Hasta La Gadget!

Olympus’s E-PL2 only surfaced on the public radar just last month, and already reviews are rolling in indicating The Schwartz is quite strong with this latest Micro Four Thirds entrant. Interestingly enough, both Photography Blog and Popular Mechanics saw the improved MSC 14 to 42mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens as the most important change to the new rig. That’s because it’s been retooled to be lighter, slimmer, and shorter, adding to the overall compact feel of the camera. A new internal focus is also apparently much faster and nearly silent — making it more appealing for video shooting. Outside of the lens changes, both saw the camera’s new 3-inch, 460,000-dot LCD, faster max shutter speeds, and greater ISO sensitivity as welcomed additions to the solid foundations laid by the E-PL1, resulting in a highly recommended rating from PB. Reviewers at Popular Mechanics also futzed around with the new Bluetooth-enabled photo sharing PENPal accessory and found it great for transferring photos to a phone — but lamented how it blocked the camera’s hot shoe in the process. To dive into all the juicy review details for yourself hit up the source links below.

Olympus E-PL2 camera gets reviewed, deemed worthy to carry on the E-PL1’s torch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 18:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Like the Sony A560 DSLR but need a few million more pixels at your disposal? That’s basically what you get with the A580, a successor to the A550 and doing basically everything the A560 does — but with a 16.2 megapixel sensor. So it sports 1080i recording, a 3-inch tilting LCD, and 7fps burst shooting, but can’t match the continuous autofocus of the funky A55 and its mystical, magical, translucent mirror and overheating sensor. Overall performance and image quality are said to be good, with minimal noise up to ISO 1600 and fancy modes like HDR built in. All yours for about $899.

Sony A580 reviewed: 16.2 megapixels of mid-range DSLR goodness originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 23:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, here’s the situation: you roll into a LAN party in a less-than-ideal section of town. The lights are dim, the bouncer looks suspect, and Mike Tyson’s tiger is situated there in the rear of the room. Even the Ethernet cables are grimy. Everyone’s got their eyes on you and your new Alienware, and that stash of Razer peripherals just feels ripe for the taking. You aren’t about to make a beeline back to your Daewoo, so you wrap each and every USB cable around your right arm just to make sure you go home with everything you came with. Sadly enough, that’s not exactly an awesome way to trample your nearby enemies, but it seems that NZXT has a delightful solution. The company’s new Bunker USB Locking Drive is designed to fit within a spare 5.25-inch slot in whatever tower you own, offering a foursome of USB 2.0 sockets and a potent, daunting locking mechanism. The idea here is that your webcam, mouse, keyboard and USB headset can be plugged in, and you can keep your mind at ease that nothing is going anywhere when you waltz over to the restroom. Unfortunately, critics over at Overclocks Online noticed that the shallow depth prevented all but the smallest of flash drives from fitting in, further proving that this thing is designed specifically for use with PC peripherals. Hit the links below to learn more, and get ready to shell out $24.99 come March if it’s something you’re into.

Continue reading NZXT Bunker keeps your USB peripherals secure, even at dodgy LAN parties

NZXT Bunker keeps your USB peripherals secure, even at dodgy LAN parties originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 09:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sleep. It’s where some get to relax, some get to be comfortable, and some get to be a Viking. But, for others, that overnight period can be a stressful time, full of tossing and turning and mornings highlighted only by ground beans and hot showers. For those unhappy souls there are ever more dreamtime gadgets working to help the situation and turn morning monsters into drowsy-eyed angels, devices like the FitBit, and latest among them is WakeMate, a $60 accelerometer-having wristband that charts your nocturnal sleep patterns. Sadly, we’ve found it can also be responsible for some early morning spikes to our blood pressure.

Continue reading WakeMate review

WakeMate review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Signal. You can never get enough signal. Got full bars on your laptop? Something will come up, cause you to move, and then you’ll be down to three, and then two, and before you know it your downloads will be failing and you’ll be holding your device up and waving it around, hoping the fickle gods Micro and Wave will smile upon your plaintive dance while everyone else in the coffee shop sneers over mochas. You could avoid this scene with a BearExtender PC, a $45 device that will give you signal enough to curse them all and work out on the patio if you feel like it. Read on to see if it’s worth it.

Continue reading BearExtender PC review

BearExtender PC review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Dec 2010 11:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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