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An eco friendly hairdryer that is great value, will save you money on electricity, dry your hair fast and give you a smoother than normal finish - unbelieveable but true!
The Babyliss Eco Dry is a lightweight hair dryer that saves you half the energy of a normal 2000W hair dryer. I love being impressed by the products I review - and much to my surprise this one did. Whilst you might normally associate a powerful hair dryer with weight, this one is incredibly light. I was equally surprised by just how much power comes out of this neat hair dryer with quite a blast.
I have not seen the Disney film myself but I still know it is the hit of the year as far as the kids are concerned so I have little doubt that these robot toys will be the top of Santas list for a great deal of pester power generation.
I must start with a warning these products are extremely difficult to remove from the packaging. If you are giving this as a gift I suggest that it is extracted from the packaging first as by the time you have done it the child will be bored. I found six ties that go right through the packaging and need to be fed out to allow Wall.e to look as if he can be extracted.
We all know we should backup our important data. We all intend to back up our important data. We'll
definitely back up that important data... tomorrow.
The issue of how to back up your data is not new but also has not been solved for the average user. Despite a huge number of software solutions I've yet to find anything that actually works and is practical. Want a solution that will save your data from the most common problem - hard disk failure? A solution that doesn't actually require you to remember to do anything? I thought so.
As the size of software increases, so the capacity of hard drives grows to provide the necessary storage space and the price being asked for such devices tend to fall.
During one of my infrequent clear-outs of kit that was of little use other than being a repository for dust, I came across one of the hard disks that had formed part of an earlier computer long since consigned to the scrapheap. I hate to think how much this item of equipment would have cost when I purchased it.
Whatever your age, the fantasy of being the guitar playing rock star can easily be indulged with this next product.
Having mastered an air guitar you might feel the need to move on to the next level. This is where Guitar RockStar from Tomy could enter the picture. Guitar RockStar is constructed of plastic and consists of the head of a guitar and two and a bit frets overlaid by various controls. Power is provided by two AAA batteries (not included) which fit into a compartment on the back of the guitar’s neck. Also located on the back of the guitar is the speaker grill; 3.
This is a single unit with DAB and FM radio, a CD player and as it also takes SD cards it can playback MP3 and WMA sound files on cards up to 2GB. It also continues from where you stopped playing when you shutdown the previous time.
The Roberts Sound 24 (MP-24) is 30x17x17cm and weights 3.12kilos. This is mains unit and the mains lead enters back left. Rather surprisingly the DAB aerial is of the wire type exiting back right and it is 60cm in length. Just behind this are two 3.5 jack sockets one for earbuds and the other for Auxiliary input for MP3 or iPod. The actual controls are nine buttons on the top edge and a further nine above and below the 8x2cm two line display on the angled front of the unit.
If you want something a little different for party food and fun - have a look at the Giles & Posner table top Candy Floss machine.
It's party time of year, and Giles & Posner have brought us the . It's a neat little counter top unit in baby pink colour. This Candy Floss Maker is designed for at home parties - where a few guests can have fun twirling their own sticks as melting sugar is spun around. It's not designed for mass use - such as the one we use at the school fete. It is however, very easy to use, assemble and to clean afterwards. Although you do need to clean quickly as sugar is very sticky stuff.
Heavily involved in the high definition arena, despite some setbacks, Toshiba has developed a camcorder to take advantage of the technology.
Many more years ago that I care to admit, I spend an enjoyable summer season as a beach photographer at a local holiday resort snapping away at holiday makers in the hope they would purchase my photos. The camera, a French Sept, was a converted movie camera designed for heavy duty work and had a clockwork motor. It was certainly heavy enough to double as a weapon of considerable destruction. How things have changed as I look at the Toshiba Camileo Pro HD camcorder.
Departing from the usual black-box approach to iPod speaker Systems JBL brings us something a little different - without sacrificing sound quality.
The JBL Radial does not follow the more common brick formula to iPod speaker systems, instead effectively being a vertically mounted donnut with the iPod nestling securely in the middle. The first things that strikes you as you take the JBL out of the box is just how striking it looks - you don't need to hide this unit away in a corner. You're more likely to want to have it in clear view as a focal point to a room in it's own right.
While this is a hand blender it can also be used as a mini grinder or even with a whisk attachment to beat cream, make mayonnaise etc. So I suppose this is really three tools in one.
Firstly the Krups GPA3 is a 600watt hand blender. In this format it is 39cm long. The motor part is 20cm long and the stainless steel blender clips onto the end making the 39cm length. A single push button at the end of the motor part allows the blender to be removed and placed in the sink etc without your hands having to touch it. The motor part has a rubber grip that goes from the top for 9cm.
