In recent years, there has been a tendency for the media to lambaste earbud headphones because they can damage hearing, as they sit further away from the ear canal, causing the user to turn up the volume more. In ear headphones (also called canalphones) are one answer to this, and today we look at a pair, the Altec Lansing BackBeat Pro. Altec Lansing promises “high-definition, ultra-low distortion audio that rivals recording studio reference speakers” and “musician-grade sound” – but how did they stack up after we put them to the test against the other popular models such as the Etymotic Research ER-6i or V-Moda Vibe headphones? Read on to find out.

Using canalphones is very much so a different experience from using just normal earbuds. This is certainly true with the BackBeat Pro. Silicon ear tips help seal the ear from outside noise and push the headphone deeper into the ear canal so you don’t have to blast the volume just to hear the music. Finding the correct eartip from the included sizes for your ears can take a while when you first use the earphones, but once you find the perfect fit, it provides a good amount of sound isolation, making them perfect for travelers.

However, I was disappointed in the quality of the silicon ear tips, which I have found to be easily torn by normal use, as compared to the foam tips in something like the ER-6i earphones from Etymotic Research.

Sound quality on the BackBeat Pro seems to be competent for the realativly cheap price, but isn’t exactly anything to write home about. When listening to acoustic music, soft rock music, or talk programs the quality is fine, in which I have no real complaints about. However, once you put on a song with a lot of bass, such as electronica, hip hop, or heavy rock with double bass drums, these headphones are completely lack luster. The bass feels flat to nonexistent, and ruined the experience completely for me.

Depending on what genre of music you listen to, the BackBeat Pro could work for you, but in the price range of $100, there are better alternatives such as ER-6i’s or the V-Moda Vibe models.

Pros

• Comfortable.
• Fairly affordable.

Cons

• Bad bass response.
• No foam earpieces are included.

A lot of cheaper monitors these days don’t bother checking their power consumption, and are somewhat inefficient in power management, until today. Dell has managed to focus highly on “greener” monitors, and have released their G2210 and G2410 monitors. They took out all the steps in providing one of the greenest monitors available, packaged to help reduce the carbon footprint and made with materials that are environmentally friendly. Today we’ll be taking a look at the G2210.

The G2210, as the model number implies, is a 22-inch monitor with a 1680×1050 native resolution in a 16:10 aspect ratio. The design of the display is simple, with a thin black matte bezel, and a rectangular stand. However, the only ergonomic controls available to the user are tilt adjustments ‚Äì no height or pivot adjustments are available.

On the back are the DVI and VGA inputs, no USB ports or DisplayPort connections are available, but would’ve been a nice touch. For those looking for the nitty-gritty technology behind the display, it uses the TN or twisted-neumatic technology, usually found in lower-end displays, and not the higher-end IPS or in-plant switching technology.

Three energy modes are preset into the on-screen display: Standard, Energy Smart, and Energy Smart Plus. The energy mode display shows an energy gauge in the corner showing how much (or how little) energy you’re saving. Energy Smart Plus activates a feature called dynamic dimming, which dims the backlight when the screen shows a bright image. Energy Smart uses the built-in ambient light sensor to adjust the brightness according to the available light in the room. Standard lets the user control brightness, like most monitors already in use today.

The on-screen display is also one of the nicest OSD’s we’ve used, it’s simple and straight forward, not too confusing to the end user.

In our display tests, we found that text was crisp and easy-to-read, but color in photos was somewhat dull and washed out. Given the low wallet-friendly price however, the Dell G2210 is an excellent choice for both businesses and consumers on a budget.

Find the Dell G2210 22″ monitor for $167 (as of June 23rd) at the Dell Small & Medium Business Store.

Pros

• Eco- and wallet- friendly.
• Built-in energy modes.
• Simple on-screen display.

Cons

• Dull and washed out images.

Edited 6/25 at 8:42pm Pacific: Corrected grammatical errors.

The Blackberry Curve smartphone has been a staple in the industry for a long time starting with the original 8300 back in 2007. RIM is back at it again with the sleek new Curve 8900 smartphone. How does it compare to the 8300 series and will it become the new champion of the Blackberry?The 8900 takes the curved design of the 8300 series and polishes it up to match the styling of the Storm and Bold smartphones, taking the sleek black finish and combining it with smooth metal bezels. One thing that struck me first was the display. Text was crystal clear compared to my now outdated titanium Blackberry 8310. Images are sharp and vibrant, no longer is there the problem of getting dust under the screen since it’s now flush with the rest of the phone.

As with the Curve series before it, the 8900 brings the familiar QWERTY keyboard back and it still has the same great feel that Blackberry users are accustomed to. Thankfully RIM managed to slim down the Curve quite a bit, making it even more compact and comfortable in your hands. We also liked the fact that the Curve 8900 had an updated user interface that matches hand-in-hand with the external design of the phone.

On the back of the phone is a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus, flash, and image stabilization. Images taken in dark situations turned out grainy, but those taken in a well-lit room were decent. There is some lag when taking a photo however, so keep those hands steady to get optimal shots. The camera is a welcomed improvement over the 2.0 megapixel camera in the 8300 it replaces.

