Author: ChipChick.com

As if we were short of artist and fashion gadget collaborations lately, yet another designer label has taken its brand name and stamped it on a pair of headphones. This time it’s Hysteric Glamour, a Japanese label associated with a pop rock image. Their headphones offering includes a pretty ordinary pair of retractable earbud-style headphones, that honestly don’t look to be all that high quality. Yet somehow, they’ll charge you $77.83 for them anyway. The Hysteric Glamour headphones come in a choice of green or black and retail for $77.83.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, mimobot has some new designer USB flash drives from tokidoki – and this time, it’s a couple. Adios is clad in black, while his girlfriend Ciao Ciao is dressed in the stereotypical pink. Both USB keys start at $24.99 for 2GB, with capacities available as big as 16GB.As legend has it, Adios spent 500 years in fire and brimstone before the devil discovered his good-natured ways and kicked him out of hell. Too mischievous for heaven, Adios was condemned to live forever on earth, in his modern grave-loft with his girlfriend Ciao Ciao. Together, Adios and Ciao Ciao wander the world, sharing with others how to make the most out of this life…A perfect love story for fashion-tech lovers everywhere.

The Sony Ericsson MBW-150 isn’t just a watch, it’s a stylish bluetooth watch that extends your phone features without looking like an eye sore. The watch has dedicated music buttons that allow you to control tracks and the volume of the music on your phone,  while its mirrored illuminated display shows which track is playing. The MBW-150 also alerts you of incoming phone calls by vibrating, and the display will show you when a new SMS has arrived.

Want to win the MBW-150 Executive Edition Bluetooth Watch for yourself? Shoot us a tweet or an email telling us what kind of display the watch uses. If you’re tweeting you must tweet at us and include this “@chip_chick #SEAccessoriesPrize http://bit.ly/4V9Yui”

HINT: The answer can be found on the MBW-150 product page.

The CaseCrown 15″ Classic Checkered Slim Case, $22.92, is functional, lightweight, and stylish. It’s a basic laptop carrying case without unnecessary pockets, weight, and zippers. It’s simple, refined, and well made. The zippered case features a carrying handle and it is designed to hold any 15 inch laptop. The exterior is made of a scratch-free material that is also water & wear resistant, which means that the case should really last. Although inexpensive, the CaseCrown Slim Case feels expensive and looks professional enough to bring to work.

We received a review sample of the 15″ CaseCrown Classic Checkered Slim Case. The case completely unzips to the base, allowing you to put your laptop and additional materials in the case without having to stuff them in through one opening in the top. Each side of the case is lined with a shock absorbing double memory foam, to protect your laptop on both sides. Inside the case, there are two sets of internal bands; one on each corner of the case. On one side the bands are elastic, and the other side they are clear and rubbery. The straps help you hold your laptop in place without having to worry that it will fall out or shift. The good part about having bands on both sides is that you can put the laptop on one side of the case and a few extra papers or gadgets on the other side. The case easily zippers shut and feels secure enough to carry by the handle. The CaseCrown Classic Slim comes in a variety of sizes and patterns although the checkered version is only available in 15 inch.

The Good: Affordable, Looks more expensive than it is, Case is lined with shock absorbing memory foam, Water & wear resistant material – so you know it will last

The Bad: No pockets, If you have an older, thicker 15″ laptop, you might want to order a larger size in because otherwise it’ll be a tight squeeze

FLO TV is a new service that streams high resolution Live TV to compatible cell phones and portable devices. Their flagship hardware is the FLO TV Personal Television. The device is a touchscreen handheld device that weighs 156g and is similar in size to an iPhone, with a convenient built-in kickstand. We were initially very impressed with the device when we first got to check it out, but now that we finally got a chance to put our review sample through its paces, we can recommend the FLO TV Personal TV, even though it’s a first generation device.

Set-Up:
The system comes with a Quickstart Guide, but we didn’t need to look at it to get up and running. The device is really simple to use, with an easy to use touchscreen interface and a set of dedicated buttons outlining the side of the device that are straightforward to operate. To get up and running, all you need to do is press the on Power/Sleep Key on top of the device. From there you’re greeted with a Distraction Hazard Warning that warns you not to use the device while driving a vehicle or operating machinery. In the box you get black earbud headphones, a micro-usb connector, a screen cleaning cloth, and an AC adapter.

