With only two days left till Christmas, you may still be thinking of what to get for that special someone in your life. Well fear not, as I have compiled a list of gadgety ideas for that last minute shopping spree.

Western Digital Live  - Streaming Media Player. I have reviewed one of these before, but this latest iteration includes a network port at the back to hook up to your home network. All the usual things are here, such as DLNA support which is greatly appreciated and playback for a myriad of file formats such as MKV and MPEG 1/2/4. The price has gone up a notch to just over £100, but it’s still a nice little player.

WOWee One Portable Speaker. I was quite impressed with this pocket speaker. The ingenuity lies in how it can turn everyday surfaces into boom boxes; you can play music anywhere without having to carry large speakers with you. This MTV branded device comes with a gel pad on one side which can be used to stick onto glass I.E a window. I was quite impressed with how good this was, considering how portable it is. I plan to do a real test with this in a later review. As advertised on their website, you can pick this up for £49.99 which is a real bargain.

Bedphones Earphones. This is certainly an interesting concept; a pair of earphones that you can sleep with. I know a few friends who need some soft music or ambient noise before they can drift off into dreamland, this would be just the thing for those sleepless nights. I had a quick nap with them and they took awhile to get used to, but they were reasonably comfortable. The alternative is to buy a pillow with speakers built-in, but these would be much more portable. At £19.99 they won’t break the bank.

Cresyn Pastel Headphones C300H. Another set from iHeadphones, this time these are headphones that come in a variety of pastel colours. It’s certainly different and less boring than the usual black or silver you see in most headphones. I was surprised by the sound quality, however it does not handle bass as well as I would have liked especially at high volume. But at £17.99 you really can’t complain and in comparison they sound better than some other ones I have tried in the past, from the likes of Sony et al.

Lightspeed i-Helicopter. A word of warning, make sure that no precious ornaments are nearby because you will destroy them with this helicopter. Having said that, this is a lot of fun to mess around with. You control the helicopter by downloading an app for your iPhone or Android and use the phone’s gyro for control. It’s not exactly the most accurate control mechanism but you aren’t controlling a real life Apache Longbow so this is not bad all things considered. I will have to try this more thoroughly when I’m not nosediving headlong into surrounding furniture. It’s on sale right now on Amazon for £32.99, go buy it now!

Last but not least… the Canon 7D DSLR Camera which I reviewed recently. Yes it is over a grand for the body plus stock lens but my goodness I love it to death. I love it more than I love Pocky, that’s how much I love this camera.

About Motoko

First embraced the inner geek at the age of 10 with a Commodore 64 and programming in BASIC. Avid PC gamer, Gundam Gunpla builder, manga editor and anime enthusiast. Loves Mountain Dew and Ghost in the Shell. Twitter: @Motoko_K

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First of all, I’m not a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do appreciate a fine camera when I see one. I used to have a Sony DSC-R1 for many years; in fact at every event or spectacle it rarely left my side. I felt that it was lacking somewhat in certain areas and it was time to step up with something a bit more beefy. Believe me when I tell you that the Canon EOS 7D is beefy.

Solid build
With a magnesium body it feels weighty; it seems slightly heavier than my R1 but it was roughly the same so it did not seem too heavy for me. For some it may, but with most professionals cameras once you start using it, it becomes second nature to hold. I felt that holding a Canon seems more comfortable than say a Nikon; I’m not sure whether it’s the type of grip or the shape but in comparison, my significant other prefers the Nikon for this reason. The grip is very important and you need to feel comfortable, especially if you plan to shoot continuously throughout the day.

The Canon 7D comes with kit lens packs and I decided upon the body plus the 135mm lens. A nice all rounder and not a bad lens to start with; I took a picture of the moon with this lens and I was quite impressed. I will eventually upgrade to a higher zoom lens (perhaps a Sigma) but this will suffice for many situations. The only downside to this type of lens is the aperture does not go low enough for dark environments, so I bought a separate Sigma 30mm 1.4 lens on top. This lens is amazing in the dark if you need it for events where lighting isn’t fantastic, but the autofocus needs a little fine tuning during use compared to Canon lenses.

Features
Without going into immense detail because there are a lot of features here, the one that stands out for me is the continuous shooting mode. Built into the 7D are Dual “DIGIC 4” processors, and you see this in action instantly when taking pictures non-stop. It can take pictures at 8 FPS which is great for moving objects. I left the button pressed for mere seconds and the speed of which pictures were captured was insane. It is worthy to note that you should invest in a good memory card with large capacity; I decided on a SanDisk Extreme 60 MB/s 16GB CompactFlash card. The images taken are amazing and the autofocus does not disappoint. The camera is best used in full manual mode; I felt that if you let the camera work out the aperture and shutter on its own, you tend to not get the results you want. But trial and error when you have manual control is what makes it fun to use.

