Those travel-savvy folks at Tom Bihn are at it again, having not long ago introduced their new Cadet minimalist laptop bag and now three more new travel items.  The Travel Tray is a container to keep track of your loose pocket-sized items during your journey.  It collapses flat and closes with a drawstring.  One size, four different colors, $22 each.  The Travel Money Belt is made of nylon webbing with plastic buckle and can hold some cash, IDs or other small items in a concealed inside compartment accessible via plastic zipper opening on the belt’s inside.  Black only, five different sizes, $20 each.  The Citizen Canine is a small bag designed to help organize the stuff you tote on a walk with your furry friend.  Topside: treat/ball holder with drawstring top; bottom: poop bag dispenser (with side zipper access to replace the roll of bags); front: zipper phone/key/ID/etc accessory pouch.  Shoulder strap and loads more features.  One size, seven color combinations, $55 each.  Check ‘em out and let us know what you think.

Filed in categories: News, Pet Gadgets, Travel Gear

Tagged: belt, Pet, Travel

Tom Bihn’s New Travel Tray, Travel Money Belt & Citizen Canine originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 28, 2011 at 3:00 pm.

This review has nothing to do with a new tech device, or case to protect it, or bag to carry it, or even some wild theory on the long awaited iPhone 5. Nothing like that. I am here to tell you, I have found the ultimate milkshake….yes, that is right, milkshake . This magical dessert comes from a dairy located in, some would say, the middle of no where.

I am in Idaho Falls, ID this week for my day job and have discovered the most mind-numbingly good milkshake I have ever had. Along with being rather critical of tech-toys, I am the same way with milkshakes and most baked goods. While working with several local folks here in town, they mentioned that I/we had to try a shake from Reed’s Dairy located a few miles outside of town along Highway 20.

My first impression of the place definitely made me smile, bringing me back to a place I use to go decades ago.

I swear the gal making my (large) shake used nearly a gallon of ice cream. This picture does not do this milkshake justice in regards to shear magnitude…..it is easily a meal for some people. For a whopping $4, you get literally a pound (maybe more) of super creamy, insanely thick milkshake. Not only does Reed’s Dairy give you quantity, but the quality of the shake is second to none (and I have tried many over the years). It is made with their homemade ice cream and fresh whole milk. I have tried their double chocolate (chocolate ice cream and chocolate milk) and vanilla milkshakes. They serve a dozen other flavors daily but I prefer the classics. I have had to run 5 miles everyday since discovering Reed’s Dairy, since I have stopped there religiously everyday to get one for the ride back into town. Well, I hope you all do not mind me reviewing/sharing a most worthy (non-tech) find. I wholeheartedly suggest stopping if you are ever in Idaho Falls .

Filed in categories: Miscellaneous, News

Tagged: Beverage, Food, Travel

A Totally Non-Tech Review… originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 18, 2011 at 11:00 am.

So I’m sitting on the Reunification Express on my way to Hue from Hanoi in Vietnam.  It’s a 13 hour trip and I need something to while away the time.  This is the third overseas trip I’ve done with my Kindle and figured why not write a quick review of how useful the Amazon Kindle 3G is as a travel companion.

Note 18/1/2011: - We’ve just established that only the UK/International Kindle 3G has any coverage in Vietnam see comments below 

Everyone knows how good it is as an ereader.  The capability to carry multiple books certainly helps relieve those boring plane flights and waits in Airport terminals. In many destinations it’s very hard or expensive to find books and taking books with you isn’t realistic because of the size and weight that this would curtail.

I always used to pack at least a Lonely Planet Guide and often a Frommers as well, these are now readily  available as ebooks and are much easier to carry on the Kindle and leave much more room and less weight in your travel bag. The ability to quickly search and find information quickly is invaluable.

One of the most asked questions I’ve seen on Kindle forums is “Is it worth the extra money to get the 3G version ?” Well I suppose  it’s really a case of YMMV, primarily based on how and where you use.  Now Amazon sells the 3G mainly as a means to instantly download a book wherever you are without needing WiFi but I must admit I don’t see myself sitting on a beach and getting the urge that bad to obtain a book that I must have straight away. For the connected traveller however it’s the “experimental” browser coupled with the 3G that’s the real bonus.

