Gadget Hunter

  

HP and its boutique/luxe division Voodoo deserve serious praise for what they’ve accomplished with the Firebird 803. Taking a mix of laptop and desktop guts, juicing it up with high-end components, cooling it with liquid goo instead of noisy fans, and encasing it inside a gorgeous, curvy shell that would make most industrial designers weep with envy, the Firebird is a testament to how the envelope can be pushed in the typically boring PC world.

It’s also a veritable bargain, priced at $2,100, fully loaded.

Record labels, hammered by ever plummeting CD sales, see a ray of sunshine in the recent minor renaissance in vinyl records whose sales and production continue to steadily expand. The reason for this 33 1/3 RPM nostalgia? The feeding of a demand from a growing minority of audio geeks who have been bitching about the cold sound of digital reproduction since the first compact disc was released. (And don’t even get them started on the sound quality of MP3s.) Records, they claim, have warmer, more natural sound. Okay, so what’s this gotta do with Sony’s Digital Noise Cancellation Headphones? That all depends on how you like the sound reproduction of the music you listen to: Analog warm or digital cool.

Until now, the Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones have set the benchmark for superior noise cancellation. Could Sony out-Bose Bose with its new digital headphones? After comparing both on a Southwest Airlines flight, a noisy commuter train and a quiet living room, we found that yes, Sony has outdone Bose…but not necessarily for the better.

Noise cancellation: Sony’s analog-digital conversion cut out the omnipresent annoying drone of a jet engine, screaming babies, and background conversations. The ‘phones literally put you in your own cocoon of silence. Bose does the same but Sony let us to optimize the noise cancellation mode to three diverse environments: airplane, bus/train, and office. By simply pressing an artificial intelligence button on the right ear piece it was possible to cut out external sounds effectively. Sony also added a handy monitor button that lets you hear external sound such as a flight attendant asking if you want a drink. With Bose, you must power down or remove the headphones entirely to hear sounds from the outside.

Audio reproduction: We threw everything from the Alpha Twins to Yo Yo Ma to Abba to ZZ Top at both headphones. Bose reproduction was analog warm without any distortion at higher volumes or with heavy bass. Sony’s sound was the epitome of digital cool but performed best with midrange reproduction. Some heavy bass tracks at higher volumes caused enough headbanging distortion to make us actually throw the headphones off.

Portability and Comfort: Check it out — Bose QuietComfort 3 fit inside its 2 inch thick carrying case weighs in at one pound, Sony’s MRD-NC500D check in at just over 1.5 pounds. Its case is 3 inches thick with bulk that exceeds the Bose package by more than inch in either direction. Of course, there is more packed in the Sony case: an AC-power recharging cable with a mini-brick plug and a alternative two-AAA battery case to power the headphones when the built-in rechargeable batteries have no juice left. The Bose QuietComfort 3’s feather-light, ear cup features a soft foam which fits on top of your ears whereas the Sony set surround your ears, not putting any pressure on them. Comfort of course is subjective but after wearing each for more than one hour, we preferred the softness and material of the Bose more.

Does digital make a difference? Sure it allows for customizing noise cancellation based on the “noise” around you but the analog Bose still does the job well, too. Of course, in the end it’s whether you like your sound digital cool or analog warm. For us at the G-Lab, we’re content to stay toasty.

Despite being one of the first netbooks we had a look at this year, the 2133 still feels more fully cooked than many its bretheren. Price-wise, HP kept it competitive with a $600 for the Vista Business version. A Linux OS is available for $100 less while a Windows XP “upgrade” will cost you $100 more. And unlike many of its compatriots, this is one of the few netbooks that doesn’t feel cheap and flimsy in our hands, due in no small part to its fetching brushed aluminum and plastic outer shell.

Even more impressive is the fact that HP flat-out nailed the QWERTY keyboard on its first try. In fact, we found the (almost) full-size keyboard to be one of the most responsive and comfortable we’ve used on a netbook thus far. The only drawbacks? A decidedly feeble 1.2-GHz Via processor and less than acceptable two hour battery life.

