Play: 2007 Gadget Reviews

Now that it's back-to-school time, we thought we'd post our spring and summer's collection of handy gadget reviews for your shopping needs. (Top section gadgets reviewed by DVP; the vinyl for the Crosley Songwriter reviews were penned by Jamie Lee Rake)

Logi-Tech’s mid-line entry into the i-portable speaker system world, Audio Station Express ($99) is easily portable with a soft case/handle, a slimmer-than-nano remote and powered by an AC hookup or (gasp!) 6 “AA” batteries. The sound is solid at low volumes, but distorts at metallic levels.

LT’s Quick-Cam ($129) is an easy setup camera/microphone that’s small enough for notebook or desktop. While the software control panel is intuitive, its default (but adjustable) setting does hog RAM.

Griffin’s iKaraoke ($49) is slightly impractical in a full room or car setting due to feedback issues, but fun with the free Tune Prompter software. It’s most practical (?) use is privately with headphones. Try that one on the bus!

TuneJuice 2 ($29) packs a 4-battery power backup that’ll add life to (but not revive) your iPod.

The Cirrus Bio-Ears ($9), form-fit the outer ear canal & resist germs.

Cardo has a great add-on for the trendy smartphone – the lightweight S-2 Wireless Headphones ($99) allow you to answer the phone with a button or skip music tracks with another as you play free from dangling cords. The over-the-ear fitting can get a tad uncomfortable after extended periods, but the fact that they don’t weigh a whole lot helps.

Logi-Tech’s MX Revolution ($99) is a great wireless, ergonamic mouse with a free spinning scroll feature like the one iPhone has been bragging about. It’s rechargeable & quick to set up … and includes a power/charge monitor for the desktop’s taskbar to let you know if and when it’s running low on juice.

Griffin makes it easy, safe, and convenient to operate your iPod in the car with: Tuneflex ($49), which uses a sturdy and flexible gooseneck base between the accessory socket and the iPod cradle, & includes an audio output and an extended dock to plug in other tools,

like the Air Click ($39) iPod remote control, w/ a wireless dock base and 5-key velcro-attaching control pad (to adjust volume, skip tracks, play/pause).

I had to replace the watch-type battery after four months (because I never turned the unit off in my car).

Like many of its counterparts, Griffin goes crazy with its iPod cases. The Kalimara ($19) is a case in point. To say “it sucks” just shows how 12 soft gel suction cups can grip and stick to anything.

the Disko case ($24) is a nice hard shell for the 5th Gen iPod, with flashing color lights chasing around the clickwheel when the unit is moved;

and the Centerstage ($29) is another hard plastic shell casing that allows for drop impact and features a swingout aluminum stand, facing the display right at you on nightstand or desk. This is how I want my iPod to face me when I’m typing away at a computer or surfing the ‘net. Simple, yet very practical.

The Photocase ($19) allows a personal photo/image inside its hard plastic shell.

Logi-Tech’s G25 Steering Wheel ($299) is for top-o-the-line PC gaming. Compatable w/PS2, it’s decked out in metal and leather, featuring a 6-gear shifter, a full clutch/brake/gas panel for the floor, and intense vibration and touch. While slightly complicated to setup for PS2, once you’ve experienced selecting the control settings it’s easy.

Griffin keeps rolling out cool iPod attachments: The iTalk Pro ($49) fits right into the dock connection and records stereo audio in quality levels – a true advancement over its previous mono-only model. I use this all the time now to record broadcast-quality interviews for the HM Magazine Podcasts;

The OPPO DV-981 HD Up-converting Universal DVD Player ($229) shows dvd players catching up w/ HD TV’s capabilities. Without this catching-up effort, it’s like printing a large color photo in a magazine that you got from someone’s website. It looked great in that browser on your computer monitor, but the higher resolution capabilities of a high-end printer just exposes the flaws of that lo-res image. That would be how a new HD television buyer might feel when he or she hooks up their old standard DVD player to that puppy. It just doesn’t match the sharpness that the TV was bought for. This DVD player joins and jumps near the top of the class of new players that can take advantage of this high-resolution technology. It’s able to toggle between 480, 720 and 1080 clarity, mirroring the bright and crisp pictures you noticed the first time you upgraded from VHS to DVD. The difference is subtle, but serious.

Sennheiser’s OMX 90 Headphones ($89) stay relatively comfortably during casual work or extreme activity – almost allowing your ears to forget they’re on, but eventually wearing away at that comfort zone after an hour or two. It features a cool, lightweight volume control that’s inline with the wires/cables.

Logi-Tech’s Z-10 Interactive Speaker System ($149) is an easy & quick setup for the computer, using two speakers to deliver a pretty full sound. The touch-screen controls don’t even require an actual touch(!), as a hovering finger can power off, increase volume, etc. As a stand-alone set, they can boom your iPod’s tunes, too. AC-powered, you’ll have something else to power off when not using, but these are a pretty solid sound option.

