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Jabra BT620s review: My life in blue

Posted on April 16, 2007 by ron

For most of us, Jeremy’s recent post about the wires in his apartment made us think of a drawer, closet or box somewhere that looks similar (unless you’re Dave Mathews, the other one. I hear his apartment looks like Snakes on a Plane, but with wires … and I guess no plane. So basically, just a lot of wires in an apartment.  But you can see how I got there, right?).  My wife is a lot less tolerant of snakes wires than Jeremy’s, so I’ve been having fun with a couple of Bluetooth products from Jabra.

IMG_3931 A125s and BT620sThe first product I’m trying is the BT620s (with A125s adapter) which enable you to use a wireless headset with your iPod.  This means no stylish white-headphones to show off that you stand out from the crowd by having an iPod (which is so 2004 anyway).

In my opinion, the main benefit of having a wireless headset is it frees you from being tethered to the device. Instead, throw your iPod in your backpack or put it in a drawer at your desk. You can still control all the important functions with your headset (volume, skip track, pause, etc.).  If you have a bluetooth phone it even lets you pick up a phone call with the same headset (there’s a mini-microphone on one of the earpieces).  I’ve been working in a cube-farm for ages and am used to plugging headphones into my computer. In a “Darwin Awards” kind of way, once a year, I pull away from the desk and have the earbuds ripped out of my ears.  Going wireless means I can do some Office Space spins in my cube with full freedom. Ah, simple pleasures.

IMG_3919 A125s lit upI’d love to say that configuring the units was simple, but I can’t.  Jabra optimized towards minimalism in terms of buttons and action-feedback on the unit so much so that you have to actually consult the manual just to get started (I really did. I had to!). For example, they define pushing a button in three ways:

  1. Push and release.
  2. Push for a couple seconds, then release.
  3. Push and hold.

Each one of these causes the blue LED to blink at different rates although it isn’t exactly clear which speed of blinking lights applies to which state. Combine that with multiple buttons combinations and it gets even more confusing. For example, the unit has a blue-blinking LED around each earpiece when the unit is “paired” with the transmitter. When you’re wearing the headset you look like something out of “pimp my ride” and generally get stared at in public (more than normal, I mean).  Natch, I wanted to turn this off which meant “Push #3 on left and right center-ear button simultaneously”. Not exactly intuitive considering the many combinations of options of Jabra-Push-Types (see above) and the fact that there are two buttons on the headset and 1 on the A125s iPod unit.
 
IMG_3883 BT620s on ear - lit upI’ve used the Jabra BT620s headset on planes, trains (Bart) and automobiles buses with great success. The only challenge I’ve found, besides the “Pimp Your Head” glares on the 41 Union, is that when you turn your head the bluetooth cuts out. This is true not only when I put the ipod in my backpack, but even if I have it in my pocket on the right-hand-side (as it says in the manual. See, I told you I read it.).  You’re probably asking, “who needs to turn their head.” I know. I live a crazy life. To be clear on this point: it only happens when my iPod is in my pocket, not if it’s on my desk, and the sound does come right back about a half second later if I turn straight again.

Overall I’m very happy with the headset. It frees me from untangling my iPod earphones and I can throw my iPod in my bag and control everything I need without missing a call.  It’s not exactly the ideal setup for me personally to use long-term, but I know that my issues don’t necessarily reflect everyone elses.

IMG_3934 BT620s chargingThe only major downside to the vision of wireless is: you don’t really get rid of wires, you just transfer them. Now I have a charger for my adaptor that plugs into my iPod and a charger for the headset.  In essence, I’ve reduced the wires I carry around with me, but haven’t solved the wire problem in my apartment. In fact, it made it worse.

Oh, and when writing this, Jeremy asked me to also summarize who is the target market for the BT620s. Here’s my bulleted list:

  • Those few people that have iPods

As an aside, my prediction is that the next gen of iPods to come out (around the time of iPhone) will have Bluetooth embedded.

Amazon links for BT620s and A125s.

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Posted in General, Mobile Technology, Product Reviews | 12 Comments |

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray look out, here comes HD-FVD

Posted on January 15, 2007 by ron

warning: this post and video are heavily laden with sarcasm and are not intended for those with a lacking sense of humor (not that ours is necessarily that great either)

Jeremy and I were cruising around the nether regions of CES and next to the Chinese circuit board companies and Roomba knock-offs, we came across the HD-FVD booth. Talk about a dark-horse. If HD-DVD is to VHS, as Blu-Ray is to Beta, then what the heck is HD-FVD. Their library is pretty, pretty, pretty impressive. They had titles ranging from “caterpillar on leaf” to … wait for it … “ladybug on leaf.” Check out this video taken in the booth where Jeremy and I had a little fun.