The phone does have built-in GPS and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with UMA support, so you’ll be able to hop onto a hotspot at Starbucks and surf the web at increased speeds. Speaking of speed, the Curve 8900 isn’t a 3G phone, so you’re stuck with the slower EDGE network which isn’t too bad if you’re not a huge mobile web fan. There are maps available on the Blackberry either using the Blackberry Maps application or Google Maps Mobile, but if you’re looking for the true GPS experience, you’ll want to take a look at the TeleNav software.

And all on top of this is the BlackBerry messaging that every Blackberry smartphone is known for, emailing capabilites and all. If I wasn’t upgrading to an iPhone 3G S, the Blackberry Curve 8900 would be my phone of choice.

In our performance tests, we were able to get around 8 hours of talk time on a single charge. Call quality was good, but there was some noticeable background noise. The speakerphone quality was decent and loud as well.

We reviewed the T-Mobile version of the Blackberry Curve 8900, but an unlocked version is also available from Amazon.com for $460 bucks.

Pros

• New slim and sleek design.
• Revised user interface.
• Wi-Fi and GPS built-in.
• Great 3.2 MP camera.

Cons

• No 3G support.

We reviewed the Amazon Kindle back in January of last year, and now Amazon is back with the Kindle 2. With an improved display (although not larger), sleek new design, and a new navigation joystick, plus text-to-speech, does the Amazon Kindle 2 win our praise? Read on after the break for more details and our final opinion.

While there aren’t as many improvements as people had hoped for, the new design is a welcome enhancement. The new display now has 16 shades of grey instead of four and makes text appear crisper and clearer. Page turns are also 20% faster than the original Kindle display. Check out the video below showing you a 360-degree spin of the new Kindle 2 design.

Gone is the SD expansion slot, replaced with 2GB of on-board memory. This isn’t a huge deal, since it’s enough to store over 1,500 books. In terms of software features, not much has changed besides tweaking location of certain functions such as search, which has now been relocated to a search bar at the bottom of your screen. One new feature, the only major one at least, is the addition of text-to-speech.

Any newspaper, magazine, book, or blog can be read out loud and pages turn automatically when being read, so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy your favorite book. We’re still wondering why Amazon hasn’t built in a backlight or a reading light, because reading the Kindle is virtually impossible in dim lighting. The battery isn’t user-replaceable either, which shouldn’t be a problem, but eventually it will need to be replaced. The process costs $80 to send the device to Amazon, and the process doesn’t replace the battery, but replaces the entire Kindle.

If you’re an avid reader, by all means, go out and get a Kindle. Buy it today from Amazon.com for $360 with free shipping. Still a hefty price, but well worth it for bookworms. We’ll be taking a look at the Kindle DX soon too.

Pros

• Enhanced design.
• New crisper and clearer display.
• Text-to speech functionality.

Cons

• No backlight.
• Still somewhat expensive.

Mobile broadband cards are becoming smaller and less bulky over the past couple of years, and have also been adding features as well such as GPS. Like previous cards we’ve reviewed, many of them are also doubling as microSD card readers, which are ubiquitous in cell phones and smartphones around the world. The latest Sierra Wireless 598U mobile broadband card from Sprint is one of them, and we’re taking a look at it today.

The Sprint 598U is one of the latest Sierra Wireless cards, and plugs into any USB port on your notebook (or desktop for that matter), giving you instant access to the Sprint EVDO Rev. A network. Inside the box, you’ll also find a laptop clip and a 20-inch USB extension cable. One of our favorite features in most of the newer cards is the no-CD install – the drivers are built-in on the modem allowing for easy installation without first having to find it.

I tested the 598U with my MacBook Pro notebook in the Sacramento metro area and we found speeds to be fairly fast and quick enough to stream online videos, even in HD.

In the design of the 598U, Sierra Wireless and Sprint went one step further, making the Sprint logo light up when the device is plugged in and connected. We thought this feature was unnecessary however, and thought there should be an option to turn it off. Nothing a piece of black tape shouldn’t fix though.

The Sprint 598U is a great choice for the road warrior that needs to be connected anywhere they go. Find it at Sprint.com for $29.99 afer instant savings and a mail-in rebate with a 2-year contract.

Pros

• No CD required for install.
• Smaller, compact design.
• Supports EVDO Rev A speeds.

Cons

• Can’t turn off Sprint logo light.

Offering all the bass that comes with a subwoofer without the wasted space on your floor, the expressionist BASS speakers from Altec Lansing prove to be an interesting concept. Instead of a traditional subwoofer, the speakers have a four inch subwoofer located in their bases.

First things first, the size of the speakers is simply awkward. Standing ten inches high, the speakers simply take up too much room on the desktop itself. The bottom of the speaker is similarly large as they have to accommodate the subwoofers. I suppose this is just a small sacrifice to be made for the extra foot room you gain.