Design:
The FLO TV Personal Television sports a 3.5″ QVGA (320 x 240) touchscreen display that is nice and bright with good color reproduction. The touchscreen is also nice and responsive, it doesn’t require much pressure to navigate menus, which means that it is most likely a capacitive display. It also features a Ambient light sensor and auto backlight control. Unfortunately, its 320 x 240 resolution is kind of on the low side, and we wish that it had been higher res. Also, we cant help but wish that they had made the display fill the whole front of the device. Instead, there is a thick black border surrounding it which could have been used for more screen real estate. You’ll also end up using the screen cleaning cloth that comes in the box, since the display quickly fills up with fingerprints. However, our review unit didn’t come with the cleaning cloth, but the FLO TV product page lists it as coming with a unit.

The device’s dimensions are 112 x 78 x 13.4mm, making it very comfortable to slip into  a bag and even a pocket.  The built in adjustable stand is very thin and barely adds any bulk to the device. Instead, it is very convenient as it lets you rest the device on a table without having to hold it. The stand is adjustable  up to about 90 degrees. You can leave it resting at a 35 degree, 80 degree angle, or any angle you choose without a problem – the stand will keep the system sturdy. Volume control is located along the right side of the device, along with a 3.5mm jack above it and a dedicated mute button below it below it.  On top of the device on the left is a battery indicator button. When you press it, the 4 dots next to it will light up to show you how much battery life is left in the device. On the right, the power/sleep key is located. The battery is not removable. And you can charge the device with the included microUSB connector which you can power through a computer’s USB port or an outlet.

User Interface:
For a first gen device, the user interface on the FLO TV Personal Television is done superbly well. It’s uncluttered, straightforward, and compliments the touchscreen perfectly. To switch between channels, all you need to do is swipe up or down. Pressing the Guide Key on the right side of the display brings up the TV schedule. You can swipe, right, left, up and down to see what’s on at different channels and different show times, just like you would on your cable box. The schedule system is indeed like the one you’re using on your cable box. The UI also lets you search for shows playing at a certain time, you can also set reminders for certain shows that you don’t want to miss, you can also adjust the brightness of the device (which means you can probably conserve some battery life), and finally, you can even set parental controls by setting general rating limits, or blocking certain channels altogether. By looking under Device info you can also check the battery percentage level, as well as the signal strength. In our office in Manhattan, we were able to get an average 79% signal strength.

Audio:
The TV has a set of stereo speakers inside of it which are pretty powerful for such a small device. The speakers manage to get pretty loud while still producing clear audio without much static at all. The back of the device is where the two speakers are located – one on each side of the back of the device. The audio can get loud enough to listen too while you’re cooking in the kitchen.

Performance:
I tested the device in Las Vegas city center, Manhattan, and Queens. In each city, I was able to pick up most of FLO TV’s channel without a hitch. Channels streamed in clearly with mostly no stuttering. Occasionally a channel wouldn’t be available or some channels would take a moment longer to load than others, but generally signal reception was very good with the channels mostly popping up right away. Some channels also notably looked better than others. For example, ABC seems to be one of the best channels in terms of picture clarity.

As much as I’m embarrassed to admit it, it is kind of fun watching Jersey Shore on the device – and I guess at a smaller size, that annoying Snookie is more tolerable… However, we did notice that when the device is laid flat against a metal surface, you’re not able to get any signal. Our guess is that if you lay it down on a metal surface, the metal must be blocking the signal from reaching the device. Also, we tried using the device in a moving vehicle. When the vehicle was moving, the FLO TV was pretty much unusable, with tons of stuttering and choppiness. If you want to take advantage of FLO TV when traveling, your best bet is probably with FLO TV’s automotive device which is designed specifically for vehicles. This is however a bummer, since we would have loved to have used the FLO TV device for commutes.

Channel Lineup:
The current channel line up includes most of the big stations – ABC, MTV, ESPN, CNBC, nickelodeon, NBC2GO, Fox News, FOX Mobile, the Food Network (a bonus for those who may have lost it recently), ESPN Mobile TV, the Disney Channel, Comedy central, CNN Live Mobile, and CBS mobile. FLO TV promises that they will continue to build the channels with more additions. Unfortunately, many of these are indeed mobile versions of the big networks – and not actually the same regular channels that you would get on your big TV. i.e. CBS Mobile, CNN Live Mobile, etc.

