2012 Holiday Gadget Gift Guide

Fall season is here, so the holiday shopping season is upon us. So it is time for our annual Holiday Gadget Gift Guide. We have a good variety of products this year, including some products for you outdoorsman. We hope this will give you some good gift ideas for your friends and loved ones. Below are the products included, and their review schedules.

Ion Water Rocker- It is a two piece wireless audio system. Simply plug in the receiver and your iPod or other music device to your patio outlet. The 2nd piece houses the speakers and is waterproof. Just throw the round speaker unit in the pool and enjoy the tunes. Scheduled for review around the 3rd week in November.

Audio Fly AF78-these are some IEM’s. They have an in-line mic, and feature a unique dual driver design that incorporates both a dynamic driver and balanced armature driver. Scheduled for review around the 1st week in November.

Magellan eXplorist 110-This is a nice handheld gps receiver. It has a rugged waterproof housing with a color display. There is a pre-loaded world edition map, and does geocaching. It works great for camping, hiking and more. Scheduled for review around the 2nd week in November.

Sigma Karma EVO Pro K-Set high power LED bike light- This Sigma light is not your typical bike light. It comes with an external battery pack to light up your path for 80 meters with its 320 lumens! Now you can hit the trails at night. Scheduled for review around the 1st week in November.

Coby SNAPP Cam5005- This is a portable 720p camcorder with touchscreen menus. The included software makes it easy to upload your movies to YouTube. Scheduled for review around the 4th week in November.

SanDisk Ultra 32 GB memory card- This microSD HC memory card also comes with an SD card adapter. This high speed card is perfect for most portable devices. Scheduled for review around the 2nd week in December.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0- This 7 inch tablet comes with 8Gb of internal storage. It is a Wi-fi model with memory card slot for additional storage. And the dual-core processor makes it great for multi-media. Scheduled around the 1st week in December.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1- This is a larger 10 inch tablet. It is also a Wi-fi model and comes with 16Gb of internal storage, as well as a memory card slot for unlimited storage expansion. The Note software is amazing, and with a quad-core processor it can handle anything you throw at it. Scheduled for review around the 1st week in December.

Ion Room Rocker- This is an iPod dock with a built in subwoofer. This device will let you rock out in any room that is missing a stereo system. It also doubles as a charger. Scheduled for review around the 3rd week in November.

Coby CSMP95 Soundbar- built in TV speakers don’t always cut it. Not only will the Coby soundbar provide better sound, it also has a wireless subwoofer. So you will not only have sound you can hear, but also sound you can feel! It also doubles as a music system, allowing you to play your portable mp3 music player through it. Scheduled around the 2nd week in December.

As you can see, we have a good variety of products this year. We appreciate your visits, and hope you get some good gift ideas for your family and friends. We at Stereowiseplus.com also want to wish you and your family a Happy Holiday season.

Coby CSMP135 Portable Bluetooth Stereo Speaker Review

Most of us enjoy our music. Products like the Coby CSMP135 let us enjoy it in multiply ways. The Coby CSMP135 is a small wireless speaker system with bluetooth connectivity. What this means is that you can enjoy your music wired or wirelessly from different devices. It is also quite small, meaning it is easily portable.



It's features and specs included:

 

Easy Bluetooth pairing

Built in rechargeable battery

3.5mm stereo line-in jack

Sleek modern design

Great for office or home

Portable and compact for travel

Audio Input:    3.5mm

USB Port:        USB 2.0 Hi-Speed

Certifications:  FCC, USB

Battery:            Rechargeable Lithium Ion

Battery Life:    Approximately 5 hours with a full charge (based on continuous play time)

Shipping Info:.Unit Dimension (WHD) 1.9.25" x 1.74" x 2.32"

The Coby CSMP135 came in an attractive looking box with Styrofoam ends to hold it in place. It appeared sufficiently protected. It is a round tubular shaped device with a removable stand. The Coby CSMP135 appeared put together well, with a sufficient quality fit and finish. The silver plastic was of good quality. While being light, the construction did not appear flimsy. The included travel pouch also helps to protect it while on the go. The speakers on each end were well attached.

 
The Coby CSMP135 helps give you music on the go. Simply plug it into a powered USB connection to charge the device. There are connections on the back for the mini USB for charging, and 35mm for corded connection to a device, such as cell phones or mp3 players. Ont he top is a built in holder for your tablet or other portable device. I could also see the Coby CSMP135 being used with your laptop to provide better sound.

I thought the Coby CSMP135 performed well. With electronics, you usually get what you pay for. At a MSRP of $50, it is a bargain for bluetooth connectivity. Bluetooth performance however was spotty, not always connecting with my device. I was pleased however with the overall sound output from this small device. With the small stereo speakers, I was not expecting a full sound. Sound performance was as good as I was expecting.