Leapfrog have long been in the world of teaching kids to read. Here they use some of the latest page reading technology with their Tag system to make reading interactive and fun. The Leapfrog Tag Reading System is one of the Dream Toys 2008 top 12 pre-school winners.
Leapfrog make reading interactive with the use of a Tag pen to help read the book and play games. Your child can hold the pen and touch a symbol on the page to read the story to them by the characters in the book, with a signalling sound to tell them when to turn the page. Alternatively they can touch another symbol to have just that page read to them.
Another couple of items shown at the Marks and Spencer Christmas In July event. First a somewhat strange combination an FM radio and a flask. Second a game that has been around for years Cludeo, this time in a new format.
What took my eye was the radio and only when I tried to find out the price did I find it was paired with a flask. It is 20cm tall and 6cm across the capacity is stated at .35 litres. It has a removable leather style cover and best of all the dimensions are the same throughout for ease of cleaning. Apart from a small cap/drinking cup there are two inner lids meaning that items stay hot or cold longer.
The Dyson Baby DC22 Allergy is a cylinder vacuum cleaner designed to tuck away into the smallest of storage spaces whils still giving a performance clean.
As it's name suggests this is Dyson's baby of the family. This cleaner is ideal for you if space is at a premium but you still want a high performance cleaner. The DC22 Allergy is a compact vacuum cleaner that still manages to incorporate the Dyson Cyclone technology. It's designed for homes with very little storage space and not too much vaccuming! The Dyson Baby DC 22 is simple to assemble.
Whatever your current storage capacity, you can usually benefit from an increase especially when at an attractive price.
How much capacity was available on your first hard disk? If you have been around personal computers as long as I have then I’m guessing it will be a low number. There is a distinct correlation between available capacity and the length of time involved with computers. Those who have been around the longest will respond with a low figure while more recent members of the computing community will quote a much higher capacity.
If your kids love building things then Magnext is a deceptively simple construction toy that you should definately put in their Santa's Sack this year.
Recently we were sent the - I was really impressed - as you'll see in my of the iCoaster. When researching the background we saw that the iCoaster had won the in the "SMart Play" category. On that list we also noticed the it's parent product the MagNext (winning "SMart Build" category) - so we had to give MagNext a go! MagNext is a deceptively simple construction toy with lots of play value.
This product almost has the voice recording market to itself, the method buy the opposition, worked a while ago. Dont get me wrong it is a very good package and could well put a lot of typists out of work. It is also happy to work unsocial hours for no pay.
The product comes on a DVD and took around 15 minutes to install on a reasonably fast XP system. Add another 10 minutes for the basic training and microphone testing and you are ready to go. Give it some documents and emails to analyze (this can take a few minutes) and it will already have a good idea of your style, this will help. My initial few test sentences had only one error that to me is near perfection.
The Rowenta Ultrasteam is a hand-held steamer that will quickly remove the worst creases and wrinkles from clothes.
All too often when getting clothes out of the wardrobe we find that they have developed a crease or two but, unfortunately, there is not really time to get the ironing board out and run the iron over the garment. The Ultrasteam makes it a relatively easy task to remove the worst of these creases. It is about the size of a hairdryer, with a water reservoir in the handle.
Like socks, USB caps take on a life of their own and are expert at hiding themselves.
Verbatim has recently introduced a new range of Store'n'Go USB drives. Decked out in the company's familiar blue livery, these drives will be available in capacities of 1, 2, 4 and 8GB. I have been looking at the 4GB model which has been priced at £19.99. This new USB drive immediately solves one problem that many users of this type of device will be familiar with on a regular basis.
When last we went to battle against each other, America gave Britain a bloody nose. Maybe this time you can engineer a result that will be different.
Birth of America II: Wars in America 1750-1815 is not only a lengthy title for a game but also a follow up to Birth of America from the AGEOD and Ascaron Entertainment partnership. This is a turn-based strategy game that sets the player the challenge of taking part in various battles based on historic events with authentic characters and fighting units of the period.
Having recently reviewed a couple of quite weighty still units this Camcorder and still camera comes as quite a change. Given that it takes good still and superb movie images it could well give you the best of both worlds in your pocket.
The HDR-TG3 is 11.5x6x3cm and weights less than 300grams. This is another of a range of products recently received without instructions. Let me clarify my French is poor and the only other language I speak apart from English is double dutch. There were four manuals in the box, each had three languages but none were English.
If you love the type of games and brain teasers you get in newspapers, but can't be bothered with all the high- tech fast paced video games, then this could be the games console for you.
The Brain Partnering Collection from Franklin is a hand held games unit. Very portable and easy to use. If you love the type of games and brain teasers that you get in the newspapers then this game console could be the one for you. It's obviously not aimed at the teenage market for high visual, mega exciting and interactive games.