Other features that are useful include three custom camera settings for different conditions, a RAW JPEG button, spot/multi metering, plus video recording. The one thing that drew me to the 7D is the ability to record video in HD. I don’t particular want to carry a DSLR and a camcorder so this would be the perfect solution. The quality of video is impressive, using the zoom lens for zooming into objects if necessary. The only downside is that if the distance from the object changes, it will lose autofocus. From my experience, it cannot autofocus by itself without forcing it.

On top of all this, the ISO can go up to a staggering 6400 and an even more crazy 12800 when expanded. I have cranked up the ISO to 6400 on a few occastions and that was in pitch black conditions. You do lose some picture quality of course, but to be able to take a picture at all in complete darkness is something to appreciate.

User experience
The UI is very easy to navigate on the LCD screen, which they have enlarged slightly in comparison to other models. Button placement does not get in the way of using the camera which is also another plus; with a little practice I can flick through the buttons to change aperture or shutter speed without having to leave the viewfinder. Most of the functions will come from the multi-purpose dial and the buttons on the top to change ISO or aperture etc. Going back to the three custom settings, if you have settings for day, night, and indoors then it makes your life much easier. It comes with the usual modes such as shutter priority and aperture priority. You will find these two will be your best friend.

Overall
I love this camera, there is so much power under the hood and yet it feels effortless to tap into. Although perhaps pricey compared to the 60D which is very good as well, I would not want to swap the 7D for any other. My other consideration was the 5D which is a full frame camera, but the video capture with the 7D trumped this without breaking the bank. Of course, a decent investment in lenses will be the next step to fully take advantage at what this camera has to offer. If you buy this as a Christmas present for someone, they will love you forever.

If you are interested, my first foray with this camera was when I used it in L.A. Here’s some links to my flickr gallery. The real test was in Disneyland and BlizzCon where adequate lighting was limited in certain areas.

BlizzCon 2011 flickr set

Disneyland California flickr set

About Motoko

First embraced the inner geek at the age of 10 with a Commodore 64 and programming in BASIC. Avid PC gamer, Gundam Gunpla builder, manga editor and anime enthusiast. Loves Mountain Dew and Ghost in the Shell. Twitter: @Motoko_K

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Do you remember the interview that we did last year with Timothy Hill of Furguson Hill the sound company?  In case you don’t here’s the link to the geeky video.  Well Ferguson Hill are back with their latest home theatre system.  This one probably won’t make our gadget christmas list as it’s more expensive than many would spend on a present. However it does look interesting.

Featuring the company’s classic horn shaped speaker units that Ferguson Hill is renowned for; the system delivers dynamic, powerful, pin-drop clear sound and brings a unique, elegant design to any home cinema set-up.

Minimalist, beautiful and unobtrusive, the FH009’s art-deco influenced design oozes glamour and sophistication. Suited to the design aficionado, audiophile or movie buff, the chic exterior is matched by the sound system’s incredible performance. Constructed from high-quality, strong transparent acrylic, the FH009 provides a sensationally stylish look whilst delivering subtle and totally unique sound to a TV system.  The stunning speaker units will prove to be as much of a talking point as the movies themselves.

“I’ve been consumed by a passion for music, sound and design since I was very young,’ explains Tim Hill, former aeronautical design engineer and founder of Ferguson Hill. ‘More and more people are now investing in home cinema and consumers are for a design aesthetic that really stands out. This was the inspiration for the FH009, to produce a fantastic sounding home theatre system that also looked beautiful. I wanted to create very minimal looking speakers that would complement the living space whilst also making a statement. The signature horn shape is a nod to the classic horn speakers of 1930’s cinema which I think lends the FH009 an air of grace and style.”

The system owes its outstanding sound quality to the unique design; the patented di-polar horn speakers (wall mounted or free-standing) eliminate the interference that can come with standard encased or boxed speaker systems. Using horn loaded drivers, the FH009 allows sound to be more easily magnified at the frequency range the human ear is most sensitive to. Because the system focuses on this range – which corresponds to the human voice – it produces a natural, warm sound that has depth, clarity and range.

The FH009’s robust, stylish integrated amplifier (available in white or gloss black) is the only class A-B amplifier that can be found in systems anywhere near its price range. The transconductance-voltage amp is made of more than 4lbs of high quality copper, along with high spec capacitors powering the speaker’s neodymium magnets. The system uses the best and most expensive materials to ensure that there is no compromise on build quality and sound experience. The plug and play amp will work with any device with an audio-out line so works with a TV, DVD/Blue-Ray player, games console, Hi-Fi, MP3 player or wireless base station meaning streaming music from a PC, laptop or tablet device is easy.

