Here’s my quick look video review of the Dodge Charger Wireless Roadmice Mouse from Roadmice.

Features

3 button mouse
800 DPI
Headlights glow Blue when mouse button is pressed

Video Notes

I found out after the fact that the ‘haunted’ cursor problem was due to not using a mouse pad… I’ve not used a mouse pad for years and it didn’t even occur to me to use one with this mouse…

Sites or products mentioned in video:
Zibra Open It! Shears Review
Logitech MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse Review
MSI Wind Netbook Review

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Video Reviews

Tagged: Cordless, Mouse, Wireless

Roadmice Wireless Mouse Quick Look Video Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 31, 2008 at 7:15 pm.

Landline phones seem to be slowly going the way of the dinosaur now that people are using their mobile phones and VOIP in their place. Companies that manufacture and sell analog phones are adding new features to make their products more enticing and to bridge the analog to digital gap. The ip8300 infoPhone from Vtech is just such a product. It’s an analog phone with a twist. It connects to your Yahoo! account for instant messaging and more…

Hardware Specifications

DECT 6.0 Digital technology
Expandable up to 5 handsets using only one phone jack
High resolution 64K color display
60 name and number phonebook directory

Package Contents

Handset
Handset cradle
Base station
AC adapters for handset cradle and base station
Ethernet cable
Phone cable
Quick start guide

I was very intrigued by the infoPhone when Vtech first contacted me about it. I am a chat junkie and have Adium, my favorite instant message client running all the time when I’m at home. I thought it would be great to be able to receive instant messages from my Yahoo! buddies when I wasn’t sitting in front of my computer in the office, but in front of the TV in the other room.

The handset is compact (~ 5 x 2 x 1 inch) and has an attractive design, with a 1.5 inch color display and backlit keys. It’s comfortable to hold and feels solid.

There are no buttons or switches on the sides of the handset, they are all located on the face. This includes a regular numeric keypad which generous sized keys and a collection of seven other physical buttons. Some of these buttons such as the middle navkey, can be pressed in different directions.

The infoPhone comes with a small cradle that the handset charges in and then a separate base station that has to be connected to an existing LAN (Ethernet) port and your phone line.

Both the handset cradle and the base station require AC adapters. I would have much rather have seen Vtech use one unit with the base station and charging features built in, instead of two separate units. I don’t like having to use two AC adapters as it just seems wrong in this ‘going green’ environment that we find ourselves in these days. I also don’t like the fact that you have to plug the base station into a LAN port. This will require that users have a broadband Internet connection, such as cable or DSL, and a broadband router or a switch with an extra open port in order to use the Yahoo! features that this phone provides. I think a better route would have been to make the base station WiFi. All that said, setting up the phone and base station is easy. Just connect an Ethernet cable, phone line, AC adapters and you’re ready to go.

The handset interface will be familiar to people that also have simple mobile phones as it has the same type of layout with two buttons on the bottom of the display that match two physical buttons on the handset. The home screen is very simple in that it has a wallpaper (you have the ability to change this with several others) and shows the current date and time.

The two buttons at the bottom of the display map to your VIP List and Menu. The VIP List is just your internal phone book that you can add numbers to as people call you, or manually. The Menu allows you to view your call log, change the ring tone, wallpaper, date and other settings.

To use the Yahoo! features on this phone, you press the Orange Info button above the navkey. This brings up a menu with five icons that include Weather, Yahoo! Local Search, Channels, Call History and Settings. Call History and Settings are just links into the menu off the main Home screen. Weather, Yahoo! Local Search and Channels are the features that require the base station to be connected to your LAN for internet access. Without that connection, you won’t see those icons and will see an error on the handset screen.

The Weather icon shows you a representation of the current weather conditions. As you can see, when I took this picture, it was 64 degrees and raining. Clicking the icon will give you more info about the weather and you can even get a 3-Day forecast.

Yahoo! Local Search will allow you to search on a business name and find matching listings for that search criteria. You can then click on the phone link to make a call to that business. You can also save looked up numbers to your internal phone book. Unfortunately, you can’t use the search to look up non-business numbers. Another problem I ran into has to do with the internal phonebook. Ask you can see in the image above for the Papa John’s Pizza listing, the number is area code + phone number. The problem is, that for me, I need to dial a 1 in front of the area code because even though I live in Columbus, Indiana, to call that number is long distance for me. I have to go in and manually edit the saved number to add a 1.

