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It’s got to be difficult to stand out in the competitive world of iPod and iPhone speakers, but Logitech has a reputation for style and quality. Today, the company announced two new portable solutions. So how do they stand out?

The Logitech Rechargeable Speaker S315i (shown above) can play music for 20 hours (in power saving mode) when fully charged. It looks like a great solution for cookouts or camping, anytime you’re outside and away from an outlet for a long time. Besides working with iPods and iPhones, you can connect any other music player through the 3.5mm audio jack. It’s available for preorder for $129.99, and will ship this month.

The Logitech Portable Speaker S125i is a smaller model, but it still offers a big sound thanks to the one-button bass boost. It doesn’t have an internal battery like the S315i, but requires four AA batteries (for 10 hours of playing time) or an AC outlet. It works with iPods, not iPhones, and offers a 3.5mm audio jack for connecting other types of music players. Preorder it for $69.99 and it will ship in September.

PCMag‘s own audiophile, lead analyst Tim Gideon, says he’ll likely be reviewing both in the near future, so watch for that.

There’s just something about a keyboard that promises to “cradle our fingers” that gets us all hot and bothered, and right or wrong, we just can’t stop thinking about what a joy it must be to bang out dissertations, love letters and Nigerian scam emails on one of the beauties shown above. Logitech‘s Wireless Desktop MK700 is a two-piece kit comprised of an LCD-equipped keyboard and an ergonomic mouse with built-in hyper-scrolling. Both devices seem to go easy on the juice, with the keyboard able to run for three years on a single set of AA cells and the mouse for 12 months. The included USB dongle certainly isn’t as diminutive as the company’s recently released Unifying Receiver, but need we remind your digits just how pleasured they’ll be when pressing these keys? It’ll be $99.99 to get in, and it ought to ship out this month. The full release is after the break.

Continue reading Logitech Wireless Desktop MK700 ‘cradles your fingers,’ caresses your soul

Filed under: Peripherals

Logitech Wireless Desktop MK700 ‘cradles your fingers,’ caresses your soul originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Logitech Harmony 900 is the updated Logitech Harmony One, which marries a traditional button remote with a capacitive touchscreen for expanded functionality. What makes this better are the charging dock and the RF to IR control adapters.

The Price: $400

The Verdict: This form factor, plus the included charging dock and the RF to IR blasters make this the best remote package Logitech has right now. We’ve been fans of their standard remotes for a while, but combining the keep-your-eyes-on-your-tv ability of those with the extendability of their full touchscreen units makes for a winner.

If you’ve played with the Harmony One you should know what this remote feels like. The number keys are on the bottom, the navigation keys are in the middle and the activity keys are near the top. The touchscreen is responsive enough, and can scroll through pages of various commands for different media console items—just like their previous remotes.

The charging dock is contoured exactly like the back of the remote, taking it in lovingly into its electric arms. Imagine getting into bathtub shaped exactly like your body—this is that, except without the water or the urge to pee.

Syncing with your computer works the same way as before, but Logitech STILL hasn’t managed to enable consolidating profiles so that you can have more than one remote on an account, and hasn’t come up with a way to export remote profiles to other accounts. That’s a huge pain in the ass if you have multiple Logitechs, and is probably our biggest gripe with their setup.

There is one included central RF to IR blaster, with two other IR blasters that can hook up to it for a total of three IR blasters. They’re meant to be used in cabinets where the door is closed, or somehow out of IR line of sight, so you can literally point your remote at nothing (it’s using RF) and it’ll still propagate the command through to the IR blaster. This is pretty easy to set up—there’s a wizard right on the remote—and you should be up and running in a few minutes. And there’s very little RF delay, so you won’t have to worry about that.

The upside is that this is probably our favorite universal remote package that Logitech has made, figuring in the charging dock and the RF to IR blasters. The downside is that the whole setup costs $400. If you’re shopping for your first universal remote, this will probably be your last. if you already own a cheaper Logitech in the sub $100 range, find a way to sell it and pick this up. [Logitech]

Best universal remote by Logitech yet

Allows extendability with touchscreen without sacrificing the usability of buttons

Price is a little high, but less than full touchscreen remotes

Only a certain type of person is willing to drop $400 on a remote control, but those people are going to be excited about the new Logitech Harmony 900.

The Harmony 900 isn’t quite as huge and crazy as the Harmony 1000, as it retains the form factor of, you know, a remote control, like the Harmony One. But it packs in a color touchscreen to let you control pretty much anything you want. It’s the best of both worlds.

It’s also got a new RF to IR blaster to control your home theater components. Instead of sticking small IR receivers to the IR inputs of every device in your cabinet, you put the blaster in front of all of them and it fires off its signal in every direction, hitting everything at once. It makes the install process easier, at least. This way you can control closed cabinets (or cabinets behind you) with RF, so the repeater will send the IR to the desired components.

Look for the Harmony 900 later this month for $399.99. [Logitech]

It’s tough to think of a well-mannered Earthling who didn’t at least appreciate, if not adore Logitech‘s cutting-edge G5 laser mouse back in 2005, and at long last, said critter has a proper successor. Today, Logi’s introducing the Gaming Mouse G500, which is designed with an on-the-fly adjustable DPI system (up to 5,700 DPI), a battle-worn finish, a broader thumb rest than before and a “smoothed-out pinkie ledge” to really round things out. The 27 gram mouse also packs a dual-mode scroll wheel, a “gaming grade” laser engine and a small bag of bragging rights to boot. Moving on, we’ve got the Gaming Headset G330, a rather unsightly bugger that sports a behind-the-head design, a noise-canceling microphone, in-line audio controls and a USB adapter. If you’re interested in claiming either as your own, look for the G500 to ship in September for $69.99, while the G330 hits shelves this month for $49.99. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading Logitech replaces G5 with Gaming Mouse G500, throws Gaming Headset G330 in for luck

Filed under: Peripherals

Logitech replaces G5 with Gaming Mouse G500, throws Gaming Headset G330 in for luck originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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