Transcend T.sonic 630 2 GB MP3 Player (White)

The one feature I bought this mp3 player for is the line-in recording. The mp3 player can record directly from anything with a headphone jack, like a radio, a computer, or a cd player. The thing that really suprised me were the other features that came with it. The features I really enjoy are the FM radio, the mp3 player, and the easy to use file system. I can find any file quickly and easily. The thing is nearly weightless, and I get at least 10 hours our of a recharge if I play at moderate volume.
The only things I would like to see improved is a more selective FM tuner (sometimes stations overlap) and a little less bass in some of the eq settings (there are ways to adjust this, but I'm becoming a bit of a luddite). I would certainly recommend it.Buy Transcend T.sonic 630 2 GB MP3 Player (White)!

Samsung Q1 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Lighted Touchpad (Black)

When I read the reviews on this product I did not pay attention to those who cited the control function as being poor. I thought how hard can it be to press a directional control up or down? It is a beautifully stylish player, however upon trying to use it I exclaimed OMG...you have got to be kidding me!!! No matter hard I tried to precisely press the directional control it just failed to do what it was designed to do. I found that it was completely unusable and had to return it to Amazon. I did not even get a chance to judge it on all the other features that people loved about it.
Maybe next rev for this one!!!Buy Samsung Q1 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Lighted Touchpad (Black)!

Samsung Q1 8 GB Video MP3 Player with Lighted Touchpad (Black)

When I read the reviews on this product I did not pay attention to those who cited the control function as being poor. I thought how hard can it be to press a directional control up or down? It is a beautifully stylish player, however upon trying to use it I exclaimed OMG...you have got to be kidding me!!! No matter hard I tried to precisely press the directional control it just failed to do what it was designed to do. I found that it was completely unusable and had to return it to Amazon. I did not even get a chance to judge it on all the other features that people loved about it.
Maybe next rev for this one!!!Buy Samsung Q1 8 GB Video MP3 Player with Lighted Touchpad (Black)!

Samsung Q1 8 GB Video MP3 Player with Lighted Touchpad (Silver)

When I read the reviews on this product I did not pay attention to those who cited the control function as being poor. I thought how hard can it be to press a directional control up or down? It is a beautifully stylish player, however upon trying to use it I exclaimed OMG...you have got to be kidding me!!! No matter hard I tried to precisely press the directional control it just failed to do what it was designed to do. I found that it was completely unusable and had to return it to Amazon. I did not even get a chance to judge it on all the other features that people loved about it.
Maybe next rev for this one!!!Buy Samsung Q1 8 GB Video MP3 Player with Lighted Touchpad (Silver)!

Olympus Stylus 6000 10MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Wide Angle Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-inch LCD (Yellow)

I was always a cannon girl but after my kids destroyed my last two cameras I was looking for something more durable! I have had this camera for a month now and have been nothing but satisified with the picture quality indoors and out! You have to change the settings for indoor lighting to get the best quality but it has many options for that. I also like the high speed shooting option, wonderful for sport shots and two little boys on the run! Buy Olympus Stylus 6000 10MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Wide Angle Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-inch LCD (Yellow)!

Cowon O2 32 GB Video MP3 Player (Black)

I use the Cowon O2 as a replacemrnt for a CD changer in our home audio system. I rip CDs in FLAC format and use compression level 4. The connection I use is an analog audio cable. The sound is almost identical to the sound I get when playing a CD on my blu-ray player. Fantatic sound and even with FLAC I can get about 100 CDs on the 32 GB memory card.

My set up begs the question: Why don't audio receiver companies make an audio amplifier with memory built in to play compressed digital music? Maybe next year.Buy Cowon O2 32 GB Video MP3 Player (Black)!

Cowon O2 8 GB Video MP3 Player (White)

I bought the Cowon O2 because I was looking for something with a good size screen (4.3 " in this case). I previoulsy had a sankey player with a 2" screen.When I got the cowon O2 I was amazed at the quality of the picture at 480 by 272 resolution.It was crisp and clear and when they say 16 million colors, they mean it !!

The features for music was terrific. Cowon has MAch3bass, 3d surround, BBE enhancement and MP3 enhancement and each feature has 10 levels of adjustment. Also there is a 10 band equaliser and for each band there is a 2 level adjustment for frequency and a 3 level adjustment for bandwidth. Putting all this together, this little device really does a whole lot of sound processing and thus it sounds excellent. i was really surprised and absolutely pleased with the sound and not to mention the awesome audio codec support, including lossless formats.