Lets be honest, the browser is slow to  refresh,  only monochrome and it’s very slow to navigate, but for a quick email, a check of Facebook or to keep up with a text based forum it’s pretty good and works just fine. Push it a little bit harder with a more graphic intensive site and it’s not unusable but can be slow to load or refresh graphics. Here’s a picture of  the-gadgeteer site. Apologies for the quality but I’m now in a dark Vietnamese Hotel Room  You can see the zoom section ( with the magnifier ) that you can move around with the cursor, as I say not unusable but not the most efficient way of viewing a web site. 

Now here’s the kewl part, Amazon’s 3G covers a multitude of countries and best of all….. it’s free ! Just be aware that in some countries you will only get the Amazon Store and Wikipedia ( I can’t actually find a full list of access by country ) and not full web access.

You don’t have to be tethered to finding a Wifi hotspot or accumulate big International Data fees. A lot of your basic stuff can be done right on your Kindle.

So here’s some of my hints how to make this free service work for you while overseas.

1. Don’t have 3G turned on all the time.  Only enable it when you’re going to attached to the Internet.  One of the great things about the Kindle is its long battery life.  3G sucks the battery life big time.

2. Use mobile versions of websites.  It’ll display quicker, better and be quicker  to navigate. There are some exceptions though. If I want to just view Facebook then I can use the mobile version but if I want to update my status the cursor won’t find the status input bar. I need to use the full Facebook site.

3. Now Australian telecommunication companies International Roaming fees are horrendous.  A single SMS send back to Australia is three times the normal cost. I have set up an account with an Australian VOIP provider.  Using the service I can use the mobile version of their website on the Kindle  to send SMS at a fraction of the cost back home, in fact I use these guys to sent SMS even at home as they’re so cheap. The service is set up to display my Australian mobile number as the sender so people know its from me and there’s no charge while roaming to receive an SMS back to my mobile.

4. Similarly my VOIP provider allows me to do Webcallback. By using their site I can put in my current hotel phone number, the person I want to calls number and the provider will connect the two all at their much lower cost (especially compared with hotel rates ).

5. Use it to keep up to date with currency exchanges via  www.xe.com

6. Here in Vietnam some ISPs block Facebook.  I’m guessing it’s political but can’t find the exact reason and I’m not sure why it only seems to be some.  Because the Kindle 3G uses Amazon’s proxies access isn’t an issue. Facebook away. I must admit I’m not a big Facebook user but it allows me to put the odd post up so family and friends know where I am and that I’m all right. This should also work in other blocked countries.

7. Store documents like your itinerary, travel insurance, medical notes in either PDF or Mobi format on you Kindle so it’s always available and not subject to paper creasing, ripping or accidental disposal. Being on the Kindle means no connectivity required.

8. Subscribe to a “cloud” service like Evernote or Springpad to keep online copies of documentation accessible via you Kindle.

So is 3G worth the extra money ?  To me it’s a resounding YES!! It allows me anywhere, anytime internet access to quickly check emails, Facebook and all my regular forums. It keeps me up to date with all the latest news from home via newspapers online and stay in contact with the loved ones. It helps fill in those hours waiting or travelling . Sure it’s slow and clunky, but it does the job.  I know I’ve saved more money in a single trip than the extra dollars for the 3G.

Oh and did I mention that 3G access is free all over the world ?

The downsides ? Page loads, screen refresh and navigation is cumbersome. The keyboard is also the same. Its painful to type too much and its handling of numbers (two input methods ) and especially punctuation is atrocious. But let’s not forget that this is meant to be an ebook reader. The experimental browser is really just the cream on the top

Hopefully these hints help someone out there and if you’ve got any more hints please post them.

(Oh and in the interest of full disclosure this article WASN’T written on my Kindle.  The keyboard just isn’t good enough for an article of this length. This was written on my other travel companion,  my Galaxy Tab 7″ using Swype)

(Oh and apology for any spelling, grammatical or other mistakes. Let me tell you, I’m glad we went with the “soft sleepers’ on the train because I’d hate to think what the “hard sleepers” are like !!!  Not a lot of good sleep.  :) )

( Final Oh, I promise. I’ve just edited and amended this article from my 3G Kindle using the WordPress mobile web page in bed, in a hotel in Hoi Anh. For some reason every room I’ve had this trip seems to be a WiFi deadspot )

Available from Amazon for $189

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, Reviews, Travel Gear

Tagged: ebook, Kindle, Travel

Amazon Kindle 3G – The Perfect Travel Companion originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 11, 2011 at 11:05 am.

