Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

While we are taking some time getting our full thoughts down, we wanted to show off the pics of the latest gadget to make its way into the Gadgetell headquarters. Its the Kicker iK500 iPod speaker system. While we have the iK500 which is made exclusively for the iPod, Kicker also has the zKick ZK500 for the Microsoft Zune.

Aside from the obvious difference that one is made for the Zune and the other for the iPod, they both offer the same features. The systems both ship with a remote control that offers a full range of options, and have two 5-inch woofers, two 3/4-inch tweeters, one 6-inch square reflex subwoofer that are powered by a 40-watt stereo amplifier. In addition they both have a 1/8-inch stereo aux-in jack and stereo RCA out. They both measure in at 8.5 x 19.2 x 8.4-inches and weigh 9.2-pounds.

The iK500 includes eight dock inserts that will allow for just about any iPod to fit snugly in place, and the ZK500 comes with three inserts to fit the various available Zune players. The iK500 and ZK500 both retail for $299.99 and are currently available. During our (so far brief) testing the system sounded great and worked well with a variety of iPods, to include the nano, Shuffle and even the iPhone, while in airplane mode. Be sure to check back for our full review and in the mean time enjoy the pics…

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We just got our hands on the 2100 Max GPS from Navigon, and while we are planning to bring you a full review, we wanted to take a few minutes and show off some pics. Just by looking at the 2100 Max, you can already see just how nice the unit looks, thanks in part to the shiny black exterior and the large 4.3-inch display. However, the 2100 Max offers so much more than just good looks, the unit is feature packed and comes with the very nice option to have your maps and points-of-interest upgraded every three-months with NAVIGON FreshMaps. Aside from the updates, the 2100 Max also offers reality view, turn-by-turn spoken directions, route planning, predictive text, speed assistant as well as branded-icons for your POI’s and much, much more that will will cover in the full review.

The Navigon 2100 Max is currently shipping and it retails for $299. Simply based on some quick first impressions, it seems to be well worth the money, be sure to check back for our full review to come, in the meantime enjoy the pics.

Keep reading for a few more pics…

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With the great wireless race of the early 21st century going on in the US, just getting 3G, both EVDO and UMTS/HSPA, adopted across the nation is proving to be slow going. While Europe and Asia have had some awesome phones with 3G and mobile TV to name a few features for quite some time, over here in the States we have been focused on buying the cheapest phone. Either that, or the RAZR which has been bought to death.

Now that the 700MHz spectrum auction has been finished and Verizon Wireless has been declared the victor, they are already making plans for the future of their spectrum. They have decided to go the LTE (Long Term Evolution) route as their “4G Network,” which can bring download speeds of up to 170Mbps or 325Mbps depending on the tower configuration. This also means that Verizon can switch to an all IP-network, essentially using VoIP to have voice conversations. Plus, this means they will have oodles and oodles of bandwidth at their expense for whatever they decide.

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It is no secret that MySpace has completely changed the music scene.  Arguably, the artists MySpace music page is more important than their website.  But other sites are creeping up and taking advantage of something MySpace has not mastered:  new music.

Sites like thesixtyone.com and others are helping new artists get noted.  By allowing voting and an incentive to listen to new stuff, these sites are creating fans for little known acts from all over the world.  Take Temple Scene, a two person ensemble from the UK.  Their songs have done very well on thesixtyone.com and on MySpace.  I had the chance to get the bands input on the value of other sites that focus on new music.

Gadgetell:  Which is more important for building a fan base: MySpaceor thesixtyone.com?

Temple Scene: To be honest, it’s difficult to say if we are getting more listeners from MySpace or T61, because in both cases we have a smallish group of vocal fans, but we have no way of knowing how many other people might be interested. Certainly we can reach more people on MySpace, but on T61 there’s a much higher ratio of people who actually end up getting into the band (being a music lovers’ site).

Gadgetell: So how how many people are we talking about?

Temple Scene:I have no idea! That’s part of the motivation for selling the songs - we’re not going to sell enough to make real money, but as we release each E.P. we’ll actually have some data about how many people there are who like our songs enough to spend their time/money getting them! It’ll be weeks before we get any sales data though.

From an interview at Max Bumps:
silkworm: What effect, if any, has your experience with thesixtyone.com had on the process of putting together the new EP? What are your thoughts about the site?

Temple Scene: Until recently, we’d been streaming the music and keeping our options open about the next move, but the fantastic feedback we’ve been getting on the61 encouraged us to re-assess that. There’s nothing more satisfying for a musician than people wanting to buy your music - and nothing more frustrating than telling them they can’t! The best part has been seeing the reaction to our songs. We just try and make music we like, but it’s amazing to find out that other people like it too.

