu icons in colored blocks. The seven customizable home screens work well.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Novatel MiFi 4510L 4 G on Verizon Wireless review
Novatel MiFi 4510L 4 G on Verizon Wireless ReviewIntroduction and design: last week to review the Samsung SCH-LC11, Verizons first 4 G LTE hotspot. Now competition enters market with the new Novatel MiFi 4510L 4 G, which is actually a continuation of the older 3 G Novatel MiFi 2200 from 2009.
Novatel MiFi 4510L 4 G that have been modified with a glossy black surface on the top and chrome over the highlights around the pages, which are fingerprint magnets, parent style trøde on the lower edge and at the bottom of the Unit maintains the familiar black soft-touch coating. The device is also quite fast, "H x 36" W x 3.74 0.10 53 "(D) and weighing 3 oz, although this is still slightly larger and heavier than Samsung 4 G hotspot. Included in the Novatel MiFi 4510L is 4 G a brown cloth carry pouch, 1500mAh battery, wall charger, microUSB cable user manuals and PC says it is only used for upgrades the firmware on the device.
The front of the Novatel 4510L looks to Sprint Novatel 4.100, as there is a small monitor, which uses eInk, which displays useful icons for reception antenna (0-4 lines), roaming indicator (triangle), battery level (0-4 lines) and how many WiFi devices are connected (1-5 bullets). Below in the bottom of a single LED light, this will change the color, depending on whether you are connected to 4 G (green), 3 G or 1 x (violet), the unit from and invoicing (yellow/orange) receives an upgrade of air transmission (white), or if there is no SIM card installed (red). We want to show icons on the front LED indicator and a separate, so that you can see an overview of what network (4 G/3 G) logged, signal strength, battery level and the number of Wi-Fi device connected, instead of three limbs light in limited hotspot Samsung 4 G, type network and appears only if the Wi-Fi information reported.
Along the top edge is a small circular port for optional antenna extension connected (purchased separately) and a microUSB port. We could collect Novatel 4510L via the charger while retaining wall and also enabled with Wi-Fi connection to our phone. But when we are connected to a PC via microUSB data cable Novatel 4510L you want to restart the MiFi and have a duty and Wi-Fi connection will be disabled, allowing any entities not to use the data. We still hold the power button, which showed a turn in a unit and showed the strength of the mark on the screen, but it still not be broadcast via Wi-Fi. It is a bit of a disappointment. as Samsung 4 G hotspot can be imposed via a microUSB cable when connecting to a computer, as well as data transmission via Wi-Fi, allows the device to be used. If you are the type of person who wants to have their HotSpot free of charge from the USB port on your computer, while also using Wi-Fi hotspot, and then you can consider unit Samsung 4 G, but if you do not have anything against using a microUSB wall opladerDu can charge and use Novatel simultaneously.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Kobo Wireless eReader hits Best Buy shops
Kobo and Best Buy on Thursday partnered to sell the Kobo Wireless eReader in Best Buy stores and on the retailers web sites for the first time. Also, to mark Mother's Day, the device will be on sale for $100 before returning to its regular $130 price tag on May 14. The device was only available through Borders stores before this announcement.
The Onyx reader from Best Buy will ship with 100 free e-books preloaded and has support for Local Library Lending from libraries. The store also has more than one million free, usually public domain titles. The reader supports ePUB, PDF and Adobe DRM formats.
The Kobo centers on an E Ink screen and gives users the ability to choose font sizes and styles. It can hold 1,000 eBooks on 1GB of built-in space and gets an SD expansion slot for more capacity.