Panasonic RP-DJ100 Review (55%)

Panasonic RP-DJ100 Review (55%)Although in-ear bud headphones are all well and good for strutting down the street with your iPod/PDA/smartphone in your pocket, when it comes to DJing or listening at home, you might need something a little more substantial.

If you’ve got deep pockets (and don’t mind looking like Biggles coming back from a WW2 mission), you can’t go wrong with the amazing Grado SR60 headphones (review June 2005), but if you’re looking for something cheap and cheerful, the Panasonic DJ100 headphones are worth a look.

Optimistically described as ‘professional’ headphones (yeah, right), the silver and black closed-ear headset is more of the cheap’n’cheerful variety, although the build quality seems pretty reasonable for a street price of around £18.

In case you’re not sure what this ‘closed-ear’ stuff is all about, it means that the headphones completely cover yer lug’oles, and thus reduce extraneous sounds interfering with your music.

Panasonic RP-DJ100 Review (55%)Designed for DJs
You’ll note the headphones describe themselves as being for DJs – this is due to their closed ear construction (a bit of a must for monitoring in noisy environments) and the fact that the individual earpieces rotate so you can listen to one earpiece without having to put the headphones on your head.

If looking like a DJ isn’t your thing, the ‘cans’ (as those in the music biz like to call them) felt comfortable enough when worn ‘normally’ with enough travel on the plastic extending headband to cover head sizes from a pinhead skinhead to a beehived big ‘ead.

There’s also a generous length of cable supplied with the ‘phones (around 2 metres) with a gold plated 2.5mm jack plug and 3.5mm adapter supplied.

A particularly nice touch is that the Panasonic RP-DJ100’s can fold up into an impressively small space, so that you can wedge them into your record bag or laptop case.

Panasonic RP-DJ100 Review (55%)The sound
Naturally, at this price level you’re not going to get anything approaching hi-fi, but the RP-DJ100’s produced a sound that was neither too harsh or too overbearing, with the XBS Extra Bass System adding a bit of oomph which might come in useful when listening through a cheapo MP3 player.

The Panasonics were also capable of knocking out pretty loud volumes without too much distortion which is an essential attribute for Djing.

The verdict
Considering their build and price level, we were all set to give the Panasonic RP-DJ100’s top marks until the things let us down at a gig, when both channels cut out.

After some investigation, it seemed the phones had suffered the all-too-familiar problem of a dodgy jackplug, where the wiring had worked loose inside.

No problem we thought -let’s whip out the soldering iron and do a quick on the spot repair.

Annoyingly, once we’d removed the jack, ready for replacement, we found out that Pansonic were using the chuffing annoying lacquer coating cables (popular with Sony models), which are a ruddy pain to solder (see Headwize.com for solutions).

Panasonic RP-DJ100 Review (55%)So after our own (paid for) headphones conked out after just four months and with no chance of a replacement after voiding our guarantee with the attempted emergency repair, we’ve had to rapidly downsize our enthusiasm.

We certainly wouldn’t recommend them for working DJs as we don’t think they’re up to the job. After all, if you’re serious about your playing, it’s defintely worth paying the extra for a robust, high quality pair. However, for bedroom-bound disk-spinners and iPodders on the move, they might be worth a look. So long as you treat them gently.

Looks 65%
Sound quality 60%
Build quality 50%
Overall 55%

Panasonic RP-DJ100 Specs:
XBS Extra Bass System
Travel fold design
28mm driver unit
Response bandwidth 14 – 24000 Hz
Sensitivity* 102 dB/mW
Impedance 24 Ohm
Diaphragm 1.1 in
Magnet Type Neodymium Rare-earth magnet

Study: Desktop PCs And Laptops Get More Reliable

Study: Desktop  PCs And Laptops Get More ReliableSomething will go wrong sooner or later with nearly one-fifth of all notebooks, with a new hardware component needed to sort the problem, according to a new survey by industry analysts Gartner.

The study found that 15 per cent of new laptops will break within the first year, and over a fifth will break within four years.

The fault could be something as minor as a broken latch, but the most frequent failures were major disasters like knackered motherboards and toasted hard drives – the kind of catastrophe that could turn mild mannered folks into screaming, blubbering wrecks of rage (we speak from experience here).

The picture is better for desktops, with just five per cent of desktop PCs purchased in 2005-2006 breaking within the first year, and only 12 per cent going AWOL within four years.

Although these figures look bad, they actually represent a 25 per cent decrease in annual failure rates for PC hardware over the last two years.

