thoughts.bjsintay.com

It’s tough to predict what Apple will do next in the ever-changing portable media market.  From the iPod, to the iPhone, and even the iBook, Apple is constantly on the move when it comes to developing products that miniaturize and combine technology to meet consumer needs.  So let me be among the first to predict the iScreen - the all new handheld media system with integrated phone, media player, and *cough* DLP video projector.

TI has developed a micro DLP array which is much smaller than your standard projector chip, while maintaining enough quality for smaller screen viewing.  Want to watch a movie on your 2012 flight to Europe?  Forget wearable OLEDs in your shirt.  Project your favorite digital TV station from your iScreen on to the seat in front of you.  Think portable digital TV is far off?  Think again.  That’s already in a new phone developed by Samsung.  The phone includes both analog and digital receivers.

Now, somebody needs to get TiVo in on this and we’ll be all set.

Olympus created one of the world’s lightest voice recorders in its line of WS-3xx devices.  I became interested in this model because of its size and weight.  The WS-310M packs in 512MB of memory for over 138 hours of voice recording (on low quality mode).  At less than 2 ounces including battery, this recorder has replaced pen and paper for recording my adventures out on the trail where lightweight is king.

I initially tested my device by recording about 40 tracks from old analog voice recorder tapes that I’ve made over the past 10 years.  The device is straightforward to use.  After recording, I snapped off the battery case and plugged the recorder directly into my USB port - no cables required.  Copying everything to my computer was easy, but here is where I found the first glitch.  The device had a few tracks that got “stuck”.  My computer reads the files as corrupt disabling me from moving them to my computer.  I unplugged the device and listened from the tiny on-board speaker… no problems on the playback end of things.  So that problem has me stumped.  I read that cutting power to the device while recording can cause problems, but I can assure you that I didn’t do this.  Since this one incident I started using another “folder” on the recorder (there are 5) and have had no problems so far.

I put the device back together after transferring the WMA files onto the computer.  Another glitch.  The device totally lost the time/date.  This is annoying because it tags your files with the time/date.  I would imagine that this could be fairly important for most people.  I have continually found that this device cannot hold the clock for a long period of time of after mucking with it at all in the USB port.  Basically, check your time/date every day that you use this device.  Maybe others don’t have this problem?

The device has mic holes in the front and back and on both sides (stereo).  I found this very frustrating because it is impossible to twist the device to avoid the wind noise when outside.  You have to use it in a windless environment or on a calm day.  Bad for outdoor use.

I am pleased with the device, however, I think mine may have a few annoying glitches (corrupt memory, time/date problem).  If these problems were fixed, I would give this device a 4 out of 5.  With these problems, it gets a 2 out of 5 for total unreliability.

Santa delivered a curious package under the tree that I wasn’t expecting this year. It was the JBL On Stage, a 4-speaker dock for my 4th gen 20GB iPod. The device is small enough to fit on a tiny nightstand or in the corner of my desk without taking up hoards of surface area. It offers rich sound for the size and charges my iPod all at the same time. If you like, you can connect the dock to your iPod firewire or USB cable for transfering songs. It also has a 1/4″ jack for other non-iPod audio players or incompatible types such as the iPod Shuffle sans the charging ability. Good thinking JBL.

I am impressed with the overall quality of sound and equalization that are built in. I really like the small, circular waveguide in the inner edge of the “ring” which allows some marginal bass frequencies to be produced. I was unsure how much this guide contributed to the frequencies of the system, so I covered the port hole (about the size of a dime) and could instantly hear a loss in the low frequencies. I’m not sure what frequency this guide is tuned to, but it makes a big difference. It also makes a difference if you have the On Stage sitting on a box-like structure that can vibrate. You will notice a big difference in frequency bandwidth.

The only things I dislike about the On Stage are the value for the price-point and the “touch” volume buttons. The MSRP is right at $160, steep for what you actually get. I’m sure a big chunk of that is Apple’s, so I do understand that licensing “iPod” brings the price up. The device is very well engineered which helps with the sticker shock. The “touch” volume buttons allow you to change the volume (or mute) without actually depressing a button. Simply putting your finger on (or pretty much near) the button pad changes the volume. The problem is your iPod is pretty close to these buttons, so often I find after selecting a new song or CD that the volume has been cranked way up from using my hand to stablize it while pressing the click wheel. The dock is simply not substancial enough to mess with the iPod without bracing it with your hand. The touch technology is cool, but a bad spot for it. I also have never minded actually depressing a button. I kind of like the idea of knowing how many clicks up or down I’ve taken the volume.

Overall, I give this device 5 out of 5 stars for quality engineering.

Product webpage at jbl.com

Features:

• - Talking navigation with intelligent voice
• - Brighter screen (than the c330)
• - Mounting system
• - Power adapter
• - SD memory slot
• - USB port with cable

The Garmin StreetPilot c340 was my choice for GPS navigation.  I selected this particular brand and model for a few important reasons.  First and foremost Garmin makes the easiest GPS navigation interface in my opinion.  Nothing is more than a couple clicks away including nearby restaurants, gas stations, and grocery stores… 6 million points of interest in fact (compare that to just thousands in TomTom).  I also particularly like Garmin’s map rendering which is miles ahead of TomTom and all of the other systems I looked at.  Moreover, I discovered that many GPS navigation systems have rendering engines that look like attention to design was not considered in the slightest.  Finally, a critical feature is its ability to read street names in navigation instructions out loud (not available on the c330).