The video is awesome. Cowon supports a whole lot of video codecs. In general if you like encoding your own videos and words like "virtual dub", "subrip", "mkvtoolnix","xvid","dvd decrypter","H264" and "matroska" sound familiar to you, then the O2 will meet your needs happily.
I played matroska and avi files with no problems.The O2 will not allow you to access subtitles or chapters embedded in the mkv container,but it will play the movie. However if you have the subtitle ( in srt format) saved in the same directory as the movie and with the same name, The subtitle is loaded with the movie and you can adjust the size, position and color.I find this to be a very good compromise.If you have multiple audio tracks (up to 8 tracks ) embedded in the mkv, ogm or avi container, the O2 recognises it and allows you to choose which to play.

The O2 has decent battery for a 4.3" lcd device. It is about 6 to 8 hours when watching videos. The touchscreen interface is very cool. My suggestion is to dabble with it a little so you can get a feel for it.

Overall the O2 is great especially if you're a video buff. I haven't checked all the music features, but if you like good quality music, then I do think that the O2 and (I guess) other Cowon products do a whole lot more audio processing than other portable audio products out there. The sound is amazing.You will not be disappointed.Buy Cowon O2 8 GB Video MP3 Player (White)!

Cowon O2 32 GB Video MP3 Player (White)

Pros: Great screen, Sensitive touch controls, audio quality, tons of file support, SDHC slot, battery life, 10-band EQ, expandable extras

Cons: No EQ during video playback, gaps between audio tracks long, no playlist support, interface navigation slow, audio output less than previous Cowon players.

When the Cowon O2 was released, I was saving my pennies to pick up perhaps the answer to all my portable needs - a large screen for video viewing, excellent sound quality, and a SDHC slot. Granted, it does everything that it was advertised to do (minus poor MKV support, but I can live with that since the majority of my video files are XviD), but its the minor annoyances that prevent this player from being the ultimate PMP.

First the positives: The screen is excellent, although not as sharp as some would want (480x272 resolution), but for video viewing, it is more than acceptable. The touch screen is very nice and sensitive. Audio quality is standard Cowon stuff, you get the BBE, Mach3Bass, and 3D enhancements, along with the crystal clear reproduction that you would expect from them. The SD slot is a must-have for me, as I have tons of stuff archived on SD cards that I can just carry along with me, rather than move stuff around if I wanted something new. The 10-band EQ is excellent, as you can precisely tailor the audio output to your tastes. Battery life is rated at 8H Video / 18H Audio. My personal real-life performance shows that it's pretty close to that, provided you bump the brightness of the screen down and set the screen to shut off as fast as possible when playing audio.

The negatives: The interface is extremely slow and unresponsive at times, especially when browsing through your files. Sometimes the screen will register a touch, but the actual command is not recognized, sometimes needing a second touch. The interface reminds me of Windows Mobile, with X buttons, scroll bars, and non-finger-friendly lists. The included stylus is fat and not exactly helpful when trying to press some of those small buttons on the screen. The audio output is noticeably lower on this player than previous Cowon offerings, for video output (especially with no EQ settings for video) the volume has to be maxed out, there are no exceptions to this rule, and its STILL not loud enough for some situations. My audio volume is 35-38 (out of 50) and anything under 25 is not very audible. The lack of playlist support is not a big deal-breaker for me as I have all my audio sorted perfectly in folders, but for others, it could prove to be quite annoying. There is a "favorites" list that you can add tracks to, but it shares that list with video files as well, which negates any benefit you may have or want for playlist support.

My complaints regarding this player seem like they can be remedied with a firmware upgrade, and if Cowon gets around to fixing these issues, this could very well be the perfect PMP... however, until they do, these small nagging issues prevent it from being exactly what I was looking for. Buy Cowon O2 32 GB Video MP3 Player (White)!

Cisco Linksys 1 TB Media Hub with LCD

I really like this NAS. It was very easy to setup and very easy to use. The web based media player is a great feature which easily let me queue up music from any web browser in my house. The remote access feature just simply rocks! I live in California and during a recent trip to the East coast I was able to easily login and stream music across the country without any buffer delays (my friends back East didn't believe I was streaming music from my NAS in my house back in California). I bought a second 1TB WD green technology drive and was able to easily use the configuration page to configure raid for data protection. This is by far the best NAS I've ever purchased and used!Buy Cisco Linksys 1 TB Media Hub with LCD!