Study: Desktop  PCs And Laptops Get More ReliableLaptops have also shown a significant improvement, with features like suspension mounting of hard drives and rubber bumpers between laptop lids and keyboards helping keep the damage tally down.

Busted screens
The most common disaster to hit laptops used to be the dreaded broken screen.

Improvements by notebook manufacturers – like adding structural rigidity to the casing and screen bezel and providing more space between the screen and keyboard on closed lappies – have happily made cracked and smashed screens less common.

Study: Desktop  PCs And Laptops Get More ReliableMotherboard fry-ups and hard drive breakdowns are now the two main sources of failure for desktops, a situation brought about by the increasingly complexity of the things, with more components being integrated into the motherboard.

Years ago, if a network card went down, a quick call to the coke-slurpin’, death-metal listenin’ IT spod guy would have the card replaced in a jiffy, but with the network card welded onto the motherboard, the job suddenly becomes a much bigger one.

According to the study, less common hardware failures include latches and hinges on the chassis breaking, keycaps disappearing into the ether and the time-honoured, “Whoops! I’ve just spilt coffee/beer/coke on my keyboard.”

Gartner

V-MODA Heavy Bass Headphones

V-MODA Heavy Bass HeadphonesMore often than not, the in-ear headphones that come bundled with MP3 players are weedy affairs, producing a feeble floppy fart of a low end when you’re looking for a thunderous bass.

For drum’n’bass heads, techno fans and hip hop freaks, a little more bottom end oomph is what’s needed and the folks at V-MODA reckon they’ve got just the headphones for the job.

Their new “Heavy Bass” headphones have been specially designed to dish out the underpant-oscillating bass, with a frequency range running from 8Hz – 22000Hz and 122dB at 20Hz.

Bass! How low can you go?
Although 8Hz sounds like the deepest, most bassiest thing ever, the truth is that you’d need to have suffered some weird sort of genetic mutation and developed elephant sized ears to hear bass notes that low.

V-MODA Heavy Bass HeadphonesThe human ear can only hear frequencies around 20 to 20,000 Hz, and that’s only when you’re young and healthy.

As you get older, your lug ‘oles’ decline rapidly – even more so if you’ve had a misspent youth with your head in Motorhead’s bass bins – and the highest frequency that a normal middle-aged adult can hear is only 12-14 kilohertz.

It’s the blokes who get it worst too, with their hearing range declining so quick that women can hear notes of higher pitch than men of the same age.

Silence is silicon
Back to the headphones, the V-MODA’s use the same sort of silicon covers as the Sony Fontopia In-Ear Headphones that we reviewed last year.

These come in three sizes so that they can make a perfect airtight seal with your ears and keep the bass booming in your shell-likes.

V-MODA Heavy Bass HeadphonesThis improved the sound no end, and the ‘phones are great for using on planes and trains when you want to hear as little exterior noise as possible and don’t fancy forking out for expensive noise cancelling units.

The only problem is that this sonic isolation can do strange things to your head, with your own footsteps and breathing becoming so loud that if feels like a soundtrack from a horror film has been dubbed over the music.

Not everyone has this problem though, but we strongly suggest you try out these sealed headphones before buying.

If you still reckon these are the sort of headphones for you, we can tell you that the V-MODAs come in platinum white, mango orange, jet black with a 24k gold-plated jack for maximum hi-fi quality.

They’re priced at 8,480 Yen in Japan (£40, €58), but there’s no news on UK pricing and availability yet.

Product specs
Bus level: 122dB at 20Hz
Frequency characteristic: 8Hz – 22000Hz
Speaker driver: 10mm neodymium rate rare ground magnet
Cable size: Approximately 77.5cm (Y letter branch cable length approximately 34cm)
Plug: High sensitivity 24k gold-plating adoption stereo mini- jack 3.5mm

Bundled contents
V-moda bass freq itself
Modawrap cable winder
Silicon year pad (small and medium, 3 size sets of large)

Focal [Japanese]

Oracom UB890 Portable Media Player

Oracom UB890 Portable Media PlayerLined up on the new product runway and awaiting clearance for take off is the slick looking Oracom UB890 portable media player.

This attractively designed pocket-rocket comes in two colours (black or white) and four versions, with the memory capacity starting at 512MB and going all the way up to a healthy 4GB.

Packing a 2.0″ 262K colour TFT LCD screen, there’s enough functionality onboard to keep a Hoxton fin-toter happy for hours.

The media player covers a fair range of music formats – MP3/WMA/OGG/WAV – with MPEG, AVI, WMV and ASF (after conversion) video support.