Dr Bradford C. Backus, Ferguson Hill’s Head of Acoustics and Chief Technical Officer, from UCL’s Ear Institute, helped refine the FH009’s audio capabilities to produce the world class sound. Holding a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Speech and Hearing Biosciences and Technology, Backus also trained in acoustics under Dr. Amar Bose and previously worked for Bose Corporation.

Pricing and Availability

The FH009 Home Theatre Speaker System will be showcased at CES Unveiled, London on Thursday 17th November 2011 and will be available in December from www.fergusonhill.co.uk.  Leading independent UK retailers will also be stocking the system.

The FH009 is priced at £795.95.

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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If you’ve ever wondered why in November you see more facially haired men then look no further than Movember! Where men grow moustaches and beards of all shapes and sizes in aid of charity.   However it also helps keep their faces warm and cozy during those winter months.  But how does that have any bearing on me I hear you ladies say? Well… now we too can get involved and not just by donating.

Now you too can have a nice warm face and support Movember all at the same time!  Imagine wearing this to work in the winter months… and round the office with your facially haired male counterparts… I wonder who would win the best facial hair this year!

No joke this really does exist to buy!  It’s officially known as the Beard Beenie and they have 2 styles and 2 shades to choose from!

Send us links and share your Mo’s with us on Twitter and Facebook!

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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Who needs a data contract for their phone, ipad, laptop and kindle??? Are you like me and tired of thinking you need a data contract for every device to connect to the internet on the go! Well fear not! We have a solution that might just tickle your fancy. It’s a simple and effective one and just needs one simple device!

The Three E586 – a high speed MiFi device that uses the HSDPA+ (21.1 Mbps download, 5.76 Mbps Upload) network that is currently being rolled out across the UK. Three are planning on having 80% of their network upgraded this year, with the rest following soon afterwards.

You may have missed the recent launch of the E586 as Three are usually pretty quiet about their most useful technologies! If you remember we reviewed the older version a while back and you can find that review here.  The latest MiFi device from Three is known as the E586 and despite just looking like a number change is an interesting upgrade to the older version. Like it’s predecessor you can connect up to 5 devices to your MiFi and off you go! The way to connect to it is even simpler than before there’s a simple button on the side that you press and it scrolls the wireless ID and key for the device and input it on your phone, ipad or whatever. It’s that simple, once the connection is set up you just use it like wifi. Charging is nice and simple too as they now include a dock for it. Very handy if you charge multiple devices each day and have a docking table for them all.

I’ve been doing a bit of experimenting with this by turning off the data on my mobile and ipad contract and using the same MiFi device to connect my laptop up when I’m out and on the go! So far I’ve not had a single issue with it! In fact I pestered the poor PR folks that are looking after this little device for Three to send it out to me and now they are going to struggle to prize it from my tiger grip! I don’t want to give it back at all! By having this I really don’t need mobile data, 3g data for my laptop or that extra data contract for my ipad! This does that for all of them!  It’s not my ideal but it’s pretty close! Ideally I’d be able to have multiple sim cards and them all to hook up as just 1 contract with 1 data allowance and I could request as many sim cards as I like for my contract as I want and up the data limit as I need. Then I’d be all sorted but unfortunately none of the telecoms providers actually provide this offering so this is the closest I’ll actually manage to get to that.

Now if you thought the black MiFi device was a bit ugly or a bit masculine then they are also going to do a pristine white version too, these should show up on the three store soon so keep your eyes pealed for them! Personally I prefer the black just because it won’t show up dirt and dust as much as the white but if you want to be noticed then go for the white! After all it is coming up to christmas and it will remind you of snow and frost and all things wintery! OK well maybe that’s going a bit far but it’s a bit different.

The cost of this new MiFi device is £84.99 on pay and go but there are 1 month and 18 month contract options available too. You can find all the official tech details and the pricing here.

If you are wondering if the HSDPA+ is actually worth it then it’s worth looking at the current plans for HSDPA+ roll out in the areas that you are likely to use the device in. In my area and on my train journey to London the coverage is pretty awesome and I was able to quite happily stream YouTube video’s without jittering unless you hit a total black spot which does happen on my line from time to time. It was impressive, sat next to some of those big business folks with their old fashioned USB dongles was actually really amusing! They were sat waiting for content whilst mine came down in seconds. Some were getting a bit miffed that they couldn’t get their content as fast.  I guess sometimes it’s what you know…

All in all I like this device and it certainly makes me consider moving my ipad contract and transferring it to a MiFi one…

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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Every year T3 the well known men’s gadget magazine brings together those in the know to a glamerous and glitzy award ceremony to celebrate the top gadgets of the year. Sometimes known as the “technology oscars” all the stars come out in all their glory (I think our invite got lost in the post somewhere!) and this year they were all tweeting away.  Here’s what was awarded to whom… let us know who you think should have got what?