Transcend T.sonic 850 8 GB Video MP3 Player (Black)

Transcend has really done a nice job in creating a small mp3 player with a good amount of both memory and features. The things I like and dislike about the 850 are all really just preferences, as there are no real "problems" with it at all. Transcend might not be a well-known brand, but I highly recommend the T.sonic 850.

Pros:
1)Price. You can't beat this amount of quality/features for this price.
2)Battery. Has a good battery life, but even better is that it will fit my cell charger (Motorola Razr)!
3)Solid build. It's very light, durable, and even comes with a protective sheath. It's also small enough to not take up your whole pocket but big enough to get a comfortable grip on it. All the buttons feel sturdy and well made.
4)Features. It's got music, video, radio, voice recording, photos, and a text reader. The music has very good highs and mids. I don't have great headphones yet so I'm not sure how the base is. It does have customizable EQ though. The video is OK, but if you want something this size you really can't be too concerned about video. The radio gets decent reception and has plenty of presets. The voice recorder seems good though I haven't really tried it out. The picture viewer works fine and has zoom. The text reader only reads .txt files and wraps words to fit them on the screen, but it's still a great feature that many players like this don't have. It reads in 3 font sizes.
5)Easy to use. It only takes a few trys to learn the buttons, which all have sensible functions.
6)Interface. Some people might be turned off by its simplicity but I like it. Parts of it are purposefully retro (I think).

Cons:
1)Earphones. They're passable in sound quality but aren't comfortable at all.
2)Can't listen to music while reading text.
3)Can't customize the interface.
4)Doesn't show album art.
Buy Transcend T.sonic 850 8 GB Video MP3 Player (Black)!

Olympus Stylus 6000 10MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Wide Angle Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-inch LCD (White)

I was always a cannon girl but after my kids destroyed my last two cameras I was looking for something more durable! I have had this camera for a month now and have been nothing but satisified with the picture quality indoors and out! You have to change the settings for indoor lighting to get the best quality but it has many options for that. I also like the high speed shooting option, wonderful for sport shots and two little boys on the run! Buy Olympus Stylus 6000 10MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Wide Angle Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7-inch LCD (White)!

Kensington Slimblade Trackball Expert Mouse USB 2.0 for PC and Mac, K72327US

The Slimblade Trackball is really a missed opportunity for Kensington. This device has so much potential but the software limitations make this device just barely usable.

The two major components of the Slimblade Trackball are the hardware design and the software affordances. Let's start with the good.

THE HARDWARE

In order to understand what is amazing about the Kensington Slimblade Trackball, one should be aware of the last redesign of the Expert Mouse. That design is quite horrendous. The steep angle of the plastic housing strained the wrist tendons so badly that the device shipped with a faux leather pad that attached to the trackball to elevate the wrist. Besides being ugly, the pad kludge didn't work very well. Strained wrists are a common symptom among users of the Expert Mouse Trackball.

The Slimblade Trackball rectifies this situation. Big Time.

The low profile of the trackball housing is not only aesthetically pleasing, it also allows users to interact with the device with the hand and wrist only moderately angled. The ball rolls smoothly (though it is an ugly color) and the buttons are very sleek as they are cut out of the housing. Clicks are unfortunately hollow-sounding, but the tactile response is superb, the buttons requiring a firm but shallow press for activation. The new device is a pleasure to handle physically.

The engineering of the trackball well is clever. Plastic bearings similar to those in the Expert Mouse Trackball keep the ball gliding smoothly, with the difference that these bearings are sealed in their sockets with only a portion of the bearing visible. The holes which contain the electronics that register ball movement do not appear to emit light. When the ball is rotated around its Y-axis (running through the top and bottom of the device), the electronics make an audible clicking noise. Think iPod scrollwheel sound. The faint sound could be a problem in quiet office environments, especially for users who do quite a bit of scrolling or zooming.

In all, the hardware of the device is excellent. The thought and care which went into the engineering shows, and if look and feel were all that mattered, Kensington would have produced a pointing device worthy of admiration and celebration.

Unfortunately for Kensington, there's also the bad and the ugly. Namely . . .

THE SOFTWARE

(I'm testing the Slimblade Trackball software on a PowerMac G5 2 x 2.5 GHz running Mac OS X v. 10.5.6. Windows users may have an experience different than mine.)