Oracom UB890 Portable Media PlayerThere’s also built in equaliser and 3D sound and onscreen visual effects to keep the easily-bored entertained.

BMP and JPEG photos can be viewed onscreen (with zooming) and there’s slideshow/wallpapers support.

A handy line-in encoder with built-in microphone lets you use the thing like an old fashioned tape recorder, and if you get fed up with your own recordings, you can turn on the built in FM tuner and record tunes off the radio – either live or by using the pre-schedule timer option.

Oracom UB890 Portable Media PlayerRounding off the gadget-fest, there’s also an alarm clock, sleep timer, built-in speakers (500mW + 500mW) and an iPod-esque ‘Touch Sensor Key Pad’ for shimmying through the menus.

Through the marvels of modern technology, all these fancy gizmos have been shoehorned into a shiny case measuring just 81 X 43 X 12.2 mm and weighing a paltry 55 grams.

The USB 2.0 (High Speed) device runs off a Li-Polymer battery (which takes a patience-challenging 3 hours to fully recharge) and Oracom claim that’ll it play audio for a not-exactly-pushing-the-envelope 13 hours (MP3 128Kbps) and video for a more impressive 8 hours continuously.

Oracom

Silly USB Devices: Mini Guitar And Underwater Fingerprint Reader

Silly USB Devices: Mini Guitar And Underwater Fingerprint ReaderStraight out of the, “What’s The Chuffin’ Point Of That” Dept comes two utterly daft USB devices.

This one goes all the way up to zero The first is a completely pointless guitar shaped USB stick, which comes complete with its own red-felt lined guitar case.

Even if you had the tiniest hands in the universe, you still wouldn’t be able to play the thing because it’s not a real guitar, and it measures a pixie-unchallenging 160 x 46 x 20mm.

Although we can’t help but admire the handiwork – a near perfect copy of the legendary Fender Stratocaster (the “axe” of choice for megastars like Eric Clapton and Hendrix) – we can’t work out who on earth would want to fork out €55 for what is essentially a cheap USB stick with a plastic guitar stuck on.

Silly USB Devices: Mini Guitar And Underwater Fingerprint ReaderBut if you fancy indulging in a bit of micro air guitar work while carrying around a paltry amount of over-priced flash memory, point your credit card in the direction of geekstuff4u.com

Mini Guitar USB Memory

Silly USB Devices: Mini Guitar And Underwater Fingerprint ReaderUnderwater windows
If you’re the proud owner of a secret underwater complex and need to have secure access to your submerged laptop while you’re flapping about in your scuba gear, look no further than the SecuTronix waterproof fingerprint reader.

This utterly bizarre invention (pictured here with a mini waterfall running over it) lets users authenticate themselves under water by swiping their fingers on the waterproof sensor.

Silly USB Devices: Mini Guitar And Underwater Fingerprint ReaderWe’re not sure at what depth the thing keeps on working or why anyone would want to be logging on to Windows in their Speedos, but there’s an English language version of the software available, and the whole sub-aqua caboodle could be yours for just €137.

akihabaranews.com

Bug TOO DAB Radio released by Pure Digital

Bug TOO DAB Radio released by Pure DigitalIt might look like a weird mutation between Dr Who’s K9 and and the wobbly robot from Lost In Space, but we like the fact that PURE Digital’s new Bug TOO DAB radio is brave enough to stand out from the current crowd of wood’n’plastic identikit DAB radios.

Building on their success of their their earlier, Wayne Hemingway-designed Bug digital radio, the Bug Too adds the latest DAB digital radio developments, including an electronic programme guide (EPG) and textSCAN, and a new feature letting users wake up to their favourite MP3 or recording.

As with the earlier Bug DAB radio, there’s a fully specified radio lurking inside the bonkers exterior, with MP3 playback, record to SD card and the excellent ReVu feature which lets users pause and rewind live radio.

The feature set
Now sporting a new titanium silver finish, the Bug TOO looks much the same as its predecessor, offering a bright, clear, scrolling LCD display on a bizarre bendy stalk.

Bug TOO DAB Radio released by Pure DigitalThis usefully displays artists names, song titles, news, sports results and other information, with the EPG feature offering programme information and schedules.

With the Bug TOO being compatible with EPG broadcasts, users can browse upcoming programmes, see a short description of each programme and then select them for scheduled listening or recording to SD memory card.

As with their Pure DMX-50 DAM microsystem, it’s possible to record DAB radio to SD card or to an external MiniDisc player, with MP3 playback available from tunes stored on the SD card.

