Gadget Reviews

Inspector Gadget... remember him? Well it's thanks to him I now have the insatiable need for gadgets. Most are not required, some are not even used more than the first week after purchase, but they're shiny and slick, nifty and moreish. Cameras, tablets, phones, GPS units, robotic vacuum cleaners, fitness monitors, augmented reality eyewear and much more coming out nearly every week. To some I'm known as the gadget man as I cannot help myself from purchasing them, I have slowed down though, and I try and hold back and really only buy stuff I'm going to actually use, not like when I bought the Apple Newton back in the 90s or the terribly slow and painfully difficult to use stupidphone HP iPaq in the pre-iphone years.

As with the other review sections here at volvodriver, we'll be assessing each gadget on its usability to me, how it measures up in actual daily usage, and sometimes, if you're lucky we'll be revisiting certain gadgets after updates have been released to see how much worse they are now, this is something particularly evident with iOS updates to devices just a couple of years old, although to be fair with the frequency of new products coming out, a couple of years is a long time.

Reviews will end with a rating between 1 and 10. 10 being excellent and flawless, 1 being on the other end of the scale, typically a device that is useless and cannot do what it's meant to will get a score like this. In addition to this the volvodriver seal of approval may be given to devices with any reasonable rating, depends on how I feel about the device outside of my rating decision.

Posted 29.10.2014

Portable Sound - JBL Charge 2 Plus

Portable bluetooth speakers, all the rage now, the perfect device to annoy the crap out of random people that are around you in public. Apparently everyone is making them and it appears everyone wants one, funny thing is I don't see alot of people using these devices and thank god for that. I didn't need one but much like everyone else I wanted one for the gadget pile and now you can read what I thought about this offering from JBL and decide for yourself if this is for you.

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iPhone 1st Gen - I got this Phone

C'mon, as if you'd think I wouldn't have one, expressed straight from the US to me, click through to read my review of the 8gb iPhone first generation, which has had the AT&T shackles removed and is unlocked and fully activated to work in Australia on all non 3G networks. An incredible phone with incredible features that will wow anyone who sees it, but they can't have one.... yet. Until such time they are available here in Australia you can salivate at my review featuring lots of pics.

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Samsung D820 - Samsung Mobile

Changing phones nowadays can be as frequent as renewing your insurance. The rate these things are being churned out and given away on plans etc. it's hard to stick to one device for more than a year. After struggling with a bulky Sharp flip phone for a while I thought I'd try the latest rage at the time which was one of the super slim slide phones from Samsung. Click through to see what I thought of this offering from this electronics giant.

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