First off, I want to say that the software seems also to have received quite a bit of attention from the designers at Kensington. Unfortunately, what those designers produced seems to be the victim of poor market analysis.

Some Slimblade Trackball users have forgiven Kensington for omitting the ability to program the buttons. I am not one of these users. The inability to reprogram the buttons is arrogance at its worst. When Steve Jobs and Jon Ives give users an extra-strength dose of designerly arrogance, they often succeed in curing ailments users didn't even realize they had (hockey puck mouse excepted). I'm here to assure you that the software designers at Kensington are neither Steve Jobs nor Jon Ives.

At all.

First, the drivers for the Slimblade Trackball do not have any user-accessible interface. Period. OK, that's not entirely true. The installer places a pointer-shaped item in the menubar. Clicking on that item reveals two items. 1) A dimmed line reporting that the Kensington Slimblade Trackball is active, and 2) a link to Kensington's online tutorial. As we all know (as of 5 March 2009), that online tutorial is not yet available. So, the link sends users to the promotional microsite for the Slimblade Trackball as if advertising will convince them that nothing's wrong. I suppose one can navigate one's way to the sparse FAQ which contains 8 items as of this writing.

If you can't read the sign that says Things are Not Good(tm) then look over yonder. Yup. That's the milestone for Here Comes Ugly(tm)

UGLY LIKE KENSINGTON'S MAMA

Users not only cannot program the device's buttons, but they also cannot customize the speed and acceleration of the device outside of the operating system software provided by Apple or a piece of third-party software.* This is a problem of gargantuan proportions.

I have a 23" Cinema Display and a 17" Studio Display hooked together in a single extended desktop. I need my pointing device tracking to be set high. Setting the mouse tracking to high is possible with Apple's "Keyboard & Mouse" System Preference. The problem comes when moving the device slowly, as one might do when selecting text. The differences in slow and fast cursor tracking in Apple's Keyboard & Mouse System Preference settings render the Slimblade trackball practically unusable on medium-to-large desktops.

By removing the ability of users to customize slow and fast tracking speed--something that the Expert Mouse Trackball software does provide--Kensington has effectively turned what should have been a magnificent product into something only a mother could love, or at least a committee of marketroids who got their way over the tearful objections of old-skool Kensington software devs. Don't worry devs, having bought this device I feel your pain and then some.

At present, Kensington has no plans to offer programmable buttons for this device. One can only hope future software releases will enable users to customize the acceleration settings for the Slimblade Trackball just as users of the Expert Mouse Trackball are able to customize their settings.

CONCLUSION

The hardware engineers at Kensington deserve raises and your first-born. This is a beautiful device.

The managers of the software design team should have their computers confiscated and be forced into a pit full of snakes. Barefoot. They should also have all their hair shorn. From around their belly buttons and other really awful things like getting raisins for dessert.

The Kensington Slimblade Trackball is like a gorgeous date who has a nothing personality. You don't mind a night or two but you know something better will come some day.

* My limited testing of USB Overdrive as a third-party driver has been unable to access the media buttons at all, suggesting to me that the Slimblade Trackball are not normal mouse buttons.Buy Kensington Slimblade Trackball Expert Mouse USB 2.0 for PC and Mac, K72327US!

Garmin nüvi 855 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator

I sold my nuvi 750 to purchase the nuvi 855.
Garmin changed the on/off switch from something you could use to something you have to fumble to turn on and off.
I didn't think they would dump the SD memory card, so I didn't give it a thought when I bought the 855.
Garmin switched to a Micro SD memory.
The volume on the 855 is lower than the nuvi 750, even on max.
Garmin told me that the nuvi 855 included life time maps. NOT TRUE. You have to pay another $119.00.
I think Tom Tom would have been a better choice.
Good luck.
Buy Garmin nüvi 855 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator!

Olympus Stylus 6000 10MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Wide Angle Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD (Blue)

I was always a cannon girl but after my kids destroyed my last two cameras I was looking for something more durable! I have had this camera for a month now and have been nothing but satisified with the picture quality indoors and out! You have to change the settings for indoor lighting to get the best quality but it has many options for that. I also like the high speed shooting option, wonderful for sport shots and two little boys on the run! Buy Olympus Stylus 6000 10MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Wide Angle Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD (Blue)!