If you can’t wait until 2020 to take a vacation on Virgin’s Spaceship to an orbital tour of outer space, then make a reservation in 2016 for the Russian Space Hotel.   The cost is a bit steep at $818,000 to travel via a Soyuz rocket to the hotel, and then another $163,000 for five days and four nights.  A family of four should get ready for some sticker shock as they would need to spend $4 million for a vacation in space, but think about the reports the kids would deliver in school the next week.

If only I had invested in Apple in the 90′s I could be riding to the Space Hotel in style.  Oh wait, they don’t allow alcohol, only iced tea and fruit juices, I guess I will have to go back to the all inclusive resorts in the Caribbean after all.  Check out the link for more information.

Filed in categories: Miscellaneous, News

Tagged: Travel

Have a few extra million to spend: Take a vacation on the space hotel originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 28, 2011 at 7:30 pm.

Are you a marine in need of carrying all your weaponry?  Or are you a Gadgeteer in need of a awesome gear bag for all your tech toys?  Either way, Maxpedition’s Multi Purpose Bag would be perfect for you!

Maxpedition’s Multi Purpose Bag is made of light-weight ballistic nylon fabric coated with Dupont’s Teflon to resist water and grime.  Maxpedition’s Multi Purpose Bag is made to last.  It feels rugged and definitely can survive a gadget lover’s usage and a soldier’s war.

Product Features :

• Main: 14″(L) x 6″(W) x 10″(H) with hook-and-loop Divider
• Front: 6″(L) x 2″(W) x  9″(H) with ID/Pen Holder
• Rear: 5″(L) x 2″(W) x 5″(H) and 5″(L) x 2″(W) x 4″(H)
• Both Sides: 13″(L) x 2″(W) x 9.5″(H)
• Exterior Dimensions Overall (including main, front, rear and side pockets): 16″ (W) x 11″ (H) x 10″ (D)
• Carry: 2″ Strap w/ Non-slip Shoulder Pad
• Approximate Combined Capacity: 1530 cu. in

Top down you can see that all the zippers have a paracord pull attached to them for ease of use.  All zippers are YKK Zippers for durability and reliability.

The right side has a medium sized zippered pocket, velcro ID pocket, and 4 slot velcro covered pen holders.  Inside the medium sized zipper pocket are 2 pockets where you can separate your many gadgets…or ammo.

The left side has 2 small sized zippered pockets.

The front has 2 loops on the top which can hold a long flashlight or as for me, an umbrella.

The main compartment is closed by a velcro flap with double zippers.

The front compartment has many pockets to hold documents, pens, chargers, cell phones, etc.

Outside the back compartment is another velcro spot for accessory attachments.

Inside the back compartment are 2 medium pockets and a larger pocket.

The main compartment is padded #AS-100 high grade closed-cell foam padding material for superior shock protection.

There are pockets on both sides of the main compartment.

Maxpedition also included a removable stiff panel which can be used for cord management or as a handgun holster.

The Multi Purpose Bag by itself is pretty light but it gets quite heavy after you fill it up.  I recently used this bag as my travel carry-on for my business trip.  All I can say is that this bag is like a black hole.  It can hold so much in such a reasonably sized bag.  I carried a laptop, a tablet, cell phone, 3 magazines, a hard covered research book, 2 notepads, a few folders, chargers, sync cables, snacks, pens, digital camera, and a few other smaller items.  It was organized and easily accessible.  Only thing is that this bag is not TSA certified.  So I had to take my laptop and tablet out to go through the x-ray scanner.

Maxpedition’s Multi Purpose Bag costs $139.99 direct and comes in 5 colors (black, OD green, khaki, foliage green, and orange foliage).  I think it’s worth it for any techie or marine in need of an extremely reliable and durable Multi Purpose Bag.

Filed in categories: Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews, Travel Gear

Tagged: Bag, maxpedition, Travel

Maxpedition Multi Purpose Bag Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 27, 2011 at 11:00 am.

