Reviews Galore

Review – Sony EBook Reader

A flawed masterpiece. The idea of carrying a hundred books with me is appealing and the reader is certainly the right size, but at first blush it suffers from the tinkerers dilemma, too many buttons. What do I press next. Also the click feedback on the buttons is very poor and requires quite a finger to activate. screen contrast is okay, but some kind of backlight is required and didn’t seem to be present on the 505 model.
Finally the screen flashes in a really annoying way during page transitions.
Verdict : THis is a 1.0 product and unless you have a compelling need to carry electronic books, wait until the next version.

Review – Samsung Omnia

We really like Samsung’s new phones. The Omnia is the big brother of the Tocco (which we gave away last week). Comes with a similar 5MP camera but this model has WIFI, GPS, 5MP camera, touch screen. Windows Mobile can compete with the iPhone just about. Keyboard typing is impossible without the “so easy to loose” stylus.

Review – Sony Wireless Walkman

A lovely device, very light, Nice clear screen. Lots of buttons. Needed to get the manual out to pair the headphones (this is always the case with bluetooth, a very user unfriendly protocol).
Key highlights,

• 4GB capacity (around 2400 songs or 15 hours of video)
• 36 hour battery life (right, lets say 24!)
• Doesn’t display AVI files or .WMV files so bugger all use for video (boo!)
• Speakers are very good
• Music gets on via drag and drop the music management software that comes with the software is pretty dire

The bluetooth is a winner and if you demand a wireless life then this device is a winner. but its got a long way to go to compete with the simplicity of the iPod.

Review – Philips Wireless Digital PhotoFrame

Loved the idea a photoframe that circulates through your photos displaying them. Falls down in a few critical areas though.

• Setup: Required the manual, always a FAIL. It uses Windows Media Player to access your photographs and the setup is counter-intuitive.
• It doesn’t support the simplest way to bung photos into a photo frame, which is to plug in a USB key with a bunch of photos on it
• It doesn’t have battery support so you need to be near a plug
• You can plug in the SD card straight from your camera which gives a nice instant satisfaction thing

It needs good quality pictures to look its best (e.g. 4 MP and up) older camera phone images will look grainy when upscaled.

Three.ie – Competition Winner Week 3

Winner of a set of Klipsch headphones and a Sony Ericsson C902 phone is, Sarah McCloskey from Waterford.

Sarah did great review of ScanSound Unilateral headphones.

The discovery of this useful technological accessory was key to finding a more complete listening experience for my two children who have unilateral hearing (i.e are deaf in one ear). Regular two channel stereo headphones were far from ideal for them and as much of our ‘entertainment’ type listening today involves a stereo or surround but my children have been missing out on typically 30-50% of the available sounds. Whether listening to a guitar solo or the canned laughter of a cartoon, I became aware that they were not hearing large chunks of the total sound experience due to their hearing impairment.
I recall my own mono listening days and reflecting on that painful memory was determined to source a headphone that would allow my children to have the same privilages in entertainment sound as those of us with bilateral (both sided) hearing. This process proved to be far from simple. Utilising search engines including google gaining information was largely inadequate. I eventually disvcovered only one non-specialist manufacturer that provided two channel stereo sound via a single earpiece.
Priced very reasonably from $10-$20 per unit, scansound, a company based in the USA, provide a wide range of this type of earphone. I purchased 5 units, given the tendency of children to lose or damage itmems so easily. The units were dispatched in a tmely fashion and were delivered within a week and although ‘bubble wrap’ was the extent of their packaging the goods arrived in good condition. The package included a variety of removable ear bud covers which included a very broad spectum of sizes from child to adult which meant individual fitting for both children was extremely simple and essentially they were very comfortale. They also came with the standard 3.5mm jack connection.
In my own test of the headphones; I found the quality of sound to be reasonable, but not fantastic. The sound level was only moderate also. However both these points have to be taken with a pinch of salt as in this case the only real judges had to be the children. Their opinions were confirmed to be highly positive. They both immediately noticed that they where hearing elements of songs that they had not heard previously on either their beloved mp3 players or nintendo DS lites. Additionally for people with hearing in one ear what is the point of headsets with two ear pieces, one just hangs lose, unused. They completely fell in love with them. Also I noted on reflection that there might well have been a cap on the sound levels in the one ear to ensure no damage was incurred in the good ear and therefore might well have been intentional although I can not confirm this.
To date my children have continued to used the scansound headphones and have managed to keep them safe and in one piece even when they have travelled or when they have changed them from between various electronic devises. I felt that I must highlight that such an option is available out there for children or adults with unilateral hearing and even if this just means that when some other parent searches google they will find this small review, at least it may help a little in their search.

Three.ie Competition winner – Week 2

The second winner in the Three competition on The Right Hook has been announced on George’s radio show. It is Castle Tunes from Dublin who wrote a very detailed review of the Squeezebox Boom.

One of the prize phones from Three and Custom-1 headphones from Klipsch will shortly be on their way to Dublin.

There are another two weeks left in the competition. So get writing gadget reviews on the site or via SMS. The winner will be announced each Monday on the show which you can also listen to on the Newstalk web-site.