Category Archives: Techy

SONOS PLAY:1 Compact Wireless Speaker Review

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Knowing that Sonos is the best manufacturer of wireless music system, it was indeed a big thrill to have known that they have released the smallest and yet the most affordable member of their wireless streaming line up. Meet and xperience HiFi crystal clear sound at any volume with Sonos Player:1. Read more of this SONOS PLAY:1 Compact Wireless Speaker Review to know more!

Click here for product price and more user reviews. (Black / White)

For an even greater news, in the spirit of Christmas, Sonos is giving away a Free SONOS BRIDGE with the Purchase of a SONOS PLAY:1, PLAY:3, or PLAY:5!  Sonos Play:1 does indeed makes it easier and much more affordable to to either expand or start your Sonos system and transforming your home listening experience to a whole new level.

How will this Compact Wireless Speaker keep you happy?

As with the the other members of the Sonos family, the Play:1 is yet again another smart speaker that is made up of both hardware and software that is carefully engineered to bring the best quality sound and easy accessible sound performance in a small pint-sized streaming device. This device has a well designed and customized mid-woofer and tweeter that gives off deep, loaded and astoundingly big sound which is indeed very impressive for such a small sized speaker.

Listening through Sonos Play:1, you will notice that distortion is very less even if it’s in full volume. The sound is powerful even at low ends and mids and highs has maintained its crisps giving you a great experience in listening to your favorite music where ever you are located in the room.

This pint-sized speaker features a new button on top that lets you play and pause you music with a single push of a button. Pressing the same button twice also makes you quickly skip from one track to another.  To make everything even better, Play:1 is built to with premium materials and rock-solid construction in order to last longer. In fact, sealed architecture has created a resistance to the most humid conditions in the home.

PROS

  • Mini and mighty – a tiny wireless speaker system that gives crystal clear HiFi sound
  • Fits anywhere – compact and flexible design that you can place anywhere at home
  • Easy to mount on walls
  • Just like the other members of the Sonos family, this speaker can be controlled using your smartphone or tablet nearby using the Sonos App
  • Listen to music from most popular music services like Spotify, Rdio, Napster, Last.fm and Hype Machine
  • Humidity resistant

CONS

  • Sonos app allows only one user account (so if your have a guest that wants to listen to their own playlist, this can be a problem)
  • This device is not portable.

Sonos clearly always makes sure of the quality of sound on their products. Play:1 is of course another great addition from their impressive line of products. A surprisingly great sound for a small device is not less the best reason why this device is highly recommended.

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SONOS PLAY:1 Compact Wireless Speaker for Streaming Music – (Black)

Canon PIXMA MX922 Wireless Color Photo Printer with Scanner, Copier and Fax Review

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For 9 years in a row, Canon has received the award from PCMag of 2012 Reader’s Choice Award for Service and Reliability for printers. Canon Pixma MX922 Wireless Office All-In-One Printer offers a lot of features that bring great quality printing as well as wireless capabilities to your home office. Let’s know more about this printer in this Canon PIXMA MX922 Wireless Color Photo Printer with Scanner, Copier and Fax Review.

Click here for product price and more user reviews.

This printer has very close similarities to Canon Pixma MX522 only that it offers much more extra features. These features include a better quality in printing photos, bigger paper capacity and ability of the printer to get the job done on optical disc printing.

What makes this printer remarkable?

Being a multi-function printer, let us first discuss on what things this printer can do in general. It can print, fax, and scan from a PC and also work as a stand alone copier and fax machine. If you have your documents from a USB, it also can both scan and print from it and have a preview from the 3 inch colored LCD when doing so. As for internet connection, you can do either Ethernet or WiFi with ease. Double sided printing is also made easy with this printer (with its duplexer), and it is also capable of automatic document feeder for scanning.

On the plus side, the Canon MX922 offers a higher capacity of ADF (auto document feeder) at 35 pages compared to previous models which only has up to 30 pages. Also, this printer offers more paper capacity of up to 250 sheets of plain paper (compared to 100 sheets from previous models), which makes it very convenient to be in use in offices without having the constant need to always refill the paper tray.

Setting the printer up is also relatively easy. Aside from this, as with other Canon printers, wireless printing is also easy using AirPrint – with which both the printer and your mobile device will be connected to a WiFi access point upon printing.