Not convinced? Read the specs…

IMG_2696 FVD format

See that? There at the bottom of the chart. The huge differentiator. Price: Low.

More on the “Ross Perot of HDTV standards”: The Inquirer and The Gizmo Blog.

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Posted in That's Janky, Video/Music/Media | 1 Comment |

Technology for the Neurotic Hypocondriac

Posted on January 14, 2007 by ron

This booth was made just for me. I turned off WiFi in the house when my wife was pregnant with our son, and have been known to give rants about how cell phones are the cigarettes of our day. This booth is dedicated to gadgets that tell you whether your cell phone gives off too much radiation, your house is too close to an electro-magnetic field (EMF), and even rating the UV if you’re outside. I also love the fact that this booth’s signage is made on hand-written 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper. Check out how well my relic of a phone (Treo 600) does against Jeremy’s skinit’ed LG VX6100.

For those of you who get a little inspired to learn more about cell phone radiation: CNet has a chart on cell phone radiation levels, the US FDA has a report, TechDirt finds that 20 minutes of a cell phone equals one year of Wifi exposure, and there is a cell phone safety blog you can read.

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Posted in Mobile Technology | Leave a comment |

Hobbytron Helicopter at CES Showstoppers

Posted on January 13, 2007 by ron

I so want one of these. These tiny helicopters cost around $40 and I’m sure if I was at the controls I couldn’t do what this guy can do. But then again, I don’t own a flight suit. I was waiting for the guys to turn to me and say, “Mission Accomplished.” The next version of these will have 3-way directional controls which according to Hobbytron will make a big difference in maneuverability.

More CES coverage of Hobbytron: Gizmodo, Views from the Coop,

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33 Year-Old Virgin

Posted on January 8, 2007 by ron

It’s the end of my first day of my first ever CES and I’m left, well, “whelmed.”  Our friend Rob Goldberg prepared me by saying, “You’ve never been? Prepare to be both under-whelmed and overwhelmed.” He was right and I’m left totally “whelmed.”

I met up with Jeremy at the Venetian at 10:00AM on Sunday when he returned from the Netgear announcements and we spent the day cruising the press conferences and basically securing decent seats for the Bill Gates keynote.

The sheer scale of CES is overwhelming. For those that haven’t been, there are over 140,000 attendees from around the world and 2700 presenters. Because of the size, this means that the presentations, parties and events are spread around the strip. You have to be ready to do a ton of walking.  I wanted to be Jobe from AD.  I’m glad I read Jeremy’s CES tips, because they don’t allow Segways on the Ceaser’s people-mover.

So, I’m pretty sure I spent most of yesterday walking to or from somewhere, but can’t really remember much of value, including the Gates keynote, from these places.  Hanging with Dave Winer, seeing Bill Gates were highlights as well as the HP party and running into Bob Morgan at Shozu.  Getting into the Bill Gates conference meant dealing with the chaos, that could have been avoided by the CEA team, of picking up your press tickets in a mad scramble around 3:00. Standing in a separate line at 5:00. To go upstairs and stand in another line at 5:30. People go mad for this and I’m not sure I totally get it.  After all the waiting and walking, you get to see Microsoft present OS X. Except for the gaming stuff, nothing really seemed fresh or interesting.

After the keynote, we went to Pepcom and HP Pure party.  Again, flat screens a little wider; cameras a little smaller, and meat on stick.  Okay. Whelmed again. Oo

And then, if Lorie’s reading this, we went right to bed at 11:00 so we could be up bright and early for the floor’s opening and today’s press conferences.  ‘Cause that’s what you do in Vegas, right?

I’m looking forward to cruising the floor and will be demo’ing Canon’s new A640 10 mega-pixel camera. Look for the review coming soon.

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Gadget Search: Testing Google Co-op

Posted on October 25, 2006 by ron

For those of you who live in caves, up on trees, or under rocks, Google launched a Custom Search feature this past week (lots more coverage here). The basic concept is this: anyone can go to Google co-op, login, and create a new custom search with their own favorite sites and some predefined search categories (called refinements).  So here’s the LD Gadget Search:

Try searching for some kind of, well, gadget.  Go ahead, it won’t hurt.

Ok, if you don’t want to do so, I’ve gone ahead and done some searches to try it out.

For my first test, I tried PPC as my search term.  In gadgetland, we know PPC means PocketPC (search results here), but check out if you search for PPC in all of Google.  Pilgrims Pride??

Second try, searching for the Slingbox.  LD Gadget vs Google general.  Well, in this case the search sites are basically news/reviews/blogs/pricing sites, and don’t include any manufacturers, so my custom search did not outperform the generic one.

Third test, searching for iPod prices.  I used the ‘Prices’ refinement (which I built with a few comparison and shopping sites) to get these results, versus searching for ipod prices on Google.  I think my customization here gave significantly worse results, and will need to go see if its something I should do different (bad grammar out of courtesy to the Apple marketing department).