Bug TOO DAB Radio released by Pure DigitalThere’s also alarm, sleep and timer record functions – including an MP3 alarm – so the Bug TOO could be a handy bedside radio. We’re not quite sure why anyone would want 20 configurable alarms though, but if that’s what you’re after, the Bug’s got ’em.

We like Pure Digital and this new radio looks to be good value too, costing around £100 and available from June 2006.

The Bug

Onkyo CR-D1 Receiver With iPod Dock

Onkyo CR-D1 ReceiverNew from Onkyo is the CR-D1, a natty mini Hi-Fi CD/FM receiver with options to control docked iPods (volume/stop/start etc) and wirelessly stream music from PCs.

Sharing similar design lines to their CR-505DAB CD Receiver (which impressed us for a bit before going AWOL), the CR-D1 features a beefy 60W x 2 VL Digital amplifier with Wolfson DAC, a FM tuner (but, sadly, no AM or DAB) and a CD player.

iPod dockery
iPod owners can hook up their machines through the optional DS-A1 iPod dock, and then control playback via the CR-D1’s remote control. Conveniently, the docking station will also charge up the iPod during playback.

Onkyo CR-D1 ReceiverWhen it comes to expansion options, this fella’s well stacked, offering 1 x optical, 3 x RCA, and stereo mini-jack inputs and 1 x optical, 2 x RCA, subwoofer, and headphone outputs.

Conveniently, Onkyo have slapped a pair of input/output sockets on the front of the unit, so punters don’t have to do battle with spaghetti cabling at the back whenever they want to hook up another player or record from the line out socket.

Wireless widget
The optional UWL-1 module and USB dongle lets users turn their desktop or laptop PCs into music servers, with sound being delivered via high quality 2.4GHz digital transmission.

If you like the sound of all that wireless action going on, the system will be hitting the shelves of Japan in July 15th for an upmarket price of around $910 (£490).

Onkyo CR-D1 ReceiverSpecifications
Rated output: 60W + 60W (4 O, JEITA) – amplifier section
Harmonic wave distortion factor: 0.08%
Frequency response: 10Hz – 60kHz/ + 1dB – 3dB (LINE1)
Signal-noise ratio: 100dB (LINE1 and IHF-A)
Tone: ±6dB/80Hz (BASS) and ±8dB/10kHz (TREBLE), + 7dB/80Hz (S.BASS)
CD frequency response: 4Hz- 20kHz
FM reception range: FM76.0 -90.0MHz and VHF 1 and 2, 3ch
Power consumption 80W/ 0.15W standby
Size: Width 205× height 116× depth 335mm
Weight: 4.5kg

Onkyo [Japanese]

LG Aims To Double World’s Top Products by 2010

LG Aims To Double World's Top Products by 2010LG Electronics has rolled up its beefy sleeves, raised its fists and shouted, “Come oooonnn!!!! Let’s be ‘aving you!” to the electronics world, declaring its intent to more than double its share of the world’s top products by 2010.

LG vice president Chun Myung-wo gave his best Clint Eastwood squint and socked it to his competitors, “Currently, we have five of the world’s top products. We plan to increase that number to a double-digit figure by 2010 through continuous efforts and innovation.”

LG Aims To Double World's Top Products by 2010With a direct hit on the spittoon, he continued, “By substantially increasing the number of flagship goods through our technological prowess, we aim to evolve into a bona fide powerhouse.’

The electronics sharp-shooter currently hogs the highest global market share of items such as domestic aircon units, optical storage, home theatres, DVD players and code division multiple access (CDMA) handsets, but it wants more. Much more.

LG Aims To Double World's Top Products by 2010Pointing aggressively, Myung-wo says he wants the global market for plasma display panel (PDP) modules, PDP TVs, liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs, side-by-side refrigerators, built-in air conditioners and drum washers to be pwned by LG.

Rags to riches
The Korean company has seen a remarkable turnaround of its fortunes over the last decade.

Ten years ago, LG was nothing more than a big fish in a small domestic market, managing only a limited global presence.

A policy of rapid expansion and smarty-pants innovation resulted in LG grabbing the numero uno slot for optical storage in 1998, a position it continues to hold.

LG Aims To Double World's Top Products by 2010Similarly, when it comes to domestic air conditioners, LG rules the roost, and the company is now wrestling for the crown of King of Flat-Panel Displays, knocking out 730,000 plasma units last year to nudge past market leaders Samsung SDI.

“We think that our technical edge will help us win out in the global competition in flat panel display and in other fields both locally and globally,” Chun said, pointing out that the company manufacture the world’s biggest TV set and the smallest one.

