Sexy External Hard Drives by Porsche
These things are sexy. I don’t have any yet, but I’ll probably buy one, because I’m shallow like that.
M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 Review
My M-Audio Studiophile AV 40′s arrived in the mail from Woot a few days ago and I’ve been using them ever since. These things kick ass, let me tell you. For only $100 they were an amazing deal and I’m glad to finally get rid of my old amp and speakers. With an amp built right into the speakers, these are a great space saver for any music producer or audio aficionado. The Woot sale is long gone, but you can purchase these for a similar price over at Amazon for about $150 (still well worth the price): M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 Powered Speakers
The first thing I should let you know, these aren’t as good as their expensive studio monitor counterparts. But, unless you’re mixing for big bands, you will not notice the difference.
On the front of the speakers are headphones out and a line in, both 1/8″, and a volume knob. Turning the knob all the way down will not power off the speaker, to do that you’ll need to use the switch on the back of the speakers. The device has RCA inputs, and outputs to run to the second speaker on the right. There is also a bass boost switch on the back of the speakers, which seem to contrast with the purpose of the speakers.
In order to get the optimal sound out of these speakers, you’ll want them to be standing vertically, and in a triangle with the position of the two speakers and your head, with the three items being 6 feet apart. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and move these things around, you will notice the difference.
These things also come with a double male 1/8″ pin (for the line in), a wire to the second speaker (of course), and an 1/8″ pin to RCA cable. I thought this was a nice touch, a lot of hardware manufacturers refuse to ship these sort of cables, especially when not all clients would need them. Thanks M-Audio for being awesome!
I do a little bit of music production, though not as much as I used to. These will be replacing my old speakers and will primarily be used for listening to music and for video game audio. So far they do an amazing job. They can get very loud and keep from distorting.
There are a few drawbacks to these speakers, although the drawbacks only apply to someone not using these for audio mastering. The bass isn’t the best on these things (the graph depicting frequency response for these has a big drop off near the bass end). Consumer level speakers do a little bit of internal EQing to boost the bass and treble and dropping the mid’s so that the music sounds a little better, these speakers do not do that. If you leave the speakers on all the time, they will get pretty hot in the back and suck power out of the wall. The power switch is on the back, so they can’t be hidden and forgotten somewhere on your bookshelf.
Conclusion: If you are an audio nut looking for a good deal and who doesn’t mind a little inconvenience in exchange for sound quality, grab these! If you’re a casual listener and don’t plan on doing any music production, there are better speakers out there for you.
Double HTC Evo 4G Battery Life
In my constant battle to increase the batter life of my Evo phone, including killing processes, juggling brightness, and only enabling hardware features when needed (e.g. Bluetooth and WiFi), I finally decided to take my co-workers advice make the easiest and most-effective update: Buy a new battery!
Now, don’t hate me for taking the easy route! This battery costs less than $10, and has 2.5 times the capacity of the standard Evo battery (the stock batter has 1500mAh, the new one has 3500mAh). The only setback is that it makes the phone bigger and heavier, but I have big pockets and carry around a 20 lb laptop bag, so this wasn’t a big deal for me.
You can buy one of the battery that I have from Amazon: HTC Evo 4G 3500mAh Extended Battery + Cover
Another setback for me is that my cool skins I bought and affixed to the panel that came with my phone are no longer there, but it’s definitely worth it. I’ve had this battery on my phone for about a month now and it really helps. Before having this battery, I would need to keep it charged at work thanks to a USB cable. But now, I can keep it in my pocket without worrying that the phone will be dead at the end of the day.
When you do get this battery, don’t worry that it doesn’t double your battery life immediately, the phone’s firmware keeps track of the battery charge history and will slowly reset itself, so it took a few weeks for my phone to recognize the new battery capacity. My girlfriend has her phone rooted, and has the clockwork mod bootloader installed. She was able to manually reset the battery charge history using that utility and immediately get the longer battery life effects.
Review of the Viewsonic G-Tablet
I purchased my Viewsonic G-Tablet from Woot about a month ago for $280 (it was also available today from Woot). Most tablets sell for $500 to $600, so $280 is definitely a bargain (or, at least, would appear to be). You can also pick this up on Amazon for around $300: ViewSonic gTablet with 10″ Multi-Touch LCD Screen, Android OS 2.2
The first thing a person should think when they see this is “but Tom, Viewsonic doesn’t make hardware, they make computer screens!”, to which I would reply, “yup”. Viewsonic is a screen manufacturer, and their logo is three stupid colorful birds, perhaps to show off how bright and vibrant their screens are. Funny enough, the screen is the most horrible part of this device. Viewsonic apparently had a bunch of netbook screens in the back of the warehouse and decided they needed to get rid of the crappy things somehow, so they shoved them into their debut tablets. Because of this, these screens have all the quirks of the first-gen netbook screens, e.g. horrible viewing angles, horrible refresh rates, horrible colors, and brightness which bleeds. Like a netbook, these need to be viewed at an angle between 90 degrees and 45 degrees, which is okay for horizontal mode, but in vertical mode it means you will need to tilt it to the left to read.
Upon your first boot, you will be greeted with a software update. Do this immediately, and don’t even try to use the OS, otherwise you will vomit all over the device. It is a pretty quick download and reboot before it is operational again. Now that you’ve had the amazing upgrade, the operating system is stillpure garbage. It is ridiculously limited (if you go into the settings area you will see 10% of the typical Android settings). This thing doesn’t even come with the Android market (which is how you download and install, you know, everything*). It does have some proprietary market app with a quite limited selection, but a few minutes using that thing and you’ll want to gouge your eyes out. The device is also advertised as being a Flash capable device, and yet there is no Flash installed anywhere on the unit (not that it matters, but it’s quite a bit of faulty advertising).
As far as hardware goes, the camera is horrible too, it only faces forward (e.g. it can be used for Skype, but not for actual photos). I was never able to test the microphone. The speakers are okay, and are located on the left and right side of the unit. The four Android buttons are placed in a semi-awkward location. This thing would be a lot cooler with GPS capability, but that’s just not something you get for less than $300. The USB host port is quite cool; it will work with a mouse, keyboard, and USB storage drives (if you have a file browser).
At this point, you realize the hardware is far ahead of the limited Android install. You’ll want to go ahead and hack this guy and put a real OS on it. I installed CyanogenMod 7 (CM7) on mine. Apparently the device is pretty hacker-friendly, although I managed to brick mine once before getting it fully working (had to run a low-level nvidia tool to re-flash it, oh boy!). I’m not going to link to any guides, just use Google and I wish you the best of luck. Once you get CM7 on it, you’ll notice that *some* full screen video won’t play, trying to use the webcam will crash, and trying to use the mic will crash. Kick ass!
Conclusion: The horrible screen, horrible hardware, horrible operating system, and horrible compatibility with hacked OS’s, make this device, well, horrible. Spend that extra $300 and get yourself something badass like a Xoom!
