Canon S5IS Digital Camera Our rating:

The Canon S5IS digital camera is a very versatile and user-friendly camera. It features a classic yet stylish body, contoured for a perfect fit into your hands for easy picture-taking, and a rotating flip-out 2.5″ LCD screen. The various shooting modes (Auto, Av, Tv, Manual, Custom, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Special Scene, Night Snapshot, Super Macro, Stitch Assist & Movie) stay true to the Canon line, and live up to the Canon standard. With the optical image stabilization and Digic III image-processing on top of the 12x optical zoom (48x digital) and 8.0 mega pixels, this camera is really one all-in-one package just below the quality of a digital SLR that is very hard to beat. With its zoom function and shutter in the same vicinity, as well as review control and mode switch wheel also nearby, it’s quite simple, straightforward and when necessary, speedy to take high-quality photos. The adjustable ISO settings, optical zoom and normal/macro/super macro functions make it easy to get creative and do just what you want to do with the camera instead of its functions limiting you.

I found it quite easy to learn how to use, and if I have any problems I can turn to the ever-helpful user manual or online support from Canon. The S5 IS is very sturdy, and taking videos is very easy as well, with a separate record button on the back of the camera. The video and audio quality is remarkably good. The lens is a Canon lens, and I’m quite impressed with the overall quality and clarity of the pictures I’ve taken. As an avid photography hobbyist, this camera has fulfilled all my needs, wants, and even more. It keeps surprising me with the professional quality of photos and as I continue honing my skills and becoming more accustomed to the S5IS. It only gets better and easier to use, as opposed to other cameras I’ve used that only seemed to become more problematic over time and more use. This canon has really held up in even very adverse conditions, such as rain, snow, extreme heat and bitter cold, and over time and more use. Since it takes SDHC cards, the memory availability is only limited to the cards available on the market now.

Although I’ve fallen in love with this camera, it does lack what a more expensive, truly professional digital SLR camera has, and is a bit on the large size. Also, it requires 4 AA batteries (I’ve found it’s good to use rechargeable canon NiMH batteries and a canon charger to power it as these last longer than the usual rechargeable batteries), which means it’s quite the power hog, and this makes it almost an absolute necessity to at least purchase rechargeable batteries. The lens cap is very loose, and falls off often, after a bit of research I found this is the case on most if not all models. This is a problem if you are carrying it in conditions or a situation where it could get easily scratched. However, other than these few issues, the S5IS has been a very pleasing camera to own. With it’s price of between 250-350$ dollars, it’s really the most bang for the buck out of cameras in its price and function group. It is possible to upgrade the camera hardware, so this is a great camera for anyone, whether you are a hobbyist like me, a professional perhaps looking for a second camera, a tourist or even a mom who just wants to get clear pictures of her kid’s soccer game.

RIM BlackBerry 8830 World Edition Smartphone Our rating:

The Blackberry 8830, although it looks to be a basic and even to some a boring and bulky PDA/Smartphone compared to others of its kind (and even its Blackberry siblings such as the popular and snazzy Pearl, Storm and Curve), the 8830 is set apart from the others by being both a CDMA and GSM phone. This phone is marketed especially for International businessmen and world-travelers who would benefit most from the network interchangeability. For those Sprint/Nextel and Verizon users who grit their teeth when they want to keep their phone when they change networks, or just switch out their sim card when they travel somewhere overseas with only GSM networks, the 8830 comes to the rescue. With both a CDMA function and a GSM sim-card slot, you get the best of both worlds. For the world-traveler who uses a CDMA network Smartphone, this Blackberry is a lifesaver and relieves a lot of hassle they may have had in the past when it comes to mobile networks and phones. It’s easy to use the World Edition 8830 overseas. Simply activate Sprint/Verizon World Service (by calling Sprint or Verizon, it’s free) and it will work in both CDMA and GSM countries (although the roaming fees are pretty hefty). For those who want to use a local sim-card, just switch out the Sprint or Verizon card for a local network’s card.

The Sprint version of the 8830 lacks a camera, which is a downside and a disappointment since Blackberry tends to stay on the cutting edge, but I suppose most world-traveling businessmen (who this phone is marketed for) don’t need a camera-phone to snap pictures while on a meeting in Beijing. And even though it might not have a camera, you can still fit a lot of media on the 8830 with the memory card option and SDHC capability. The audio isn’t the loudest, but still fairly good for a phone, and the video quality is exceptional. And, since the screen is 2.5 inches, you won’t be squinting your eyes nearly as much as with other, smaller phones. Of course, the 8830 also comes with the mobile internet option and blackberry email, which is outstanding and quite simple to use if you have a data package.

Although the transition to blackberry from another phone, Smartphone or PDA can take a bit of getting used to, since its menu can tend to be a bit complex and difficult to navigate, the convenient “help” functions and online guides make it clear to even the least tech-savvy folks. For those already familiar with blackberries, the 8830 features the trademark trackball as well as blackberry maps, GPS, browser, email, MMS, SMS, wireless e-mail, organizer, and corporate data access. The price is quite fair when you buy it with a new plan or decide to upgrade. Otherwise it retails around $400-600, still a fair price given the features of this one-of-a-kind PDA phone.

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.