LG homepage

TEAC Retro R1 AM/FM Radio

TEAC Retro R1 AM/FM RadioIf you find that the modern world is just to fast, too brash, too complicated and just too goddamn digital, you may find TEAC’s new R1 AM/FM Radio the antidote to all those bleeping bits and bytes.

Sporting a classic styling (that worryingly reminds us a bit of Doctor Who’s Cybermen), this is a retro radio that looks like it will be happier blasting out Bill Haley rather than Radiohead.

For starters, there’s not a single LCD, OLED or LED screen in sight, with just a solitary blue light on the large rotary tuning dial serving as a reminder of what century we’re in.

With no station presets on board, users have to find stations the old way, lining up the frequencies etched on the dial against the blue light, while level-tweaking, graphic-preset pushing EQ freaks will have to look elsewhere as the R1 comes with just two stately controls – old fashioned bass and treble.

TEAC Retro R1 AM/FM RadioAlthough -disappointingly – there’s no DAB radio to be found onboard, TEAC has included a line-in socket so that users can play back tunes from new fangled iPods or other players.

The R-1W measures up at 238 × 134.5 × 127mm, weighs a reassuringly solid 1.4kg and is expected to start appearing in the shops around now.

There’s no UK price announced yet, but we’ve seen it on Americans sites advertised around the $100 (£54) mark.

TEAC Retro R1 AM/FM RadioSpecifications
High-Quality AM/FM Analog Tuner
Gear-Reduction Tuning Dial For Ultra-Fine Tuning
Separate Bass And Treble Controls
Function Selector: AM/FM/AUX/OFF
Large Rotary Volume Control Knob
Telescoping FM Antenna For Outdoor Use
FM “Pigtail-Style” Antenna For Indoor Use
Rear-Panel Headphone Jack
Rear Panel Auxiliary Input (Mini-Jack)
Auxiliary Cable Included For Easy iPod Connection
Auxiliary Input And Cable Compatible With Any Device With A Headphone Output
Integrated Handle For Easy Portability
Built-In Rechargeable Battery
AC Adapter
Dimensions: 9.3″ W x 5.1″ H x 5.2″ D
Weight: 3.3 Pounds

TEAC

LG Lets Rip With LW20 EXPRESS Laptop

LG Lets Rip With LW20 EXPRESS LaptopLG has announced their new multimedia-tastic 12-inch notebook PC, the LW25 EXPRESS DUAL, which is, apparently, “a portable multimedia powerhouse.”

Building on the success of last year’s LW20 EXPRESS, LG’s sleek new lappie serves up a beefed up performance courtesy of a dual-core processor.

The attractive laptop also comes with the latest BlueCore4 technology, which allows for snappier wireless connections between other devices as well as support for the extra-nippy Gigabit Ethernet.

The 12.1″ WXGA (that’s 1280×800 in English) display comes with LG’s Fine Bright Technology, and is supported by an Intel GMA950 graphics card (up to 256MB).

LG Lets Rip With LW20 EXPRESS LaptopThe built in optical drive (or Super Multi ODD as LG likes to call it) supports playback and recording of all existing optical media formats inluding dual-layer DVD burning, allowing you to cram up to 8.5GB data on a single DVD.

LG are also claiming full support for Microsoft’s soon-come-but-don’t-hold-your-breath Vista operating system, so it looks reasonably ‘future proofed.’

The LW25 looks to be a good choice for road warriors too, weighing a shoulder-pleasing 1.89 kg (including batteries and an ODD) with the six-cell, 5,400-mAh battery providing a claimed battery life of up to six hours.

Photos are still thin on the ground, but we like the look of what we’ve seen so far, with the LW25 available in natty red or blue finishes.

The warranty is more impressive than most as well, with 3-year cover and a first year international warranty.

LG Lets Rip With LW20 EXPRESS LaptopAs for pricing and availability, your guess is as good as ours at the moment as LG seem to be keeping mum.

Specifications:
Processor Intel Core Duo Processor T2400(1.86GHz) ~, 667MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache
Chipset Mobile Intel 945GM Express
Display 12.1″ WXGA(1280×800), Fine Bright Technology
Graphics Intel GMA950 (up to 256MB)
HDD 60GB
Wireless Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG(802.11a/b/g)
Bluetooth Yes (BlueCore4)
Multimedia Card
Slot 5-in-1 (XD/SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro)
Audio SRS TruSurround XT, SRS WOW XT, 5.1CH Dolby Digital, XTS Pro, 24bit High Definition
Warranty 3yrs Parts & Labour, 1st yr international
Casing Red or Blue

LG