GOTM 1.1

Gadget of the Month



DVDs are ubiquitous in our daily lives. Walking through Greenhills, once can't help but encounter the guy with a strange accent chanting "dibidi, dibidi-x, sunshine, 300, dibidi-copy" or some other version of that litany. With rampant video piracy in this country, every person has his or her DVD collection, supplied by these modern-day pirates, plying their wares on the unsuspecting buyers. Pirated DVDs used to be a secret cult-only phenomenon, only attainable by the wealthy few who had their own high-end computers with expensive DVD burners. One would bring a DVD they wanted copied to the friend's place, copy the DVD ISO and burn the image onto a blank DVD. It took ages to finish since those old burners worked at 1X, meaning a full 4gb DVD-5 disc would take an hour or more to copy properly. The long burn times also contributed to a large error percentage with these early pirated DVDs. This made piracy a contained thing, with only a few people with the resources and the patience to pull it off.

Now though, every street corner, train station and mall basement is crowded with people peddling these pirated wares. Every computer system is equipped with a 12-16x DVD burner. Laptops and even some DVD players and TV's come built in DVD rippers. CDR-King sells blank DVDs by the thousand per day...

Due to this explosion of easily accesible DVD media, the portable DVD player market has also boomed. NEXT-Base, Sony, Sanyo, JVC and a horde of knock-off players are invading the market with affordable and user-friendly electronics. Prices range from P15,000 for the basics to more than P40,000 for the higher end models.

I found a gem though.



I first saw a preview of the Philips DCP750/37 at the Gizmodo gadget blog. Priced at $US147 (roughly P7,000+), it's a definite bargain. It has a 7" LCD screen, twin neodynium speakers, a CD/DVD drive, SD-card slot, iPod Video dock, IR remote control, twin headphone jacks, video input jacks, brightness/contrast controls, an AC-adapter and a 12V car charger kit. That's certainly a lot of stuff for a price well under the norm. Also in the box was a cable kit that doubled as a connector to an external video device for when you just wanted to use it as a player and display the video on a larger screen and as a video-input cable for when you wanted to display stuff on the 7" LCD from an outside source.

I was contemplating buying an iPod dock or a DVD/DivX player at the time I saw this so I couldn't help but compare the specs, features and prices of the more popular ones on the market with this unit. I looked at JBL, JVC, Altec-Lansing, iLuv, NextBase and Logitech docks and did a personal gadget shoot-out by testing the products at different sotres. Nothing matched up to what the Philips was capable of on paper.

NextBase/JVC:

None of the other devices has an LCD screen besides the NextBase unit but that one didn't handle DivX nor did it have an iPod dock. The NextBase unit also was about double the cost of the Philips dock. For DivX functionality, the price spiralled to over P20,000 for the NB-SDV77-BD! I felt it was too much buck for too little bang so wrote NextBase off my list. JVC units were of the same ilk as the NextBase lineup with similar price-ranges and didn't have DivX functionality either. So off the list it went as well...

JBL:




JBL docks look cool. The JBL OnStage looks really good and would look great on a nightstand. The circular base looks like a flying saucer and is really a nice design that wouldn't be out of place at a design-studio. It could be called art in an electronic package if you're so inclined. So yeah, I liked it. It sounds good, looks good and packs many features that any iPod user would like. Typical iPod dock features are there like the remote control, audio/video outputs, decent sounding speakers, a clock and alarm timer. While it lacked an LCD screen and DVD player, it was an option that I considered while looking at the different choices. IT had a fatal flaw though. The price! The OnStage costs around P11,000 at your favorite mall electronics store. Yeah, the name costs a lot since JBL has a noble pedigree when it coms to audio products but P11k for speakers? You can replicate the effects on thousand-peso speakers and a twelve-hundred peso knock-off ipod dock. I simply can't justify the added cost of the aesthetics here... Maybe I'm too much of a function-over-form kind of guy but it's just too much...

AltecLansing/iLuv:
Altec Lansing is an established name when it comes to computer speakers. I've had my Altec ATP2.1 speakers for more than seven years now. I bought those to better experience the audio in Final Fantasy 7 after putting together a PC that could play it. They still sound as good today as they did back when I took them out of the box. Sicne then I've gotten the ATP3 for Patti, the 5.1 system for a mini-home theater and a portable set for back when I was still in college and wanted my "tunes" with me. I know they make good stuff and have a great background when it comes to audio peripherals so their iPod speaker docks were definitely at the top of my list. I looked around, researched on-line and tried out a few units and came to one conclusion... "Meh"...