Nintendo Gamecube Game Boy Player Our Rating:

Here is a perfect accessory for your Gamecube. Slap this on the bottom of your Gamecube to instantly allow it to play any Game Boy, Game Boy Color, or Game Boy Advance game on your TV!

Most every game works in the Game Boy Player. There are some games that are not fit for use in this, including tilt-sensitive games, Gamesharks, or other large games or games that interact in various ways other than normal. Also, Game Boy Video cartridges cannot be played in it for copyright reasons. The device also has a link port so you can link up and play with other Game Boys, or use accessories that use the link port.

There are many ways to play the games. You can use a Gamecube controller, or you can buy a Game Boy to Gamecube link adapter to use your Game Boy Advance/SP as a controller.

The software has a few extra features. It allows you to put a number of frames around the game screen, includes sharpening levels, and has a timer of up to 60 minutes.

This has worked flawlessly for us, and has allowed us to play our Game Boy games on a whole new level, nice and large on the television. Much better than that tiny screen – this is a must-have for any Game Boy enthusiast.

Mad Catz Gamecube Control Pad Pro Our Rating:

Here is one controller you do not want to get. If you’re looking for an extra Gamecube controller for games, or for your Wii, skip right past this one and move to the next.

The controller’s feel is not bad. It fits comfortably and has those rubber grips on the joysticks and sides of the controller like the Microcon controller. It also has the same macro feature. The problem comes in with the buttons.

The buttons just don’t feel right. The “A” button presses really far, and kinda sticks, just because of the way the button is. The other buttons aren’t too bad. However, after a short while, the “B” button on our controller broke, and you now have to jam the button down as hard as you can to get any input at all. With funny feeling buttons and a button breaking so early after purchase, we do not recommend this controller.

Microsoft Bluetooth Intellimouse Our Rating:

Bluetooth. Five buttons. Molded to fit your hand. What more could you want out of a mouse? We loved this mouse, and you will too.

This mouse is colored a deep blue color to fit the theme of bluetooth. It also has 5 buttons on it: the two normal buttons, two thumb buttons, and a wheel-click button. These can all be customized with software to do whatever you want. The extra buttons also make this a nice gaming mouse. It also has a normal scroll wheel which is very smooth.

This mouse does quite well on batteries. They lasted a long time for us. The mouse has a power saving mode, so that your mouse isn’t wasting your batteries after sitting for more thana  few minutes. However, because the mouse never really turns off completely, and because carrying it in a bag tended to click a button and keep it on, we found it best to take a battery out when not in use.

The best part of this mouse is the way it fits in your hand. It is perfectly molded to fit right in your hand very comfortably. We hardly noticed we were using it at all! The only bad thing we found about the mouse is that it occasionally lags a bit. This is never a large problem, and it lags less than a second behind. However, if it weren’t for this, it’d be a perfect mouse and would get a perfect score.

Microsoft Bluetooth Explorer Keyboard Our Rating:

This one grabs your attention pretty quickly – it’s a cool blue color with transparent keys, perfect to fit it’s bluetooth connectivity. While it looks appealing, it loses some of that lure after you use it.

Let’s start with the good stuff. First off, they keys press very nicely. We like the touch of the keys. It also has a comfortable palm-rest that can easily be taken off. All of the special keys on the top of the keyboard are helpful too. They have defaults to Microsoft programs that the keys represent, but they can be programmed to do many custom actions. The media player keys are also very useful.

What we didn’t like really took the scores down. Because it is wireless, it need batteries. This keyboard eats them like candy. Also, they keyboard tens to get caught up with lag now and then. You may be typing, and then all of a sudden it repeats a key-press for about 30 seconds. This is tragic while playing a game, and an annoyance while typing a document. This may have been from bad batteries, but at the rate that they use batteries, this is bound to happen often if that is the cause.

In conclusion, this is not a bad keyboard at all. It is very appealing, easy to use, customizable, and comfortable. However, you just might have to get past some lag issues.

Samsung r400 Slider Phone Our Rating:

After some very bad luck with the Kyocera Strobe, our lead reviewer Chris decided to move on to a Samsung, thinking He would be much more impressed.  Unfortunately, that was far from being the case.  He concluded that while Samsung does have some very nice phones currently on the market, this is definitely one to steer clear of.  Here’s what he had to say:

First of all, one of my biggest annoyances of cell phones was true of this phone as well – the “silent” mode is not 100% silent.  When the battery gets low on this phone, even if you’ve got the volume turned off, it’s going to beep at you.  Certainly not the way I want to find out when I’m in the middle of a meeting.

Actually, a lot of the software on this phone was very unimpressive.  There’s no way to change how the slider works, so it will always hang up on your call when you close it, even if you don’t want it to.  The ringer doesn’t turn on automatically when you plug the phone in to charge, and the volume controls in general are very confusing.

The phone seems to be cheaply made as well.  The slider seems weak and flimsy when compared to other phones on the market.  The battery does not hold a very long charge either.  Also, on the original as well as a warranty replacement of this phone, the signal seems to run into lot of dead zones, even though it is not generally weak.  Perhaps there is some sort of problem with the antenna getting interference.

At any rate, if you’re in the market for a slider phone, you’re probably going to want to keep looking.  This is yet another phone that is definitely not getting raves from us.