Insignia Sport 4GB MP3 Player Our rating:

The Insignia Sport MP3 Player is in the same price range as Apple’s iPod Shuffle, but packs quite a few more features for the price. With a spin-wheel and a thin, rectangular body, it even mimics the iPod. It’s very easy to control, even when on the run, which means the Insignia Sport lives up to its name. The Sport has an extra slot for a Micro SD card, and is even bluetooth capable. These two options as well as its ability to play videos set it in a league entirely apart from and above the iPod Shuffle. The Insignia Sport has easy-to-use menus, and can also be configured for left-handed use – a very nifty feature. The Sport makes it simple to find and play your music by artist, album, song, genre, and of course playlist, and you can also build your own “now playing” playlists on-the-spot. It also feataures a clock, an fm-radio feature, as well as a sleep timer. The video and audio quality is superb, and unlike many other MP3 players with radios, one cannot complain much about the radio quality. The only downfall is that since the player doesn’t have an external FM antenna, it must be placed somewhere where FM signals are in easy reach. The Sport is available in black, red and blue, and it looks very stylish. It’s simple, yet sleek.

Insignia’s Sport charges through a USB connection to a computer. It is very easy to transfer music onto and even comes with its own software. However, it’s also compatible with iTunes, Windows Media Player, and other common audio programs should you desire to stick with the program you’re already using. Its battery charge lasts a good 24 hours, which is very impressive. The Sport has been very reliable and did not experience any issues with music transferring or disappearing, a common issue among cheaper MP3 players. Although it did freeze a few times during normal use, it was easily restored to its normal “healthy” state upon being plugged into the computer or reset.

One downfall about the Sport is that it reconfigures and won’t return to your “Now Playing” list when unplugged from your computer. Of course, you’ll still have the playlists you have saved, but losing your currently playing list upon unplugging the device is somewhat of a nuisance. However, other than these few minor issues, the Sport is a winner across the board. It’s outstanding technological specs, durability, functionality, and design style easily make it one. Insignia, a Best Buy brand, did a very good job with the Sport MP3 Player and we not only recommend this individual device, but the manufacturer as a whole due to its cheaper price and overall good quality products.

Apple iPod Touch Our Rating:
The iPod Touch is Apple’s offering for those who want all the features of the iPhone sans phone. The Touch is by far the most feature-packed iPod Apple has to offer, offering all the functionality of a PDA or Blackberry in a sleek design and full touch screen. The current generation Touch has four external buttons: The Home button below the touch screen, the hold button at the top, and volume control on the left side. Next/previous track buttons may have been more useful but it is still better than the original touch which did not feature the volume control buttons. On the bottom is the jack for connecting the Touch to a PC or Mac via USB, and the audio input.

By default the touch comes with a standard set of apps, similar to that of the iPhone: Calendar, Photos, Videos, YouTube, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Notes, Mail, Safari, and of course Music, iTunes, and the App Store. Within the App Store one will find hundreds of additional free and premium apps to install, from Google Earth to Quake. The presence of a built-in YouTube player and the largest screen out of any iPod make it the best choice for watching video. The Touch comes in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes, so there is bound to be one for everyone.

The Touch does have its downsides. The lack of more external buttons could make it a hassle to have to skip through songs. A much-needed App is a built-in instant messenger. There are several choices from third parties in the App store, but this is such a popular feature that it should definitely be added. However these are small problems when compared to how much the Touch has to offer.

Apple’s iPod Touch is definitely one of the best portable media devices available today, and short of owning an iPhone it’d be hard to find a device to beat it.

Logitech X-230 Speakers Our Rating:
Another excellent product from Logitech comes the X-230 speakers. These have several features which make them top of the line. The product itself is two speakers and a subwoofer. The subwoofer has individual volume control so the bass can be cranked up to the max when nobody’s home or turned down when necessary. On one of the speakers is an overall volume control and power button as well as a headphone jack which is very convenient. The speakers also have the cabability of being wall mounted which gives them nice versatility. They are very easy to set up and can be used with any PC or MP3 player. And of course the most important part, the sound quality, is excellent – which has come to be expected of any Logitech product.

Apple Remote Our Rating:

The Apple remote is a necessity for your Macbook or Macbook Pro, iMac,or Apple TV. With this tiny remote, you can have the ability to control your computer and applications on your Apple computer.