PROS

  • Print resolution of 9600 x 2400 maximum color dpi that produces substantial quality and detail in both your business documents and photos
  • 5-color ink system consists of a pigment-based black ink, and four dye-based inks and you only replace the color ink tank that runs out.
  • Has a dual function control that transform into a keypad in fax mode for easier operation.
  • Automatically print on both sides of the page without the hassle of turning it over manually. This can reduce your paper consumption and cost by up to 50%.
  • Auto Document Fix automatically analyzes and corrects both text and image documents so text will remain clear and easy to read with pronounced edges, and pictures will keep their true color with highlights, shadows, and dots being smoothed out.

CONS

  • Print speed is not too impressive (2.4 pages per minute ppm), and has quite a delay in printing.
  • Noise in printing is quite noticeable.
  • The design looks neat but seemed to be a bit flimsy.

If you are printing a lot of pages that speed of printing is a big requirement, then you might want to start looking elsewhere. This printer can be recommended for home, home office, and can also be of use for small offices. It has the output quality and paper capacity needed although  the resolution of color prints are not that great but also sufficient for home use.

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Canon PIXMA MX922 Wireless Color Photo Printer with Scanner, Copier and Fax

HP Chromebook 14 Review

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HP released HP Chrome 14 as one of its its Chrome OS laptops recently and there has been quite a few buzz about it in the laptop market. One thing remarkable about this laptop is that it has quite a sexy and sleek design that is more likely resembling to a MacBook and is available in different colors (White/Coral/Aqua). Get more details of laptop on this HP Chromebook 14 Review.

Click here for product pricing and more user reviews.

It’s pretty interesting to note that this laptop only runs on a 16GB or a 32GB of internal storage but this is probably because of the fact that as it is  running the cloud-based Chrome OS, HP would want the users to store most of their files on Google’s Drive cloud storage. Clearly the internal storage available isn’t much space, but Google has also bundled 100GB of cloud storage with the Chromebook – which is free only for the first two years.

What are the Good and the Not so Good about this laptop?

The design of this HP Chromebook 14  would be one of the things to get easily noticed if we are going to start on the good part. It’s pretty much looking good for an inexpensive price tag, smooth with rounded edges and also a vent-less and screw-less creation. It may look a bit cheap considering the fact that it is made of plastic material – but the design looks simple and elegant yet it feels sturdy. The plastic chassis of the computer is linked with a magnesium frame so it makes it light but strong. It’s not so thick as well (0.81 inches thick) however, it weighs 4.07 lbs which is quite heavy.

The screen display is not too brilliant but it’s enough with a 1366×768 resolution. It is clear, bright and the colors are somewhat vibrant although it is very glossy to it tends to reflect light. This laptop’s satin sparkle imprint finish is nothing special but for a 14 inch laptop,  you would appreciate that the keys are in perfect size and distance from each other which makes it rather easy to find the letters when typing.

PROS

  • Larger display than most Chromebooks
  • Connectivity: dual-band 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, 4G (optional)
  • Processor: 4th generation Intel Celeron 2955U
  • Excellent battery life
  • Great solid performance
  • I/O Ports: 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0, HDMI, Audio in/out combo jack, 3-in-1 card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC), Kensington lock

CONS

  • Shiny display catches a lot of glare and reflection
  • Low-end materials used

HP Chromebook 14 is not bad depending on the kind of use you have with your computer. If you are a person who needs solid performance for a laptop and does multiple tasks or gaming at once, this might not be a wise option for you. But if you are someone more concerned of the looks of the laptop – like the design and how neat it looks when you open it in a coffee shop or in the library then this can be a good choice. A sleek and stylish design with great performance and battery life are definite reason this laptop can be a good choice for moderate laptop users.

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HP Chromebook 14 (Snow White)

Dell Venue 8 Pro 32 GB Tablet Review

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Microsoft have recently released Windows 8.1 and thus presenting the Dell Venue 8 Pro 32 GB Tablet. This tab runs in full Windows 8.1 with an Intel Atom Quad Core processor. In light of a smooth versatile experience (same with a PC), this baby gives the complete performance of Windows 8.1 right in the palm of your hands and brings it everywhere you go. Read more on this Dell Venue 8 Pro 32 GB Tablet Review for more details.

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Designed to give a desktop-like performance, the the Dell Venue 8 helps you complete your office tasks, encourage your creative nature and build ideas rather quickly with its super fast Intel Atom™ processor Z3740 (up to 1.8GHz Quad-Core). The processor of this tab actually gives its edge over the Acer W3 and the early Windows 8 tablets since these two run on Dual Core.

What are the features of the Dell Venue Tablet?

Let’s start with the design. It’s not too thin, but it’s relatively easy to grab on one hand. It’s not too heavy as well (weighs 1.48 lbs) but it feels tough and solid with a really nice rubberized rear cover which makes it very easy to grab and it’s less slippery.