Another drawback I found with these speakers is in the controls. You have a typical power button, then volume up and down buttons. There’s no control of the subwoofers, which can become a problem as I mention later. Also, instead of buttons, I prefer a volume dial. It simply makes controlling volume more elegant and exact.

However, the most important part of any speaker system is the sound quality. As I just mentioned, the lack of an onboard bass control proves frustrating at times for one simple reason. When a subwoofer is on the floor, it’s muffled more by its surroundings. However, when you have two subwoofers right in front of you, the bass can overwhelm the treble.

That being said, a few small equalizer changes later, I was up and running. Overall, the sound quality is relatively good. Treble notes are well projected providing that you somehow turn down the bass. It’s not the clearest sound quality I’ve ever heard, but it’s by no means bad.

If you’re in the market for space-saving, built-in-subwoofer speakers for around $130, the expressionist BASS might very well be the option you’re looking for. However, if you are willing to spend a bit more, there are more promising speakers of the same space saving design (Audioengine A2, etc.).

Pros

• Stylish design
• Relatively good sound quality
• MP3 Input

Cons

• Poor volume controls
• Overpowering bass
• Very large size

If you’re familiar with the original Squeezebox network music player, it allowed you to listen to the music on your computer in one location wirelessly over your hi-fi system. Logitech recently acquired the company and has been making significant advances. One of them is the new Squeezebox Boom. What features does it add and how good is it?

As the name might imply, the Squeezebox Boom pairs the award-winning network music player with a 30-watt digital amplifier and speakers, making it even more convenient than before. In between both speakers are the LCD display and navigation controls, which are very self explanatory and common throughout most boombox-style devices.

Below the LCD are six preset buttons, a large knob for volume & navigation, and the usual play/pause and previous/next track buttons.

The Boom uses 802.11g or Ethernet (located on the back of the device) to connect to your home network, in turn, allowing it to connect to your computer’s music library. Also found on the back are headphone out and line in jacks for enjoying other devices using the built-in speakers, or listening to the Squeezebox function using headphones.

Installing the Squeezebox Boom is a very simple process, and in our case went very smoothly. We setup the device using our Apple Time Capsule network, and then proceeded to pop in the setup disc into our Mac. If you just want to listen to internet radio or services such as Pandora, there is no additional software required.

However, if you’re interested in listening to your iTunes or Windows Media library, you’ll need to install the SqueezeCenter web server onto your PC, Mac, or Linux computer. We tested the SqueezeCenter-route during our testing period and it worked seamlessly. FYI, the Squeezebox won’t play DRM-protected music such as older iTunes purchases, but will play newer iTunes Plus songs.

Navigating throughout the Boom may seem complex at first glance, but the large knob control works well. In terms of audio performance, the Squeezebox Boom packed quite a bit of bass, which is surprising for such a small device, but besides that, it sounds really good. Playing internet radio and podcasts over WiFi worked flawlessly as well, and we enjoy waking up to SomaFM’s Groove Salad every morning thanks to it.

However, the glossy case is a dust-magnet, and the Boom isn’t totally portable–you have to be near an AC-outlet for it to work.

The Logitech Squeezebox Boom is available now and you can grab it from Amazon.com for just under $240 bucks. It’s probably the best internet-connected radio we’ve seen yet.

Pros

• Great sound.
• WiFi and Ethernet connectivity.
• Accesses music located on computer wirelessly.

Cons

• No battery operation.
• Glossy black finish is a dust-magnet.

Logitech’s Harmony 1100 is the second touch-screen remote the company has produced, and the first that we’ve been able to get our hands on. Becoming the iPhone of remotes, the remote substitutes the majority of the tactile response of other remotes with simplified touch-based controls.

Previously, we’ve looked at a good number of the Logitech universal remotes including the One, 880, and 890 Pro. With all of these, Logitech includes its stunning device database of over 200,000 devices and 5,000 brands. The 1100 is no different. Setup is as simple as popping in the battery, plugging in, and picking out your home theater setup.

Like the 890 Pro, the 1100 has RF compatibility which means it can control much more than your TV. Have RF-compatible lighting? Blinds? Fireplaces? The 1100 can setup varying environments by controlling all of these. Of course, game consoles, TVs, and other media peripherals are no exception to the extensive database that Logitech maintains.

Beyond setup, the first drawback we found in the remote is that one hand usage of your remote is no more. The sheer width of the remote makes access to the touch-screen impossible without using two hands. The remote does include a few tangible buttons including channel toggle, volume, directional control, power and a few others. These can be used one handed, but if you want to get to the menu of your cable box without fooling with the touch-screen, you might want to consider another remote.

However, beyond this small drawback, the 3.5″ touch-screen is absolutely beautiful. It might not be the most impressive screen ever, but it certainly is the most impressive on a remote. Touch controls are consistently responsive and the default layout of the controls is very easy to use. The large size of the on-screen buttons makes the remote very easy to use, and the interactive help makes the remote very easy to use. In addition, virtually every screen and control can be customized through the included software, making the remote incredibly flexible.

Ultimately, the Harmony 1100 does carry an expensive suggested price tag of $499.99, but if you have an extensive home theater to control, no other remotes come close to the customizability and control that the 1100 offers.

