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Latest Gear Live Videos
AGF Beetle iPhone 4 case review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Apple, Smartphones, Handhelds, Product Reviews,
The folks over at AGF have worked with AT&T on bringing their Beetle case for the iPhone 4 to market. We were sent an assortment of them to play around with and test on our iPhone 4 model, and we wanted to report back to you guys with some of our thoughts on the case.
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Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Microsoft, Product Reviews, Software,
Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac ships tomorrow, and AppleInsider's got the scoop on how it performs. From their review:
If you’re an Office user already, the new Office 2011 is a no-brainer upgrade. It’s wildly faster, looks and feels much better, and delivers strong advancements in every app, particularly the vastly improved experience of the new Outlook over the pitiful Entourage.If you’re shopping around for a productivity suite on the Mac, the new Office 2011 delivers a much nicer experience than the rather quirky but free OpenOffice, and offers the advantages of a real desktop app over a web based suite like Google Docs.At around $120 retail for the Outlook-free individual version (you can install on one machine) or $150 for the family pack (which can be installed on up to three machines), the “Home and Student” Office 2001 for Mac suite is now affordable enough to compete against weaker free alternatives, and might attract some users eyeing Apple’s cheaper iWork package.However, Office 2011 for Mac—despite a sharp discount over previous editions—is still about the same price as Apple’s “Box Set” deal that includes a copy of Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iLife together with the full version of iWork.
Read More 
| AppleInsider
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HTC Surround review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Handhelds, Microsoft, Product Reviews,
We performed our Windows Phone 7 review while using an HTC Surround smartphone from AT&T. Now that we've got the overarching review of Microsoft's big comeback in the mobile operating system world out of the way, we wanted to focus on the HTC surround itself. It's an interesting one, as AT&T is going to launch with three Windows Phone 7 devices come November 8th. The Samsung Focus has that Super AMOLED display and is nice and thin, and the LG Quantum has a slider QWERTY keyboard, which makes it thicker. The HTC Surround is also a thicker slider, but rather than a keyboard, it packs in a pair of Dolby Mobile and SRS Wow "virtual surround" speakers with a kickstand. This is obviously aimed at the Windows Phone 7 customer who plans to use their device as an entertainment device for music and video, and its got 16GB of internal memory to hold that stuff. Is it worth your attention? Keep on reading for our verdict!
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Windows Phone 7 review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Features, Handhelds, Microsoft, Product Reviews, Software,
When Apple announced the iPhone three years ago, the entire mobile industry started to play catch-up to what Apple was doing. It took a while, but slowly companies like Google, RIM, and Palm eventually released smartphone operating systems like webOS and Android that aimed to compete. However, not much was heard from Microsoft. Once heralded as a major player in the smartphone business with Windows Mobile, Microsoft took a hell of a long time to come up with anything that could compete against iOS, Android, webOS, and really anything else out there. Then, finally, they announced Windows Phone 7 Series, and smartly dropped the "Series" part when just about everyone made fun of them for coming up with a name that was more convoluted than necessary.
Microsoft wanted to tell the world that they were serious about competing, even going so far as to hold a funeral for the iPhone and BlackBerry. A bold (and ridiculous) statement for sure, but now Windows Phone 7 has arrived, launching tomorrow over in Europe, and arriving in the USA on November 8th. Has Microsoft actually learned anything by sitting back and observing the smartphone wars over the past few years, sitting on the sidelines while taking notes? We've been playing with Windows Phone 7 non-stop for a while now, and we're sharing our answers with you here in our Windows Phone 7 review.
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Apple TV review (2010): 5 Things We Like
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, HDTV, Home Entertainment, Product Reviews,
We know you’ve been waiting for our Apple TV review, and we’ve been playing with Apple’s second try at a home theater set top box for about ten days now, and figured it was time to report back with our thoughts. The thing is, it really is a lot of the same in terms of usability and interface. There aren’t many changes (yet!) to that side of things, despite things being very different under the hood. The new Apple TV is a lot smaller, and runs iOS 4, and is priced at just $99. It’s centered around a focus on renting movies and TV shows rather than purchasing them. It’s also got Netflix integration and the new AirPlay functionality that allows you to fling video and audio content from your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch right to the Apple TV with ease.