I just returned from a very nice vacation in Sanibel Island, Florida. If you’ve never visited, you should seriously consider it… trust me. I decided to conduct a little experiment and did not take along my trusty Macbook Pro. Instead, I made my iPad serve as my only computer traveling companion for the trip. I thought for sure it would perform perfectly as a laptop replacement. I was wrong, it didn’t. But was it the iPad’s fault, my fault, or a little of both? Keep reading and see if you can help me come up with an answer to that question…

First of all, vacations for me are never unplugged. I don’t even know the meaning of being unplugged. Just the thought of it sends shivers down my spine. If I didn’t do some ‘work’ while on vacation, I would be constantly worrying about how full my inbox was becoming and what important messages I was missing. So the first thing I do when Jeanne starts making vacation travel plans is to make sure that the place where we’re going to stay provides WiFi access. Actually, I don’t even have to ask her to do that anymore. A few years ago we ended up at a motel that had really pathetic wireless and I was not a happy camper the entire time. So in order not to deal with my pouting, she puts that requirement at the top of her accommodations criteria list.

But even when we’re told that a place has WiFi, there’s still a worry that it will have crummy coverage and speed. For this trip I planned ahead and brought a loaner Verizon MiFi 2200 Mobile Hotspot as a backup WiFi device. I could have turned on the mobile hotspot feature on my Droid X, but I didn’t want to pay the extra $20 and I already had a MiFi to try out anyway.

For extended typing sessions, I dug out my old ThinkOutside Folding Bluetooth Keyboard to bring along.

It even has a built in stand that works (barely) to hold the iPad in landscape orientation as you type.

To convert the iPad into a laptop replacement, I figured that I’d not only need a physical keyboard, but also a mouse. But Julie, mice don’t work with the iPad you say… You’re right, they won’t work with a stock iPad, but they will with a jailbroke iPad Since my iPad had not been updated to the latest version of the OS (it’s still running 3.2.1), I was able to very easily jailbreak it using JailbreakMe.com which takes about 5 minutes to do. Then installing the free BTstack Mouse app from Cydia, I was able to pair a Bluetooth mouse with the iPad. I tested both the keyboard and mouse with my iPad before I left on my trip and both worked great. I felt confident that I’d be able to do some real work while I was away from my iMac and Macbook Pro.

There was only one other ‘problem’ that I needed a solution for, and that was how to offload images from my Canon SD1100 digital camera to the iPad. Instead of ordering the $29.00 Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit, I opted for a $7.99 application called ShutterSnitch that allows wireless transfers of images from EyeFi cards to the iPad. I love EyeFi cards and have never had problems with them, so I figured this would be a much more elegant solution than packing  another little gadget in my gear bag. Again, I tested the app with my camera and existing EyeFi card before leaving for my trip. Transfers seemed a little slow, but the setup worked just fine.

So with gear packed, we flew to Fort Myers, Florida and drove the short distance to Sanibel Island. The first thing I did when we reached our condo, was to check my Droid X signal strength to see if the Verizon MiFi would work well there. Unfortunately, it couldn’t hear me now. Signal strength varied considerably moment to moment inside the room and voice calls were choppy. Luckily the provided free WiFi access on the property was very very good, so I ended up stowing the MiFi for the week. It did end up working great on the travel day home, when we were stuck at the airport for about 3hrs.

During our week long stay in Sanibel, I mainly used the iPad for two things – email and surfing. For emails, I used either Apple’s built in Mail program or Gmail’s mobile site through Safari. I use Gmail for domains and both options work well. I tend to prefer Apple’s email client because it will show the email in full screen instead of the two pane view that Gmail’s mobile site has through Safari. I can say that for email, the iPad works very well. Even using the onscreen touch keyboard is not a bad experience. Jeanne (who typically loathes touch screen devices) even wrote a pretty long email to her soon to be 94yr old grandma and didn’t complain about it. That’s saying a lot!

For surfing, I have been using Safari and haven’t had any major complaints about it till I actually tried to do some real work with it last week. For surfing regular sites, it works just fine. I don’t play Flash games or typically visit sites with embedded flash video, so the lack of Flash hasn’t bugged me. But as soon as I wanted to work on some of my gadgeteer articles using the site’s wordpress admin dashboard in Safari, I ran into problems. The first one was minor – the traffic stats box didn’t show up. Guess why? It uses Flash. Darnit!

The next problem I ran into was more serious and not related to Flash. The visual editor is not available when you use Safari. So I can write / edit articles as long as I do it in HTML mode. I know HTML, but I’d rather not write in that view thank you very much.