No one knows how to polish a turd like Motorola. For proof, look no further than its latest iteration of the storied RAZR family, the VE20. While you wouldn’t know it by glancing at the handset, it’s actually been four years since the V3 began seducing phone fashionistas who didn’t mind trading a middling feature set for style. Since then, of course, Motorola has unleashed a great flood of RAZRs onto the market, each an attempt at correcting one of myriad chromosomal deficiencies that plagued the original and its progeny.

With the VE20, the floundering handset maker more or less continues this MO, adding yet another hasty paint job to what is essentially the same tired old handset.

Indeed, the first thing you’ll notice about the VE20 is its uncanny similarity to the original RAZR. Yup, four years later and we still have a 2.2-inch inner screen — which, even on a flip phone, looks pitifully small these days — a lackluster camera, and pretty much the same design scheme.

The actual useful features on the phone, be it Sprint’s streaming TV and radio channels, or the GPS navigation suite, are in one way or another crippled or greatly diminished on the handset due to poor implementation or design or both. In some cases, the VE20 even takes a bold step backward. Gone, for example, is Motorola’s music player, which wasn’t all that great to begin with. Instead, we get Sprint’s Music Store, which is inexplicably even worse. Similarly, internet browsing remains laughable on the VE20 and half the time Sprint’s various services ended up crashing on us.

It’s a shame, really. While Motorola’s recent troubles have been well documented, this would in fact be an ideal time to reinvent the one brand that helped lead the company to success, however fleeting. Instead, Motorola seems content dragging the RAZR through the gutter and slowly draining what little life force remains in the series.

For now, the VE20 serves as yet another embarrassing reminder of how far the rest of the industry has progressed since 2004 — and how Motorola has become a company content just to spin its wheels.

Plenty of gadgets claim to be tough without actually being tough. (You know the type; loud as a motorbike, but wouldn’t bust a grape in a food fight.) But the Olympus LS-10 digital recorder actually walks the walk. Its first-rate audio recording clarity builds on a sturdy appearance, and proves to be a great appendage for reckless audio aficionados.

Using the recorder is like peeling some sort of magical golden onion. Transferring files to and from a PC takes only a few moments. The UI folder structure is easy to navigate with little direction (There are 5 folders with a 200-file max, plus one Music folder.) It uses SD memory (2 GIG internal, lasting 3-69 hours, contingent on the recording setting) and it can record audio (from best quality on down) as 96 kHz/24bit Linear PCM (Pulsed Code Modulation), WAV, MP3, and WMA files.

It’s also physically stout and sturdy as hell. The recorder got dropped, smacked, and tossed without any discernible loss in performance. The 5.33-ounce weight lends a solid heft to the device and the brush finish and stylish rounded corners give it (dare we say?) a sexy look. Even the buttons are designed in a way that it prevents accidental switching and flicking. Students, journalists, and other folks who toss gadgets haphazardly in a bag will know this is heaven’s sent.

As a portable music-listening device, it doesn’t work that well. If you transfer an MP3 to the player and listen to it (through headphones) before listening to (awesome) input recordings on the PC for the first time, you’ll be kinda bummed by the average tone. No, it’s not expected to be good as an MP3 player (hey, the iPod sucks as a recorder), but leads to the dreaded pocket bulging misery of taking two media devices at once. And it’s way too expensive. At this price, we would prefer the hardware-software integrated simplicity of an iTunes-type program. That’s not too much to ask.

But what about the all important audio recording quality? We tested the LS-10 in a variety of noisy situations including live narration in the middle of a crowded street (complete with a random lunatic ranting about getting kicked out of Old Navy.) Our recording came out perfectly clear without a scratch of background fuzz. Even when we recorded an indoor musical performance, little nuances in the notes became apparent on playback. The only  time we heard any sort of popping  or distortion was when we turned the device off and listened to other recorders in our collection.