L-T’s Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote ($249) is a lifesaver. We replaced 8 remotes with this one, and the setup was as easy as entering model numbers in the computer. The intuitive help feature comes in handy solving problems, knowing which functions need fixing. The battery power gets used fast, but it features a nice charger that fixes that.

FlashWear has rolled out some really fun t-shirts. After installing four AAA batteries in a little pouch sewn inside at lower left front, I slipped into a T-Equaliser ($29) and watched the 8-band graphic equalizer bounce up and down to the beats of the music. It’s hilarious to watch it max out and live in the upper regions during some intense metal like Antestor, and it’s downright distracting around electronic dance music, with the low-end bars riding each thump. Walk into a club and you’ll be able to empathize with women (because everyone will be staring at your chest). While the battery pack is about the size of a thin cell phone, its weight is slightly annoying. But given the new-ness of this gimmicky, kitschy gift, it’s somewhat worth the hassle. [flashwear.com or firebox.com]

Who Rules? Almighty Edition ($19) is a multi-level DVD trivia game, mixing cCm and biblical knowlege.

Comic Creator ($19) came loaded on the Nacho Libre DVD. It allows you to customize panels, and print your own comic. Here's a few sample panels I came up with:

The Left Behind PC Game ($39) factors in things like prayer and community to increase power in this action/adventure game ... and the graphics actually don’t suck!

And ... In case you were wondering, "What did Jamie use to test out that Crosley Songwriter?"...

Much of my vinyl collection is in a storage shed on the outskirts of town (if you'd like to pray for my ability to own a house soon...). BUT some of the overflow I haven't yet played on the turntable connected to my Bose unit is in my closets. Thus began my digging for Chrisitan-made and -related licorice pizzas to spin on the Songwriter. What follows is what HM's most eclectic (and humblest?) columnist used to test the first piece of hardware he has reviewed for "Enough Already!"

*Welcome To The Floor Show-Stan Freberg (Terminix)
Stan Freberg's a legend of comedy records, old-time radio, cartoon voice-over, kids' TV puppetry and advertising. This 7-inch EP collects 7 termite-centric bits for Terminex pest control prefaced by an equally droll introduction by Freberg himself. A sizeable swath of his discography is dedicated to promotional 12- and 7-inch records of his ads for vaious companies and church organizations.
My late '90s interview with Freberg for The Wittenburg Door revealed him to be an articulate, fiesty adherent to the Baptist Chrisianity his pastor father preached.

*For What It's Worth-The Staple Singers (Epic)
Yes, the titular track is a cover of Buffalo Springfield's greatest hit. And yes, it's by the folkie soul gospel singing family act who would reach their r&b and pop crossover commecial zenith on the Stax and Curtom labels not many years later.
From the looks of the cover, it looks like guitar playing Pops, son Pervis and two of his sisters. My guess is Mavis for sure, but whether it's Cleotha or Yvonne, I'm unsure. It could be all five of them singing on the record, thoug. Here, it's about as minimal as their material for VeeJay, with Pops's guitar the primary instrument accompany their ruggedly melifuous harmonizing. And to hear that 'Springfield oldie refashioned as the kind of message music pop gospel they'd later blow up with on songs such as "Respect Yourself" is dynamite.

*15 Exitos de Oro -Yuri (EMI Mexico)
Before her Chritsioan conversion in the '90s, Yuri Valenzuela Conseco was Mexico's equivalent to Madonna. That is she specialized in fantastically popular dance-pop. Since I so enjoyed her mid-'90s outrightly Christian, musically diverse Huellas, I picked up thos best-of collection on the cheap at a used record shop.
And let's just say that Mexico seriously lagged behind North America, Austraila and Europe in the dance-pop stakes. Eergh! Coming to Christ has done both Yuri's soul and artistry a world of good if this barrage of synthi-handclap crapola and painful slow jams is any indication.
Curiously, in what Wikipedia deems her offical website, there are still a lot of rather fleshly shots of the comely married blonde. Huh?

* Rock Gospel:The Key To The Kingdom-various artists (Motown)
Concurrent to and shortly following the movement of hippies coming to faith in the Lord in the late '60s and early '70s, Jesus was fairer game than ever as pop song ever. From the relative solidity of "Put Yout Hand In The Hand" to the unabashed wrongness of "One Toke Over The Line," the Almighty was alright for a short while among the Top 40 listening masses.
That copasetic state reached a weird peak-or valley?-with this thoroughly strange album from a label renowned for its soul music. The cover alone is worth a double take:a barefoot, robed man whose face remains unseen carries uphill on his back a wooden cross with notches on its bottom to have it resemble, per the album's title, a giant key.
The selection of artists and songs is no less peculiar. Having The Jackson Five record Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Ttroubled Water" was nigh cliche' for the time. Contributions by Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight & The Pips and the Dian a Ross-less Supremes are to be expected, and all parties excel. The suits at The Sound Of Young Ameirca (Motown Records' one-time nickname) even found corporate Jesus hippie-alikes in Ken Christie And The Sunday People.
But Meat Loaf?! Uh huh. Mr. Bat Out Of Hell teams up with a gal named Stoney for the catchy, if ironic, "(I'd Love To Be) Heavy As Jesus." Ironic because Loaf has often been heavier
than the Diviine Galilean.

