Posts tagged Review

WOWee ONE Portable Speaker Review

We all carry tons of music around with us. Whether it’s on a laptop, tablet, iPod or smartphone, it’s not unusual for people to have gigabytes worth of their favorite tunes with them at all times. Plugging in a set of headphones and blasting your favorite songs is all well and good, but sometimes you want to share your music with the people around you. Sometimes you want to bump your music to the world.

That’s why God invented portable speakers. But not all portable speakers are created equal. Some are small, tinny and cheap. Others are expensive, difficult to lug around and require a wall outlet power source. It’s not really practical to bring an iPod docking station to the beach. Sometimes you just want an easy-to-carry, compact size portable speaker solution that has its own power source.

Enter the WOWee ONE portable speaker. This little, cell phone-sized device is the coolest thing to happen to portable music since the boom box. What’s so great about it? Well unlike most portable speaker solutions, the WOWee gives you the gift of bass – crisp, clean, wonderfully thumping bass. The speaker plugs into your audio device with a standard headphone plug and uses patented gel technology to turn any flat surface into a makeshift subwoofer.

Sounds weird, huh? It is kinda. The WOWee can be placed on different surfaces for different bass-thumping effects. Plug it in, hold it in your hand, and you have a little speaker with minimal bump. Place it on a flatsurface – a table, a box, your car bumper, a cooler, the arm of a couch or chair – and you get unique bass results. It’s actually really fun to play around with different surface areas to see what kind of bass comes out. It’s also rare to have a little speaker put out quality lows in the 40 Hz – 20 kHz sound range.

The WOWee ONE is rechargeable via USB. There’s no on/off switch, you just plug it into an audio jack and it lasts up to 10 hours per charge. The thing looks and weighs about the same as an iPhone, so you can slip it in your pocket for easy transport.

The uses for quality portable beat-bumping are endless. You can easily manage music at work, at home, at a party, outside, on-the-go. You get the idea. If you love blasting tunes on the fly and you appreciate the low end of the sound spectrum, drop the $79.99 and pick one of these up. It’s totally worth it.

Oct 7th

Posted by Chris Stout in Lifestyle

Guinness Black Lager Is Awesome

I was sent a bottle of a new Guinness beer – Guinness Black Lager. It’s a black colored beer that’s supposed to be served cold. It was billed as light, but I had my doubts. Regular Guinness can serve as a meal replacement, so Guinness Black Lager, how light could it be?

Well when I tried that thing, I couldn’t believe it. Seriously. It’s better than advertised. You’re supposed to drink it right out of the bottle, so I did. As soon as that sweet, frosty light/black combo hit my lips, that bottle was toast. It had no chance. Stout – 1, new bottle of Guinness Black Lager – zero.

So what does this thing taste like? Well for starters, it’s super refreshing. I like Guinness on occasion, but I wouldn’t call myself a habitual stout drinker. The beer bares my name so you’d think it’d be a match made in heaven, but I don’t always like the heavy, not-so-brisk taste that comes with stout beers.

That’s why I’m such a big Newcastle fan. It’s really not that heavy. All that “lighter side of dark” talk rings true with Newcastle Brown Ale. If you like the invigorating effect of a cold Newkie, you’ll definitely dig this new Guinness. It’s a fantastic extra-cold beverage; black beer that drinks like a light lager but still has distinctive malty undertones and full-bodied flavor.

Now when I say light, I don’t mean low-cal. I just mean not heavy and overbearing. I could care less about the calories with this black lager. It’s just too damn good.

Now maybe it was the presentation or the special delivery (the bottle of Guinness Black Lager that I received came in a fancy box with its own coozie bottle cooler jacket), but the next time I see this beer — in the store, at a bar — I’m definitely going to reach for it. If you like dark beer flavor without the heavy, heavy impact, you’ll enjoy this new Black Lager from Guinness.

Oct 4th

Posted by Chris Stout in Lifestyle

Blue Mic Snowball Microphone Review

Sometimes you want to record professional-quality sound without having to be a professional sound engineer. For people with plug-and-play sound recording needs, it doesn’t get much easier than the Snowball USB Microphone from Blue Mic.

We received a Snowball mic to review and the thing is pretty impressive. It comes in at just over two pounds, sits sturdy on any flat surface and gives you crisp, clean sound straight from your USB port. The mic uses a proprietary condenser capsule and as a sample rate of 44.1 kHz. The Snowball features three different recording settings: cardiod, cardioid with pad and omni-directional. The cardiod capsule is ideal for recording speech and vocals. The cardioid with a -10dB pad is best for capturing live music and louder sound sources. The omni capsule is best used for interviews, conferences or any recording that requires the capturing of larger, more environmental sound sources. It works for podcasters, musicians and anyone who needs quick, clean and easy-to-use voiceover recording.

The mic is available in white, chrome or solid black. It comes with a sturdy swivel mount that functions as a desktop tripod. You can’t use the thing with a traditional analog mixer, but digital setup is quick and easy. You can also connect the Snowball Mic to an iPad using the Apple Camera Connection Kit.

Whether you chat, play music, conduct interviews or if you just need to record your voice on something, you can’t go wrong with the quality and ease of use that the Snowball Blue Mic provides. The MSRP for the mic is $99.00, but you can get in online for a lot cheaper than that.

Sep 21st

Posted by Chris Stout in Lifestyle

MIMOBOT Flash Drive Review

The fine folks at MIMOBOT sent us one of their units to review this month. We also saw their booth at Comic Con this past weekend. Mimobots are stylish little USB flash drives that are sculpted into detailed, big-headed characters from franchises like Star Wars, DC Comics, Hello Kitty and other iconic figures. It’s like a little goofy action figure that stores up to 2 GBs of data for you.