Like another graphics company who shall remain nameless, the latest offerings from Magix does seem to come with various items of extra software.
In the case of Magix Movie Edit Pro 14 Plus, you not only get several additional items as standard but also a bundled copy of CrazyTalk 4 Media Studio from Reallusion. As a result of this extra software (excluding CrazyTalk 4 for the moment), the installation of Movie Edit Pro 14 Plus does eat up a fair amount of time even when you reject some of the additional items - with some items you are not even given the choice of accepting or rejecting their installation.
I've reviewed a good number of Bluetooth headset here at Gadgetspeak. Each had strengths and weaknesses, but
one thing they have all shared is an irresistible urge to show off colourful LED
light displays.
Many would be quite at home on a Christmas tree. I'm very pleased now to review the 'boring' BT4010 from Jabra. Why boring? Well it's resisted the urge of it's erstwhile counterparts to show-off to the world it's ability to dazzle in the visual spectrum and instead limited itself to a small, lower power monochrome LCD display with various symbols to show status.
Around five weeks ago (05-09-08) I told you about the Orbitsound T12, here it is its baby sibling designed for portable use and it is not much larger than a good sized iPod or MP3 player itself.
The is 10x6x2cm black in colour with silvered sides is weights around 115grams. 8 watts may not sound a huge amount of power but it is designed for personal or small group use. It works just as well with an MP3 player as it does with an iPod. Going round the controls and connections, the face has the main speaker with small ones on either side. The top has anchor point for neck/wrist strap. The base has a 3.5mm jack plug for connection of MP3 or iPod.
This is the first of a series of reviews on what Marks & Spencer have to offer in the gift line up for the coming season. Here I am looking at two well known packages, first Chess and Draughts and second an anniversary edition of Scrabble, both come with impressive wooden containers, pieces and boards.
This is in fact both a chess and draughts set as both sets of pieces are supplied in the drawer under the board. The board is 37x37x6cm and would make a wonderful gift for anyone keen on chess of for the younger members of the family with draughts. The pieces are not as you might think black and white but cream and brown that match the squares on the board. The king is 3.2 inches tall while the pawns are exactly half that at 1.6inches.
Memories need to be retained and not cast away as technology advances at a pace while sometimes ignoring legacy content.
Although we appear to be rushing headlong into a digital take-over of the entertainment world, there still remains a vast store of analogue media that many would be reluctant to discard. One example of this can be seen as VHS players, and their tape content, are superseded by the new hard disk based PVRs (Personal Video Recorders).
This lovely looking kettle from Kenwood has been designed to give up to 35% energy savings over standard design kettles.
The Kenwood Energy Sense kettle has a clear body and comes with either a polished metal or white base, handle and lid. It looks stylish and is lightweight. The Eco friendly design incorporates an improved element technology designed to improve the energy rating. I trialled this up against our regular kettle and found that it used around 10% less energy as measured by and boiled around 9 seconds quicker.
A laser AIO has a huge advantage for those needing to print a lot of documents, it always prints at the stated speed. It can copy without the PC being connected and of course the scanner does its work in colour.
The Canon i-Sensys MF4010 is 42x38x30cm and it weights only 12.7kilos. Of course it is creamy grey so may or may not pass the lounge police. Installation is from two different CD’s the driver files etc are on one and these took 50MB of hard disc space. Omni Page (for OCR) and Presto Page Manager together take around 300MB but the whole install is less than five minutes. The print speed is 20PPM and it does this for as long as there is paper in the open tray at the base of the unit.
Skype, originally bound securely to your PC has now flown the nest. With the Skypephone
3-Mobile have given Skype it's wings and let you take it out and about with you
In the highly protective telecoms arena new technology is almost invariably seen as a threat and viewed with a very wary eye by established companies. Thus it was with Skype and the whole "Voice over IP" (VoIP) concept. Mobile ISPs have felt especially threatened and this probably accounts for the usage limits in place for many mobile data tariffs - if you make the data bandwidth expensive people are less likely to squander it on phone calls.
Bringing together touch screen capable and Walkman music playing ability is the role of a new addition to the Sony Ericsson range of mobiles.
The W960i is, as you might guess from the familiar "W" prefix, yet another member of the Walkman family of mobile phones. With its GSM/GPRS functionality, this phone packs a 2.6-inch touch screen display and a 3.2 megapixel camera into its vinyl black body with a white 5mm band running around the sides of the phone. The unit measures 109 x 55 x 16mm and weighs 119g. Turning this phone on/off is carried out by pressing a recessed button on the top left of the handset.
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