The Consumer’s Corner

In general I stick to very budget friendly products that you can pick up at just about any store with some spare dough, so a cell phone review is a bit out of character. But this phone is designed for use as a pre-paid GoPhone by AT&T, and usually people using pre-paid services are generally on a budget. So here goes my opinion of the LG Prime, a new touch screen phone.

First impression was ‘Wow!’ A penny less than $80 bucks for an all touch device, from a decent manufacturer? Too good to be true. But my phone was going out anyway, I’m nowhere near the end of my contract (this phone will work for contract customers… more on that later), so I gambled. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I hit the jackpot.

Is it an iPhone? Absolutely not. But for the price, it’s amazing. I’ll get the one major draw back out of the way first, it is a 2G (Edge) only device, so your web browsing will be a bit sluggish, but not unbearably so. Also, this will largely depend on the signal strength in your area; if you’ve had crappy service with AT&T before, don’t expect miracles. Second, and this is minor, the battery door isn’t incredibly stable, so don’t be tossing it around. It will pop off on you. I’m hoping to eliminate this issue by buying a snap on case. One issue I’ve seen in other reviews is complaints about the auto-lock; they don’t understand why it locks so fast, and why you can’t turn it off. Quick answer is this; it was a cost cutting measure so LG wouldn’t have to install a proximity sensor. Simple as that, it locks to keep you from cheek dialing. Why people are complaining, I don’t know. I’ve had no issues with it.

The phone is a very lightweight plastic. It doesn’t feel cheap, but it doesn’t feel high end either. Again, I’m hoping the hard case I purchased will sure it up just a bit. The screen is a plastic resistive touch screen, and is more accurate and responsive that any other resistive touch screen I’ve used. Brightness is decent except in direct sun, colors are vivid, and it doesn’t appear to be collecting any scratches. I’m incredibly satisfied with it.

Sound is loud and crisp; I actually wish I could turn the speaker phone volume down just a touch. But one of the cool features to make use of said speaker is a built in FM radio that doesn’t require the use of any adapters for an antenna. You can listen through the built in 3.5mm headphone jack, or share the joy wish those around you. Same with the mp3 player. The mp3 player is full featured, syncs to Windows Media Player very easily though the stand micro USB jack (cable not included, but you probably have 5 already).

The Prime can be used as a mass storage drive as well, holding up to a 16GB micro USB card. This will hold your music as well as and pictures or video you may take. Camera quality suffers a bit, but I’ve seen worse. But seriously, a standardized USB drive AND a standard headphone port are rare; and the music sounds good enough to make this a decent deal as just an mp3 player. The value (phone, mass storage, camera, simple apps) easily beats out devices like the iPod Nano.

Accessories are scarce at this point, but if the LG Prime gains some popularity, I’m sure China will be happy to pump out all kinds of crap for it that you can buy at you favorite mall’s cell phone stand, or better yet, eBay.

It arrived with $50 air time making the deal even better, and get this; since I was using it on contract, it applied 150 roll over minutes to my account instead! The LG Prime is a total ‘Win!’ and cannot be beat. If you’re in the market for a nonsmart phone, you’d be doing yourself a disservice in passing it up.

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–Jeremy Hobbs

‘You get what you pay for.’ Those are generally very wise words. But sometimes, especially with electronics, you may not be expecting much, and something cheap may be just enough to get the job done. That was the mental mind set I was under the influence of when I purchased the SVP HDDV 2300 digital camcorder.

As a general rule, when buying electronic equipment, I don’t go ‘bargain hunting.’ Name brands are name brands for a reason; if I’m going to be dropping some major coin on something, I want to know it’s going to be a dependable product. The problem I faced was a simple one, I had a budget of >$100 to work with, and none of the big guys offer a decent camera in that price range. While eBay’ing, I came across a bunch of these low cost cameras, and despite some bad reviews, I decided to take a chance.

Here’s what came in my box, which arrived at my door for $74.99. The camera itself, a 2 gig generic SD card, a mini tripod, 2 AA batteries, a video cable, USB cable, velvet(ish) carrying bag, and a driver disc. My initial thought was ‘Cool!’ The camera looked nice astatically, and I was pleased with the included accessories.

Now for the camera itself. The bad reviews that I’d read were not inaccurate, in the sense that this is not the greatest camera you can buy. Where they were wrong is this can be a decent purchase for you, depending on what you plan on using it for. I wanted something small, highly portable, designed to work with SD cards, and would take a decent (read: YouTube quality) capture while sitting on a tripod. The SVP 2300 delivered on all of those requirements. The microphone surprised me as well, it did a pretty good job recording sound.

If you want something to film precious memories with, I’d certainly look elsewhere. If you have an unsteady hand, or plan on moving around a lot while shooting, you will be sadly disappointed with an SVP. The picture bends, badly, when the camera is moved. You also need to have decent lighting; the censor leaves a lot to be desired in low light environments.

Over all, I think SVP offers better quality than ‘toy’ video cameras, but definitely not as much as those low end name brand cameras that are $50 more expensive. I do not regret my purchase, in fact I think it will pay for itself pretty quickly doing the work I intend for it to do, but I’ll definitely be upgrading as soon as my finances allow me to. Mildly recommended for videobloggers, and tween’s first camera.

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

Receiving a personal storage device as a Christmas gift is pretty cool in itself; it is a very convenient way of taking your important (and not so important) data with you from place to place. Heck, you can even carry around a whole computer’s worth of software in something that is not that much bigger than a pack of gum. I’d like to have that under my tree, wouldn’t you?