The unit that we got to review is the Green Lantern MIMOBOT. It’s a sturdy, detailed and colorful little device. Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern head is about twice the size of his body and his melon pops off to reveal the USB port. He can stand easily and the top of his head pops back on in a secure fashion, so you don’t have to worry about the Green Lantern losing his dome.

When you pop the Green Lantern into a USB port, you’ll see that he comes with an 80mb zip file. Unzip this and you’ll get four folders with 14 avatars, 24 icons, six screensavers and wallpapers of various sizes for mobile devices, iPads and desktops.

The one complaint we have is that the unit is kind of large, so if you have multiple things plugged into your USB ports, you could end up losing a slot. But if you have the slots to spare and you want to add a touch of action figure-ness to your media storage needs, the MIMOBOT is pretty nifty.

MIMOBOTs are compatible with Macs and PCs. The unit comes with a hoodie, some stickers and a little catalog that shows you other MIMOBOT unites. Check out the MIMOBOT site to see the full selection of characters.

Jul 26th

Posted by Chris Stout in Lifestyle

Ogio Layover Bag Review

Traveling can be a big hassle for anyone, especially if you have crappy luggage. Making a solid, long term investment in travel bags usually isn’t a top priority for most folks. I mean, how often do you travel anyway? You can probably get by with the $20 rolling suitcase you picked up at Ross, right?

Well the thing is, crappy travel bags don’t reveal themselves right away. You’ll be on like three or four trips before disaster strikes. But when your cheap bag goes, it goes bad quick. A busted wheel. A broken zipper. It could be a simple, how-the-hell-did-that happen rip, but before the end of your trip, you’ll be cursing the fact that you took such a low budget approach to your travel needs.

We’ve all been there. So when Ogio offered to send us a travel bag for review, we accepted gladly. I’ve had some pretty sorry luggage in my day, so I was curious to see what these guys had to offer. Ogio sent us one of their Layover travel bags, and we tested the thing out.

The first thing you notice is that the bag looks like it’d be in the closet of a BMX biker or professional Moto racer or something. There’s a reason for this. Here’s what Mark Kuryak, Vice President Global Action/Performance/Sport had to say:

“OGIO’s designs are inspired from the various sports that we actively participate. We seek the input of our athletes so that can design uniquely styled collections that are both rugged and intelligently designed with features that help them in their lifestyle. The layover is a prime example. While it is part of our travel collection,” Kuryak said, “the styling of this bag comes from our roots in Moto.”

We looked up this connection. It turns out that Ogio produced a motocross film called Global Addiction in 2002 that featured some of the biggest names in freestyle MX like Travis Pastrana, who continues to work with the brand. Ogio produces high performance bag gear for a variety of uses. When designing these gear bags, the company gets a ton of input from top athletes in moto, BMX, skate, snow and surf.

“Most of all our bag features and unique styling comes from our top athlete input,” Kuryak said. “They use OGIO products on daily basis thru toughest conditions which is our best testing ground for superior quality and inspiration for new features and designs.”

That input is evident when you put the Layover bag to the test. The thing just looks rugged and sporty, and those wheels aren’t going to crap out on you while you’re running through the airport.

“The lines are fast and unique,” Kuryak explained. “The materials that we use are tough to stand up to the most grueling conditions, the sled and wheel system is a reflection of the SLED system of our acclaimed 9800 Moto Gear bag. And the organization compartments allow our athletes to stay in control of their travels while they are on the road.”

That SLED system is legit. The Layover bag has these gliding, urethane wheels that rest on a heavy duty chassis. It doesn’t matter what kind of terrain you need to drag this thing through, those wheels can power through anything.

“The SLED technology feature is on many of our top selling gear bags came right from our athletes,” Kurayk told us. “They wanted the most durable/heavy duty wheeled bag that would survive all rider conditions – practice, race day, and travel.”

That’s the main take away from this Ogio operation. They design their gear for extreme use, but it’s the everyday utility and surefire functionality that appeals to average consumers.

When asked about other athlete-inspired features, Kurayk mentioned all the compartments the bag has. These “intelligently designed compartments” were crafted for “organization of all gear – from helmets, gloves, goggles, lenses, apparel, and now neck brace compartments for easy access,” Kuryak said.

“Each pocket is specialized to protect their valuable equipment.”

So in addition to the sleek styling, you get extreme usability and convenient storage features. Not bad for a bag that retails for $189.99. You probably won’t need to pack for the X Games or some other extreme sports event, but if your bag can handle the needs of top extreme athletes, it’s going to work just fine for your weekend trip to Vegas.

May 2nd

Posted by Chris Stout in Lifestyle

Father’s Day Gift for Tech Lovin’ Dads – Eyeball 2.0 Webcam

Dad’s love gadgets, especially super-functional ones. Anyone can go out and pick up some goofy, impractical gadget like an electric golf ball cleaner, but why go that route? Why not get your Dad something that you know he will use. If you’re Father’s like any other dude, then he probably likes audio/video items that have a high degree of utility. The Eyeball 2.0 is one such product.

What Is the Eyeball 2.0? The Eyeball 2.0 is a handy, easy-to-use webcam that’s practical and highly transport. It’s made by Blue Microphones, so you know you’re getting a quality product. With so many free chat tools and webcam programs available, it’s time your Dad added some audio-visual action to his communication toolbox. And what better way to keep in touch with your Dad?

Here’s a rundown of the specs: