We recently received a Ballistic Cyclone watch to review from the guys over at Watches Shop to see if it was any good and what it’s all about.

In the email asking if we would do the review a comment was made saying… “Ballistic watches are unlike any other wrist watch available on the market – they are the strongest, toughest and most durable watches available in the world.”

The watch it’s self is built well and has a heavy feel to it. It is covered in gold plating and although not to my taste it still is done very well. On the right side of the watch, three buttons can be found. The top one is used to start the stop watch where a large red second hand ticks around when starting it. The same button also stops the stop watch. The bottom button is used to reset the second hand returning it back to zero. The middle button is used to set the time and has 3 positions that allow you to set the time and calibrate the second hand to zero after changing a battery. [Read more…]

The Nokia X6 is a music phone that aims to join the touchscreen device area of phones that Apple, HTC and only a few others have managed to make happen well.

The phone it’s self looks to be a slider phone from when you first take it out of the box, but it’s actually not and just a touchscreen device with no stylus or physical keyboard. Reasons for believing it’s a slider is due to it being quite thick (13.8mm) which is a fair bit for a phone without a keyboard. Looks wise it looks quite sleek still even though a little fatter than most phones.

On the front of the device is a touchscreen that measures 3.2 inches. It is capacitive and has a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels which Nokia call nHD although of course, it’s no where near a HD screen in terms of pixels on the screen although it does look very clear when using the screen. Above that is a front facing camera that allows you to make video calls. Below the screen are three buttons which are send call, end call and menu. [Read more…]

Keeping data on an external hard drive is all good except at the point the drive gets stolen. The thief only needs to hook up the drive to his laptop and copy all the data he wants. The CRU DataPort 10 Secure aims to tackle the problem of data theft by using hardware encryption on the drive.

By using hardware based encryption the process of encrypting data is invisible to users. AES 128 encryption is used that provides military grade encryption on all data stored on the external drive.

Included in the box is the unit it’s self along with a PSU, power-lead, USB cable, eSATA cable and three physical encryption keys of course along with all the manuals and a CD that you will need to configure the drive. [Read more…]

A few weeks ago we announced the launch of a new Memorex iPod dock. We recently received the sound system to review and check out how it performs. The iPod Dock is numbered the Mi9490PBLK and in the box you get the sound system it’s self, a power lead/transformer, remote control and an aerial for use with the radio tuner (along with manuals etc…). Also you get the standard iPod dock connector on the top of the device along with a spare docking plate just in case you are using one of the older iPods. The dock is also compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch too. [Read more…]

We recently received a couple of sets of speakers for review named the X-Mini II and X-Mini Max II. When first getting the speakers out of the box I was a little worried that they wouldn’t provide much sound or volume due to their small size. Lets take a look to see if I was right… The X-Mini II is a single speaker that has a 40mm driver built in that you can attach to your computer via the attached 3.5mm cable. The X-Mini Max II comes in 1 unit that actually splits in 2 and houses a 40mm speaker in each side providing 2 channels of stereo sound. [Read more…]

The LG BL40 Chocolate mobile phone is unique due to it’s cinematic widescreen display that has an aspect ratio of 21:9 allowing it to play feature length movies with no borders top or bottom. With the BL40 having a large aspect ratio screen the phone is longer than your average mobile phone and though pictures seem to show the phone being a little over sized, when holding it you’ll find that it actually works very well and sits in your pocket very well.

The front of the phone is covered in tempered glass and has a nice glossy shine to it. There are no buttons on the front of the device and it’s just a smooth piece of glass that has just the ear speaker cut out. Both the top and bottom ends of the phone are accented in a vibrant red while the sides continue on the glossy black look of the front along with a thin silver strip that runs the length of the phone on each side. On the back of the phone the black gloss look is continued with just a small cut out for the 5 megapixel camera lens, flash and a small microphone. [Read more…]

Haynes recently sent me their latest manual for review. When people think of Haynes in the UK, it’s normally car manuals that come to mind. In this case we are actually reviewing “The Video Gaming Manual” which is described as the essential guide to modern and retro gaming platforms.

