Bluetooth headsets are extensively used these because they give you freedom from wires. Hence people don’t mind paying a little more money and buy them separately. I recommend these devices to my friends who love to work out as there is no danger of wires coming in the way of the equipment.  Sony DR-BT160AS Active Style Wireless Stereo Headset is the latest wireless headset to come in my labs and it has a mouthful for a model name. The model name says ‘active style’ and this will give you the idea that the set is meant for people who go jogging in the morning or fitness freaks who like to work out all the time. This device is offered in two versions – the Sony DR-BT160AS and Sony DR-BT16IK. The latter comes with a adapter for iPod. You can use the set with the Apple product even though it doesn’t have Bluetooth. The adapter does the needful. I got the AS version in my labs for testing and this review applies to both the devices since they have the same features and audio quality.

This monitor looks exactly the same like the Samsung SyncMaster XL2370 and I strongly thing that this product was made to compete directly with the Samsung panel. This is a LED based computer display and the secret behind its thin profile is the use of LED technology. LED lets the panel to be really thin and gives better picture quality too. The stand of the TV is oval shaped and the panel wobbles a lot when you push it from sides. But there is no danger of it getting toppled over because the weight of the stand is distributed evenly through out the stand. I was disappointed to see that the LG Flatron E2350V doesn’t have many ergonomic options. You just get a back tilt and nothing else. The monitor can be tilted back to 10 or 90 degrees. If you push it all the way to 90 degrees, the monitor will be parallel to the wall. I don’t know why there is a 90 degree option. The stand cannot hold the display in this position, it falls down easily. There is no pivot, height adjustment or screen  [...]

We have seen a lot of cool USB designs and they have all been worth drooling upon. Manufacturers too have played a lot with the design of the USB thumb drive. They have let their imagination run wild. A thumb drive is one of the few peripherals of a computer which you carry around a lot and hence there is a lot of demand for cool USB designs. But I bet you have never heard of such a design. Check out the picture, this thumb drive has a shape a boot and looks super cool. The cost of this thumb drive is $25 which is a bit high but the manufacturer wants to cash in on the sexy design. I haven’t seen such a design on other thumb drives which is quite strange since there have been a lot of haphazard ideas been thrown at, at the thumb drive. The price of this device might be high but it will surely make you famous amongst your peers for the design. The size of the thumbdrive is 2 GB which is really low. 2 GB pen drives died quite a while ago and there  [...]

Asus VG236H is a monitor having a 120 Hz refresh rate which makes this product compatible with Nvidia 3D vision kit. This panel is thus targeted towards gamers. For testing, I connected this monitor to the DVI port of my Windows Vista computer. The performance was good but it was nowhere close to the Samsung PX2370, my current favorite. I was concerned about the color accuracy problems and the panel also occasionally coated the screen with a green tint. You can get rid of this green tint but you have to adjust the settings a lot and it is a chore. Changing the presets increases or decreases this green tint but it was there no matter what skin tone or color temperature settings I used. Finally, I accessed the RGB values and then adjusted the green to 85. At this point, the green tint was least irritating. Also be wary of the fact that you will have to adjust the red to 94 or else the whites will appear pinkish. I put the Asus VG236H through the Black Level test and saw that the dark grays  [...]

NEC MultiSync PA271W is not your standard monitor for everyday use. It is made for professionals and the high price tag should make it clear. This screen is targeted at graphic designers or alike who yearn for great accuracy in color and need plethora of features. I was overwhelmed by the weight. This behemoth of a monitor weighs about 30 pounds which is seven pounds more than the Dell U2711 which belongs to a similar price range. The extra weight makes the NEC MultiSync PA271W really sturdy. I knocked it from the sides to see if it could withstand the jerks and wasn’t surprised to see that the monitor refused to budge at all. Regular home use monitors easily topple over with even a slight push since they are quite light weight. The wide flip stand also contributes to keeping the monitor really sturdy. The monitor is not that slick looking either, its thickness makes it a bit ugly but that is still acceptable considering all the features that it has inside. NEC MultiSync PA271W  [...]

Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 is a wireless mouse and feature wise, this pointer is quite similar to Explorer Mini but it costs less. Priced at $40 the Wireless 4000 is based on Microsoft's latest Bluetrack sensing technology. Bluetrack sensor lets you use the mouse on a wide range of surfaces which are quite challenging to traditional laser mice. If you are looking for good ergonomics, then this mouse is probably not for you. On the bright side, I thought that this mouse takes care of lots of issues that made us balk at its predecessor. That said, get this pointer if you are looking for a good travel mouse. Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 has a simple plug and play interface and installing it is quite easy. All you have plug in the mouse and you are ready to go. You get a 'Nano Transceiver' for the mouse which must be plugged in the computer while the mouse is being used. It is really tiny but there is a compartment beneath the mouse  [...]

The Western Digital My Passport Studio is a nice portable external hard drive with 640GB storage and customizable electronic label that works even when the drive is not plugged in. It is one of the most portable and full-featured Western Digital hard drives. The Studio drive only offers USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 connections. On the down side, it does not support USB 3.0 standard and needs improvement in its FireWire performance, especially for Windows. Actually, $200 priced 640GB the Studio is preformatted for Macs and can also work on Windows computer. You can also get its 320GB and 500GB versions for $150 and $180 respectively. Noteworthy that My Passport Studio drive is available in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. The electronic label can show any 12 characters long message that is enough for depicting name of owner or drive content. It also displays available storage amount and storage gauge. The Western Digital My Passport  [...]

Logitech’s Anywhere Mouse MX contains Darkfield laser technology which is the manufacturers answer to Microsoft’s BlueTrack laser tracking system. The Darkfield can work on all surfaces even on nonmirrored glass, something that BlueTrack cannot do. MX also has the Logitech’s new unifying technology, a great feature if you are a fan of Logitech’s products and don’t use anything else. It can connect up to six compatible mice and keyboard to a single USB receiver, thus you keep your USB ports free. However, Logitech has slapped an $80 price tag on it. Microsoft’s Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 costs about $40 and has similar features, so why would you spend twice on this mouse? The small size of the Logitech’s Anywhere Mouse MX makes it travel friendly; it will fit easily in to your laptop bag. The shape of the pointer is sculpted in such a way, that it can be used by a left hander and a right hander with equal comfort. However, the two buttons  [...]

M-Audio speakers are used more by music producers and musicians than computer users. Maybe it is because the price is a bit high however it is accompanied by awesome sound quality. This $99 speaker set is the budget friendly version of the $150 Studiophile AV 40. This speaker set looks a lot like AV 40 and the quality also is almost the same. However this set uses a cheaper amplifier and hence the sound quality is a bit low. However all this is done in order to bring the price down. The cut down on hardware certainly won’t go well with audio enthusiasts and we would advice them to go for AV 40 if you don’t want to compromise on sound quality. This speaker also has the same silk, ferrofluid cooled, .75 inch dome tweeters that the AV 40 has. There are jacks on the left speaker for auxiliary input and headphone output. Other than this there is an illuminated knob for controlling the volume. The behind the left speaker, there is RCA inputs and  [...]

We all know Logitech’s prowess when it comes to making keyboard and mice. It is the one of the biggest makers of such peripherals and you will seldom have anything about it to complain about. They make all kinds of keyboard right from gamming to light usage and the Wireless Desktop MK700 belongs to the latter category but by no means is a cheap set. It is made for the budget user who wants a modest keyboard and mice without all the rings and bells. This set doesn’t have Logitech’s unifying receiver something that lets us connect multiple Logitech’s peripherals through a single USB device. Rest of the features like great ergonomics, adjusting the scroll wheel of the mouse and great battery life are still there. So the most unique selling point of this keyboard in the set is the curved keys, which is called ‘Incurve’. The keys are concave in the middle and curved towards upwards on the edges. Logitech said this is done to provide better  [...]