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A handheld stain and odour removal so if your pet misbehaves it need not be a disaster. So this is not a carpet vacuum or carpet room cleaner this is a handheld battery operated spot cleaner so ideal for an accidental spill or pet misbehaving.
The Bissell Stain Erasermeasures 40x11x16cm and weights 1845grams when empty. Apart from the main cleaning unit there is a different brush head the mains lead to charge the internal solid battery and two 236mL bottles of cleaning liquid which are Spot and Stain and OXY which a small amount is mixed with the water you inset in the unit. No flashy box or packaging just a plain brown cardboard container it seems at least one company has heeded the warnings on waste and recycling.
The HTC U12 Life is a smartphone with a 6 inch 18:9 screen and dual camera that sits in the middle ground between the premium products and the real budget phones.
The phone, which is available in either Moonlight Blue or Twilight Purple, is roughly 160 x75 x 8.5mm and, feeling solid in one’s hand, weighs 175g. The lower two-thirds of the back, which HTC describes as being made of acrylic glass, is covered with very narrow etched horizontal stripes which provide an attractive effect as well as enhancing grip and helping to reduce fingerprints. It has a conventional layout.
When the Fairy Godmother calls. You come running to help with the tidying-up.
We are now off on a trip to Albian where the most powerful wizards, sorcerers and magicians dwell. Your arrival will coincide with the start of the preparations being undertaken for a grand meeting of those involved with magic at the Convention of Magic Masters. The site for this year’s meeting is that of the castle belonging to The Fairy Godmother who just happens to be your Aunt Gwendolyn.
While I have a Nespresso machine I like the taste of Cappuccinos and Dolce Gusto machines do one as good as a decent Barista can make but of course there are two great advantages, you make them at Home and they are a quarter of coffee shop price.
It is 37cm tall, 26cm from back to front and 12cm wide. A rather modernistic design it can hold up to two pints of water. Unlike other machines this come fully assembled and once you have removed the plastic covering the shiny finish you just need to run some water through in case there are impurities from the production line.
This next product is made up of tools that allow you to take control of the different aspects of your digital life.
Not wanting to get behind the times, Nero has released the 2019 version of the company’s multimedia package while we still have a few months left in 2018. As is Nero’s normal practice with its flagship product, Nero 2019 is released in Standard and Platinum versions. I have been looking at the Platinum product which consists of six titles namely Nero Video, Nero MediaHome, Nero BackItUp, Nero Recode, Nero Burning Rom and Audials Music Recorder.
Like a number of Dell offerings it comes with a choice of hard disk, memory and processor options all under the same name of G5 15. So you can choose exactly what options you want at least until next year and then who knows what.
Not a light machine and while it does have good battery life and worked fine on my Wi-Fi those into gaming will probably use it on mains power in a single place and even plug in the Ethernet. It is 38.5x26.5x2.5cm and weights 2.82kilos. The unit as supplied to me had an Intel i5 8300H CPU running at 2.3GHz with 8GB of RAM a small 128GB SSD drive ‘C’ with around 38GB free and a 1TB hard drive ‘D’. The viewable screen is 34.5x19.
Along with juke boxes and slot machines, these full sized gaming devices dominated many social locations in recent times.
Like many gamers of a certain age, my earliest digital gaming experiences were heavily influenced by Bandai Namco titles. Those were the days when many hours were spent tackling various addictive games on a chosen platform. In my case it was a Video Genie computer that was a clone of the popular Tandy TRS80 system of that time. Sadly Radio Shack and Tandy’s time in the spotlight has long since passed as has some other brands of yesteryear.
Some things I test are more appropriate than others and here a device that I use frequently as my blood pressure does tend to vary which according to a consultant at the local ‘older persons clinic’ is because my diabetes is not great.
While I was aware that when I tend to bend down to do something like tie my shoe laces I do know that on standing up things do swim around a bit. The differences of your blood pressure are really shown by taking it sitting, standing and lying and while in all of us there will be a difference in those three scenarios having a device attached that can record the differences can be very helpful in determining any real problems.
The C27G1 is a member of AOC’s range of curved screen gaming monitors. With a 27 inch full HD screen with 1920 x 1080 resolution, 144Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync it is targeted at the keen gamer.