In addition to Weather and Yahoo! Local Search, there are also Channels. Channels include Horoscopes, Sports news, AP news Headlines, Daily Diversions (word of the day, quote of the day, etc.) and movie listings. You can turn these different channels on and off by activating your phone through the infophone.com web portal. This is something that you have to do in order to use Yahoo! mail and instant messaging.

You can setup different users on the phone. Users link to different Yahoo! accounts. You use the web portal to set things up and in the portal, you can turn channels on and off and enable / disable email and chat. Once the users are setup, when you login to your account through the handset, two more icons will show up on the info Home screen. One for email and one for chat.

If you go into email, you’ll be presented with a subject list of messages. You can then read a specific message by clicking on it. You then have the option to reply, keep and unread, mark as read or delete. For some reason, you do not have the ability to compose a new message from scratch, you can only reply to existing messages.

The main reason I wanted to review this phone was for the Yahoo! instant messaging feature. Once you’re logged in, you can see the status of your buddies. There will be an -idle message next to their name if they are idle, etc. When you receive a message from one of your buddies, their name will be changed to bold type and move to the top of the buddy list. That is the only notification that you’ll see if you have a new message. There are no beeps, the display does not wake up, nothing. This was very disappointing to me.

Writing and responding to messages is about the same as doing so on a mobile phone. You use your key pad to enter letters by pressing the buttons an number of times to get the specific letter that you want. For example, to enter the letter C, you’d need to press the 2 key three times. Unfortunately, there isn’t a predictive text feature with this phone. It’s also annoying that text is in all capital letters by default. You can easy toggle to lowercase by pressing the # key, but the next message that you want to type in, gets changed right back to uppercase. Punctuation symbols have to be selected from a popup list.

Other than the special Yahoo! features, the ip8300 infoPhone has some other abilities. It is expandable, you can add additional handsets for $49.95 each. When you have more than one handset, you can conference an outside call between them, use the handsets as an intercom and transfer calls between handsets. You can choose a ring tone just for intercom calls. There’s also a voicemail waiting indicator if you have that feature through your phone company.

All things considered, I’d have to say that I’ve not been very impressed with this phone. Although setup is very easy, the first time I tried the Yahoo! chat features, none of my buddies showed up and it didn’t appear that I was even connected. At the time, email and the other internet features worked fine, but chat did not. I later came to learn through one of the Vtech product engineers, that sometimes Yahoo! decides to change the way they authenticate how users login to chat. While Vtech is supposed to be partnered with Yahoo! for this product, sometimes these changes aren’t communicated in a timely manner, so Vtech can’t update quickly. As a result, the chat feature won’t work. Then today while I was snapping screen shots, I tried to do some more testing with the email feature and was greeted with a “Service not available, Please try again” message. Even when email works, not being able to compose a new message through the handset seems odd. Not that I’d really want to write a whole email using that keypad though…

The price of $129.95 seems really expensive for a phone that does not even have an answering machine built into it. I think the price would be acceptable if it had an answering machine, WiFi instead of hardwire Ethernet, one cradle/base station, one AC adapter and some type of real instant message notification. As is, I can’t recommend the Vtech ip8300 infoPhone.

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Cordless, Phone

Vtech ip8300 infoPhone Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 4, 2008 at 3:30 pm.

All of the mice in Kensington’s
SlimBlade Collection have a sleek, slim design, a variety of functionality and are wireless. In this review
I will be looking at the SlimBlade Trackball
Bluetooth Mouse and Media
Mouse.

The footprint of the SlimBlade mice is very comparable to many other mice on the market. The Media Mouse is almost identical in size to Apple’s Mighty Mouse but with a lower profile. The Trackball Bluetooth Mouse is smaller than either the Apple Mighty Mouse or the Media Mouse and is smaller to grasp.

Even though the SlimBlade mice have a lower profile than many others, they are both comfortable to maneuver and intuitive to use. Both are well built, responsive, and very accurate.

Kensington SlimBlade Trackball Bluetooth Mouse

The Kensington SlimBlade Trackball Bluetooth Mouse has a very nice form-factor and size to be an excellent laptop/travel companion. It has right and left click buttons and a responsive 360º scroll ball.

Rubber wraps around the front and sides making the mouse easy and comfortable to grip.

The bottom of the SlimBlade Trackball Bluetooth Mouse has the battery compartment, bluetooth pairing button, and slider ‘on/off’ switch which protects the laser while not in use and/or during travels. Pairing the mouse with my Apple and Windows laptops was quick and extremely easy.