Yes, I do know about the WordPress iPad app and I had it installed… But last week when I decided to do use it after Safari let me down, the app decided to crash on me. I’d click the icon and it would launch the app, show me a list of articles and then immediately pop back to the home / icon list view. The first thing I did was delete it and then reinstall it. That allowed the app to launch, but only comments showed up correctly. When I would try to view a list of posts, it would cause a 500 internal server popup error message. Grrrrr… And of course you can’t edit visually through the app anyway.

Oh well, so much for working during vacation By the way, I just discovered (maybe I’m just late to the party) another browser called Atomic Web Browser. So far it’s really nice and I love that you can surf in full screen mode and it has tabs across the top of the page instead of another screen that you have to flip to. It doesn’t solve the issues mentioned above, but the extra features that it does offer are winning me over fast. The lite version is free, but I’m definitely going to buy the full version since it’s only 99 cents.

Ok, so I couldn’t easily work on blog posts with my iPad, so I gave up working while on vacation. Next up, how about offloading my digital images from my camera to the iPad so that we could look at them on the larger screen. Guess what? ShutterSnitch decided to NOT work at all for me. At this point, I felt like the gadget gods were frowning on me or something… From reading the ShutterSnitch forums, some people have had problems with the app and various wireless routers. Whenever I would try to transfer images the iPad would not see the EyeFi card no matter how close together the two devices were positioned. As soon as I came home and tried it, it worked fine. Go figure.

Why did the iPad fail as a laptop replacement? I guess I claim a tiny bit of the blame because I tried to make it work at a task it wasn’t really designed for. I had to jailbreak it to get it to work with a mouse. But I blame Apple for the lack of Flash (yeah, we’ve all heard the arguments on both sides for this one) and I have to complain about the WordPress app and ShutterSnitch apps.

I still love my iPad for emailing, game playing and web surfing, but I will most likely bring a real laptop with me on my next trip. What started as an experiment to lighten my gear load, ended up causing me to carry more items (iPad, mouse, keyboard) and have more frustration than if I would have just brought my Macbook Pro with me in the first place. Live and learn.

Filed in categories: Articles, iPhone, iPad, iPod related

Tagged: iPad, Laptop, Travel

Why did my iPad Fail as a Laptop Replacement During my Vacation? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 19, 2010 at 11:19 am.

LUXE City Guide Mobile Guide Apps offer a stylish and useful option for travelers seeking the best of what a city has to offer.  Travelers can check online for regular updates and recommendations are based on merit as LUXE does not accept advertisements.   The apps can be downloaded directly to a variety of handsets and include both on- and offline maps plus clickable websites and telephone numbers.  Available for an ever-increasing number of cities such as New York (pictured), each is $9.99 and comes with a year of free updates sent directly to your mobile and re-subscription is half-price at $4.99.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related, News, Travel Gear

Tagged: iPhone App, Travel

LUXE City Guides Go Mobile originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 2, 2010 at 2:00 pm.

 iSpotSwap is an iPhone app that helps you find a parking spot or lets you alert others when your spot will be free.  You can use your current location to search for a nearby available parking spot that others have listed in the iSpotSwap database.  You can also create a list of favorite locations and search for spots near those places or near addresses in your contacts list.  You’ll see a list of color-coded pins of parking spaces to see when they’ll become available.  You can watch up to five places at your location of interest.  You can use iSpotSwap to let others know when your current spot will be available, and you can use it to help you find where you left your car or to help you remember when your parking meter expires.   You can also access the database from the iSpotSwap website.  The iSpotSwap app is free at the iTunes store.  Expect versions for Blackberry and Android soon.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related, News

Tagged: Travel

Can’t Find a Parking Spot? There’s an App for That. originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 25, 2010 at 7:10 am.

The MobileAction i-gotU is a small, on-the-go geo-tagging device may look like a tiny paperweight, but it packs a whole lot of feature and comes with three pieces of distinct software (@trip, Where am I and Sports Analyzer) for various utilizations. Whip this plastic box out while traveling to get accurate satellite tagging of your location for photos, exercising and just for kicks!

Out of the box, the i-gotU comes with:

• i-gotU GT-600
• Charging Cable
• Armband
• Translucent Silicon Cover
• Software Disk – mini disk that will not work with most MAC computers

I’ll admit my experience with this device has been rather troubling because it lacks Mac OSX support. Any device that only allows me to use WinXP on Parallels can make me antsy and a bit nervous.