* Breakfast In Heaven-Father Guido Sarducci (Warner Brothers)
I had been hunting for a long time for this second (?) stand-up album by the Don Novello in his Vatican newspaper gossip columnist character made popular on Saturday Night Live. Found it on my first trip to my nearest used record shop (had seen in advertised in Goldmine for a long while).
And it's hilarious because Novello/Sarducci not only pokes fun at the Papist church, but for his bemused ruminatioms about everything from Ronald Regan's neck to Commandments missing from the original ten. He really didn't have to use the Lord's name in vain, but this date at Noitre Dame holds ups up well over two decades on.

* Lionel Barrymore as Ebenezer Scrooge inA Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (MGM)
A 10-incher of Drew's granddad's radio portrayal of Mr. Bah Humbug, playing at 33&1/3 RPMs and decvorously housed in a sleeve reproducing a painting of what looks like Barrymore with a boy on his lap reading a book of fairy tales and what looks to be the brother of Edgar Bergan's vetriloquism dummy, Charlie McCarthy, under Barrymore's arm. Or is that a nutcracker?
Anyway, fine readings by all concerned.

* Aerobic Celebration:Aerobic Exercise to Contemporary Christian Music (Newpax)
It's 1982, and in the midst of the the TV mania over Ricard Simmons, Joanie Greggains and their athletic ilk, a smiling brunette in red sweat suit and white head band&socks combo beckons you to join her in sanctified fitness on the cover of this first Christian market aerobics accompaniment album.
That means said brunette, or whomever, gives exercise instructions over some generally pretty dire contepmoraneous cCm. Maybe Farrell & Farrell were consodered adventurous for their time? The great exceptions to the mediocrity are cuts from label owner Gary S. Paxton (going half-convincingly disco), super-producer Brown Bannister's solo album and the act adding the most melanin to the proceedings, Patrick Henderson and the West Anngeles Church of God in Christ Sanctuary Sanctuary Choir. Saying their name a few times in a row qualifes as some sort of work out, too, right?

* "I Feel Love"/"Theme From The Deep "-Donna Summer (Casablanca)
Recorded before the strobelight queen's conversion, yes, but the Giorgio Moroder-produced slab of icy electro-Euro-disco leading off this one-sided 12-incer (one of several the label made back when polyester and men's chest medallions ruled) inspired so much else in dance music that came after it, he and La Donna are probably still laughing their way to the bank about it.
Summer's theme from the Jaws swipe that gave the world a peek at Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-shirt isn't near the triumph of the theme she provided for the equally craptasticThank God It's Friday ("Last Dance"), but she's done worse. Some of it after her conversion, alas.

* "Photographic Memory"/"Children Of The Ghetto"-Phillip Bailey (Columbia)
An 12-incher of extended dance versions of songs from the album that gave Earth, Wind & Fire's Christian member his biggest solo hit.
The A-side is of the r&b/heavy guitar rock fusion that produced a goodly among of hits in the early-to-mid '80s. Shalmar did it similarly but better on "Dead Giveaway," as Bailey himself did with this song's porducer, Phil Collins, on the aforementioned solo (OK, duet) smash, "Easy Lover."
Flip it over for decent pop reggae. Bailey has a beaut' of a tenor no matter what, but quasi-Jamaican riddims might not be the best way to bring it out to full effect.

*"So This Is Romance"-Linx (Chrysalis U.K.)
Linx's David Grant was to the U.K. what Phillip Bailey was over here:a vocal and hit-making beilever in the general market r&b scene, only a few years earlier that Bailey.
This early '80s 12-inch makes it evidet that British soul music of that time wasn't al the goodness of, for instance, Junior "Mama Used To Say" Giscombe. Both the original and sightly tropicalized "Rio Mix of this borderline new wavy tragedy make Billy Ocean sound all the more like James Brown. If I paid money for this, whatever it was was too much.

* "Prayin'" (Gospel Mix)-Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes (Source U.K.)
Curous. The song's original incarnation was a U.S. top 20 r&b hit, but this remix six years later listes no remixer on neither label nor picture sleeve. Hmmm...
And no, the lead singer's not The Blue Notes' most famous one, Teddy Pendergrass, but he's still right soild. The remix itself sounds like the soulfully orchestral production vales of Philadelpia International Records of the time the 'Notes were signed there, but a tad chintzier.
Song itself is essentialy one long, grooving vamp, prefaced by the singer telling us that he's not usually the prayin' kind, but then goes on to sing about most everyone on his mind for whom he is, in fact, interceding to the Most High.

-Jamie Lee Rake

©2007 HM Magazine - All Rights Reserved

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