The back of the mouse has a battery gauge allowing you to more accurately manage battery life (i.e., recharge before you leave). The Trackball Mouse goes into sleep mode when your computer does, saving much battery life over time.

Hardware Specifications

Package Contents

SlimBlade Trackball Bluetooth Mouse
Two AA batteries
User manual

The SlimBlade Trackball Bluetooth Mouse is a very nice wireless device. Its one flaw is that its one of the most expensive bluetooth mouse on the market.

Price: $99.99

Pros:
- Quality construction
– Sleek and slim form-factor
– Bluetooth
- Comfortable
- 360º Scroll Ball
– Doesn’t use a USB port
– Uses AA batteries

Cons:
- Expensive

Kensington SlimBlade Media Mouse

Kensington engineered the SlimBlade Media Mouse to function not only as a wireless mouse but as a media controller as well.

The SlimBlade Media Mouse features precision laser technology, 360 degree scrolling capability, the ability to adjust volume, play/pause your media, and 2.4GHz wireless technology. The Media Mouse uses a micro receiver for its wireless connectivity.

The 2.4 GHz wireless receiver is relatively small and conveniently stores inside the battery compartment of the mouse.

Hardware Specifications

Package Contents

SlimBlade Media Mouse
Two AA batteries
Installation CD
User manual

Like the Trackball Bluetooth Mouse, the Media Mouse has a very nice form-factor, right/left click buttons, a responsive 360º scroll ball, and a rubber grip surrounding a majority of the device. Since it is as large as the standard mouse (and having a usb dongle), I would use the Media Mouse with my desktop at work (vs as the mouse I travel with).

As stated above, the feature that makes this mouse unique is the media controller engineered into the bottom of the device. It allows you to control either iTunes or Windows Media Player simply and easily. Even though this mouse has this functionality, I doubt I will ever use it. For me, it is just as easy to switch to the application as it is to flip over the mouse.

Also like the Trackball Bluetooth Mouse, the
SlimBlade Media Mouse goes into sleep mode when
your computer does, saving much battery life over time. There is a indicator
LED at the base of the metal ring surrounding the scroll wheel which turns red
when the battery is running low.

While the Media Mouse acts as a wireless mouse and media controller, it too is a bit overpriced for a wireless mouse (with dongle).

Price: $59.99

Pros:
- Quality construction
- Sleek and slim form-factor
- Comfortable
- 360º Scroll Ball
– Wireless

– Uses AA batteries

Cons:
- Expensive

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear

Tagged: Cordless, Mouse, Wireless

Kensington SlimBlade Wireless Mice originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 15, 2008 at 9:30 pm.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of 900MHz and 2.4GHz cordless phone systems. Maybe you’ve even heard of 5.8GHz phones, but have you heard of DECT 6.0 phones? I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard of them until VTech asked if I might like to review their model 6042 two handset cordless phone system. I then came to learn that DECT 6.0 is a newly available frequency band (WiFi-friendly 1.9GHz) that provides improved range without needing to boost the power. It also has better protection against eavesdropping, that the older frequency models do not.

The 6042 system comes with a digital answering machine built into a base unit, as well as an extra handset that does not require an additional phone jack. This allows you to place the second handset anywhere in your house, as long as you have an available power outlet.

Hardware Specs

Frequency control: Crystal controlled PLL synthesizer
Transmit frequency: Telephone base: 1921.536-1928.448 MHz, Handset: 1921.536-1924.448 MHz
Channels: 5
Size: Handset: 170.9mm x 48.1mm x 25.8mm, Telephone base: 179.8mm x 123.8mm x 95mm
Weight: Handset: 131 grams, Telephone base: 296.8 grams
Power requirements: Handset: 2.4V DC 600mAh Ni-MH battery, Telephone base: 6V DC @ 600mA
10 hour talk time, up to 100 hours standby time
Memory: Handset directory: 50 memory locations, up to 24 digits, 15 characters
Handset call log: 50 memory locations, up to 20 digits, 15 characters

Package Contents

Base unit
Charger unit for 2nd handset
2 handsets
2 batteries for handsets
2 battery covers
AC adapter for base unit
AC adapter for 2nd charger unit
Telephone cord
Quick start guide
User’s manual

The handsets are long, thin and look more like a mobile phone than a typical cordless handset.