I originally tested the device out back on a trip to Los Angeles at the end of January, only to realize that none of the tags took.

During the trip, I pointed the device at the sky, clicked the white button, saw a blue LED light flash, pressed the button again, thought I saw a blue light and red one, and put the device away. I did this several times along the trip as I took pictures, hoping to later tie the geo-tag to the photo I had taken.

I didn’t bring my Macbook Pro with me to double check it was working properly – big mistake because when I got home, hooked it up and opened the @tripPC program, nothing imported!

I was a tad disappointed, so I decided to reread the instructions and try it again. This time I paid closer attention to the blinking LED lights. Blue means on. Then I pointed the device to the sky till the LEDs blinked red and blue. Pressed the button again, and voila I hoped it worked this time!

Success! It worked! My locations weren’t as exotic, but at least I was able to get the little box to do its job.

FYI, be careful to pay attention to the blinking lights. If the device doesn’t acquire a satellite signal, then you’re just wasting your time!

Features

This blocky white box comes in at 46 x 41.5 x 14 mm and weighs 37g, and is like lugging around a chunky flossing container. Charged up with a 750mAh rechargeable Li-ion battery, you get tons of life before juicing up. It also powers off when not in use, conserving battery life and uses a SiRF Star III 65nm GPS low power chipset that helps save energy.

A 64M of onboard flash memory is perfect for tagging up to 262,000 points — good luck trying to fill that up travelers! And don’t worry about dropping this heavy snowflake in the snow or rain, it’s absolutely water resistant!

Software

@tripPC is similar to iPhoto in that it geo-tags your photos and places them on a map, and you can share pictures with friends using a mobilemesque gallery interface. MobileAction has some great video walkthrough, tutorial videos on their website that makes using the program very easy.

It would be cool if you could export the geo-tag to the photo for use in other photo organizing software (ie..iPhoto or Aperture), but considering the overall lack of Mac support, it’s probably not going to happen.

Regardless, @trip does make a social sharing effort by letting you create your own personal travel blog and upload your pictures to popular sites like Flickr and Picasa.

Where Am I? is a simple, straightforward application. Hook the i-gotU up to your computer and it tells you where you’re at.  Good for those boinked on the head or those with an odd case of  spontaneous amnesia.

Sports Analyzer takes your fitness to a whole new level with google map exercise routes, calendars and fitness goals, and through a series of different charts and statistics, you get a better grasp of how you are going to maintain or achieve healthy living goals.

Complaints!

I hate to end this review on a sour note, but I can’t gloss over the few glaring complaints I have about the device.

There’s no MAC OSX support! I’m sure i-gotU could make an awesome mac interface, but you’re locked into using the PC to manage everything. I had to flip over to Parallels to manage the i-gotU, so it did not make it super convenient for me to organize and manage my data.

I also had a difficult time wit the proprietary USB cable end. You have to slide it into place in just a way where everything snaps together correctly, and a failure to do so made me worry that I might snap the plastic ends off.

Sorry PC Users…

If you’re an avid PC user, please ignore! It’s a great little device if you lack a geo-tagger on your digital camera, and provides extremely accurate readouts, some detailed and helpful software and user guides, and is a fun to use once you get the hang of it.

But is it worth the $80 price tag? Only if you’re desperate!

Photographs brought to you by: Christopher Tooley -http://WWW.TOPHERPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear, GPS, Reviews, Travel Gear

Tagged: Geo-Tagger, GPS, Travel

MobileAction i-gotU USB GPS Travel & Sports Logger Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 21, 2010 at 11:09 am.

Imagine driving a vehicle with atleast one small child strapped in a car seat behind you.  The child is reading a book or playing with a doll and suddenly it drops to the floor of the car.  The child desperately wants that item but cannot reach it due to the safety restraints, so the child begins to cry and whine, pleading for you to help which you cannot safely do because you are driving. The Snack and Play Travel Tray by Star Kids Products is designed to help reduce the likelihood of the above situation occurring.  The idea for the Snack and Play Travel Tray comes from a mother of two, Alyson Probst.  I am sure she, not unlike any other parent, has experienced the situation described above.  Unlike the majority of parents though, she decided to put her entrepreneurial inventiveness to good use in developing this product.

I know with Spring and Summer approaching, alot of people will be taking longer trips with their little ones, so lets see how if this product deserves to be consider.

