Hasta La Gadget!

I’ve been using RHA headphones for about 6 months, and I have been pleasantly surprised by their performance. The RHA 450i Earphones are definitely on my recommend to buy list. RHA recently announced that they will release premium earphones in late August.

The MA600i is made from aircraft grade aluminum, and comes with 320.1 dynamic drivers. The MA750i earphones will be made from 303F stainless steel and feature handmade 560.1 dynamic drivers. They will also support over-ear cabling for those who uses these to work out. I usually loop them around my ears, but this will be a pleasant change.

Both of these headphones have a 3-button remote and built-in microphone. They will be available on the 28th of August, through the Apple Store, for $89.95(USD) for the RHA MA600i and $129.95 for the RHA 750i.

A couple of years back, AOC released a compact USB-powered secondary display which could be easily used to extend your computer’s desktop. The $130 display was a pretty good deal then, and now AOC has improved a few features of the original with its recently released e1659Fwu portable display.

The updated display measures just 0.9″ thick vs. the 1.4″ thick original. The new model has a smartly-designed folding stand which lets you use it in either portrait or landscape modes in a snap. It’s also got standard VESA mount holes this time around. In addition, it transfers data to the screen via a fast USB 3.0 connection, vs. the USB 2.0 connection of the original.

The 15.6″ display still offers 1366×768 resolution though, and I was hoping they might bump it up to HD resolution this time. Still, it’s a handy thing to throw in your bag if you need extra display space, or if you want to mirror your primary display for presentations. To use it, simply connect it to your PC’s USB port and it works like an extra display. Mac users will need to install the latest DisplayLink driver to make it work though.

You can find the AOC e1659Fwu portable USB-powered display over at Amazon for $129.99(USD). If you don’t mind the added thickness of the original, it’s available for just $90 now.

I’m a big fan of the HTC One. It’s one of the best Android smartphones made to date, combining an awesome display, great camera, a fast CPU and GPU, and excellent build quality. But if you buy one, you’ve been able to get it in bare aluminum (or a hard to find black). Now, thanks to a deal with Sprint, the HTC One is now available in a lovely shade of red.

And they haven’t just painted the case red or snapped on a plastic back. This is still an all metal case, just like the original HTC One. Sprint is offering the exclusive new Red HTC One at this link for $199.99(USD) – and if you buy one by August 29th, you’ll get a second HTC One free. Naturally, the deal assumes you’ll sign up for a two-year phone contract for each device.

If red isn’t your thing, rumor has it that Verizon will be outing an exclusive blue version by the end of the month as well.

Smartphone cameras are getting better each year, but they still don’t hold a candle to the optics of dedicated cameras. But if SonyAlphaRumors is correct, Sony will soon release two very unusual cameras that bolt onto a smartphone. Will these “lens-cameras” give you the best of both worlds? Or will the whole be less than the sum of its parts?

Supposedly, on September 4 Sony will announce the DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100 lenses. Each lens will have a “built-in sensor, Bionz processor, Wifi/NFC wireless connection and SD card slot”, but no LCD or controls. Those last two bits will supposedly be provided by your smartphone. SonyAlphaRumors said that the DSX-QX10 has the same 20.2mp Exmor R sensor and Carl Zeiss lens as the DSC-RX100 camera. The DSC-QX100 on the other hand will have a 10x zoom lens and the same 18.2mp Exmor R sensor that’s in the DSC-WX150.

The lenses will supposedly connect to smartphones via NFC and Wi-Fi, but I don’t know if the cameras will be compatible with all (modern) smartphones or just with Sony phones. Perhaps they will even be limited to one Sony phone: SonyAlphaRumors points out that the phone included in these leaked images is the Honami i1, which Sony also hasn’t officially announced yet.

I guess we’ll know if these cameras are real or not soon enough. But assuming they are real the biggest question here is pricing. The hardware has already been proven in previous devices so the quality is pretty much a given. But how much will people be willing to pay for a camera that seems like it would be useless without a smartphone?

[SonyAlphaRumors via Engadget via OhGizmo!]

Redditor anders202 built a boombox that’s perfect for summer parties. It’s called the Boominator, a solar-powered boombox that was designed by diyAudio member Saturnus back in 2007. Unlike its battery-devouring ancestors, the Boominator not only runs on free energy, it also gathers and converts enough solar power to charge mobile devices.

Anders202′s Boominator is powered by an Indeed TA2020 2 x 12W amplifier and two 10W solar panels. It has two P.Audio HP-10W subwoofers and two Monacor MPT-001 piezo-electric tweeters on each side, so it can make people sweat whether it’s behind or in front of them. Anders202 says that with eight hours of sunlight, the Boominator can play for six hours at 100% volume and still have enough power left in its 12v battery to fully charge an iPhone 3 times. The only downside to the Boominator is that it weighs about 66 pounds Then again, I weigh over twice as much as the Boominator and I’m not even half as useful.

Check out the Boominator Wiki, Saturnus’ original guide or anders202′s image-filled walkthrough if you want to make your own Boominator.

[via Hack A Day]