This curved screen monitor, which has a 16:9 aspect ratio, has a 1800R curvature so that the centre of the screen is set back about 25mm with respect to the edges. It is 61cm wide overall with its black bezel being about 8mm wide on three sides and about 20mm at the lower edge which is then enhanced by a red styling strip running across the bottom. This styling strip is repeated on the rear of the monitor.
When Stonehenge explodes you are called upon to rescue your sister and stop a dual threat.
"Domini Games","Labyrinth ofHaving visited Stonehenge once, by dawn’s early light on the way to a folk festival at Falmouth, I was drawn to this title of Labyrinth of the World – Stonehenge Legend. Combining the development skills of Domini Games and Big Fish Games, this title belongs to the popular Hidden Object Adventure genre. I have been looking at the Collector’s edition of the game which comes with a number of bonus items.
I am sure we all get spiders in the bath and I am told that autumn is the peak time. While some things freak me out, spiders are not at the top of my hate list but really large ones can be challenging especially those that do not want to be put in a glass to be disposed of.
So this tool supplied by Robert Dyas could be the answer especially if one metre if quite close enough to get to one if they do freak you out. Another advantage of the one metre length of the handle is that you do not need to get on a chair for those spiders who are higher up unless of course you have extremely high ceilings. The head is made of groups of 8cm long white plastic bristles interspersed with single bristles.
Unlike our personal shadows, which follow us where ever we go, whether visible or not, the Blade company’s Shadow (note the capital letter indicating its different status) is an entirely different entity. Let me explain
Blade is a French company founded in 2015 by Emmanual Freud, Acher Criou and Stéphane Héliot. The company was originally set up to serve the French market but has recently expanded its influence into a more worldwide spread. This has been brought about by success at raising ₡51 billion in order to help it reinvent the way personal computers are used worldwide by creating the PC-as-a-service. otherwise known as Shadow, residing in the Cloud.
A company that started as Anti Virus protection but now so many nasty things are not strictly viruses but other ways have been found to affect your PC or mobile device and perhaps the most noticeable is stealing your wallet the last mentioned is not literal but once your cards are compromised they do remove everything you have and even things you don’t like your sanity.
This is an item sold on an annual subscription so even if you purchase just before the latest version is issued you automatically get updated. While McAfee were one of the original Anti Virus companies some people were reluctant to use it as it slowed down the computers performance a feature that has long since been sorted so you should not notice any difference before or after. While they still do a basic Anti Virus product they also do two others called Total Protection and Live Safe.
With a choice of colour schemes, this next smartphone has excellent photographic options.
Joining Huawei’s impressive family of smartphone handsets is the company’s P20 model. With dimensions of 70.8 x 149.2 x 7.65 mm (W x H x D) and weighing 165g (including the non-removable internal battery pack), the P20 handset comes in a range of different colours. Depending upon your sense of style, you could opt from a choice that includes Morpho Aurora, Pearl White, Twilight Black, Champagne Gold, Pink Gold and Midnight Blue.
Having recently told you about a set of Gels (earbuds) from Jabra that I requested at a Xmas In July event I now delve to the bottom of the items given at that event and find a pair of corded buds also from the same company Jabra.
While Active Noise Cancelling is normally something that larger over ear headphones offer this set of earbuds have it and few if any other recent earbuds have offered this feature. There are three sizes of silicon Gels (the bit that goes into the ear) these are small medium and large as well as three sets of wings (often called fins) the bit that fit into the outer ear to hold things in place for those who do more vigorous exercise with the earbuds in situ.
The Hitachi 460W 2.1 soundbar model AXS460BTU offers a convenient way of providing reasonable quality sound – something that slim-line TVs often lack.
When your sweetheart is kidnapped by cold-hearted twins, you must defeat the odds with the help of a ferret.
There are “Dark Days to Come” or so warns the subtitle of Witches Legacy. This Big Fish developed game belongs to the Hidden Object Adventure genre of game play. I have been looking at the Collector’s Edition of the game which features a number of bonus items but more on these a little later. As usual with games of this type, profiles can be created to record the progress made by individual players.
This is the second of three cameras from FujiFilm; this is an interchangeable lens camera that made a short visit to me courtesy of a Christmas In July event. Even after nearly two weeks of use I am still barely out of using Auto mode although it has accompanied me on a range of visits while out and about in the course of my travels for a range of events.