To test my system, I plugged everything in and set off for Myrtle Beach from my home in Winston-Salem, NC.  I had to make one stop at my in-law’s in Cornelius which was clearly far off of the route.  For about 15 minutes, the Garmin system gave me routing instructions to turn around and head the other way, which I was actually impressed with.  Instead of just saying, make a u-turn now, it actually found nice places to make an easy turn around using short roads without having to pull a 3-point or a u-turn.  Having not entered the address of my in-law’s on the itinerary, the Garmin system was thoroughly confused for a long time.  When I finally got on the road in the right direction, it started to settle down a bit.  The route it took me on was the exact route I would have planned myself minus driving through Friday rush-hour traffic down Independence Blvd. in Charlotte.  That set me back a bit.  One problem I noted was that it had a hard time identifying bypass highways that skipped thick business districts.  This only occurred in the country and as soon as I didn’t turn onto to the slower route, the computer recalculated my route within seconds and approved of the new route I was on.  Using a bit of common sense can save you some time since it’s hard for a little device like this to always optimize a long drive perfectly.

I arrived exactly when the system predicted I would.  The trip computer inside of the system is really nice.  It logs time, mileage, speed, average speed, time stopped, time moving, average speed while moving, and max speed (erase this if you get pulled over by an officer with one click on “Reset Max”).

Satellite reception is no problem for me on the road, but of course I cannot pick up anything when in a garage or parking deck.  Once I noticed the system thought I was on the other side of the highway and demanded that I exit up the wrong side of the ramp and pull a u-turn.  I thought that was funny.  A cool feature of the c340 is that the woman that speaks to you actually says the road names instead of just “turn left in half of a mile”.  That helps me figure out where I need to go without having to look at the screen.  I found that the brightness of the screen is adequate even in sunny conditions while wearing my sunglasses.  The windshield mount works perfectly.

I am very pleased with this device.  It has exceeded most of my expectations and has instantly become an integral part of travel for me.  I was able to find destinations with door-to-door directions read from a soothing voice which could be heard even over relatively loud music.  I would recommend this unit to anyone looking to get a GPS navigation system.  It’s especially nice to use once you get to your travel destination as you can quickly find places that you need to get to when you’re not in familiar territory.  I give this device 5 out of 5 stars because they really couldn’t have done anything better in my opinion.  It’s simple, sleek, and fully featured.

I recently purchased a FM transmitter (Belkin TuneCast II) to connect my iPod to my Mercury Mountaineer.  This purchase came after more than a year of stalling due to all of the poor reviews I had read on the net.  I was concerned about 2 primary issues: sound quality and reception.  I finally bought one with a gift certificate since I wasn’t willing to risk hard earned cash on it.

I drove with this model in my driver-side cupholder for nearly 400 miles.  I ran the player for about 8 hours straight through 3 very large metropolitan areas and also through the country.  I used the batteries (wish they had included a power adapter in this model).  On first setup, I turned on the device by holding both tune buttons down.  I located a station range in the lower FM 90’s where I could not find a clear radio station for 0.4 or so on the FM dial.  I then tuned my TuneCast right in the middle of those.  I turned up the sound on my car and pressed play on my iPod.  I was instantly greeted with poor signal and tons of static as reported by many on the internet.  I was pretty mad, then I realized my iPod volume was turned down a bit.  I turned this up to about 95% and instantly the sound came pumping through my car’s system clear as a bell.

On my trip I had to change the station 3 times as I moved in and out of metropolitan areas.  This became evident as the signal would slowly gain static.  All I did was first locate the closest station with no or little radio broadcast signal (tons of static), then I dialed the TuneCast to that station.  It worked perfectly each time and only took seconds, so this did not bother me at all.  When I came back the same way a few days later, I didn’t have to change the station once.

With regard to battery life, I found that my TuneCast ran on the 2 AAA batteries for about 8 hours.  When the batteries died, they died instantly and my signal was lost within seconds.  I simply replaced, and was jamming again in a minute.

Possible problems people could have with this are (1) poor placement relative to your car’s antenna (good in Mercury Mountaineers), (2) small signal strength of audio player - iPod (20GB, 4th gen) at 95% is pretty loud in earphones and it’s possible not all players can go loud enough to eliminate much of the static in the FM broadcast, (3) trying to tune to a station that already has a radio broadcast in the area or has an FM band close to the one you’re using - find one to use with some room on each side for little static, (4) songs that use intense ends of the frequency spectrum like extremely low basses or high-pitched whooshes from cymbals, etc - I found that songs with a lot of bass and crashes had some static in those spectrums (a limitation of FM in general, but not really an annoyance to me; your radio station overcomes this with special compression).

Overall, I gave this device 4 out of 5 because of the power situation.  I would have liked it to come with an adapter.  Things I really like are the small size, 0.1 FM resolution on the entire range, batteries optional, auto-on/off feature (works great!).  This device may not work for everyone, but you need to understand the limitations of this technology before you go calling it a piece of junk.  Small devices like this have Federally mandated operating powers so that they don’t override your local FM stations for everyone else, otherwise I’m sure they would have a strong enough signal for anyone’s car configuration (and heck, entire neighborhood for that matter).  (adapted from my review at amazon.com)