Pros

• Extremely Customizable
• Beautiful Screen
• Incredible Ease of Use

Cons

• Very Expensive
• No One-Hand Usage

Lately though many USB drives have come out that look nothing like a standard USB drive, they look like regular ordinary objects, sort of camouflaged if you will, to not resemble their techie counterparts. You can get them to look like toys, shoes, jewelry, sushi and many other things. Point here is that they don’t look like a USB drive at all, they are disguised to look like everyday objects.

Today for review I’ve got the Teddy Bear 1GB USB Drive, and it’s exactly what it sounds like, a cute and cuddly stuffed animal with a USB drive inside of it. So it’s a cute stuffed Teddy Bear that doubles as a USB drive, but it’s also a bit disturbing as well, read on to see what I mean by that…

Features

• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 certified, backward compatible with USB 1.1
• Plug and Play, Hot-Swapped capability
• Mass Storage Device class compatible.
• Support: Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and Mac OS
• Dimensions: 8cm x 9.5cm tall (approx.)
• Weight: 20g
• Capacity: 1GB
• Price: US$ 17.00

A Better Look at Things

The Teddy Bear USB Drive comes in a nice plastic box, kinda resembles the box that my iPod nano 4th came in actually. It’s a nice little box really that can be reused for whatever.

The Teddy Bear itself is brown as one would expect a teddy bear to be, he’s sporting a nice big red bow as well, and he’s smiling too. It seems well made really, I’ve pulled on his arms and legs and they seems attached very well, but then I pulled on his head and it came off to reveal the USB connection.

Yeah, so you pull this cute little Teddy Bear’s head off to access the USB drive…

Installation, Testing and Comparison

As if pulling the Teddy Bear’s head off isn’t disturbing enough, when you actually use him, it looks like his head is jammed into your USB port, and that you’ve got this cute little bear stuck inside of your computer… a bit sadistic it is.

Needless to say I think, but it looks pretty bad when you’ve got a stuffed Teddy Bear sticking out of your computer, people might start to talk about you if they see something like this… but I like him, I think he’s rather cool, my three year old son loves Teddy Bears and he wants him as well, he was all excited to see the ‘baby bear’ when I first got him. He was also rather excited about the fact that he could pull his head off, not sure if I should be worried about that or not…

So yes it’s a Teddy Bear, but it’s also a USB drive, so let’s see how it performs shall we?

I’ve put it up against a few other 1GB USB drives and I threw in my OCZ Rally2Turbo 4GB drive as well to show them compared to a fast USB drive.

There are two main tests that I run on USB drives, the first one is SiSoft Sandra 2009 SP2 Removable Storage Benchmark.

Here’s an explanation of how it works and what the things mean you’ll see in th following graph:

Combined Device Index is a composite figure representing an overall performance rating based on the average of the Combined Index figures over the four file sizes (Higher is better, i.e. better performance).

Endurance Factor is a figure representing the Wear and Life Expectancy of flash devices; this is obtained by dividing the average performance (normal condition, i.e. sequential write) to the lowest performance (high-stress condition, i.e. same block re-write).

It measures the relative improvement of endurance caused by the wear levelling or flash management algorithm; the absolute endurance of a device (i.e. its expected life-time) is directly dependent, in addition to this Endurance Factor, on the nominal manufacturer rating of maximum erase/reprogram cycles, which is typically 100,000+ for SLC and 10,000+ for MLC devices (Higher is better, i.e. longer life-time for the device).

As you read Higher is Better, so the graph is organized Worst to Best scores:

As you can see according to this test that the Teddy Bear actually scores pretty well, coming in second.

Let’s take a closer look though at a part of the test, the 256MB Files test.

Again here’s a brief explanation of what things in the chart mean, ordering is Worst to Best again.

Read Performance: expressed both in terms of Operations per Minute (i.e. the number of files read per minute)

Write Performance: similarly expressed both in terms of Operations per Minute (i.e. the number of files written in a minute)

Well here things changed a bit, the Teddy Bear actually moved down to third place for this test, apparently the Toughdrive is better at handling the large files than the Bear is.

The next test I like to use for USB drive is DiskBench, this test gives us actual time in seconds to complete a task, I think time is something that people can understand more readily than numbers like Sandra puts out.

For my testing I like to test Copy To or Write to, Copy From and Read From, these I feel are the most common things that people will do with a USB drive. DiskBench also gives us the actual transfer rates as well in MB/s so we can tell if it meets or exceeds manufacturers specs.

For the tests I use a 350MB .AVI Video file.

The first graph I have for you is the time it took to complete the tasks, ordering is best to worst using the Copy To or Write Speed as the reference for ordering. Since it’s time, lower is better of course.

As you can see it takes over 90 seconds to Copy the file to the Teddy Bear, that’s fairly long, but nowhere near as long as the slower two drives take. The read speed though of the Teddy Bear isn’t too bad overall.

Here’s another graph showing the transfer rates for the tests, ordering again is best to worst, transfer rates are of course higher equals better, ordering is again based off write speeds.

