If you’re less than chuffed with the distinctly average sound of the bundled iPhone headphones, or you’re fed up being a mugger-attracting, walking advert for Apple products with those ‘iconic’ white headphones, then a headphone upgrade is always a good call.
If you’re looking to upgrade the deeply average earphones that came bundled with your iPod, iPhone or MP3 player, Sennheiser’s natty CX550 MkII noise-isolating earphones could represent a tempting investment.
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It’s not exactly a glamorous kind of job, but moving files about is an essential part of computing, and let’s be honest – Windows can get a little flaky when there’s a lot of files to be shifted.
For years on end, SplashID has been our password manager of choice, offering a simple, secure way of managing hundreds of passwords and personal details, both on our handheld and desktop.
As well as being a handy way of keeping track of log-ins, bank details and the like, the program has proved a great travelling companion, with its advanced Blowfish encryption and password protection giving us peace of mind even if some ne’er do well nabbed our laptop or smartphone.
Sat pretty in the middle of their dSLR range is Sony’s new A500, a 12.3 megapixel snapper serving up enhanced Live View, Auto HDR functionality and some nippy high-speed continuous shooting capabilities.
The Sony Alpha A500 uses the new Exmor CMOS sensor for better low-light images, serving up an improved ISO range which now covers a hefty range of 200-12800 ISO, backed by the SteadyShot anti-shake system.
There’s no end of weird and wonderful looking powered speakers available for hooking up to iPods, MP3 players and computers, but we were only interested in one thing for Chez Wirefresh: the best possible sound.
Seeing as we listen to music in our office all day long – either blasting out Spotify/Media Monkey through our PC, or playing tunes from iPhones or our Pure DMX-60 DAB/CD player – our budget stretched to around £250.
It wasn’t long ago that fancy twin monitor sets ups were the sole preserve of hotshot traders, high-flying graphics pros and, err, security guards, but recent price crashes have seen LCD multi-screen set ups becoming more affordable.
We’ve been using various versions of ACDSee dating back to the year dot, and our loyalty has been rewarded by a fast, stable program which has done a grand job of indexing our hefty photo collection, now numbering tens of thousands of snaps.
For some time the program has been offered in two flavours – the pricier ’Pro’ version and the cheaper, consumer focused ACD See Photo Manager – with the flagship version certainly looking the part, resplendent in subdued greys and ‘pro’ black.
We’ll have to wait a while for these updated models to make it over to the UK, but the first reviews for the new Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus smartphones are coming through from across the pond.
Physically, there’s only been a few minor tweaks to the Pre, with the glowing round button on the front of the phone being replaced by the same ‘invisible’ touch-LED as the Pixi, making the handset look even more like a “polished stone” and reducing a bit of clutter from the gestures area.
SanDisk scored a huge hit with their Clip range of budget MP3 players, and their updated Clip+ wisely doesn’t fiddle with the winning formula and continues to offer a compelling alternative to the more-expensive iPod Shuffle.
Available in three capacities, the new Sansa Clip+ adds a microSD slot to the available built-in memory (2GB – 8GB), letting users cheaply increase the capacity by up to a 16GB.
We’ve been repeatedly asked which is the best phone between the sprightly contender Palm Pre and the all-conquering Apple iPhone 3GS, so we thought we’d put them in the ring together and let them slug it out over 10 rounds.
It’s going to be quite a scrap, so pull up a chair and check out the action. The two heavyweights will thump it out over ten rounds in two parts, with the final part following soon. Ding ding, seconds out!
Created by a family business in Brooklyn, USA, Grado’s philosophy is to simply create the best sounding headphones they can, with sound quality being placed far ahead of streetwise looks and funky features.
That’s the kind of philosophy we like when it comes to audio products, and the Grado SR60i’s are certainly gloriously untroubled by the vagaries of fashion, looking look like something WW2 pilots might have strapped on to their heads before going off for a dogfight.
There’s something about Leica cameras that create such involuntarily and illogical feelings of desire you may find yourself pondering over how much your granny might fetch on eBay.
Perhaps it’s the rock solid construction, the old school analogue dials or the sheer engineering quality on display that creates such a moistening of photographers’ gussets, or perhaps it’s the impeccable lineage of world famous photographers who have made Leica cameras their weapon of choice.
It may strange to see a camera released well over a year ago sitting at the top of our Best High End Compacts list, but we think the Lumix LX3 still offers an unsurpassed set of features in a beautifully elegant package.
Scoring second place in our Best High End Compact Camera 2009 awards is Canon’s heavyweight PowerShot G11 digicam.
The G11 is the current flagship of Canon’s G-series range which has established an excellent reputation amongst pro photographers and dial-twitching amateurs for producing the highest quality images in a tough package.
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