Review: Navigon 7200T Gets You There in Style

Posted by: weiganla on Nov 28 2008 - 13 views

How do you get places? My father likes traditional printed maps, but those are pretty impractical if you’re traveling solo. The last place I lived, I got around using Post-It Notes with abbreviated Google Maps descriptions scrawled on them. Some of my friends liked to print the whole Google Maps directions, but that also doesn’t work great without a copilot. My other alternative is getting lost. There has to be a better way!

I recently moved to a new state, and I’ll be spending most of my work life traveling. I’d been looking at purchasing a GPS device to use in my car anyway, so I was excited to take a look at one of Navigon’s latest and greatest, the 7200T.

 

The Navigon 7200T is a slim, stylish black unit that also hits hard in the features department, with highway lane assistance, lifetime free traffic updates, voice entry, Bluetooth calling, a 4.3" wide screen, text to speech ("turn left on Elm Street"), and more. However, what sets Navigon apart is its map views. Interface is crucial on a GPS, and the Navigon 7200T’s packs a lot of information onto one attractive screen.

Read on for the full review!

Read more »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Black Friday Discount at Proporta

Posted by: weiganla on Nov 27 2008 - 16 views

Here’s a quick hit on a special deal good tomorrow only:

Proporta offer you fantastic discounts on Black Friday

When Thanksgiving Day draws to a close and all that remains is a few pieces of cold turkey, Proporta are pretty sure that your thoughts will turn to grabbing the best bargains on Black Friday.

In England we don’t have Black Friday, but the idea of national discount day sounds pretty good to us. Whether you’re interested in kitting out your iPod or protecting your PDA, Proporta are offering an exclusive 20% discount to all customers who place orders on Black Friday.

Simply enter the promotion code BLACKFRIDAY at the cart page to receive your discount*.

Happy bargain hunting.

*Please note that this promotion applies to orders placed to the US and Canada only, and is only valid on Proporta branded hardware products ordered on the 11/28/2008.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Review: Jawbone 2

Posted by: weiganla on Nov 17 2008 - 89 views

If you’ve walked into an electronics store in the past few months, you’ve probably seen a Bluetooth headset display with a Jawbone 2 front and center. The New Jawbone by Aliph is one of the few mobile accessories to hit the mainstream. People who couldn’t name a single headset manufacturer, including Aliph, recognize the Jawbone.

The Jawbone is aspirational earwear, coveted by people who know the $130 price tag. By my count, this makes the Jawbone the first Bluetooth headset to become a popular status symbol. In my time as a reviewer at JAMM I’ve had plenty of people ask me about the latest gadget I’m trying out, but Aliph’s flagship headset is the only product so far that elicits tones of awe before I explain what it does.

When you pull out your credit card for a Jawbone 2, you are not simply buying a Bluetooth headset. If a headset with functional superpowers is what you want, you can skip the rest of this review because there are other products out there doing a more thorough job of playing telephone operator through a small thing that sits in your ear. So is the Jawbone just a pretty face?

Read more »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

24 Hours With the Touch Pro

Posted by: weiganla on Nov 06 2008 - 135 views

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock lately instead of reading JAMM, you might have heard that Sprint just released the latest HTC superphone to hit American shores — the Touch Pro. The things are disappearing practically before they come out of the packing boxes in stores, so it wasn’t easy getting my hands on one. 

Yes, I bought it. This is not a loaner I have to send back, it’s mine to keep and they can take it when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. (I should really try to stop channeling Charlton Heston.) Anyway.

A little background on me. About a month ago I resigned my membership in the very small Non-Tech-Employed JAMM Staff club and started a new job with a software company. We use Microsoft products for just about everything. Management is very strict about what goes on company machines — all those End User License Agreements that regular people speed-click through can bite us bad. My job will have me traveling about 75% of the time, and if I don’t have fantastic communications power I can’t be effective. And I’m with Sprint. Add all that up, and the only phone in the Sprint lineup that will play nicely with company resources and has enough horsepower to do what I need is the Touch Pro. It was either get a new phone or risk getting fired, and I like it there.

I’ve had the Touch Pro since yesterday, just enough time to develop some first impressions. This won’t be a full review (maybe later), but more of a diary entry. I haven’t installed any third-party software or even completely explored the out-of-box capabilities. I do know it makes phone calls. That’s important.

Read more »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Resco Is Cooking Up a Contact Manager

Posted by: weiganla on Oct 26 2008 - 41 views

Remember when Resco Explorer 2008 launched a few months back? One of the most popular file explorers for Windows Mobile got a… well, “facelift” is an understatement. It was a complete interface redesign, and I thought it looked great and lived up pretty well to the touch-friendly hype.

So, sometime after the product launch, I imagine this (completely invented) conversation taking place in Resco HQ:

Resco Guy 1: Wow, people are really liking our new Explorer interface  that is actually usable without a stylus and looks nice, too.

Resco Guy 2: Yeah, we should make another application like that.

Resco Guy 1: We’ve already given the touch treatment to everything else we make. We’re out of applications!

Resco Guy 2: Hmmm… Aha! How about a contact manager?

Resco Guy 1: Great idea! We’ll put up a “Coming Soon” product page and ask people for feature suggestions in the forums.

Resco Guy 2: Sure, but we definitely should include threaded SMS.

And that’s the story so far. Resco hasn’t announced a timetable for release, but judging by what they are saying, my guess is that Contact Manager will be going into beta sometime in the reasonably near future.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Review: Audio-Technica CKM-50 Earphones Bring Music To My Ears

Posted by: weiganla on Oct 22 2008 - 31 views

My iPod gets some pretty intense use, so having earphones I like is critical. There are hundreds of options out there, and even if a lot of them are either very expensive or total junk, I’ve noticed enough moderately priced sets from quality manufacturers that I decided it was time to upgrade. Besides, the freebies that came in the box tend to slip out of my ears at really annoying times.

I’m not going to pretend to be an audiophile, but I know what sounds and feels good to me. Audio-Technica’s CKM-50s do both, and with USBfever.com offering them for $54.99 they won’t break the bank.

I’ve spent a little time painstakingly jamming rock-hard canal earphones into the side of my head, only to have them fall out two minutes later so I’d have to repeat the whole uncomfortable process. But they sounded so good! The CKM-50s are a hybrid canal/earbud-style, with a speaker that sits down in the ear canal for better sound and a round neck that perches in the outer ear for fit and comfort. Imagine the iPod earbuds growing a rubbery nubbin from the speaker, and you’ll get the idea. I was interested to see whether the new hybrid design would give me the best of both worlds.

Read more »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!