Hasta La Gadget!

We played with the original Siberia headset from SteelSeries, which was specifically designed to emphasize “gaming noises” like grenade pin pulls and footsteps — but didn’t do much good for listening to anything else. The Siberia Headset v2 looks to solve some of that with slightly larger speakers, an enclosed design to reduce ambient noise, improved frequency response and increased volume. There’s also a built-in mic now. We took a listen and found the music listening capabilities much improved, especially in the bass end, but still no challenge for “regular” over the ear headphones. Still, serious gamers should get what they need out of the cans, which will be offered in models with and without a USB 7.1 virtual surround soundcard in November. No word on price until then.

We also got a quick look at the new Xai and Kinzu gaming mice. The ambidextrous-friendly nature of the pair is nice, materials are great, and mousing around briefly on a fancy SteelSeries mousepad certainly felt effortless and accurate, but mouse technology is so wild these days it’s hard to differentiate one multi-megapixel optical or laser sensor from another — to these untrained eyes, anyway.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

SteelSeries takes another stab at gaming headsets with Siberia v2 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is the O.R.B. It looks like a ring. It sits on your finger. It communicates with your handset via Bluetooth. When you get a call or have a meeting scheduled, it vibrates. With a twist, the thing turns into a sleek Bluetooth headset. All in all, the thing looks pretty snazzy.

Created by Hybra Tech, the device uses bone conduction to transmit calls through your skull. A FOLED (Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode) display is located on its side to let you know about meetings and incoming calls.

The O.R.B. will launch next January for a suggested price of $129.

Nothing too exhilarating here, but if you’re looking for something new to sit atop the peak on your ear, Samsung‘s got a new trio it’d love for you to consider. The most interesting of the three is undoubtedly the WEP870, which marries a noise-canceling Bluetooth mono headset (with BT music streaming) to a set of earbuds. As with the less thrilling WEP850 and WEP470, this one also features multi-connection technology in order to pair with up to two BT devices at once. The 870 steps things up with an LCD screen to display battery level, call status and BT connection status, while the other two handle calls and little else. All three are available for purchase right now for $89.99 (WEP870), $69.99 (WEP850) and $39.99 (WEP470).

[Via HotHardware]

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals

Samsung’s WEP870 Bluetooth headset comes with earbuds, bundles of joy originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung has announced three new Bluetooth headsets, all of which retail for under 100 bucks, that will hopefully improve on its most recent model’s ineffective noise cancellation.

The Samsung WEP470 is a small, lightweight headset with background noise filtering and echo cancellation. It’s not a dual-mic design, but claims to offer the same benefits due to its packet loss concealment technology. It also includes an LED battery indicator, power switch, and crystal ear hook for $39.99.

The WEP850 (pictured), meanwhile, offers a minimalist design with a true dual-mic configuration for improved noise cancellation and echo reduction for $69.99.

Finally, the complex $89.99 WEP870 offers everything the WEP850 does, plus multi-connection technology for pairing two Bluetooth devices simultaneously. It comes in chrome and graphite, a detachable stereo earbud for listening to music, and the ability to switch between music listening and incoming or outbound calls. It also has a tiny LCD screen that displays battery level, call status, and connection status. All three are available beginning today at www.samsung.com/accessories.

We’re not sure why we didn’t hear more about this way back at RIM’s WES conference way back in May, but it was apparently mentioned by VP Antoine Boucher at the time that they’re working on a Bluetooth-enabled watch. Furthermore, it’s said to be more advanced than the models Sony Ericsson has put forth so far, featuring streaming audio (3.5mm jack on the watch, perhaps?) and Twitter / Facebook updates in addition to the usual things like caller ID and text messages. Note that the image floating around today of this thing isn’t real — it’s just a Sony Ericsson MBW-100 with a swapped logo — so it remains to be seen what this magical wrist accessory will look like, assuming it’s real and coming to retail. It seems Boucher also mentioned a high-end Bluetooth headset codenamed “Alpha 1” that’ll allow you to stream music and get navigation directions through some sort of totally awesome silicone earpiece boasted to possibly be “the best solution on the market.” It’s pretty hard to pique a lot of interest these days with something as vanilla and ubiquitous as a headset, but at any rate, it’s interesting to see the depth of RIM’s apparent commitment to the accessory market right now.

[Via techfresh.net]

Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables

RIM working on Bluetooth watch, other spellbinding accessories? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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