LG VX5500 Cell Phone Our Rating:
The LG VX5500 is by far the best cell phone I’ve tested so far. First I’ll just say that I have personally always used whatever phones Verizon will give for free when a contract is renewed, so naturally, this phone as well was a free phone from Verizon. This was the best out of the 3 others I could choose from the last time I renewed.

Since I really use no other functions than the simple phone function, and this does a great job of it, I would highly recommend it for anyone who is looking for a phone to be just that. It’s durable as I dropped it more than once and it’s still going strong. At first I noticed the battery life did not seem a reliable as my previous phone, but after 2 charge cycles it is right up where I would expect it to be. The camera on it is what you would expect from a basic camera phone, VGA quality. No technical issues whatsoever, and Verizon service is always great. The design is sleek and fits well in my pocket.

One downfall of this phone is that it does not have a simultaneous “ring and vibrate” feature, but that is a minor issue compared to the otherwise very high quality of the phone.

Overall, I was very pleased with the LG VX5500 and would recommend it to anyone looking for a basic but reliable phone.

Sony ICF-C25 Dream Machine Alarm Clock Our Rating:

The Dream Machine from Sony is a good choice. With it’s amazingly annoying alarm buzzer, it is sure to get you up in the morning.

The clock is easy to set, and includes both AM and FM radio. Additionally, you can set this to be your alarm instead of the buzzer. A great feature of the alarm clock is the 9 minute snooze, rather than 10 minutes. If you are a multiple snoozer, this actually saves you a few extra minutes than most alarm clocks, yet gives you nearly the same amount of extra rest.

We like it a lot, but the sleep time for the radio is 59 minutes, and that is it. A custom time sleep mode would be better. Other than that, this is a handy alarm clock.

RadioShack Universal Football Remote Our Rating:

The perfect accessory for any football fan! This universal remote works with most TV sets, VCRs, and cable boxes.

The remote works well. It is also soft, so it is perfectly fine to throw it across the room to your buddy without worries. The buttons on it are flat, and the battery pack is inside a small velcro opening in the back. It takes 2 AA batteries. The only thing we weren’t fond of is the fact that the remote doesn’t have a menu button, or other buttons found on a lot of universal remotes.

Armitron Wristwatch Our Rating:

This watch is neat, and has a few useful features. However, we found that it has some major issues we can’t get around.

We liked the date and day of the week feature. The day of the week is something that is not included on many wristwatches, and is something that we think should be. It also has glow in the dark hands and numbers. The greatest feature is that it is also waterproof up to 165 feet.

However, for whatever reason, the watch that we tested does not work properly. After only a few months, we noticed it was not keeping time correctly. It seemed to work again after getting a new battery, but only a couple days later, it acted up again, randomly stopping and never keeping time for more than a few hours without problems. This may be attributed to bad luck with good batteries, but we cannot say for sure if it is that or poor quality of the watch.