A proper description wouldn't need more than one word. Different words convey different meanings though so here are a few that are applicable here. Vanilla. Generic. Basics. Standard. Typical. Unimaginative. Sum it all up and it amounts to "meh"...

Admittedly, they sound rather nice and are pretty simple to operate. The ones with the remote controls are easy to operate with just the next, previous and volume buttons on them but they work for basic audio requirements... What else do you need anyway? The bad part is that they're just that, basic speakers with a docking port instead of a headphone jack to plug in your speakers to an iPod. It's basically the same gripe as with the JBL system. You can duplicate the effect with cheaper speakers and a mini-dock. Consider that the Altec systems cost from P6,000 for the Nano docks up to P12,000 for the higher end iPod video docks then they seem less appealing by the second...

Now we get to the iLuv i199, i188 and i177 docks. These seem like cheap Taiwanese knock-offs of the Altec systems. They cost maybe 1/3 or half as much as the equivalent Altec device and on paper seem more than alike. Having it in front of you is a different sotry altogether though. The plastics on the iLuv look cheap... The finish is flat, the seams are uneven and the whole thing is just too light. It feels like a toy in my hands. That's not the worst part though, it's when you turn it on. For an iPod dock, it makes a great impression of a free transistor radio that you get with a McDonanld's happy meal. It sounds dreadful! The sounds assault you like an asthmatic speaking through an underpowered megaphone with accompanying crackles and pops... The interface to your iPod isn't even through the docking port, it uses a short wire that plugs into the headphone jack for the audio signal. The dock itself is flimsy enough to sap confidence in product but coupld with all the deficiencies, I just wrote this one off completely.

Logitech:
We're all familiar with Logitech. Makers of anything and everything related to PC peripherals. they make mice, keyboards, game pads, steering wheels, webcams, headsets, speakers and now iPod docks. They have a limited selection of iPod compatible stuff but the selection isn't bad at all. the worst of the bunch is the mm32 speaker dock. At $75 it pretty cheap but having tried it myself, I can honestly say that you should just spend that money on a good set of earphones. The sound from this dock is tinny and lacks any acoustic quality that you'll appreciate. You'll just end up dissapointed with this, stick to the higher models.

The Audio Station Express and the mm50 speaker docks are much better than the previous one. At $100 and $150 respectively, they're much higher on the price scale but with that higher price comes higher quality too. The sound is much fuller and it comes with a wireless remote that the previous model lacks.

they have another model called the Audio Station priced at $300 but I haven't seen one of those, much less tested one so I'll hold judgement on that till then.

Here's where it gets interesting though... Logitech came out with a 2.1 speaker kit called the X-240. It's a typical speaker set for a PC or for your room with the generic headphone plug, 2 satellite speakers and a subwoofer. the extra feature in this thing is that it comes with a cradle for an iPod or an MS Zune with corresponding adapters that should hold the device in place, charge it and play hiugh quality audio all in one package. The best part is the price; $50, that's around P2,400 which makes this the cheapest iPod dock on the market. Considering Logitech's reputation when it comes to audio, this should be good! I haven't seen one locally but all reviews of it have been nothing but complimentary.

Philips:
The Philips DCP750/37 is right here with me now. Staring me in the face, asking me to compare it's features with everyone else in the market now. Quietly confident that it has an edge over the others... It's right you know?

First of all, it has an LCD screen. Seven inches of 16:9 real estate showing you video from either your iPod, a DVD (DVD format or DivX), an SD-card or through the video-input port. Next is the iPod dock itself. It charges the iPod, interfaces with it perfectly using the included IR remote and it's really easy to access which makes docking and undocking a mindless single-step endeavor. The speakers aren't bad and while they don't pump enough sound to let everyone in a 50-foot radius know what you're watching, it's perfectly acceptable for personal viewing which is what devices like this are for anyway... The DVD functionality is great as well since it gives you all the features and options a full-size DVD player does with the same intuitive controls of my home DVD player. The SD-card is a nice bonus since like the DVD drive, it lets you view photos and DivX video using a similar meñu. The Philips is also the only one of the tested units that has a rechargeable baterry. From testing, it lasted around eight hours with just audio playing and more than 4 hours for video. That's more juice than you get from the iPod itself so the iPod will conk out well before the unit does... A Lord of The Rings movie can be wathed without fear of not having enough power to finish up the movie... Cost was also a great point since this cost much less than most of the others with only the Logitech units beating it out and the unacceptable iLuv.