The FujiFilm X-T2 measures 15x9.5x12.5cm with the supplied 18>55mm lens fitted fully retracted, it weights 861grams. Like the previous offering it is powerful and really a small professional camera. A thorough read of the manual is a must to do more than use it in Auto mode as anyone who knows a little about cameras will realise that this is something that requires - no demands - respect. It is a 24MP offering also capable of 4K video capture.
As part of its latest range of products, Philips has released a total body shaving device.
With a title that clearly indicates its targeted area, the Philips OneBlade Face + Body product is a shaver whose general appearance might give the impression that this is a manually operated device. However appearances can be deceptive. In fact this particular shaving device, with its offer to trim, edge and shave any length of hair, is a rechargeable battery driven product.
Not something to stick onto your table to roll out the pasta to very thin slices or ribbons but a tool that allows you to put the ingredients into and, out of the unit comes the pasta – and noodles – ready to be cooked and eaten.
If you make pasta you need space and time and also muscles and probably a machine that clips onto the side of a table to pass the dough through several times. Is it worth the time and effort? However if there was a machine that you fed with the ingredients for making pasta and out the other end comes pasta ready to cook then I suspect the answer to my question might well be in the affirmative. It is 35x13.
Christmas is coming and Hamleys has a range of toys waiting to be purchased.
Yes it’s the time of year when lots of software companies vie to be the first to bring their ‘2019’ products to market. Here is one that I use all year not just while I review it and on a couple of occasions when disaster has struck it was there to help.
So let’s start with what is new. First an all in one bootable media and backup tool on an external hard drive which means even if Windows will not boot providing your PC will run past the BIOS this can kick in. Acronis Active Protection now extends to NAS boxes so Ransomware should be held in check.
With the 24V2Q well-known brand AOC offers a 1920x1080 16:9 IPS panel slim-line monitor in a stylish package aimed at those who want reasonable performance without breaking the bank.
Although not noticeable at first glance, the screen tapers from being about 15mm thick at the bottom to about 7.5mm at the top. The glass of the frameless monitor extends right to the edge while the narrow black bezel is only about 5mm wide on three sides and 20mm on the lower edge.
With a mixture of match 3 action and other tasks, this next game sets you the challenge of saving your world.
Described as a magical Match 3 Adventure, Rune Lord is a Unity developed game featuring a battle for who owns the world.
Having given you outline details of what Homni can do and how it links via Bluetooth to Dot/Reston the items that track your sleep quality here I delve deeper which for those like me who sleep badly may give vital helpful information.
With a massive range of toys to select from, Hamleys offers a top 12 list.
While most will know Brando for ‘Everything USB’ they do have other items in their portfolio and here is one a Weather Station complete with an external measure and a plus point over lots of others the internal unit can be both wireless and wired.
This weather station comes with one external sensor as well as the internal unit so you get both internal temperature and humidity readings as well as a four colour weather symbol. The main unit is 14.5x13.5x1.5cm and weights 213grams with three ‘AAA’ batteries inserted. The actual display is 10x8cm. The external unit is 11x5x2cm including its small stand this weights 63grams with two ‘AAA’ batteries inserted.
Long-term illness should not deprive a child from a school-based education.
With all the talk of single use plastic either being phased out or carrying a substantial premium either to the manufacturer or possibly the user an unbreakable reusable water bottle is something that could well get more publicity like the one I was sent here from Ion8.
This is designed primarily for cyclists not least as its dimensions are those that fit in the holder on the cycle frame. It is22cm tall and round at 7cm, its empty weight is 150 grams. The bottle is opaque and is marked on the side in both ml and oz. the former calibrated in 100ml measures with ‘-’ every 50ml up to 650ml, the latter in 4oz marks with ‘-’ every 2oz up to 22oz but in my tests another 50ml or 2oz is easily accommodated.
The Vax Blade 2 Max is a very efficient lightweight A-rated handstick cordless vacuum cleaner with a longer than average runtime. It could well be the only vacuum that a family will need
The unit is grey and black in colour while the dust collecting portions are in clear plastic so it is easy to see the amount of dust that it collects and so know when to empty the machine. Supplied with a wall-mounted docking station it consists of the handheld unit itself, the motorised power head, and the dismountable stick that links the two, together with the crevice and brush additional tools. As a stick machine it weighs 3.1kg and so is easy to use in one hand.
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