T3 Gadget Awards 2011: the winners

Innovation of the Year: Razer Switchblade

Commuter Gadget of the Year: Amazon Kindle

Camera of the Year: Canon PowerShot G12

Gadget Accessory of the Year: Eye-Fi X2

Gaming Gadget of the Year: Microsoft Kinect

T3 Design Award: Apple MacBook Air 11-inch

Phone of the year: Samsung Galaxy S II

Tech Brand of the Year: Google

Tablet of the Year: Apple iPad 2

App of the Year: Flipboard

Work Gadget of the Year: BlackBerry Bold 9780

Digital Media Service of the Year: Twitter

Music Gadget of the Year: Monster Beats by Dr Dre Pro Studio

Home Gadget of the Year: Philips Airfryer

Computer of the Year: Apple MacBook Air 11-inch

Retailer of the Year: Amazon

TV of the Year: Samsung 8000 Series UE55D8000

Tech Personality of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg

Outstanding Contribution to Technology: David Attenborough

Gadget of the Year: Microsoft Kinect

We were quite happy to see a few of our personal favourites in this list such as the Kinect which really is stirring up the gaming industry and looks like it will also be going further than that with hacks making it usable on desktops and for all sorts of random things!

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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Have you ever wondered if noise cancelling headphones are really worth the money?  After all they tend to be expensive, heavy and look huge on your head right?  Well actually that’s not quite the case. We got sent these Noise Cancelling headphones from Lindy to take a look at and they are only £39.99 which really isn’t  a bad price for active noise cancelling headphones.

By Kara Allyson

The headphones are quite light and fold up into a neat tidy bundle, they include A carry bag, in-flight adapter, 1.2m cable, and 6.3mm stereo adapter. The package looks pretty smart and bag keeps everything together. In terms of sound these headphones pack a reasonable punch with  40mm driver units built into the ear pads.  The ear pads are soft and comfortable, in terms of the sound they have a fair bit of base and whilst they aren’t the best pair of headphones in terms of sound quality that I’ve ever used they do feel very comfortable and in high noise environments such as the train or car or plane they are really quite good.  The active noise cancellation works well even in a quiet room to cut out the person next to you typing on their keyboard whilst you have the music on leaving you able to concentrate on what you are trying to get done yourself. In my case it was writing this post! They can cancel out up to 16dB of noise which minimises the disturbance of ambient noise… perfect when you don’t want to listen ti the washing machine going whilst working at home.

I took a couple of pictures of the packaging as well as the headphones themselves so that you can take a peak at the spec and everything that comes wiht them. Lindy seem to be pretty good at getting products out fast too! I was pleasantly surprised to see these get to me the next day and ironically I’ve taken a while to write about them just because I’ve actually been using them when concentrating on getting things done!

Competition

Lindy is a relatively unknown brand and as a result probably aren’t what you would think of as your first choice for a pair of headphones.  In fact you’d probably look at the Sennheiser, Sony, Panasonic or Philips branded headphones. But these are a competitive offering. If you want a professional opinion then What HiFi is a good place to compare the different prices and headphones as they have a huge range and rate these really well.

Conclusion

These are headphones that I’d use in the office and travelling where comfort is valued over form factor. I think for travelling to and from the office I’d go more with something smaller and in ear. My two criticisms of these headphones are that the cable is a bit short and that the build quality with the folding mechanism will probably means that these headphones won’t last as long as those that are just solid. I had a minor hiccup with one ear today whilst doing the review but a bit of wiggling about and they were back working again. Although even that’s nothing to worry about really as these do come with a 2 year guaruntee, so I could just simply send them back.

About Sarah Lamb

Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.

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I had the pleasure of trying out the Neato XV-15, a helping hand to the busy modern lifestyle. I’ve always wanted a robotic vacuum cleaner, but I had reservations on whether such a device so small can carry out the functions of my Dyson. Suffice it to say, I was quite surprised and rather amused.

First impressions

With the Neato, you get a base station for recharging the unit and a roll of black strip. There may be places you don’t want the Neato to go and it will avoid these areas if it encounters the black strip with its sensors. I left it parked at the base station for an afternoon and then it was ready to go!