Like a lot of people, we found the61 on Digg, and it was immediately clear that someone had finally solved some of the fundamental problems with music discovery sites. There are countless places that use competitions and votes as a way to get extra traffic from a band’s existing fan base, but where no one has any incentive to stay and explore. the61 actually puts listeners in contact with new music, and makes it fun - any site that can do that is something special.

You can download a free copy of Temple Scene’s Story and stream their first E.P. at thesixtyone.com, last.fm and MySpace.

I have used my share of VoIP phones out there, so when Plantronics sent me the newish Calisto Pro Series, I didn’t have too high of expectations.  However I became impressed quickly with the great Bluetooth integration, among other features.  There are three ways you can talk on the phone (or Skype): speakerphone, on the handset, or on the included Bluetooth headset.  This amount of flexibility is a great thing to have when you’re in an office—or even at home—since you have the choice to go anywhere in your house.  So what if you want to sit in your living room, and the Bluetooth signal can’t make it that far?  Don’t worry, the headset is paired with the handset, so just bring the handset with you!

Have I mentioned that the Calisto can also be used as your landline phone?  Well, it sure can.  The device has seemless integration with both Skype (and your computer) and your landline connection.  So if you’re talking long distance to someone across the world, and hang up to make a local call, you don’t even have to switch anything… just hang up, dial the number, and press talk.

Design

Overall, the Calisto’s design is sleek, but not too fancy.  The phone’s handset is a bit bulky, but it’s smaller than most traditional cordless phones, so we won’t dock them there.  The Bluetooth headset is a big flimsy, and I had a hard time with it - but while you’re sitting at your desk, it’s really OK to have a flimsy headset on since you’re not making any sharp movements that will knock it off.

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I have to admit that this post is way overdue but better late than never. A full three months after the end of the 2008 CES we would be crazy not to thank our sponsors. Without these three companies we would have gotten nowhere while out in Vegas.

Pentax - We were thankful to be hooked-up with a Pentax K-100D Digital SLR. The pictures were fantastic, storing photos on a SD card made posting extremely convenient, and the zoom lens helped us get some great close-ups even when not up front. Just check out the great photo galleries. Now we are left drooling for the K200D.

Energizer - Energizer? Yup, Energizer. If you learn one lesson after your first trade show, it is that you can never have enough batteries. In the past we have been burned by buying after-market computer batteries but because of the major cost difference between the manufacturer models and OEM models, we continued to search for a high quality solution. This search led me to Energizer and their line of rechargeable computer batteries. Personally I went for the ER-L385X extended battery for my Sony VAIO, and it could not be happier.

Sprint - Last but certainly not least would be Sprint. Without a whole bunch of mobile broadband cards there would have been no way for us to offer our non-stop coverage from up and down the Vegas strip. I think we may have had every single card, all EVDO Rev. A from the Sierra Wireless ExpressCard to the Pantech PCMCIA card.

So, thank you to these sponsors and we hope you, our readers, benefited from them supporting us.

Back in February Sony announced two new Walkman MP3 players, the A820 and A829 (yes, horrendous names). These are 8 and 16 GB versions of Sony’s flash memory, iPod nano competitors. At first glance, the big shocker is the inclusion of Bluetooth audio on the A829—no more strangulation by your headphone—but the models have much more to offer than that.

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Check out the gallery: The Walkman returns to glory with the Sony NWZ-A829

CTIA exposed a bunch of new companies getting into the voice to text game and it is expected to be a fast growing area.  This morning saw my post on Nuance, a company bringing voice to text to GPS (in addition to a voicemail to text service), last month we saw Spinvox get $100 million in investment to grow internationally.  Today, I got the opportunity to mix it up with James Simonoff, CEO of SimulScribe whose company is a leader in voicemail to text serivce and get the pulse of his company and where he believes the market is headed.  Simulscribe also extended a 30 day free trial for Gadgetell readers.  See the end of the post for link.

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HP has just formally announced the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC and we are already seeing quite a few hands on reviews coming in. Judging from what is being written the Mini-Note is going to be a solid force in the UMPC market. As we mentioned earlier today, the Mini-Note PC will be priced (starting) at $499 and be available later in the month.

Lets get on with the reviews…

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I am doing a bit of head scratching this morning.  CTIA has come and gone, as has CeBit and 3G.  In this post, I’ll go over the 3 phones that are hot on the tail of the iPhone.  But can any of them compare?

First, I think it is essential to boil down the obvious: the iPhone hype is about 3 things.
1. OS.  Fun.  Simple.  Easy.  We like pushing things around with our fingers.
2. Internet.  We do so much online, it is natural to do that everywhere.  The big screen is a huge plus.
3. Sexy.  What makes sexy?  Not sure but Apple has it right now.

Knowing I am but a tech blogger and thus an idiot, let’s see how the phone makers have assessed the competition and how they plan to beat it.

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