This phone is comfortable to hold in your hand, but isn’t quite large enough to allow you to comfortably hold it between your ear and shoulder. At least not for me…

The keyboard is a flat membrane with a Blue backlight that glows for a few seconds when a key is pressed. Looks like they borrowed this design from the popular Motorola Razr line of mobile phones. Key presses offer both tactile and audible feedback. In addition to normal number keys, there is a row of action buttons along the bottom edge of the keyboard. These buttons allow you to Redial, Mute, and make intercom calls to the second handset. Pressing the Redial button brings up a 10 call list, that you can scroll through one line at a time to find a number to redial. When you see the number you want to call, you just press the Talk button to dial the call. Pressing the Int button will cause the second handset to ring, so that you can use it as an intercom system instead of shouting from room to room.

Above the keypad, there is another set of four buttons surrounding a circular up/down button. This circular button functions as a volume control button while in call mode. When not connected, pressing this button in the up direction will allow you to scroll through the stored phone directory one entry at a time. The 6042 can store up to 50 entries in its phone book. Pressing the circular button in the down direction will allow you to scroll through previous calls. This feature depends on you having the Caller ID service in order to use it. The four buttons surrounding the center button are for speaker phone toggle, menu, talk/answer and end call.

The display on the handset is monochrome and has a Blue backlight. It’s easy to read even when the backlight is not activated. While in idle mode, the display shows the current date, time, battery level indicator and if there have been new calls added to the call log.

The base unit is the one that you have to connect to your phone line. It houses the digital answering machine, which can hold up to 99 messages with a total limit of 15 minutes of record time.

The base unit is made of Black and Silver plastic and has a small footprint which I like. I also like that it doesn’t have an antenna like my previous phone.

The second handset charging unit is small as well. The nice thing about it is that you do not have to plug a phone line into it. All you have to do is plug it into an outlet and you’re good to go.

The base unit is easy to operate given that all of the buttons are clearly labeled. It’s nice when you don’t have to check the user manual in order to change the answering machine greeting or set the time and date.

It’s interesting to note that you can set a different ring tone and volume level for the base station and for each handset. This causes quite a cacophony of tones when the phones ring, but it’s still cool that you have the ability to customize each one.

Another useful feature is the ability to transfer a call to the second handset by pressing the Int button. The is way more convenient than yelling “It’s for you!”

The volume levels and audio quality with the VTech 6042 seem to be quite a bit better than any cordless phone that I’ve used up until this point in time. The speaker phone is very good as well.

It’s not all joy and light though, as I did discover some issues with this phone system. First of all, the handsets can not share directories between them. You have to create phone books on each one. Worse still is the fact that there isn’t a speed dial feature. You have to scroll an entry at a time through the directory to find a number to dial. And lastly, if you have a number in your phone book, and that person calls you, it doesn’t display the name you entered for them. It just shows the stock Caller ID listing. Bummer.

All in all, I can’t really find a significant complaint about this product. It’s constructed nicely and is easy to use. I suppose the only thing I would ask is that it be a little less expensive. But I am guessing that the price is due to the new DECT 6.0 feature. A quick google on this term found other dual cordless phone systems priced in the same ballpark. If the call directory issues don’t sway you, and you like the looks of the VTech 6042 system, it might be the next landline phone for you.

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Cordless, Phone

VTech 6042 Two Handset Cordless Phone System originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 7, 2007 at 3:02 pm.

As The Gadgeteer, I feel like I am not doing my job if I don’t have the latest and greatest mobile phone in my pocket, but when it comes to my landline phone, it is a 2yr old 2.4GHz boring Panasonic answering machine / handset. Whee… You know me though, I’m always up for trying something new, so when the folks representing Vtech asked if I would like to test some of their phones, I said sure!

They ended up sending me the mi6879 Expandable Cordless Phone System, with an integrated answering machine. The main gee whiz feature of this device is the full color handset display. More about that in a bit. First let’s show the requisite hardware specs.

Hardware Specs

Frequency control: Crystal controlled PLL synthesizer
Transmit frequency: Telephone base: 5725-5850 MHz, Handset: 2400-2483.5 MHz
Receive frequency: Telephone base: 2400-2483.5 MHz, Handset: 5725-5850 MHz
Channels: 95
Size: Handset: 141mm x 49mm x 35mm, Telephone base: 177mm x 120mm x 78mm
Weight: Handset: 141 grams, Telephone base: 385 grams
Power requirements: Handset: 600mAh Ni-MH battery, Telephone base: 9V DC @ 600mA
7.5 hour talk time, up to 3 days standby time
Memory: Directory: 50 memory locations, up to 32 digits, 16 characters per location

Package Contents

mi6879 handset and base station
AC adapter
Battery pack
Telephone line cord
Wall mount bracket
Belt clip>
User’s manual
Quick start guide

The mi6879 is a compact system that doesn’t have much of a footprint when situated on a counter or desktop. Wall mounting is also an option with the use of the included bracket.