Again we see the Read speeds aren’t too bad really with the Teddy Bear, but the Write speed is horrible, coming in at 3.66MB/s, though as you can see, there are worse results with other similar products…

Summary

The Teddy Bear USB Drive isn’t something you’d want if you’re in a hurry that’s for sure, but if you’re looking for a USB drive that doesn’t look like a USB drive then this is it, it’s cute and cuddly, and can sit on your desk and no one will know it’s a USB drive.

Of course though it is bit disturbing really, and those out there with a sadistic streak might really like it as well!

Overall though, as I said, I like it, it’s unique, it might not be the fastest out there, but it’s certainly different.

Pros

• Cute and cuddly
• Faster than other competitors
• Relatively fast read speeds
• Inexpensive really for what it is
• Seems well made

Cons

• Disturbing….
• Slow overall

Based on the highly popular and portable Mino pocket camcorder, Flip Video has upped the ante once more with the MinoHD. As the name implies, it shoots 1280 x 720 video, but does it really do the job in all conditions? We’ve put it through the test, and our full review is after the break.

In terms of cosmetics, the Mino & MinoHD are nearly identical, save for the stainless steel plastic finish around the bezel. Inside, the capacity is doubled up to 4GB, but still shoots the same 60 minutes worth of video. Unlike the older Flip Ultra, the MinoHD only comes in one color, black.

On the back is the same 1.5-inch LCD screen, seen throughout the Flip Video product lineup, but it’s fairly small to view HD content, which is letterboxed on the screen.

One other downside we found when unboxing the device, was the lack of an HD-quality output. The MinoHD, unfortunately, only supports composite video. What’s an HD camcorder without an HDMI or component output?

In our tests, we were somewhat impressed with the video quality, except for the slightly washed out color reproduction. Other than that, the MinoHD is A-okay. The microphone isn’t the best, but if you want better audio and video quality, it’s probably best to step up to a real HD camcorder like the Canon VIXIA HV30.

For capturing those quick moments when you don’t have the time to get a huge camcorder ready to shoot, the Flip MinoHD does it’s job fairly well.

Flip Video also made it very easy to share videos you record with friends and family. The bundled FlipShare software provides a simple enough interface that anyone with basic computer experience can use it, and exports video to YouTube and other video services. It also offers a simplistic way at editing multiple videos together with a music soundtrack.

The MinoHD retails for $229, a hefty cost for such a simple device, but does it compare in quality to the Kodak Zi6 camcorder? We’ll bring you that review next week.

Pros

• Video quality was fairly good, but washed out.
• Small, compact package.
• Simple to use software.

Cons

• Small LCD screen.
• No HD output.

It’s been a little over a month since I received my BlackBerry Storm review unit, and I have to say, it’s been a lukewarm experience. With the world’s first “clickable” touch screen display, does it offer a similar experience to the heavyweight champion, the iPhone 3G? How about the other competitors using Windows Mobile? Find out after the jump.

Before we delve into the review and my thoughts on the product, I’ve decided not to highlight the features that make a BlackBerry, such as push email, contacts, calendaring, and other PIM-like features.

It’s obvious that Research in Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry, spent their time designing this product (but not eliminating bugs, we’ll talk about this later!) and getting it right unlike other competitors to the iPhone such as LG and HTC. The Storm 9530 has a 3.25″ glass touch screen display, with SurePress technology. Effectively, the SurePress technology makes the entire display a button, giving the user feedback with the selection of an on-screen interface item. At first I was just tapping the display to navigate through the phone, forgetting to actually push down on the display, but after the first week or so, I was comfortable enough and found myself getting used to it.

Unlike the iPhone, there is more than one button (in addition to the touch screen) including talk/end, menu, and back navigation buttons along the bottom of the device.

The Storm uses the fast EVDO Rev. A network along with support for HSDPA/UMTS networks.

The entire unit weighs 5.46 ounces and measures 4.4″ x 2.4″ x 0.55″, a tad smaller than the iPhone. Being both an original iPhone, and an iPhone 3G user, it was hard for me to get used to the SurePress keyboard. For first-timers, it should work without a hitch after typing on it for a few days. Something that I missed personally from the Storm was the trackball that users are now accustomed to on the Pearl, Curve, and Bold. It would have been a nice touch for easier one-hand use and selecting specific items on a web page with tons of links.

Unlike some smartphones, the Storm 9530 has a standard 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, making it easy to plug in your favorite headphones along with support for A2DP stereo Bluetooth headsets, bridging the gap between a business-oriented and a music-oriented phone.

Compared to the iPhone 3G, the 9530 has a 3.2 megapixel camera with video capabilities, autofocus, and a flash. Image quality was disappointing: colors were washed out and objects looked soft. The autofocus is an improvement over the lack of one on the iPhone and iPhone 3G however, making it easy to get a closeup shot on small objects.

Having a large touch screen display has it’s advantages, including viewing large webpages with loads of content. It’s probably the best BlackBerry browser I’ve come across, but it doesn’t come close to the power of the WebKit-based Safari mobile browser on the iPhone. It was awkward especially for me when I tried to pinch the screen and nothing happened.