Fourth up, looking for Zune news.  I figured I’d try a hot term, and built a ‘news’ refinement (results here) to compare against Google.  Now these results are quite interesting, as the generic search surfaced the dozens of new Zune news sites which have popped up.  Personally, I prefered the custom results, as I am more interested in Engadget’s update than I am in adding ZuneNation to my news sources (no offense or anything to that site, I just don’t feel like adding more sites to my already overlong bookmarks and links lists).

I’ll keep working on the LD Gadget Search to see if I can make it a really useful resource over time.  In the meantime, please feel free to add any suggestions to the implementation.  Also, in the very nature of the “co-op” it’s easy to have additional folks come in and edit the sites and settings, so come on in, the water’s fine!

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Posted in General, Product Announcements, Web/Internet | 1 Comment |

NXT-powered Insignia Home Theater System: wow

Posted on August 9, 2006 by ron

Thin speaker in handI remember the first time I saw the Bose Acoustimass 2 channel system way back in the early 90s and how impressed I was by it.  Until I listened to it for a long while and decided I didn’t really care for the sound quality.  I’m still impressed by the design and all, but just need more oomph in my living room (otherwise my cantankery upstairs neighbour will have less to complain about).  When I saw the NXT Insignia system, I assumed it too would be sorely lack in sound depth and quality. Even though their SoundVu laptop and Kensington iPod dock were both impressive, I just assumed that the scene in The Return of the King where they light the beacons (you know it totally made the movie) would leave me wanting more.  I was mistaken.

The Insignia line is from Best Buy, and it is a “home theater in a box” (yes, HTIB is acceptable).  This means you buy the box, and get all the pieces you need for a home surround sound experience.  Typically, all the cable either use proprietary connectors or have colored ends, in an attempt to idiot-proof the setup process.  Took me a good 3 minutes to get the whole system in place, plus another minute to hide some of the wires.

Main unitCenter channelRear connectorsRear connectorsSubwooferRemote control

Speaker compared to Definitive towerI tried the unit with several DVDs and even a few CDs to test the sound quality.  I then did some comparisons with my Definitive tower speakers and Velodyne subwoofer.  While my existing setup ‘won’ the test, it should be mentioned that I could’ve bought THREE Insignia HTIB kits for the price of JUST my subwoofer!  The other key thing to mention is the Insignia kit was by no means a lightweight.  The sound quality was great full of rich, vibrant sound.  Dialogue was clear, and it functioned great for high-action, tense drama, and the music CDs sounded nice as well.

Center and Front speakersThe Insignia system comes with 5 speakers, all about the size of a paperback book.  They can easily be mounted to a wall, and would leave a very aesthetic appearance, especially if paired with a wall-mounted flat-screen TV.  If you don’t want to mount them, they also come with little stands to prop the speakers up.  One minor warning for the extremely clumsy: the speakers can be dented, so try not to drop them on something pointy. 

Insignia SpeakersInsignia SpeakerCenter channelSpeaker standSpeaker standThin speakerSubwoofer   

Speaker on standAll-in-all, I was very impressed with the Insignia Home Theater System.  If you have a friend who is still living in a hole with only 2-channel audio (a.k.a. “stereophonic”), this might be the perfect holiday gift.  In fact, if it weren’t for my ridiculous needs to have about 11 things hooked up in my living room, I’d have probably switched to it myself (it would most certainly make the wife a lot happier with the living room setup).

LD Approved

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Posted in General, LD Approved, Product Reviews | 1 Comment |

Kensington SX-2000 Speakers for iPod – So skinny, so phat

Posted on May 16, 2006 by ron

Kensington SX-2000As a 6’3″ guy who weighs no more than a buck-65 (wet out of the shower), I have a lot of respect for anything skinny (editor’s note: are you calling me fat?). So it’s been my pleasure to test the Kensington SX-2000 speakers for iPod. Like several other systems that turn your iPod into a mini-home stereo, it’s a speaker with a built-in docking station.

Thin is in!Unlike others, its slim and sleek design (skinny people prefer the words slim and sleek) make it stand out from the rest.

There are so many docking stations for the iPod that I thought Kensington’s entrant to the market wouldn’t impress me. In fact, Apple’s own addition tanked and is probably the worst product they’ve put out in years. Think Mack Truck in your living room. With all of these docking stations, I was ready to write the “also-ran” review.  Not so. This product is fantastic and brings your entire music collection into places that you may never have considered.

Continue reading →

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Posted in General, LD Approved, Product Reviews | 4 Comments |

About

Jeremy Toeman is a seasoned Product leader with over 20 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include CNET, Viggle/Dijit/Nextguide, Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies. This blog represents his personal opinion and outlook on things.

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