SPECIFICATIONS/OVERVIEW:

• Strap buckles around car seat, stroller, or child
• Foam insert collapses on impact
• Padded rim keeps toys and snack on the travel tray
• Two mesh side pockets
• Sturdy nylon fabric
• Dimensions:
  • Tray area 10″ x 15″
  • Side walls 2″ deep
• Weight:  1 lb.
• Fabric contents:
  • Cover:  100% nylon
  • Filler: polyurethane foam
  • Mesh:  100%  polyester
• Crash tested
• Certified lead-free
• Awards:
  • National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA Honors)
  • Mother of Invention – 2006 Whirlpool Brand Mother of Invention Grant – First Place Winner
  • iParenting Media Aware – Winner

The item is nicely packaged in a convenient and simple, clear plastic zippered bag.  Opening the bag, I find the tray, the strap, a single-page press release from Star Kids Products and that is about it.  Not much to it.  No instructions, which to me, implies ease of use.

The nicely size tray (10″ x 15″) is completely covered in a navy blue nylon material.  Nylon is a great choice to cover this tray because it provides durability and it is extremely easy to clean.  Clean-ability and durability, if everything I owned would meet those two requirements, my life would be easier.  Over the course of this review, the Snack & Play Tray has nicely collected tons of snack crumbs and a fair amount of milk without incident.

The tray is entirely filled with polyurethane foam, which has two huge advantages:  1) the tray is extremely pliable and 2) it weighs practically nothing (1 pound).  Safety of the product was my biggest initial concern,  specifically during a vehicle crash.  The foam is utilized because it will easily collapse upon impact.

The label in the package includes the following comment about the crash test.

“The Snack & Play Tray was crash tested at a federally recognized laboratory and passed the FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) 213 requirement.”

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 213 is the standard that specifies requirements for child restraint systems.

Just because the tray will easily collapse under impact, does not mean you are completely off the hook.  You still need to consider the toys your child will be playing with while using the tray.  Not allowing sharp, pointed, hard objects that could become harmful projectiles in an accident.

Regardless of how soft and safe the tray is, if you have brick or a knife on it, nothing good will come from it if an accident occurs.  Extreme, I know, because no child will have a brick or a knife on the tray but you get the point.

Installing the Snack & Play Tray is a snap, actually it’s two snaps.  A strap with two hard plastics buckles, one at each end, easily slips around the back of the car seat and accepts the buckle slide-ins attached to the tray straps.  The great thing about utilizing a buckle at opposite ends of the strap is that you can just leave the strap not attached to the tray in position, making on-going installation simpler.  We ran the strap behind my youngest daughter’s car seat once and then just unbuckled the tray and stored it away when she did not want to use it.

The tray has 2″ high foam side walls on three of four sides, which are  great to help contain toys and snacks on the flat surface.  The side that sits closest to the child’s stomach does not have a wall and is cut out for an ergonomic fit.  Unfortunately the lack of the wall on this side did lead to some objects falling into my daughter’s lap and on a few occasions she was unable to get them because they were under the tray.

Side flaps with two polyester mesh pockets per side nicely hang down on each side of the car seat, providing storage that is accessible to the child.  Each side has a small pocket and a larger one, roughly double the size.  When installed, on the right side (child’s perspective) the smaller pocket is closest while on the left side it is farthest from the child.

The pockets have elastic at the top that helps keep objects inside.  These pockets can hold drinks, snacks, books, toys and miscellaneous items within reach of the kid which is nice.

In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised with the Snack and Play Travel Tray by Star Kids Products.  When first approached about the product, I was expecting nothing more than a cheap gimmick exploiting parents need to keep their children happy while traveling.

I found the tray to be a well constructed, easy to clean and safe product that fills a need of every parent traveling with a young child.  Compared to the majority of other products reviewed on this site, the tray is a simple, low/no tech solution but it works great at a inexpensive price.

I would highly recommend the Snack and Play Travel Tray by Star Kids Products.  I know that we are planning on taking it with us on our trip to Florida this summer.  Hopefully it will help keep our 3-year old occupied.

Filed in categories: Car Gear, Kid Gadgets, Travel Gear

Tagged: car seat, Child, Kid, Parent, Safety, Travel

Star Kids Products Snack and Play Travel Tray Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 29, 2009 at 7:02 am.