The display is quite remarkable, it has great view in different angles although you might have to make a few adjustments manually. To be able to get superb display quality, disable the auto-brightness settings as the display might seem to be a bit dimmed. Great colorful 8 inch display with  with HD (WXGA 1280 x 800) resolution.

It has a lone speaker that is pretty decent for the uses of the Venue 8. This device also comes with a digitizer pen (not a Wacom) but it has to be ordered separately. It’s also good to note that it has microSD expansion for extra storage and 2 GB of RAM.

PROS

  • 8” IPS HD touch display (1280×800)
  • Office Home and Student 2013 Tablet Edition included
  • 18WHr battery (would last for about for 10 hours)
  • 5 MP rear camera
  • Intel Atom Quad-Core processor (Z3740D); 2MB cache, up to 1.8 GHz
  • Runs on Windows 8.1

CONS

  • Windows key is located at the top of the device (not a big issue but it’s just a little odd that it’s not convenient to hit it from the front of the device)
  • Cameras are just “ok” – means not too sharp, colors of the pictures are a bit muddy looking and flat.

In conclusion, the features of this device is pretty much just sufficient for its price. It’s actually pretty good for its value. Other uses of this tablet is just “ok” and will do for office works and other projects. Honestly not so much thrilled with its audio capabilities (has little distortions on loud volume) as well as the camera. The interface is quite fast though – noting that it is run with Intel Atom Quad Core, so that makes a difference among all the other tablets of this class.

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Dell Venue 8 Pro 32 GB Tablet (Windows 8.1)

Livescribe 3 Smartpen – Standard Edition Review

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Livescribe made a breakthrough from last year with its creation of Sky WiFi pen that transforms your handwritten and even audio notes into digital documents. The one struggle on that pen however is that you would have to have a WiFi connecn to send and retrieve your notes, which is sometimes a little bit of a hassle. Worry no more and  say hello to Livescribe 3 Smartpen. Let us talk more about this smartpen in this Livescribe 3 Smartpen – Standard Edition Review.

Click here to check on the price.

This pen is designed not only to look  like a premium ballpoint pen but also to work and write like one. The rest of the magic happens when you pair it off with your tablet or smartphone then you would find many other uses with your notes more quickly and easily.

What are the features of this pen?

Let’s start with its design. At first look the pen could hardly be noticed as a gadget as it looks more like a premium ballpoint pen. In turning it on, you do not need to hit any button but instead you only have to twist the middle ring clockwise, which in turn also reveals the nib of the ballpoint. Pairing it up with your device has also never been easy using Bluetooth and it has LED lights to show connectivity as well as battery level (lasts 14 hours in between charges). There is also a nub on top of the pen than can also be used as a stylus for your device. This nub covers the micro USB port.

As with the previous versions of the pen,  the Livescribe 3 Smartpen – Standard Edition has an infrared camera at the tip that synchronizes well with the special Livescribe paper. This paper is imprinted with fine dot patterns that maps the location of the pen on the page.

The most exciting part of the pen is actually the app. The Livescribe+ app prompts your phone or tablet or any compatible device to connect to the pen once it launches. You can also find your pen with the Find My Pen function and make your pen beep aloud if you happen to lose it. This app can also turn your handwritten notes to searchable texts! It can do a lot more things too – like add photos, manage your notes and listen to your previous pen casts. The best part of the app is called “the Feed” where it is able to chronologically arrange your inputs and collate the relevant pieces together. It’s like having a virtual assistant that arranges all your stuff and can even identify numbers and email addresses to  help you arrange your contacts.

PROS

  • Convert handwriting to text to create Reminders, Appointments and Contacts
  • Organize, tag and search notes easily
  • Can be connected via Bluetooth
  • Long battery life and quick pairing
  • Create pencasts that sync recorded audio to your handwriting
  •  Share those notes and pencasts via email, Dropbox, Evernote or iCloud.

CONS

  • Only compatible to devices that are run with iOS ( iPhone 4s or newer, iPad 3rd Gen or newer,  iPod Touch 5th Gen or newer) and up to 4 compatible devices only.
  • Livescribe pens only work with Livescribe dot paper.

Livescribe 3 smartpen will be a good choice for those who wants their notes easily converted to a digitial copy and easily shared. Definitely this pen marks an elegant design with simple functionality. The integrated stylus cap down to the Swiss-made tungsten-carbide ink cartridge was pretty impressive and the the Livescribe 3 delivers the experience of a premium writing instrument and so much more.

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Livescribe 3 Smartpen – Standard Edition (APX-00016)