Overall performance of the smartphone’s software was sluggish and laggy when switching the phone from landscape to portrait mode or while navigating menus and launching applications. The BlackBerry Application Center (clearly a rival towards the iPhone’s App Store) only offers a handful of applications, but that number should increase when the full offering launches later this year.

Call quality was quite good and there was no sign of background noise or distorted audio. On the contrary, using the speakerphone yielded completely different results. Uneven and rough call quality was experienced on both ends of the call with words cut off abruptly. Battery life was excellent and during our tests, received approximately 6 to 7 hours of talk time on a single charge.

The BlackBerry Storm 9530 is a nice competitor against the venerable Apple iPhone 3G, but it’s software flaws hold it back from being one of the best touch screen smartphones available today. It may be a good choice for Verizon Wireless users, but those with other carriers and more time to research should look elsewhere.

If you’re a Verizon Wireless subscriber and have no other choice than the Storm, it’s available today from Amazon.com for just $99.99 when purchased with a new service plan and free two-day shipping.

Pros

• Innovative “clickable” touch screen.
• High-speed EVDO Rev. A network.

Cons

• Touch keyboard takes some getting used to.
• Sluggish software.
• Speakerphone quality needs improvement.

First released in 2007 and then re-released in 2008, the EyeTV Hybrid has gone through many iterations. The latest iteration, released only weeks ago at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, bundles the TV tuning device with the latest release of Elgato’s EyeTV software, version 3.1 and a new TV Guide service to offer users of the software more complete and explanatory program details. How does the performance measure up to the Pinnacle TV HD Stick for Mac or the previous EyeTV Hybrid (2008)?

The new Hybrid (2009) offers an enhanced, sleek design and in the box, along with the tuner, the device comes with: a remote, a video adapter cable, a USB extension cord, and the EyeTV software disc. Getting ready to watch TV on your Mac is fast and easy, and since I already had the latest edition of the software installed (3.1 as of this review), all I had to do was plug in the new Hybrid USB stick and I was watching the local HD news in no time.

For testing, I used the black “stick” antenna that came with the Pinnacle TV HD Stick for Mac, and it picks up the major networks in my area with no dropouts when set high up on the shelf above my desk.

Currently, the EyeTV software uses either the TitanTV service for program information, but the new TV Guide service offers extensive more details. Compared to the TitanTV service, it offers up to 14 days of guide data, and information such as the cast and ratings. There’s a catch however, the TV Guide data is free for only a year and after that, you’ll have to shell out $20 per year, which is worth it if you’re a TV-holic.

It’s also now easier to record an entire season of a certain television show with Smart Series Guides. It builds on top of the existing Smart Guide feature and makes it easier for those who don’t want to add tons and tons of search conditions to the older feature.

Overall, the EyeTV Hybrid (2009) isn’t much different than it’s predecessor other than the software behind it, and that’s what makes the Elgato products great. Buy it today from Amazon.com for just under $129.95 with free shipping, a great deal.

Pros

• Sleeker new design.
• Extensive new guide data from TV Guide.
• Remote bundled in the box.

Cons

• None.

Last month at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, there was one company that stood out from the rest, Marketcircle. They had just unveiled a new product, Daylite Touch, which brings the popular productivity software to your iPhone or iPod touch. We interviewed CEO, Alykhan Jethan (AJ) and here’s what he had to say about his company and the future of the platform.

1. Can you introduce yourself to our ConnectReviews readers, and describe what you do on a day-to-day basis at Marketcircle?

I’m the CEO of Marketcircle – the man who runs the show. The majority of my time is spent in product development at our company, but I have my nose in pretty much everything. I began Marketcircle in 1999 and we are based in Toronto, Ontario. We develop award-winning business applications for Mac OS X, including Daylite productivity management software, Daylite Touch, Daylite Mail Integration Module (DMI), and Billings 3, which is a practical time billing and invoicing application.

2. What features make Daylite one of the best compared to the competition or similar products?

Your readers might need a bit of background information on Daylite before I answer that question. Daylite productivity management software helps Mac-based businesses win more business and deliver better on promises made to clients. Daylite provides integrated tools and processes that help manage time, tasks, projects, and contacts as well as identify and qualify opportunities. Daylite integrates with Apple Mail and works with Sync Services to bring Daylite contacts and calendar features to iPhone, iPod, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile devices and cellphones.

Daylite does not have any direct competition for its full feature set. There is no other Mac business software that offers a similar set of business productivity features – at least that we are aware of. Daylite is multi-user, connecting up to 50 users together, and provides collaborative GTD tools for work groups. Daylite also offers offline synchronization as well as “over the air” synchronization with the upcoming Daylite Touch for iPhone and iPod touch. The concept behind Daylite is to make small businesses more productive. It also has business integration options that include connectors to MYOB’s AccountEdge, FileMaker databases, MoneyWorks accounting and LightSpeed (point of sales system).

