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If you take images while out and about and like to get instant photographs from what you shoot then something like this offering from Fujifilm could well be the answer. I recently reviewed an offering from Polaroid that turns out to be not so instant so this more compact offering from Fujifilm has the word Instax in the title so let’s see.
The Fujifilm Instax mini 40 measures 12x10x6cm when the lens is closed the last figure increases by 2.5cm when the unit is on. It weighs 399 grams. The images it takes are 6x4.5cm. The Polaroid ones are 10.7x8.7, Polaroid films are eight to a pack while the Fujifilm ones have ten images in a pack. I was disappointed with the images that the recent Polaroid unit gave. They were not that sharp and took a long time to be fully developed.
Tracking down the guilty party is the task set you in this murder based game.
The Art of Murder series features a number of titles based on the solving of various murder crimes. I have been looking at one of the earlier members of this series entitled The Secret Files. Developed by City Interactive, Art of Murder - The Secret Files places you in the role of Nicole Bonnet, an FBI investigator, assigned to help the DEA bring down an evil Mexican drug cartel who are also involved in the acts of murder and kidnapping to achieve their ends.
Do you fancy waking up in the morning with sunlight streaming through your bedroom window as your curtains open automatically?
Over the past few years many homes have undergone a make-over. I should point out that I am not referring to decorative make-overs, however expensive or inexpensive they may be, but those of a technology kind which turn our places of residence into a smart home through the addition of a device or several devices. You may have one or even a number of these devices controlling different aspects of your home.
This latest offering from Fossil is a Solar Watch. Unless you live permanently in a darkened cave thinking about winding it up should never enter your mind. It was produced for Earth Day which for those who do not know was the 22nd of April. It is stated that eight hours of sunlight should power it for up to six weeks of continuous use and it can retain charge for three months.
The face is 4.2cm across and 5cm from top to bottom from strap lug to strap lug and 1.2cm thick, it weighs 48grams. Mine had a black face with white hands and a blue fabric recycled material strap with Velcro fixings. On the face from 8 to 4 there is a slash to show each hour, the area below this has a cut out area to show the various things like day and date among other choices. There are four buttons on the sides at 2, 4, 8, 10 and if you look closely at the face they are explained.
If you no longer wear it then you could put technology to work and sell it.
This latest version of the Swift 5 is small and powerful and while it is intended for use when out and about, as it has a full size HDMI port there is no reason while it should not be used at home or even in the office if it is the latter then make good use of the Kensington Lock socket or someone else will be using it.
The Acer Swift 5 measures 31x21x1.5cm the last measurement is at the back of the side as it is only 1cm at the front edge. It weighs only a tad over a kilo at 1041 grams. It is gun metal grey in colour apart from the hinge at the back and the Acer logo on top which are both copper in colour. The screen goes back to 135 degrees and the viewable screen dimensions are 30.5x17.3 which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of close to 14 inches.
With a variety of helpful features, can you solve the mystery of statues that take on a life of their own.
Royal Detective - Lord of Statues is classified as an Hidden Object game. Developed by Elephant Games, this offering is now available as part of the BlackLime series of titles. In this game you adopt the rank of a Royal Detective who has been sent to the town of Martlet to investigate the strange occurrence of statues coming to life and rampaging through the town.
Evil forces can take up residence anywhere and wait for the ideal opportunity to apply or afflict their influence.
Developed by EleFun Games, The Keeper of Antiques: The Last Will is a Hidden Object Adventure game with more than a passing acknowledgement to the American TV series entitled Warehouse 13. As you might surmise from the game's title and the reference to Warehouse 13, artefacts with magical properties have a part of play in this game but more of that later. I have been looking at the Collector's Edition of the game which comes with a number of bonus extras.
The SoundBlaster Play 4 is a DAC, a plug in device to USB or USB ‘C’ that improves the sound quality of music and indeed of the spoken voice be in from a phone call or any other source. As a plus it can also improve your voice be it a phone call or any other connection with other people. In the simplest of terms a DAC is a Digital (to) Analogue Converter.
The SoundBlaster Play 4 measures 5x1.5x.8cm and has a 3.5mm headphone or earbud connection at one end and the other end has a hard wired 8cm lead ending in a USB ‘C’ plug, an adapter for USB ‘C’ to USB is included in the box, this would add 2.5cm to the length. A lot of Notebooks and most Tablets compromise audio; I have even seen a Tablet without a 3.5mm socket.
Combining the adventures of the students from the Academy of Magic is this next offering from e-FunSoft.
