Gadget Reviews

I had a chance to try out the new Bodygroom BG2030 from Philips and Norelco, and I have to say that my face has never been so smooth. It was only afterward that I discovered that the Bodygroom is actually designed for all areas below the neck.

However, it worked on my face! What can I say, the product does above and beyond its capacity. If you don’t believe me, check out some before and after pics of a now handsomer blogger after the jump.

The Bodygroom is designed for “sensitive areas” like the underarms, chest, legs, back, and the (ahem) groin area. In case you are worried about cutting yourself, there is a hypoallergenic shaving foil for some extra protection. It can be used for wet and dry shaving, and runs for about 50 minutes on an eight hour charge.

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The Sansa Fuze from SanDisk, is a cool little MP3/4 player along the same vein as the iPod Nano. We’ve recently been sent one to play with so here are our thoughts and findings (or a review so to speak).

Aesthetically the Fuze is a cute little player.The physical UI consists of a rotating front dial which also acts as the 4 navigation buttons with the center button for selection. The display crisp with a resolution of 220 x 176, large enough for watching the odd music video but you wouldn’t want to watch a feature length film on it. Sound quality was good (though as with just about any MP3 player the supplied headphones aren’t the greatest). What most impressed me about the Fuze are the extra features that you don’t find on other (note iPod) players, including:

• Built in microphone
• FM radio
• microSD Slot, a really cheap way to expand the capacity
• Easy to transfer files (drag and drop) without the need of propriety software

Though there are a few downsides:

• Propriety USB connection, it obviously comes the cable but a standard mini USB connection would be much more convenient especially for charging
• You bookmark videos but not audio books

The Fuze comes in 2, 4 and 8GB versions with prices starting from ~$70 at Amazon.

If you fancy winning our review unit be sure to check out our next coolest gadget of the week (don’t want to miss it, sign up for our free daily email digest).

I’m a pretty devout iPhone user. My original iPhone has been good to me. The new 2.0 firmware upgrade takes the device to a whole new level of awesomeness. But as awesome as the iPhone is, I couldn’t help but drool a bit when I first glimpsed the BlackBerry Bold. RIM promised a unique mix of form and function and according to the Boy Genius Report, they’ve pretty much delivered.

Boy Genius had a chance to take the Bold on a month long field test (seriously, we’re jealous) and the results are pretty much what most of us expected. It’s exactly what BlackBerry fans have been waiting for. Boy Genius says it best when they refer to the Bold as the “BlackBerry communities iPhone”.

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As a cell-phone user who was eager for a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard, I was eager to finally try out the BlackBerry 8830.

The BlackBerry 8830 World Edition is definitely designed for business people on the go. In fact, it claims to be “the first CDMA smartphone capable of roaming globally on GSM/GPRS networks”. This means you can pretty much travel the world without having to change your phone, your phone number, or your e-mail.

I had to admit that using a BlackBerry takes a little getting used to. The 8830 has this tiny track-ball mouse for interface that is reminiscent of Atari’s Centipede video game. However, once I used the Setup Wizard, the BlackBerry opened up to me.

In a matter of minutes, I had figured out how to view my email online, and could surf the web. As a newbie to smartphones, I have quickly discovered that there are some limitations to surfing the web online with a tiny screen.

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Recent weekend stats have shown that National Treasure: Book of Secrets has surpassed its predecessor.

As a gadget blogger, I was amazed at the amount of cool gadgets displayed in this film, and would like to review several of them at once. None of these contain any spoilers to the film.

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The new LG’s KU990 is undeniably a slinky number in the world of mobiles phones. It’s a slim and good looking and doesn’t feel plasticky. In simple terms this is a camera that you can ring people on as well as watch TV, browse the web and listen to music. Its large 66 mm touch pad screen occupies most of the front making it look like a tiny plasma whilst on the reverse, a lens encircled by jog wheel used to control the zoom and navigate through menus and adjust volume, gives the familiar appearance of a camera!

Navigation is made straight forward and friendly by the large and sensible icon layout on the touch screen. Helpfully, you can also set the touchpad to vibrate when you touch it – confirming each selection. Although the icons and buttons on the touchpad are a good size, not having small fingers or long fingernails be a disadvantage, but if this is the case, the small extendable stylus on standby. The only slightly annoying thing is the storage of the stylus which dangles untidily from the top of the phone.

You can view the full LG Viewty review over on our sister site Coolest Reviews.

Recently, the demo for the game Scene It! was released on the XBox Live Marketplace. Being the thrifty consumer that I am, I downloaded the free demo so I could try the game before I bought it.

It was a typical, lowest common denominator type of trivia game created to encompass the broadest possible audience. Being a geek who has lots of specialized, obscure trivial knowledge, this frustrated me.
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Google have recently released a native version of Google Maps, for Symbian.

Compared to the older Java version of the program, this has lots of advantages, the most obvious being start-up speed and runtime speed. Every animation is smooth, loading times are blazing if you have a good connection.

An added feature would be the GPS support. This is really cool as long as you have an always-on connection, especially when on foot. It’s got all of the search features you know from the online version of Google Maps.

Read on for some hands-on reports and screenshots.

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