The base unit and handset are constructed of Grey / Silver plastic, so that it can blend in with almost any decor.

You’ll notice that the base unit has a full keypad. You can use it as a speaker phone when the handset just happens to be in the other room and you’re too busy or lazy (that would be me…) to get up and search for it when a call comes in.

The mi6879 is an expandable system. This means that you can purchase additional handsets (up to 4) and set them in different areas of the house. The best part is that you only need 1 phone jack (which the base unit is plugged into). The other handsets just require an electrical outlet for charging. Handsets compatible with the mi6879 are the mi6803 and mi6807.

The answering machine part of the system is easy to use. There are individual buttons to record the greeting, set the time, etc. No tapes are required to record incoming messages, as it is all digital. The mi6879 can record up to 15 minutes of messages. That seems a bit low to me… I guess I have long winded friends ;o) I’d be afraid that if I was gone on a vacation for a week, that the memory would fill up.

The base unit has a nice large display that is easy to read. Pressing one of the buttons on the front will enable a Orange back light for several seconds.

I was happy to learn that even though the base station does not have a place to install a battery for power backup, that it does have some type of backup feature for power failures. I unplugged the base from the AC outlet for 10 minutes and when I plugged it back in, my greeting, call log, directory, and voice messages were all still there. The only thing that wasn’t saved was the current time.

The handset is compact and comfortable to hold in your hand, but almost too small for propping between your ear and shoulder. That said, it is compatible with 2.5mm wired headsets. The antenna is a short stub that does not extend.

The keypad lights up so that it is easy to see in the dark. The bright color display is also easy to read in most light conditions. Like the base unit, the handset also has a built in speaker phone.

The phone has a menu system that can be activated by pressing the Menu / Select button directly beneath the display. When doing so, you are greeted with an icon view of the 6 menus that include a number directory, phone settings, display options, call log, sound options and and ringer volume.

The directory feature is very basic. You can review the numbers stored in the directory (50 records total) or create new ones. New entries can have up to 32 digits with up to a 16 character name associated with them. The names are entered using the keypad and multiple button presses to obtain the desired letter. For example, to input the letter R, you would need to press the number 7 three times. This method of entering names isn’t exactly friendly, but it is better than nothing. One feature that I was surprised to find lacking is a speed dial option. As far as I can tell from reading the manual, you can not assign a number key to press for automatic dialing of specific numbers. I thought almost all phones these days had that feature…

The phone settings menu allows you to change the language (English, French and Spanish are your options), dial type (pulse or tone), set the clock, clear the voice mail indicator.

The display dialog allows you to change the contrast level and change the wallpaper. The included wallpapers are pretty lame. The images above look much worse than they do real life, but even so, they aren’t that exciting. You can change the wallpaper to cards, a golf ball, beach scene, flowers and a night scene. It’s too bad that there isn’t a method to add your own wallpaper.

The call log gives you the ability to scroll through the calls that have come into the phone. From this screen, you can add the callers to your directory if you desire. The directory is automatically shared between the base station and handset. So if you make a change on one, it will be reflected on the other.

The mi6879 has 10 ring tones, and they are all annoying. Again, it’s too bad that there isn’t some way to customize them.

I like the style and feel of the phone, but as far as anything else goes, it’s been somewhat disappointing. I guess for $100 I was hoping for a couple nice features that would take advantage of the color display. Not sure what they would be though… Speaking of that, the box states that you can use the preset images as wallpapers or personalize the 50 number phone directory. That’s all well and good, but the user manual doesn’t go on to explain how to do this, and the on phone menus don’t hint at it either.

My advice is to skip this particular model and look for something with a better feature set. I’m actually more interested in the i5871, which has a 65K color display that allows for animated caller ID pictures and recordable ring tones. The only thing is, it costs $50 more than this one. But with those fun features, it might be worth it!

Filed in categories: Home Tech

Tagged: Cordless, Phone

VTech mi6879 Expandable Cordless Phone System originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 7, 2006 at 5:28 pm.