This is the latest offering from Samsung to cross my desk. While it supports 5G it also works perfectly well for those of us who do not have those faster transfer speeds available on our doorsteps. The phone feels very solid with what looks to me a light violet back, and, on this back, three cameras in a vertical line at the top left corner that look like a set of traffic lights, for some reason this area is in a gold colour which draws your eye to it, so why not smile.
Going around the outside has the volume rocker with the on/off button below this on the right. The base has speaker, USB ‘C’ for charging or data transfer and SIM entry point. The left and the top are both clear of controls. The phone is 15.8x7.4x.7cm apart from the area where the cameras are that is very close to 1cm thick. The viewable screen is 15.5x7cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 6.7inches.
Reminiscing is a popular past-time of many as they look back on previous years to relive how things were back then. I was recently reminded of this with the arrival of a gaming product to review.
This offering, bearing the GSP logo (incidentally GSP sold its gaming catalogue to an American company several years ago), was entitled Adventure Mysteries Triple Pack. The three games making up this Triple Pack are Little Shop Road Trip, Cruise Clues Caribbean Adventure and Welcome to Mysteries City Las Vegas. Having made their first individual appearance over a decade ago, these three titles each have their own installation routine giving entry into their form of Hidden Object game play.
This offering is a partnership between Emporia and RNIB. So while it can be used by a sighted person, most of those using it will either have severely limited sight or be registered as blind. While most of us take our phones with us to stay in contact and indeed I know of people who run their lives from their phones, for a blind or partially sighted person being in contact can be much more important than that.
Once the SIM and battery are installed this becomes an easy phone to use. The right corner of the back allows a fingernail to slip under to insert the SIM and then the battery the three contacts on the end of the battery line up with three contacts in the battery bay so it will only fit one way. Fitting the SIM is a little more tricky not least because being Nano it’s very small. This is a Flip Phone small enough to fit easily in the palm of your hand when closed. It is 9.5x5x1.
"Worn out" is not a condition often applied to gadgets as we tend to rush and replace them before this state even gets close to occurring.
This is a watch although Honor call it a Band. In fact it is far more than a method of telling the time as it tells you your heart rate and a great deal more. In fact it does more than my own watch that is four times the price of this unit.
The Smart Watch measures 4.5x.2.3x.7cm and weighs 30 grams with the attached strap. The viewable screen is 3.5x2cm. It is stated to last up to two weeks between charges this is of course dependent on the amount of time the display is on and after eleven days I was down to 15% so this seems about right as I was testing all the modes for my review. Like most recent Smartwatches or Bands it works with an App on your Android device.
However much we have, we always seem to want more. AVAST offers a way to extend the output delivered from a battery.
Most mobile devices are generally well-served with a variety of products that are usually referred to as power banks. These products have been designed to provide a power boost that will help extend the battery life of the appropriate mobile device. However the use of a power bank is not the only way of extending the battery life of certain offerings.
Rescuing a young woman from a tower can cause more problems than expected.
Based on the adventures of a sister and younger brother, this Treasure Seekers package consists of two separate titles.
In Treasure Seekers 1, subtitled Vision of Gold, the siblings, named Nelly and Tommy, are two young children in search of pirate treasure that they believe their pirate grandmother had secreted away. The second game in the series, Treasure Seekers 2, subtitled The Enchanted Canvases, deals with the same two characters but several years older. Both of the Treasure Seeker titles have been developed by Artogon Games and belong to the Hidden Object genre.
Nescafe produce a large number of two pod solutions for those liking a coffee with milk, Cappuccino, Latte and most other possible combinations. Until now there has only been a single offering in one pod Flat White. In the last five years there has been a 400% increase in Veganism so to help those who do not partake of dairy items, three plant based offerings have been produced, Coconut, Almond and Oat and while I was checking these out along with the original Flat White I found Starbucks had produced a single Pod Café Latte.
So let’s deal with the Starbucks Latte first, all recent pods have slashes on the front of the box to denote the desired setting on an automated machine, and I noticed that this like the other samples I was sent all come in a brown pod. To my taste it was a less enjoyable drink than those made with a coffee and a milk and mainly because there was no real coffee aroma while making which for anyway always start me wanting to enjoy it.
Taking a trip back into the mists of history reveals one of the many battle between the forces of good and evil.
In this case the year was 1380 and the battle was between those returning from the Crusades, known as the Guardians, who were pitted against the forces of the so-called Clan of Nine who resided in their fortress within the confides of Prague. The battle was over the possession of a special Artefact which was under the control of the Clan of Nine.
