Tech Blog

It's time for another annual look back at the gear I acquired (and retired) in 2011.  

An iPhone 4 (not the S), a new vacuum and dishwasher are not the sort of things you'd expect to see in a gadget reviewer's arsenal, but they made it into mine.

Sure I got a new Macbook Pro and subscribed to all the fun things you can get in the cloud, but even when it came to getting the Steve Jobs biography, I went analog.

The idea of a “smartpen” isn’t a new concept, since Livescribe and other companies have been making them for at least a few years now, but the functionality and usability of these things continues to improve. Even though this marriage of old school handwriting and digital recording requires special paper, it’s still cool to be able to do a number of things with it that save time and energy.

Offered as a set of premium, full-size headphones for mobile listening the $300 Bowers & Wilkins P5 Mobile Hi-Fi is pricey but is extraordinarily powerful, comfortable and plain nice to look at.  Now is this piece of eye candy worth the money?  Read on for more details! 

I got some strange looks from friends when I went about mounting the TomTom VIA 1435TM GPS to my window. One actually said “What’s that for, you’ve got a smartphone?” After using the TomTom for six weeks to navigate up and down the west coast I can safely say this: Phones are for calling. GPS is for navigation. This is one device that, for the best experience, needs to be separate.

I’ve used my phone as a GPS for nearly a year after coming from a long line of GPS units stretching back to the time when they were $600 a pop. There have been a few things that have annoyed me: I can never get my phone quite right in the 3rd party window mount, the notifications on both my iPhone and my Android phone are too annoying to easily dismiss while driving, and despite the availability of custom GPS apps, the standard apps use data (which is a killer if you’re headed to the US).

The TomTom VIA 1435TM was like a breath of fresh air. Let’s start with the basics.

  Google recently released an update to their Tablet orientated flagship OS Honeycomb, bringing the build version from 3.0 to 3.1 and it is scheduled to be arriving soon on Canadian Honeycomb devices

  It may not immediatly sound like a big deal with such a small version update but there's a lot of improvements added throughout the system. Tune in after the break to find out what they are and what they mean to you.

First off, congratulations on the purchase of your new tablet!

Time to get it setup and start playing. Read on for 3 quick steps that will get you connected to the internet and enjoying the Android Market before you can finish that cup of coffee.

Today is the start of a new regular series I'll be posting here on the Future Shop Community Blog. I'll be sharing tips, tricks and great apps for your Android device to extend the features, make it faster, and let you personalize it the way you want it.

Like many of you, I've been watching the events in Japan continue to unfold, and perhaps thinking to myself, "I'm glad something that devastating didn't happen here".
 
But what if it did, would you be prepared? I like to think that I am, but sadly, I'm probably not.

It seems that every few years, as technology evolves, the age-old question evolves right along with it... “Can THIS device replace THAT device?” From the desktop / laptop wars, to laptops vs. netbooks, we continually struggle to redefine the best way to accomplish a task, and the best tool to use. Now it's time to revisit this issue with the new kid on the block... the Tablet.

 On the surface, this seems to be a pretty simple issue. In many obvious ways, a laptop has advantages that a tablet just doesn't, and I'll discuss some of those pros and cons shortly. However, it's not quite that simple. The device you choose is as much about lifestyle and perception as it is about practicality, and that's a key area for deciding where we're going to invest our money. I mean, let's be honest... a minivan is the most PRACTICAL vehicle for ninety percent of us, but I sure see a lot of convertibles on the road!

I’m never always sure how to take eReaders because they pretty much serve one or two functions that other devices like tablets and smartphones do too. But what I’ve started to realize even more after trying the Kindle 3, and now Kobo’s eReader Wireless, is that these devices are made exactly for their intended owners.

When I first saw Belkin’s Conserve line of products, I was impressed with how easy and useful they could be. Just looking around my place, gadgets are everywhere, and my office is just a disaster zone of wires and cables. If all of this is reflected in my hydro bill, then how can I get a better sense of what’s taking up so much juice?

If you know of Pandigital, you probably know it for its photo frames. However, the company has moved into the hot e-book reader market with a device that a lot of people have been waiting for: an affordable color screen e-book reader with ties to a major bookseller.

Integrated with the Barnes & Noble's  e-book store, the Pandigital Novel is an Android-powered e-book reader that has a full color 7-inch touch-screen display, Wi-Fi connectivity and multimedia capabilities.

The Samsung SP-H03 LED Pico Projector is proof that good things do come in small packages.  Measuring at 2.75" x 1.5" x 2.75", this pint-sized projector boasts a microSD slot (up to 16GB), a strap-on battery that'll last two hours, a 30-lumen LED DLP that fires off a 28-inch-diagonal image and an itty bitty 1watt speaker for media presentations. The idea of having a high-def projector that you can take anywhere has pretty wide appeal, and the SP-H03 is a serious attempt at satisfying that want.

When the Powermat first launched in Canada last year, it had the combination of being an elegant product with a cool concept. Charging a device “wirelessly” through magnetic induction was just interesting to watch, even if you didn’t care about the technology behind it. But it was pricey, and it wasn’t entirely “wireless” because of the need to use cases. The newest Powermat lineup takes a solid step in the right direction.

Got a Sony eReader and use the Sony Reader store? Well check out the little blue & white box in the right-hand sidebar on the page.

Yep, you read correctly -- you can check out books from the library and read them on your eReader.