So there you have it. I'd recommend this for anyone with an iPod video. The 7" model is perfectly fine and an 8.5" model is also available for $50 more. Either is a great bargain and you'll surely enjoy using it.

I'll go watch CSI now so stay back... I have a new toy and I'm not afraid to use it!

Gadget Madness

A few weeks ago, I went to a party and they had a "bring-me" game where the host calls out an item/s or a theme and if you have it, just run up and you win a prize. The host was a tech-geek so he called out "the one with the most gadgets on him now". I won hands down... It took a while to show everything but it was worth it, I got a stack of blank DVDs as a prize... He was a geek as I said (not that I'm against geeks or anything like that as I am one myself).

As I got home today from work, walked up to my bedroom and started unloading all the crap that I got out of my car the question struck me;

Do we have too many gadgets?

I start by putting my Crumpler camera bag down. This contains a Nikon D70s, several lenses, chargers, a Nikon-iPod adapter, an iPod Shuffle and a Nikon SB-600 flash. That gives me at least four different electronic widgets. With this bag is a Case Logic case containing a portable Philips DVD-player/iPod dock, along with chargers, cables and etc for this thing.

I start emptying my pockets and I pull out an HP iPaq 3750, an Apple iPod Video, a Nokia 6600 and a Nokia 2626, an HSBC electronic ID thingy, a watch and a small LED flashlight. That's seven more.

On my bedside table is a digital alarm clock, a clock radio, a Sony DiscMan, a USB charger and a Nikon F60 and Konica Acom-01 film camera. Add six more to the tally.

In the bathroom is an electric shaver. That's it for the bathroom.

Once you get to my other room, it's a whole different story. There's a Sony 25" TV, a Philips DVD player, a Pioneer amplifier, Pioneer and Mission speakers, a Sony PS2, lots of toys, two PCs, two flat panel monitors, one CRT monitor, a wi-fi router, a network switch, a wireless keyboard and mouse kit, dozens of spare PC parts (enough to build two or three more PCs), at least three UPS systems (Uninterruptible Power Supplies), at least two voltage regulators, a dozen or so cooling fans for the PCs and network stuff, several chargers, several docking units for the iPaq and iPod, remote controllers for the TV and DVD players, remote for a PC TV-tuner, Icom two-way radios, calculators, a toaster oven, a waffle maker, a fridge, power converters, a bug zapper, two HP printers, several subwoofers and two Altec Lansing PC speaker systems. In short it's a madhouse. I figure at least thirty to forty items in there...

The total tally/estimate so far? Around 50 units of electronic bits and pieces...

So in my normal day, I encounter around 40+ electronic gadgets. Do I need all this crap? The ones from my pocket are of course indispensable since this is my survival gear. I have music, movies, ebooks, passwords, communications and etc. The camera bag is also a mainstay since I hardly go through a day without taking several shots of something interesting (to me at least). The shaver? Hmm... maybe 2x a week max. The DVD player and the PS2 I hardly touch these days, maybe as little as 3-5x a month. The PCs i use almost the moment I get home and they're running even when I sleep or I'm at work (either downloading, converting videos or running a game or two). Speakers are of course part of the PC experience so let's just lump that in there. Alarm clocks, the discman and other necessities are of course a given.

To think that with all this crap I'm still planning to get a Nintendo Wii and a DS-lite soon, possibly another Nikon camera body, another flash, a laptop, a new PDA, a light meter, a 100gb iPod (when it comes out maybe in late March) and a host of other things.

So, do we have too many gadgets? The answer would be a resounding "it depends". Like with most subjective questions, it's always an if-then toss up. For me, it's just right. While the TV, DVD player and PS2 are largely unused, my girlfriend uses it so it's not wasted. To most people, my daily hundred-lbs of gear would be overkill and will probably be intolerable on their backs. A pro photographer will probably have 2-3x more photo gear than I do, with heavier lenses, bigger flashguns, several tripods and reflectors. An auto-mechanic would carry a dozen tools, a butcher would carry several knives and I carry my body weight in gear. Not much difference really.

So if anyone ever asks you why you carry around so much crap, tell them to bugger off.

Or maybe you can just mutter "it's exercise" and be done with it...

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