3. How have sales been for Daylite in terms of total copies sold?

Our sales for Daylite remain strong. I don’t divulge specific numbers in terms of copies sold or revenues at Marketcircle. We’re a private company with just under 25 people on staff.

4. How long after Apple made the iPhone SDK available did Marketcircle start developing a touch version? How long did it take? What about the SDK were you most impressed with?

We downloaded the iPhone SDK within an hour of it being made available to developers – that was on 6 March 2008 – and myself and our many engineers have been working on the Daylite Touch application ever since. Daylite Touch hasn’t shipped yet but will soon – so it will be a year that we’ve been developing, fine-tuning and testing Daylite Touch. It will offer new levels of business productivity to the mobile crowd with features unmatched elsewhere. To name a few… Imagine being able to view your colleagues calendar and schedule meetings while on the go – without requiring a live connection to the database.

In terms of the SDK, the whole thing is pretty impressive, but the simulator is particularly impressive.

5. What kind of reception did you get at Macworld Expo?

We had large crowds at our booth at Macworld Expo 2009 and for our demos of Daylite Touch – a great reception. Daylite Touch won Macworld Expo 2009 Best of Show. You can read our company blog at http://www.marketcircle.com/blog/ for the many details about our Best of Show and our successful list of booth events.

6. Will Marketcircle continue to exhibit at Macworld Expo every year?

I’m sitting on the fence on this one. Now that Apple has pulled out, IDG, Macworld Expo organizers, need to give me a compelling reason to attend as a vendor next year. The cost of exhibiting is very high and the ROI is questionable. I hope that IDG comes up with something good, because I will sure miss the networking aspect of it.

7. What kind of products do you want to see come from Apple that you are personally looking forward to?

Since I’m the CEO and we make productivity software, the line between personal and business desires is blurred. Especially since I run my business and personal life using Daylite.

In terms of hardware, currently my biggest wish is for an iPhone with a slightly better processor and more available RAM for third party apps (like Daylite Touch).

In terms of software – it is the ability to have background processes on the iPhone. This is low-level stuff that helps developers like us deliver better applications to users like you, but it would help me personally too. Those are my top wishes at the moment.

We came across SlideRocket, an online presentation tool after they won a Crunchie award two weeks ago in San Francisco after Macworld Expo. I thought it would be a great idea to interview Mitch Grasso, the CEO of the company, and here’s what he had to say. Read the entire interview and enter our contest to win a 12-month Individual plan.

1. What influenced you to start SlideRocket and create a web-based presentation application?
Mike Lingle, my co-founder, had a previous company called Tonic Studios which made a desktop presentation application written in Macromedia Director that provided way better support for multimedia than PowerPoint and he had some success selling that to media companies so a big part of making presentation software for us was creating software that would give you a set of really professional tools and let you build stunning presentations the way that Adobe Photoshop lets you do pretty much anything you want to do with images. The other influence was Adobe Flex which had just come out and really enabled the kind of web application development that would make a professional web based product possible, without the usual less is more kind of compromises that seem to be inherent in a lot of web applications. I guess that’s where the “rich” in RIA really comes from. For us it means that SlideRocket is tactile, very responsive, looks beautiful and performs superbly, as good as, if not better than a desktop app.

2. How long did it take to develop?
We released the private beta in March of 2008 and I’d been working on it for about 14 months at that point. Our public beta came out in September 2008, we launched our GA release to the public in November 2008 and we’re getting some great buzz, got nominated for a Best Design award and have paid users signing up every day.

3. How many users of the service are there today? How many are signing up daily?
As a private company we don’t disclose total users but we have an average of 300+ signups a day from all over the world. The nice thing about a web application is that you’re instantly global and it’s amazing how fast word of mouth can carry a good product experience / reputation.

4. Some customers may be worried about using web-based presentation applications in an offline environment, what makes SlideRocket different?
Most people we talk to seem to be very happy to have the option of accessing their SlideRocket presentation from any browser on Windows, Mac or Linux or from the SlideRocket Player on their desktop. We really want to let you access your presentations and assets in the way that’s most convenient for you.

5. How can you assure potential customers that their slideshows are safe and securely hosted?
Presentation security has historically been a very serious problem and it seems like every other week we hear about a company’s top secret PowerPoint deck being leaked to the public. The unfortunate reality is most people keep their presentations on their laptops which are stolen at an alarming rate (10,278 / week according to PC World), and suffer from hard drive failure or corruption more than manufacturers would have you believe (as much as 13% of all hard drives according to a Carnegie Mellon University study). Viruses attack regularly and without warning and employees leave or get headhunted away to competitors with your intellectual property on a thumb drive in their pocket or personal email account. User error (31% of all data loss according to IDC) and natural disasters also play a part.

SlideRocket solves for these issues. Your presentation files and assets are stored and backed up in the cloud. We let you control who has access to assets in your SlideRocket library as an individual or as a group and you can remove access at any time or disable a user account altogether. You can set a presentation password and decide who can fwd, print or even view your presentation in full screen mode. At the application level we require an authenticated username and password and at the file and database level we work with partners like Amazon Web Services and ThePlanet respectively to ensure your private data is kept private. All of these combine to ensure best of breed security for your presentations.