The house gets vacuumed regularly every week so it was interesting to see if it performs any better. The initial test was the living room, which comprises of various obstacles such as tables and chairs, sofas and the TV stand. To help it along, I put the chairs on top of the dining table. It is quite thorough and will go over the same spot several times. It may seem slow when you are watching it work, but you’ll most likely let it do its thing while you are out.

Always learning

As it trundles along, it remembers the layout of the rooms it visits. Sensors on top of the Neato will detect walls and such like; sometimes it may bump into a few things but it will most likely not do it a second time. It is quite remarkable how it remembers where things are, this was self evident when I placed a cardboard box in an area where it thought it was clear. But if I left the box there, it will remember it and try to avoid.

After the living room, it entered the hallway and then the kitchen. The great thing the Neato does is because it is so low on the ground; it can hug the skirting board quite happily to pick up as much as possible. There are times when my Dyson can’t do this because it just can’t vacuum that closely. Additionally, it transitioned to the kitchen very well and did not crash into any of the doors or furniture on the way in or out.

Laser technology

Even though the base station is downstairs, you can carry it upstairs to vacuum there as well. It will not traverse down a set of stairs of course to park back to the base station, but it will stop at the point where it started once it is finished. It will even politely tell you to pick it up and put it back on charge. In a way it is rather cute and unobtrusive.

I was apprehensive about how it detects stairs; I waiting at the top ready to catch it but I needn’t had bothered. On the verge of suicide, it stopped abruptly to turn around and veer back to safety. The sensors use laser rangefinder technology and triangulation, developed by Neato Robotics. The laser-mapping system or SLAM (Systematic Localisation and Mapping) is impressive to watch when I saw it in action; if you have antique furniture you don’t want to have the Neato ploughing into them!

However… it did have problems with my IKEA Poäng chair. Because the base of the chair is only half an inch high, the Neato couldn’t detect the obstruction and tried to climb over it. After several minutes, it was becoming more and more amusing as it tried to hump its way over to the other side. In the end I had to help it out of its predicament, but it decided to go back to the same place again. I can only assume it felt it had not vacuumed the last 10 square inches of carpet and was determined to finish the job.

Look at that dust!

Upstairs and downstairs took about an hour to do, 5 rooms in total. I decided to check the contents of the dirt bin and I was amazed at how much it had collected. Considering the house was vacuumed only 2 days ago, it did a good job. The only thing it may struggle with is long hair which wasn’t picked up 100% of the time, but one cannot complain too much considering how small it is. The suction on this for such a small unit did surprise me.

You can update your Neato via the USB port, just like any other gadget you may have in your house that require firmware updates and the like. I got rather attached to it at the end of my review and will be sad to see it go. An added bonus is that if you add a cup holder on top of it, it can also serve as a robotic waiter while it cleans the house

The XV-15 is priced at £399.99; although it is a large chunk of cash to invest in a vacuum cleaner, if you have a hectic lifestyle then this will be ideal and will save you a lot of time.

A snippet from Neato Robotics

NEATO ROBOTICS LAUNCHES NEW ROBOTIC VACUUM CLEANER TO KEEP BRITISH HOMES NEAT AND CLEAN

Some of the other innovative features and benefits of the Neato XV-15 multi-floor robotic vacuum cleaner include:

• Scuff-free navigation: The robot’s laser-mapping technology constantly updates its internal map so it can accurately detect objects greater than four inches in height and carefully clean around them without damaging furniture and walls.

• Low-profile access: The robotic vacuum cleaner’s low profile (less than four inches high) allows it to clean under beds, sofas, and kick boards in the kitchen.

• Smart design and large dirt bin: The Neato XV-15’s D-shape is equipped with a forward-positioned wide brush allows it to better clean the corners and edges of a room compared to other circular-shaped robots with short, centrally-positioned brushes. This industrial design also allows for a larger dirt bin (660cc or .65 litres) 

• Self-docking to re-power: After completing its cleaning, the robot returns automatically to its base to re-charge itself. By utilising the charging base, the Neato XV-15 is charged and ready to go when it’s needed most.

• Cleaning scheduler: With its easy-to-use interface, consumers can schedule the robot to clean every day, keeping homes spic and span.

EDIT: I reviewed the XV-11 which is the same as the XV-15 in the UK. The article has been amended with the UK model number to reflect the UK market.

About Motoko

First embraced the inner geek at the age of 10 with a Commodore 64 and programming in BASIC. Avid PC gamer, Gundam Gunpla builder, manga editor and anime enthusiast. Loves Mountain Dew and Ghost in the Shell. Twitter: @Motoko_K

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