New Year... New Gadgets... (Pt. 2)

My Ultimate Desktop is finally complete. With the products of Logitech & Western Digital, my table will be given a face-lift to aid in my studies as well as to provide egronomic comfort.


1) Western Digital MyBook Premium ES 500GB External Hard-Drive

I bought my hard-drive (HD) at SITEX 2007 at a promotion price of S$200. A very very good deal considering the disk size. The design of the hard-drive is sleek and tasteful with its gentle curves and LED processing lights. Its shaped like a book and hence, the name. Inside the drive includes a back-up software and Warranty Registration link which pretty much takes up about 2GB of space. The actual disk space is about 465GB- A loss of about 35GB. But who is to complain when it is still alot of space to play around with. Another feature of this HD is that it is already equipped with the next generation connection- ESata. Therefore, it'll allow faster transfer speed with the new port available in all new PCs & Notebooks.

2) Logitech® Alto™ Cordless (Laptop Stand)

The Logitech® Alto™ Cordless is definitely a new product that has reached the shores of Singapore recently. It is priced at around $189 - $199 in most shops at Sim Lim Square. I managed to purchase mine at $186 inclusive of credit card charges. Good deal? I choose to think so. The latop stand helps to raise up the height of the laptop screen making it more egronomical as it allows the screen to be in line to your eye level. Another advantage is that it comes with a wireless keyboard that allows to to position yourself freely without the thought of wires dangling around. The stand can also be powered through a included power adapter to enable the 3 extra USB 2.0 ports. The only few downside of this product is that it is almost 2kg which doesn't really allow you to bring it around (in comparison to products like SpeedBall) & that it doesn't fit Notebooks that are above the size of 15.4". My notebook is a 15" and when placed on the stand, it is actually a nitch too high. Another problem that I have encountered is the audio jack and card reader of my notebook being placed in the front which will be blocked by the stand. For most notebooks, this isn't much of a problem. Last negative point is that it doesn't come with a mouse. So, to me, it feels incomplete.

3) Logitech VX Revolution Mouse

Another one of Logitech's cool products. The VX and MX series of mice that logitech has came out with is by far one of the most premium mice out there in the market. I got the VX Revolution which is the cheapest among the range of 3 models; VX Nano, VX, Revolution & MX Revolution. The design is space-edged and definitely egronomically thought. I purchased my mouse at a hefty price of $125 inclusive of Credit Card charges in comparison to the market rate of $139 - $145 at Sim Lim Square. The plus points of this mouse would be that it is amazingly smooth in its movements and the battery lifespan (1 AA Alkaline) which last about 3 - 4 months. The mouse also has multiple Hotkeys such as page forward and backwards buttons at the side as well as a zooming utility. The key technology in this series of mice comes from the scroller which is astonishingly smooth and quiet; unlike the normal type of scrollers. For the VX Revolution, the 2.4ghz receiver can be stored inside the mouse and this is by far the only mouse that I've used that has an on/off button on the mouse itself (allows for energy conservation). The only bad thing that I didn't really like about the mouse, the price.

New Year... New Gadgets... (Pt. 1)

Coming back to Singapore from a year of hard work has definitely paid off. Therefore I want to pay special tribute to the rewards that I have received; by writing a short review on the items. They were either given to me or purchased by myself. All in all, it is definitely the way to start of the New year for me; New "toys".

Firstly, I attained the sought after item as my Christmas present from my mom. The most bought gift in the US of 2007; An iPhone. The iPhone that I got was direct from the US and surprisingly, it has already been unlocked. However, after unknowingly syncing the iPhone to iTunes to update the firmware, the phone was once again locked. It won't read any other SIM card other then an authorised service provider; AT&T. Therefore the search was on to source for a way out of this dilemma. YouTube and other internet sources gave me what I needed but... was a slow and painful process in which you'll have to hack into the OS to enable you to downgrade the firmware. In the end, I found out that the unlocking process wasn't as complicated as it may seem. All I had to do was to find out what is the phone's firmware version and just download the appropriate software, run it and Walla! It's unlocked. So now, just to play it safe, I just left my iPhone at a firmware of 1.0.2 and never updating to a higher firmware.

Overall, the features are fun to use with a whole range of applications for you to download through the use of the wi-fi of the phone. There are ultilities such as Financial Managing programs, Flashlight (phone acts as a touchlight), games and many useful as well as redundant stuff. The iPod works normally with good sound quality (for a phone) and the special earphones provided doubles as a earpiece for normal phone conversations. The cool feature (I think) is that when a text msg or phone call comes in, the music will fade away before the ringtone starts to play. It gives you the nostalgic feeling of those incoming msgs over the intercom of shopping centres and malls.

The negative part of the phone comes from the problems of inputting ringtones as well as forwarding and mass sending SMS. Ringtones, by right, must be purchased from iTunes and sync into the phone. Plus, you're not able to use any of the mp3s in your iPod as a ringtone. The solution I have found was to download a software called, iPhone Ringtone Maker. It allows you to make ringtones and sync it directly to the phone without the use of iTunes. However, the drawback is that whenever you sync music into your iPhone, the ringtones will be reset to the default list. Therefore, you will need to input the ringtones through the software again. Regarding the SMS problem, the solution to it is fairly simple, all you have to do is to download through the use of the phone's wi-fi, an application called iSMS. This is an application that uses the classic text messanging platform. This would mean that you'll have two SMS application on your iPhone although it doesn't affect the performance of the phone.

Overall, the iPhone is really a breakthrough in the mobile and nano technology. Just for numerical rating sake, over 10 (highest score), I rate it at a non-bias rating of 8.5/10.