Michael Jackson: Don't stop till you get enough, provided natural sounding vocals. Percussion was crisp and a tad bright, with sufficient details in the instruments. Next up was Steve Miller Bad and Swingtown. Percussion's again were crisp and provided good details. Guitar resolution was also good and sounded as natural as the vocals. The drums has sufficient dynamics with no low end extension. Last up was Journey: Don't stop Believing. The keyboards sounded natural with ok resolution. Vocals were clear sounding with good timbre.

The Coby CSMP135 is a good choice for someone wanting good sound in a small package, at a cheap price. While bass output was the expense from the small speakers used, it did have good output. and the overall sound was good. I can see them being used either with a laptop or as a bedroom system. For more info and complete specs, check out their website at: www.cobyusa.com.

Kingston 64GB DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 Review by Kirk Spencer

 
Today we're reviewing another USB 3.0 drive, but this isn't just any USB 3.0 drive. What we have here is the Kingston HyperX USB 3.0 64 GB drive. Not all USB drives are created equal and what's on the inside actually matters (imagine that). We all know that the HyperX line from Kingston means business and their HyperX USB drives are no exception. How fast is this drive? We’ll lay it out on the table with the specs right from Kingston's web site. I have to admit the first time I saw those specifications I thought there was a typo. Read on to see if the drive can actually stack up to these claims.



Specifications
Capacities1: 64GB, 128GB, 256GB
Dimensions: 2.952" x 0.916" x 0.626" (74.99mm x 23.29mm x 15.9mm)
Operating Temperature: 32°F to 140°F (0°C to 60°C)
Storage Temperature: -4°F to 185°F (-20°C to 85°C)
Practical: durable casing with a solid lanyard loop
Speed:
•USB 3.0: 225MB/s read and 135MB/s write
•USB 2.0: 30 MB/s read and 30MB/s write
8-Channel Architecture
Backwards Compatible - with USB 2.0
ReadyBoost™ Support
Guaranteed: five-year warranty, free technical support

Packaging
Normally the HyperX line comes with pretty fancy packaging above and beyond what the packaging would be for average devices. A perfect example of this is the HyperX SSD drive we reviewed recently. We were slightly surprised to see the HyperX USB drive in a plastic package with nothing more than the drive, standard instructions and a basic keychain adapter. Of course packaging is not what most of you are here to read about and it certainly is not an indicator of what to expect from the performance of this drive.

Build Quality
The HyperX drive is a little larger than some of the other USB drives we’ve reviewed but we suspect that is partially due to the 64 GB storage. The blue which you see in the picture above is a slick plastic while the black forms a nice x of the HyperX line and has a slight rubber feel to it. The cap attaches only one way to the tip and it’s a snug fit. The cap can also be attached to the back of the drive. However, the tip comes off the back end easily and we could see it getting knocked off and lost this way. The key chain lanyard that comes with the drive is a simple one and nothing to get excited about. The back of the drive has a nice rugged loop hole which you can attach a lanyard to. The drive feels nice in the hand and it has a solid shell which we feel will last as long as you have it.

Speed
We used a couple of the same tools we use to test SSD’s as we think they do a good job demonstrating just how fast this drive actually is.

ATTO - Kingston HyperX 64GB USB 3.0 Drive



















A picture is worth a thousand words and we think this picture speaks volumes. Our ATTO results were only slightly slower than what Kingston was advertising for this drive. We originally thought these numbers were a typo but it’s hard to dispute results.

CrystalDiskMark - Kingston HyperX 64GB USB 3.0 Drive


















If that doesn’t make your jaw hit the floor then I don’t know what will. These results from a USB drive are absolutely staggering. CrystalDiskMark results have this drive coming in slightly faster than what is written on the packaging for the drive’s specifications.

I had to do a few other tests just because I couldn’t believe my eyes. I took a large 14.7 GB file and set it to copy to a slower USB 2.0 drive. The file took almost 10 minutes to copy. Kingston’s HyperX 64GB USB 3.0 drive took just over a minute to copy. I had similar results when copying a folder with several small files. From the benchmark results above you can see that the drive does not do as well with small files but our folder with several files still copied much faster than the USB 2.0 drive.

Conclusion
If you are looking for the fastest USB drive possible then we can only recommend one drive: The HyperX USB 3.0 drive by Kingston in any of the capacities offered. If you are in the market for a high capacity USB 3.0 drive Kingston offers their HyperX line starting at 64GB and going up to 256GB. If you’re still not impressed then we’ll leave you with this last thought: the 64GB version can be picked up for a mere $103 over at Best Buy. Based on it's design, quality, and performance, the Kingston HyperX 64GB USB Drive has earned our Editor's Choice Award. For more info and complete specs, check out their website at www.kingston.com.