On the cover of the manual are a bunch of old computers and consoles ranging from a ZX Spectrum, to a Sega Master System, on to a Game Cube and then to a Playstation 3. The book starts off describing what video gaming is, when it first started and the steps it took to get to where it is today. Each page is printed in full colour and each page also has plenty of images from various games with many of them being very familiar and popular games of the past. [Read more…]

The LG Viewty Smart GC900 is an upgrade from the popular LG Viewty launched back in 2007. The latter version was launched a few months ago in June. We decided it was time to take a look at the LG Viewty Smart and review it to see how it compares to the latest phones from LG.

The Viewty Smart is a big upgrade to the original Viewty. It uses the S-Class 3D interface that we first saw on the LG Arena, has an 8 megapixel camera, A-GPS, 1.5GB of memory, WiFi and HSDPA. Looks wise, the LG Viewty Smart looks more similar to the Arena in design rather than the original Viewty. That’s understandable though considering the original Viewty is around 2 years old now. [Read more…]

Waking up in the morning is perhaps one of the most annoying parts of the day. Nobody likes to wake up at the wrong time feeling like they just need that few minutes extra sleep. The aXbo Sleep Phase Alarm clock was designed to tackle that problem by analysing your sleep patterns through the night and waking you up at a time where you are not in the middle of a deep sleep. By waking up at the right time it prevents the groggy feeling you get sometimes in the morning.

We were given an aXbo alarm clock to test for a couple of weeks to see how it performs and if it works as well as it claims it does. In short, it seems to do what it says on the box in that each morning I woke up I never seemed to wake up in the middle of a deep sleep. Lets take a closer look though to see how it actually works and what it actually does to prevent the groggy mornings. [Read more…]

We recently received a Bluetrek X3 bluetooth headset for review to test how it performs. The Bluetrek X3 is described as being splash proof, shock proof and dust resistant. It is designed to be rugged allowing it to be used in various weather conditions and still function correctly. Included in the box is the ear piece it’s self which comes with a clip that goes around the ear. Several other sized clips are also provided so you can pick the most comfortable one to use. A USB wall charger can be found along with an in car lighter charger as well as a short and slightly rigid USB cable for charging on your computer or connecting to the lighter charging unit.

There are just 3 buttons on the device to make it function. On the front of the headset is a button which you hold down to enable bluetooth to pair it with your phone. On the top side is a volume up and on the bottom side is a volume down button. Other than that, there are no other controls on the headset. [Read more…]

The Sony NWZ-B142F is a Walkman in the B series range and measures 86mm x 23.6mm x 14.5mm making it quite small (about the size of a chunky flash drive). It has a small 3 line display screen that allows you to navigate around the features of the MP3 player as well as showing track details. The Sony B series Walkman has 2GB of memory to store your tracks on and also features an FM receiver to let you listen to the radio. It’s similar to a flash drive in that it has a USB connector kept inside a cap that pulls off the end of the device and once inserted in a USB port on a PC the device charges and allows music to be transferred to and from the PC.

Features of the B Series Walkman include a 5 band graphic equalizer, Bass Boost, Voice recording, power light, AVLS, repeat, shuffle and can play MP3 and WMA files (non-DRM). [Read more…]

The Sony E Series Walkman, named the NWZ-E443, is a 4GB flash based MP3 and video player. Several versions of the E series Walkman are available which include the 4GB model mentioned above, an 8GB model and a 16GB model. Size wise it measures 44 x 9.3 x 86.8 mm and it weighs just 54g. The Walkman has a 2 inch screen that can display 240 x 320 pixels and is used to display photos, track details and video.

Other features include an FM radio as well as a mic allowing voice recording. Battery power allows 30 hours of audio playback and while there are a few MP3 players that can squeeze more out of their battery, 30 hours is still a very acceptable amount. [Read more…]