Category — gadgets

It had to happen I guess, I’ve had my 16Gb iPhone less than 6 months and there’s every indication that some time next month the next version will be hitting shelves.

Rumors are coming from all directions, starting with O2 UK discounting the 8Gb unit by £100 and subsequently running out of stock to AT&T telling their staff they can’t take leave in a 4 week window from mid-june and execs from several firms giving “off the record” hints of a 3G device.

As June also brings the big 2.0 software update it makes sense that there would be some 2.0 hardware - I’m guessing the features between v1 and v2 will only really differ when it comes to UMTS/HSDPA so I’m not entirely fussed, but I have a few friends who are already working out if they can bear the cost of cutting their existing contracts short…

My commute is pretty easy so the data connectivity side of things isn’t of particular interest, EDGE is fine for reading the odd blog as I travel - in fact the only positive for me is that all the 2.5G haters will hopefully suck it up and buy one and hopefully increase the draw/demand to create decent stuff for the app store

It happened a few days ago but I thought I’d post to raise my hand as one of the affected - my Xbox 360 died this week.

To its credit, it was one of the original units and lasted almost 18 months before the red ring of uh-oh appeared. Bleh.

Thankfully Microsoft are covering repairs of all units up to three years old with this problem so it’s just a matter of packaging it up and being without it for almost a month. Ugh.

Adding insult to injury PGR4 went missing in the recent postal strikes, only to arrive a couple of days ago, so it will be almost two months from release to me being able to fire it up. Bleh. Ugh. Bah.

Technorati Tags: Xbox 360

Whilst test-driving my new Razer Lachesis I’ve been digging through my old periphery and uncovered my Logitech G15 keyboard. I stopped using the G15 after an unfortunate drink spillage incident and consigned it to the keyboard graveyard along with my diNovo and a couple of microsoft keyboards.

Today I’ve finally decided to engage in a little belated spring cleaning and before binning the G15 plugged it in to remind myself what wasn’t working after the unhappy incident.

Miraculously the G15 now works fine (well, almost), 8 months of drying out appears to have done the trick, with one exception… Hitting the tab key correctly tabs out of a text field but before leaving the field inserts a ‘9′ - any ideas?

I wasn’t particularly bothered by its loss originally as the screen function wasn’t supported in the games that I play, but today I stumbled on an add-on to provide in-game stats for Battlefield 2142, which would be really handy to work out how badly I’m doing

Technorati Tags: Logitech G15, Battlefield 2142

Apple’s Mighty Mouse is one of those love-or-hate devices. When I got my iMac one was provided in the box, so I have it a whirl and was pleasantly suprised. So much so that I’ve bought one for my work machine and now install them as standard on all the new macs I buy.

A year later and the Mighty Mouse on my home machine is beginning to show its limitations. While ideal for pootling around desktop apps I’ve recently started playing Battlefield 2142 again and needed something a little more serious (or at least reliable in the mouse-wheel department).

Not content with a normal OEM mouse, and having been warned off the Logitech Revolution MX by John I’ve opted for the Razer Lachesis which as you can see from my flickr photostream has just arrived. I was impressed that they have a mac driver. I’ll post some kind of verdict after the weekend.

Technorati Tags: razer, lachesis, mighty mouse, battlefield 2142

Since the acquisition of my iPod touch this week I’ve found myself using the built in Safari browser much more than any of my previous mobile devices.

With the exception of sites driven by heavy javascript, or unsupported technologies such as Silverlight and Flash, pages load pretty quickly and render well.

The one drawback of my redesign to TT is the fixed-width nature, I’ve installed the iWphone plugin and theme from ContentRobot so pages should look a little different when visited from the iPhone/iPod touch. I’m also testing out the iPhone Mobile Admin from Jared Bangs and Dan Cameron although I think I’ll stick to posting from Scribefire for the time being.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, iPod Touch, iWphone, iPhone Mobile Admin

For some time now I’ve been meaning to write something about our new(-ish) Skype-enabled DECT phones but a combination of other priorities and frankly chronic laziness has meant that any chance of a mini-review hasn’t happened.

The concept seemed fairly simple, unlike the SPH100D which was a WiFi handset (with appauling battery life) the Netgear SPH200D we opted for uses DECT and the base radio unit has an ethernet connection to hook in to a router for Skype.

While the handset claims to be signed in to the service 24×7 (we have a dedicated Skype account for this) I can see from running Skype at work and on Fring that it’s more down than up, so isn’t a great deal of use.

I can rule out the connection or router as being to blame as I host other test kit across the same link, so have conceded defeat and am instead opting to dabble with ‘real’ VOIP using a Sipura device now known as the PAP2T from Linksys. The plan is to set it up with an account from www.voipuser.org and refer everyone to an 0844 number when calling us, the revenue from which covers our outbound calls.

As this sits between the PSTN connection to the phone it can be used with the SPH200D turning the normal PSTN mode into an additional SIP route (potentially using our second broadband link) and still has the fallback of the BT line.

There’s plenty of scope for it to all end in tears, I’ll post when it’s all set up.

Technorati Tags: VoIP, Linksys, PAP2T, Skype, SPH200D

My super.fi 5’s died this weekend - I was disconnecting the cable from an earbud and the connector (attached to the headphone) came clean out, wires attached (see my photostream for the gory details…). Safe to say it put me on a bit of a downer

All was not lost. I’ve emailed to the folks at Ultimate Ears, complete with photo and they’ve agreed to replace them. Hurrah!

Technorati Tags: Ultimate Ears, super.fi

Much like John, I’ve been contemplating an upgrade from my 5.5gen iPod. I might not have the same 4hrs of commute per day to tackle, but the next couple of months will see a lot of jaunting between London and Cardiff, plus the new iPod Touch is a bit too shiny for my magpie-like gadget sense to ignore.

Hearing that devices were pretty scarce (the iPod Touch Locator site is a great resource if you’re curious on stock levels) I made a preorder a week ago, with devices due ‘in around 3 weeks’ only to find that 6 days later a brand new 16Gb iPod touch arrives on my desk. Hurrah!

Am going to spend the next 48hrs faffing with it, providing I remember I’ll write some kind of verdict before the weekend.