Personalized Flash Drives are just that much cooler; your name (or anything you want really) is laser engraved and you get an awesome design to go along with it on the opposite side. Pexagon carries them in sizes varying from 512 mb, all the way to 4 GIGS, in 14 colors, with free 2-line engraving (20 characters per line). Plenty of (cool!) stock designs to choose from as well for the other side. Way cool.

Prices are incredibly reasonable, especially considering all of the customization options. No minimum order, either! Great presents for kids, employees, coworkers, anyone that regularly uses a computer. I recommend them!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

This is my very first review of a ‘higher end’ product, but don’t be expecting too many of these, I plan on keeping this a value centered blog. That’s not to say that I wont mix it up every now and then.

The intention of these wonderful little pieces of engineering is to protect your ears, and allow you to have the ability to hear things that are happening around you. Some audiophiles might think of that as a bad thing; but it really has it’s place. Outdoor exercisers need to be able to hear noises that would be of some importance to them, such as; cars, sirens, mad barking dogs, a pervert whistling at you, etc. Should you be fortunate enough to have an employer that allows you to listen to music on the job, AirDrives will still allow you to hear things like your phone ringing, or a fire alarm. Can you see where I’m going with this? Noise canceling/isolating earphones completely block your hearing, making you miss many sounds that could possibly help you avoid danger. They also make it harder to hear the gossip taking place in the cubical next to yours.

Those great qualities are of no consequence if the audio quality isn’t any good, so how do AirDrives sound? Music that consists mostly of mids and highs will sound excellent; easily as good or better than anything I’ve heard. This is quite an accomplishment, considering the AirDrives sit completely outside your ear. The music just magically flows into your canals, crisp and clear as you could ask for.

Base? Considering they make no seal whatsoever (they just sit on your outer cartilage!), they do a very good job. In fact, this is the area with which I am most impressed; due to the design I didn’t think they’d be able to produce any base at all. Truthfully, AirDrives don’t quite compare to noise canceling earphones in the ‘thump’ category, but what they did achieve was astonishing. Only hardcore base heads will offer any complaints.

As far as comfort and fit go, AirDrives are, again, amazing. Completely customizable, they slip right over your ears, feel as light as air, yet remain in place and feel very secure. Again, amazing is the only way to describe the way they feel.

Gold plated jack (formed at a very convenient 70 degees), in-line volume control (great for backpacking, no need to touch your player to adjust volume), sweat resistant material, far safer for your ears over the long term, AirDrives have it all. Wonderful technology; something can produce this much quality sound, and be separated from my ear canal by a wall of cartilage. Wow!

I could keep going on about the positive features, but I’m pretty sure you get the idea that I’m quite impressed. I wish the price was a bit lower, $69-$99 is a nice chunk of change, but you’re paying for a product of very high quality. Recommended without hesitation if you can come up with the coin.

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

airdrives, air drives, headphones, earphones, music

This post is being brought to you by Clearwire Broadband Internet service. No, this is not a sponsored post; but that first sentence was quite accurate. Not too long ago, I drove myself down to an official Clearwire dealer, gave them my Visa card number, and left the store the proud lessee of a Clearwire modem, and one month’s worth of access to the internet.

This cost me every bit of $20.33, but they also stuck a $45 hold on my card. I’m was not happy at all about the hold, because I was in no way informed that there would be one. I used my debit card to make this transaction, and it caused me to have a negative balance on my account. Not cool. I’m not going to blame Clearwire though, as I believe this to be the fault of the dealer I chose; they simply did not provide me with complete and accurate information. Take that as a lesson, always deal with the business itself when possible, never the middle man.

Being a ‘value’ minded consumer, as you should expect me to be (that’s my niche), I went with the ‘value’ plan. $24.99 per month for the service itself, $4.99 for the modem lease, and a few cents worth of taxes that will vary by your location. This bought me a theoretical download speed of 768 kbps, upload speed of 256kbps, and 3 email addresses. I may or may not be receiving a $50 Visa Gift Card; it was never mentioned at the dealer’s store, but it is on my receipt. That will be a nice surprise in 6-8 weeks, maybe (hopefully!).

I tested the speed earlier, and it was actually a bit quicker than advertised. I checked again in the past few days; and that speed has been maintained. Can’t promise the same for everyone though. Anyways, the speed should be more than quick enough for my basic needs; blogging, web browsing, and downloading media. I’m used to a much faster cable connection, but I’m really not noticing a tremendous drop in speed. Those huge data ‘pipes’ are only useful if something can throw it to you at that speed. If you’re a single computer household, there are very few things  (none?) that can serve you data at that rate. But on the other hand, if you’re running a four or five computer network as I know a lot of you are, that extra speed may be essential to keep from bogging everyone down. Clearwire does offer a higher speed; 1.5 mbps download, so that may be of some interest to you if you’re a power user.

It’s kind of hard to give a solid thumbs up or thumbs down at this point (I’ve only used it a month or so), but so far I’m pretty impressed. My connection is solid (the technology uses cell towers). 4 out of 5 lights on the modem about 70% of the time, 3 out of the 5 for the remainder. I’ve seen it dip lower, but only momentarily. It has yet to completely drop out on me. I’ll report back later, and let you know how it goes long term; they have me locked into a two year contact because I’m cheap and didn’t want to pay the activation fee. So I have a long time to report! By the way, customer service was very friendly, and quite helpful. Surf on!

Official Site

–Jeremy Hobbs

internet access, broadband, wimax, wireless internet