I’ve never been a huge fan of portable speakers, this is probably because they’re traditionally quite awful. The Otone Aporto, however, combines reasonably decent sound with a quirky transforming trick. Its creator, Otone Audio, is a home-grown rising star in the audio world, headquartered in Manchester. They’re a relatively new and largely unknown company who [...]
Archive for the ‘Personal Computing’ Category
Otone Aporto USB/Battery Powered 2.0 Speaker Review
Monday, January 30th, 2012Bowers & Wilkins MM-1 USB Speakers Reviewed
Friday, October 7th, 2011The moniker “USB Speakers” might not inspire confidence in a product, but the name B&W should, and for good reason too. They’re no stranger to top notch sound, so when they bring compact speakers aimed at delivering that quality in a 2.0 desktop form factor you can rest assured that they wont under-perform. The Bowers [...]
Three Huawei E586 High-Speed Mobile Broadband Router Reviewed
Thursday, October 6th, 2011Ever since I first reviewed the Novatel MiFi 2352 I’ve been evangelising mobile broadband routers to everyone who’ll listen. And for a good reason, too; they’re awesome. Why? Well, rather than buy a 3G version of, for example, an iPad; you can buy a mobile router and share its connection with every WiFi-enabled device you [...]
hardwrk SATA Adaptor Kit For MacBook Pro Reviewed
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011With the recent addition of an Air to our Mac family, I found myself in envy of its absolutely superb hard drive performance. It’s hard to put into words how nice it is not to wait for things to start, and it’s harder still to go back to using a sluggish, spinning-platter hard drive for [...]
Parallels Desktop 7 Impressions
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011As you might have expected, the release of Lion has been very closely followed by a new version of Parallels Desktop. The new version, 7, adds support for the new Lion window management features, Mission Control, plus a host of other additions, enhancements and performance improvements. I run Parallels in two different usage cases; on [...]
Gaming On The 11″ MacBook Air
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011Perhaps the most common question asked about the MacBook Air is: “How does it handle gaming?” With the Air now representing the entry-level of Apple laptops it’s no surprise that prospective buyers would be interested in how it handles games. Gaming on the Mac is still in its infancy, but there are plenty of titles [...]
Port Designs Shanghai 11.6″ Laptop Bag Reviewed
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011So, you’ve got an 11″ Laptop. It’s probably a MacBook Air. And you need a similarly svelte and aesthetically pleasing laptop bag to tote it around in? Port Designs have just the thing in the form of the Shanghai 11.6″ Notebook Messenger Bag. It’s a compact bag with a reversible flap which will squeeze in [...]
Native Union POP Phone iPhone 4 Headset Reviewed
Thursday, September 1st, 2011In the race to create the most hilariously unnecessary but somehow strangely cool product, Native Union are out in the lead with the POP Phone; a phone-shaped headset ( actually, it’s more a handset! ) for the iPhone 4 and other supported devices. Designed by David Turpin, it’s certainly not the first product of its [...]
Solwise 183n Battery Powered 3G Router Review
Saturday, July 16th, 2011A while back I took a look at the MiFi 2352. Since then, the idea of a mobile 3G WiFi hotspot has become widespread, with carriers offering various solutions. However, none of these solutions really represent a proper 3G “router” and are, for the most part, fairly dumb access points with very limited enterprise functionality. [...]
Foof-Bag Sleeve for 13″ MacBook Pro Reviewed
Sunday, June 12th, 2011It’s difficult to put the aura surrounding the Foof-Bag into words, but I’ll give it a shot. It’s a curious case, stepping away from traditional looks to give something that could easily be mistaken for an item of clothing or a cozy hat. Indeed, the Foof-Bag takes human-clothing levels of comfort, and applies them to [...]