The Apple remote features only 6 buttons: volume control up and down, skip left and right, play/pause, and menu. In a media application, this remote controls all of the normal functions in that application, making it simple to control your music or movies from right in front of your computer to all the way across the room.

The menu button pulls up the Front Row application on Apple computers. This gives you access to movies, music, videos, podcasts, and photos in an appealing interface, all navigated with the remote. In the Front Row, you can also access features such as the top 10 music videos or top 10 songs in the iTunes store, movie previews, and more.

Not only is it a media controller, but a presentation controller. It can also be used in other applications. Additionally, it can play media applications in a Windows Boot Camp partition.

The remote has a long range, and has a long battery life. It also is very light and small, yet large enough to not lose it easily. It works great, and is essential to get the most out of your Apple computer experience.

Intec Audio/Video Selector Our Rating:

If you’re like me, you have tons of things hooked up to your TV. You have your DVD player, video games, and anything else around. This means that whenever you want to switch over to another system, you have to hassle with all of the cables to get it working. This nifty audio/video selector takes away the hassle.

This product allows you to plug in up to 3 devices into it. Then, you use the provided cords to hook the product up to your equipment. It accepts the regular audio and video, along with S-video. Then, all you have to do it hit the switch for whatever device you want to use, and play away! It’s that simple, and this product does the job flawlessly.

Toshiba SD-V291 DVD/VHS Player Our Rating:

Here is another wonderful product. This player from Toshiba is a DVD/VCR combo. It plays all your old VHS tapes from back in the day, and all of your newer DVDs, all in one unit.

The DVD player plays tons of formats: CD, VCD, CD-R/RW, mp3, WMA, and DVD-R, and can view JPEG pictures as well. It has component video output, and is Dolby Digital/DTS Compatible. The VHS player works great and includes multiple features, such as high speed fast forward/rewind, commercial skipping for recording, automatic clock set, and an automatic head cleaner.

We loved being able to use both common types of video media in this unit with the same remote. However, we found that the DVD player in our machine was touchy at times. Rarely, it would take several tries for it to play a DVD. However, this did not occur often. We found that cleaning it with a DVD drive cleaner helped it significantly. If you want to get a new DVD player, but still have a massive collection of VHS tapes, consider this player.

RCA RS2652 Stereo System Our Rating:

This stereo system is a great choice. It appeals to the eye, has great sound, and has many features. We like almost everything about it.

Let’s start with the features. It has a 5-disc changer with the ability to change discs in the changer while a disc is playing. It can play all sorts of audio types – from a regular CD, to an mp3 or wma CD, as well as CD-Rs and CD-RWs. It also has a regular AM/FM tuner and and auxiliary mode.

The speakers are not attached to the base unit. They have separate speaker wires for the subwoofer inside of them, along with the normal speaker wires. This is what gives the speakers great sound. The system also has a headphone port.

The stereo has many other simple features, such as display brightness, multiple equalizer filters, including a custom filter, a demo mode, and various play modes.

There are a couple things that didn’t sit so well with us though. The disc changer broke pretty quickly. It still works fine, but it slides out funny and slow, and sometimes needs help getting back in. The AV input seemes misplaced in the front as well; however it still works fine. Also, the remote for the stereo often has many issues – it does commands other than the buttons you press quite often. Other than this, the stereo is wonderful and produces amazing sound.

Koss “The Plug” Earbuds Our Rating:

So my old headphones broke, and I headed out to the store to grab some new ones. I grabbed the cheapest ones i could find there at $15, and the quality was way better than I expected out of some cheap earbuds.

The first thing that stood out was the memory foam on the earbuds. It makes the whole experience so much better. They fit very comfortably in your ears. Even after hours upon hours of constant use, my ears felt perfectly fine. The foam also shapes to fit your ears, making the sound quality amazing. They block out a lot of the surrounding noise, and lock in the sound for deep bass and crystal clear audio. Additionally, anyone else can hardly hear any noise from the earbuds, if at all, even when they are playing loudly.

Two extra memory foam covers are also included in the package, in case they get damaged or lost. They are also under Koss’s wonderful lifetime warranty. They have a no questions asked lifetime guarantee on their product.

However, they do take some getting used to. At first, they kept falling out of my ears, and they still do come out pretty easily. Aside from this, they are great headphones. We think you should try these out if you are considering a new set of headphones or earbuds – great sound quality and comfort while keeping your wallet full.