This is both a ‘normal’ SmartPhone and also one with added help for those with hearing and or sight impairments as well as those of us where age has caught up with us. Externally this looks like a perfectly normally recent SmartPhone but Emporia have been producing offerings for those with such problems for longer than even DORO.
It is 14.8x7.3x.8cm and weighs 177grams. The viewable screen is 12.5x6.2cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 5½ inches. Once you power on having inserted your SIM you see a normal Home screen with all the normal icons and indeed if you do not feel you need the added assistance you can continue without any, when you do, just press the Emporia icon and answer three quick questions and sit back with the extra help it gives.
Returning to an old home can bring forth unexpected problems that will need to be solved.
To slightly alter a popular song of yesteryear, "If you go down to the woods today, you better watch out for a hard working dwarf".
This is a very lightweight on ear set of headphones. Appearances can be deceptive and in the case of these it is certainly so, they do not look much and my first thoughts were these are from SoundBlaster, yes they are reasonably priced but they look not that special. Looks are not everything and all that changed when I linked them to my phone and I realized that were a really rather nice offering.
They can be as little as 15cm from base of the ear pieces to the inside of the headband. Each side can be increased by up to 3.5cm so anyone from a child upwards should be able to wear them securely. Total weight is only 84 grams. While most will use these with Bluetooth they can be used with the USB ‘C’ to USB lead as a wired unit. All the controls are on the right ear and they slope slightly from front to back.
If you are looking for a new smartphone, then POCO has a couple of models that might fit the bill.
I suppose you might state that developers of mobile devices should never take the option to take their foot off the pedal and stand still with regards to adding features offered by their handsets. As a result, despite the restrictive effects brought about by the pandemic and lockdowns, new handset models continue to appear on a regular basis. A recent example of this trend is POCO's launch of two new models to its range of handsets. These smartphones are the POCO F3 and the POCO X3 Pro.
While Polaroid cameras have been around for a very long time new models and colours continue to be launched. Even new film types for a range of different scenarios. I was sent both i-type and 600 film types to test with one of their latest PolaroidNow, but I see other types are also available.
It is 15x11x9.5cm these are maximum figures and it weights a tad under .5 kilo at 492 grams. A large instruction sheet is included and providing the unit has some power in its internal battery they are clear and easy to follow. So to avoid any problem attach the supplied USB to micro USB lead for a few minutes before inserting a pack of film stock. All current Polaroid film types colour or black and white are eight image films.
Dare you enter an old house where warlocks practiced their art in a by-gone age.
Mystery of the Ancients - Lockwood Manor is a Hidden Object game with elements of Adventure and mini game action thrown in for good measure. Developed by Mariaglorum, and part of the BlackLime series of titles, this game is based on events which are claimed to have taken place within Lockwood Manor in the late 1800's. According tot the stories, Lockwood manor is where warlocks studied black magic involving the use of human sacrifices and the practice of encasing demons in statues.
Joining forces with an enemy can help defeat an even larger opposing force.
If I mention that The Enthralling Realms - Knights & Orcs comes from the development team at eFunsoft then you would not be surprised to hear that this game belongs to the Match-3 genre. Using the familiar format of creating groups of three or more similarly embellished tiles, arranged on a grid, by switching two adjacent tiles, this game is based on the never-ending war between the orcs and humans.
This is one of the new breed of Chromebooks that give you much more functionality and even allows access to the Google Play Store and that also allows you to link to your Android phone. In fact it bears little resemblance to an early Chromebook that did not even have the ability to store things offline. This should really be considered a totally new category of product.
The Acer Chromebook Spin 511 measures 29.5x21.5x2cm and weighs 1212 grams. The viewable screen is 23.5x14.5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 11.6inches and this gives you a variable screen resolution of up to 1518x853 which may make text a little small for some but a slider lets you change it through a range of resolutions up to 911x512. Going around the outside, on the left side is a small blue LED denoting power on, next is a USB ‘C’ then USB3.
Can you solve the mystery of the missing archaeologist and understand a new language?
Thanks to Inkle, a Cambridge based company, you have the opportunity to visit Heaven's Vault. This is an archaeological adventure with more than touch of a science fiction element along with a translation aspect, to it. In this game you take on the role of Aliya Elasra, an archaeologist, as you explore the Nebula assisted by a robot, bearing the name of Six, to complete a mission involving various exploration skills.
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