Good Stuff

The folks over at ShieldZone were nice enough to send me an Invisible Shield to test out for my shiny new iPhone. As with the Shield I installed previously on my Treo 650, installation was a piece of cake, and you can barely tell it’s there. Much nicer than a bulky cover, and probably even more important for the iPhone with that beautiful (and large) screen.

The iPhone Shield costs $25, with free shipping. Pretty good deal considering this is a $600 device you’re trying to protect.

Read the previous post (or maybe the instructions if you do that sort of thing) for advice on how to install the thing properly without ending up with bubbles. I managed to do a slightly better job this time around.

Anyhow, again highly recommended.

I just installed a new, very handy scratch protector on my Treo 650. It’s called The Invisible Shield, and comes from a company called ShieldZone. It’s a basically a thin, clear plastic wrap for your device. ShieldZone has developed shields for over 400 electronic devices, from PDA’s and cell phones to PSP’s and iPods.

Installation was quite straightforward, and took less than 5 minutes. As the name implies, the shield is nearly invisible. The device is now a bit more grippy and shiny, but other than that looks pretty much as it did before shield installation. Obviously I haven’t done any long term testing on it, but ShieldZone offers a pretty impressive lifetime warranty: if after installing the shield, you manage to scratch it, they’ll replace it for free.

My only problem was in getting the shield on the screen of my Treo properly. I managed to get it in place, but discovered I had left several pretty large bubbles. They give you a teeny little squeegee device for removing bubbles, but the shield was sticky enough that the bubbles couldn’t be pressed out. I ended up having to use a fingernail to peel up the corner. I’ve now removed the bubbles, but the corner is showing some signs of the trauma I put it through. Word of advice: don’t just slap a whole piece of shield on at once. Apply one side, and slowly work your way across to the other side, removing bubble as you go.

Overall I’m pretty impressed. This seems like a pretty nice way to protect your devices, without a big bulky carrying case. With prices ranging from around $10 to $25, you’re not spending any more than you would for a case anyhow. Check them out at ShieldZone.com.

Technorati Tags: Treo, Treo 650, Gadgets

Millenium Music is offering up free iPods if you’ll ship them all of those CD’s you collected back in the 90’s. Remeber that? How silly was that? Here’s the nitty gritty:

Send	You Get
45 CD’s	512MB Shuffle
65 CD’s	1GB Shuffle
85 CD’s	2GB Nano
110 CD’s	4GB Nano
130 CD’s	30GB iPod
175 CD’s	60GB iPod

Now when you add it all up, you’re really only getting about $2 per CD, but do you really need them anymore?

Technorati Tags: ipod, apple, music, portable audio, ipod video

The new Motorola SLVR L7 should be on shelves this month. Measuring only 113 x 49 x 11.5 mm (I think that translates to 4.4 x 1.9 x 0.5 inches), it’s just a bit longer than a folded RAZR. It’s also narrower and thinner than the RAZR, making it one of the smallest phones out there.

The RAZR was hard to beat, fashion-wise, but Motorola may have outdone themselves with the new SLVR (pronounced “sliver”, as opposed to “silver”). It comes with everything you’d expect from a modern phone, though nothing really revolutionary in terms of features. It’s got a digital camera with 4x zoom, mp3 playback capability, bluetooth, Java stuff, e-mail, etc. The one interesting feature is the TransFlash removable memory slot. You’ll be able to swap out 512MB TransFlash cards, making this fairly useful as a mobile media device.

Full story » Motorola SLVR

Technorati Tags: motorola, RAZR, SLVR, cell phones, SLVR L7, moto

The UT Starcom F-1000 is a new Wi-Fi wireless phone, designed to work with your Vonage telephone service. It will connect to your Vonage service anywhere you can find an open Wi-Fi hotspot, giving you free calls. Well, no extra charge above and beyond the $25/mo you pay Vonage for your home service.

The styling is not exactly the latest and greatest (call it “1998 Nokia Retro”), but if free calls appeal to you, perhaps this won’t be a big deal.

Sign up for Vonage.

Full story » Vonage F-1000 Wi-Fi Phone

Technorati Tags: vonage, VOIP, wireless, wi-fi, wifi

The Canon A610 is one of the best digital cameras you’ll find for under $300. It may not have the stylish good looks or small size of some of its competitors, but if you’re mostly interested in an affordable digital camera that takes great pictures, the A610 may be the way to go.

The A610 is a 5.0 megapixel camera with a 4X optical zoom. It features a 2 inch LCD screen that flips out for better viewing at odd angles. It also features a movie mode, which is surprisingly good, giving resolutions up to 640×480. Movie compression is fairly low, meaning quality is good but file sizes can get large in a hurry.

Full story » Review: Canon Powershot A610

Technorati Tags: canon, powershot, powershot a610, a610, digital cameras, digital photography

The Archos AV 700 is the granddaddy of portable media players. It’s got a huge 7″ LCD screen, and can be had with a 40 or 100 GB hard drive. It plays more audio and video formats than almost anything out there, including MP3, WAV, protected WMA, DivX, MPEG-4, WMV, and XviD.

The AV 700 will also hook up directly to your AV setup at home, allowing you to record directly from your VCR, DVD Player, Cable, Satellite, and so forth. It allows you to schedule recordings up to a month in advance. On the downside, it’s fairly expensive, with even the smaller 40GB model running around $600.

Full story » Review: Archos AV 700

Technorati Tags: archos, av 700, av700, media, media players, portable media, portable video

The Pentax *ist DL is about the best digital SLR you’re going to find for under $800. Ok it’s about the only digital SLR out the in this proce range. But that’s pretty hard to argue with. Plus it comes with a nice 18-55 focal length lens. That’s some serious value. Pentax is bringing the digital SLR into a realm where average humans can afford to own one without taking out a second mortgage.

It’s also a fairly small and lightweight option, as digital SLRs go. Dimensions are 4.9 x 3.6 x 2.6 inches, and it weighs only 4 pounds. Picture quality is not quite up to the level of the likes of the Canon Digital Rebel XT, but at half the price, I’d say it’s a superior value.

Full story » Review: Pentax *ist DL

Technorati Tags: pentax, *ist, pentax *ist, ist, digital cameras, digital photography

The Canon Powershot A510 is a 3.2 megapixel camera, replacing the successful PowerShot A75. It’s not tiny, at 3.6 x 2.5 x 1.5 inches, but it’s a bargain indeed, at under $200. It includes most of the features of the A520, with an MSRP of about $50 less. It’s not a professional level camera by any means, but the Powershot A510 is a solid, affordable digital point-and-shoot.

Full story » Review: Canon Powershot A510

Technorati Tags: canon, powershot, a510, powershot a510, digital cameras, photography

The Haier P7 is a fairly ordinary new phone with a very interesting form factor. If you’re into owning a phone that doesn’t look like everyone else’s, this is a cool one. Just bigger than you average pen, it will easily fit into your pocket protector. The screen is teeny, and it’s atually rather long for a phone, but hey, it looks cool. It also amazingly includes a decent digital camera stuffed in there somewhere.

Full story » Review: Haier P7

Technorati Tags: haier, haier p7, cell phones, reviews