6. Where do you see SlideRocket in a year? In what ways can your product improve?
This time next year we’ll have launched some pretty big new features. An offline editor that will let you create and edit presentations in disconnected mode then sync back to the cloud when you’re next online. We’ll have done some integrations with other SaaS applications for example a Salesforce.com app that will let you use SlideRocket as a custom lead generation / maturation and measurement tool. We’ll have opened up our API and plug-in architecture to let the community develop functionality like new effects and transitions. We’ll also have a much more robust marketplace of content and services where you can browse, buy and rapidly integrate elements like cartoons, fonts, audio files etc. as well as services from graphic designers or copy writers or speech coaches, really anything you need to help you make a great presentation. There are a few other things too but we’re not talking about them publicly just yet. If you love SlideRocket today you’re going to be blown away as we roll out some of our ideas in 2009.

7. What kind of limitations are there with web-based applications? Do you think these will be eliminated over time?
Web applications today are limited by bandwidth and reputation, the former because not everyone has a high speed Internet connection which is preferable and the latter because many early web applications created very basic versions of their desktop counterparts which made people feel like they were making a sacrifice. SlideRocket will have an offline version in 2009 that will let you work without any bandwidth at all and we have a very detailed product that gives you the best of both desktop performance and internet integration to provide real innovation in presentation software.

8. Are there any features in SlideRocket that set it apart from similar products like 280 Slides from 280 North?
You know we’d love Gartner to do a magic quadrant of online presentation providers because we think we’d be far to the top right of their curve and well beyond the offerings of our compteitors. SlideRocket takes a very holistic and integrated approach to presentations and enables you to quickly create amazing looking slides with professional authoring tools, manage them along with images, video, flash animations and audio in a library of shared assets, collaborate with your peers, conduct HD quality web meetings, share your presentations securely and measure usage statistics. We also have a marketplace of content and services that let you browse and buy a variety of different services to help you make great presentations. It’s already integrated and available to you in the web browser of your choice and because we’re new we have introductory pricing. Of course the best thing to do is just sign up for a free 30-day trial and see for yourself at SlideRocket.com.

SlideRocket Giveaway

We want you to experience the service for yourself for an entire year, so we’re giving away a 12-month Individual Plan for SlideRocket. The process of entering the giveaway is simple, leave a comment below and we’ll pick one of you at random on Friday, January 23rd at 4:00p Pacific Time. The best way to figure out if you’ve won is to subscribe to our RSS feed in your favorite feed reader.

In years past, BlackBerry has been innovating with product after product. With the new family of BlackBerry Bold, Storm, and 8900, they have a great lineup for the rest of the year. Today we’re taking a look at the sleek new BlackBerry Bold 9000 on AT&T.

What makes the Bold better than the Curve? I’ve been using the Bold off and on as my main cellphone of choice for the past month and it’s hard to switch back to the dated Curve. The Bold has a sleek black and silver design that’s reminiscent of an iPhone, which blends into the old school black leather finish on the back. It’s quite a bit bigger than the Curve but a little smaller than the 8800 series,

The Bold has a screen that is twice the resolution of the Curve (480×320 pixels) and simply looks amazing when you get your hands on it. The text is crisp and graphics pop out of the screen. When I switched back to my Curve, I felt like I was stuck in the past and not in with the new. The keyboard is a little bit more spacious than the Curve’s and didn’t take too much time to get used to.

For connectivity, it’s got everything. 3G (HSDPA), WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth, everything you’d need walking around the city. Testing the AT&T Navigator app, GPS was a little slow, and took a while to pick up on a route. The web browser doesn’t top mobile Safari, but it works and gets the job done.

Even though it seems like a strictly business-oriented smartphone, RIM has still bundled the Media application found on other BlackBerrys throughout the line. I played the Speed Racer trailer that was bundled with the phone and it looked and sounded amazing for a BlackBerry. The colors were vibrant and the stereo speakers were excellent.

Themes have been revamped with the latest 2008 line of BlackBerry products, with white-on-black menus and crisp modern icons. Just like BlackBerrys of the past, startup is a little sluggish but once you get past that, it’s blazing fast and snappy. Battery life is pretty good, and a whole day with 3G usage just barely drained the battery.

3G reception was consistent, but as expected, in underground areas of San Francisco, reception dropped to EDGE, and once to the now dated GPRS technology.

I can’t wait to see what RIM has up their sleeves next, the 8900 looks like it’ll push the Curve even further behind, and the Storm is a Verizon subscriber’s dream come true. We’ll have hands on with the Storm within the next couple of weeks hopefully.

The RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000 is available on AT&T in the United States, Rogers in Canada, and Vodaphone in the UK. Buy the AT&T version today at Amazon.com for $149.99 with a new service plan and a $100 rebate.

Pros

• Elegant and sleek black and silver design.
• Crisp and vibrant screen.
• Connectivity galore.
• Strong QWERTY keyboard.

Cons

• Web browser still needs some work.