Rather than go into this as a full review, we figured we’d focus instead on five aspects of the new Apple TV that we like, and five things about the Apple TV that we hate. So let’s jump into five things we like about the Apple TV:
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Apple TV review (2010): 5 Things We Hate
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Home Entertainment, Product Reviews,
We’ve already given you the first portion of our Apple TV review when we gave you five things we like about the Apple TV. Now it’s time we dig into the things that we straight up hate about Apple’s second try at a living room set top box. There are some things that were omitted or ignored that we kind of can’t stand, and other decisions for sub-optimal experiences that were seemingly made just because Apple felt like they could get away with it. Read on for our list of five things that we hate about the second generation Apple TV.
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Toshiba BDX2700 Blu-ray player review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Product Reviews,
If you were wondering how Toshiba‘s mid-range Blu-ray player fared when compared to everything else out there, the guys over at TweakTown have put together a nice review of the device.
Toshiba was once a major player in the two-year long “High Definition Wars”, pitting the HD-DVD format against Blu-ray disc. With fans in each camp, the ultimate fate of HD DVD came about when manufacturers began dropping support for that format and switched over to releasing movies on Blu-ray alone, thus cutting HD-DVD off at the knees. Though the format still lives on today in used movie stores all across the country, Toshiba eventually dropped all support for their competing format and began releasing Blu-ray disc players of its own.
The BDX2700 is a replacement to Toshiba’s first generation Blu-ray player; the BDX2000 (released almost a year ago) and is the current top of the line player (the BDX2500 is a cheaper version which lacks built-in wireless connectivity). The BDX2700 is a “basic” Blu-ray player, which is perfect for those who are upgrading from the straightforward DVD disc players and are confused by the myriad of connectivity options and “apps” that are required for so many consumer electronics these days. Video connections are the typical HDMI, component and composite, while the audio side of things drops the coaxial connection in favor of full analog connectivity (in the event that your sound system doesn’t decode the Blu-ray lossless audio codecs).
Click on over to the site for the full scoop.
Read More | TweakTown
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NeatDesk for Mac review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Features, PC / Laptop, Peripherals, Product Reviews,
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got tons of paper sitting around that would be better served being scanned into your computer and kept in some sort of document management system, rather than in piles around the house or on your desk. A couple of weeks ago, we got the NeatDesk for Mac Desktop Scanner system in for review. The NeatDesk (available on Amazon) is really more than just a scanner, since it also includes the NeatWorks document management software, which in and of itself claims to do a lot, and works with a bunco of other scanners as well (you can buy NeatWorks software on its own.) When the scanner arrived, we were excited to give it a try…but that feeling soon turned to impending doom. If this thing was anything like the NeatReceipts scanner we’ve been using for the past couple of years, it meant that we’d be in for a day full of long, slow scans. You know what? We couldn’t have been more wrong.
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EXOGEAR Exolife iPhone 4 battery case review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Apple, Smartphones, Handhelds, Product Reviews,
Since the iPhone 4 form factor was such a radical redesign from the iPhone 3GS, one annoyance was that cases fitted for the previous device simply don’t fit the new one. Makes sense, but for us that meant parting with our Mophie Juice Pack, which we’ve been rocking for a couple of years. The great thing about it is that it’s basically a case that doubles the power of your iPhone, and it’s indispensable when you are out on the road or traveling. Mophie’s been saying that an iPhone 4 case is coming soon, but they’ve been scant on details, and it looks like a company called EXOGEAR has beat them to the punch with the Exolife iPhone 4 Rechargeable Battery Case. We’ve been using it for a while, and have our thoughts for you after the jump.
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The Samsung Epic 4G is the second phone from Sprint to take advantage of their speedier 4G service, the original being the EVO 4G. The Epic 4G is part of Samsung’s Galaxy S line of Android smartphones, although visually it’s a departure from others like the Samsung Captivate, Fascinate, and Vibrant from other carriers. You do still get the TouchWiz 3.0 interface, 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and the 4-inch Super AMOLED display. So what’s different, aside from the phone being able to access Sprint’s 4G network? Well, it’s a Galaxy S phone with a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard. So, is it worth your time—and more importantly—your money? We’ve got our full review for you, so click on through.
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