Conclusion:
Currently, FLO TV  coverage is available in most major cities and areas, but you’re best off checking the FLO TV coverage map before you sign up. Overall, we are very impressed with the FLO TV Personal Television. For a first gen device, it works pretty much bug free. The device is well made, channels stream in very well, the user interface is simple and a pleasure to use. Overall, it delivers as promised. We can’t help but wish that you could use it as a PMP as well, so that you could put video files on it for times when you’re in an area without reception, or nothing is on TV that you want to watch. That way it could potentially replace our PMP altogether so we could avoid carrying so many devices. We’re also not sure how many people will be willing to pay the monthly fee for FLO TV at a time when people are ditching their Cable subscription altogether. We’d also like to see  a bigger channel line-up, but FLO TV says that they’re working on that. And we’d love to see a DVR function which would let you record TV shows directly onto the device just like your TIVO does for your TV at home. We hope that these features make their way to FLO TV down the line, because they’ll certainly make the device even more compelling. But most of all, we’d like to see a bigger higher res display on the device.

We’re especially excited about the Mophie iPhone accessory that FLO TV announced at CES. This accessory will add FLO TV to an iPhone, which sounds like a much better alternative for iPhone users than having to carry around another device. In meanwhile we can see plenty of folks who would appreciate this as a gift. We’re sure that Mom would love it in the kitchen and that plenty of college students would love it in their dorm, ultimately the list can go on and on. If users can look past the fees, FLO TV does deliver as promised. The FLO TV personal television retails for $249.99 and comes with 6 months of service. After 6 months, it costs $8.99 a month which is actually reasonable.

The Good: Great reception – TV stations stream in without a hitch (in areas with good coverage), device is super easy to operate with an intuitive touchscreen based user interface, display is bright with good color and system also produces good audio

The Bad: Practically unusable in moving vehicles, display resolution is only 320 x 240, monthly fees are never fun

The Sony Ericsson HBH-PV720 Bluetooth Headset is a super stylish bluetooth headset that has been designed for the fashion-conscious woman, or man. The headset comes with two extra panels so that you can easily match the headset to your outfit or to fit your mood. The HBH-PV720 also features auto-pairing for a hassle-free experience when connecting it to your cell phone.

Want to win the the headset for yourself? Shoot us a tweet or an email telling us how much the HBH-PV720 weighs. If you’re tweeting you must tweet at us and include this “@chip_chick Win the Sony Ericsson HBH-PV720 Bluetooth Headset #SEAccessoriesPrize http://bit.ly/6uVvdS“

HINT: The answer can be found on the HBH-PV720 product page

LAST DAY TO ENTER IS TODAY, SATURDAY, JANUARY 23RD.

I’m not a party girl, and you usually won’t find me at a club, but if a Silent Disco came to town I think I would have to try it.  Silent Disco is a venue that if you were a passerby observing, it would look like people are possessed jumping up and down and moving to silence. That is because Silent Disco uses digital headphones, custom made for the show that wirelessly delivers music in stereo quality, directly to your ears. The DJ’s of the Silent Disco create a special atmosphere with their interactive broadcast bringing this silent party to life. When the party really gets going, you can sing and dance, and no one can hear around you because they have headphones on too. This is probably the perfect venue for all the American Idol rejects. Right now their schedule is up for 2010 and they seem to only be running the Silent Disco in Europe for the meanwhile – I just hope they bring this stateside some day – like perhaps in Central Park – How amazing would that be??

We’ve seen hidden spy cameras show up in many weird places – soda cans, clocks, air fresheners, you name it. But a belt? As cool and 007′ish as having a spy camera hidden in your belt is, what exactly are you trying to record at that sea level, hmmm? Sounds like this one is a suitable a spy cam for pervs, and it certainly doesn’t help that the belt says “Playboy” on it. Anyway, the Belt Design Spy Camera also happens to work as a USB Web Cam and can support unto 16GB of memory for recording onto a TF card. The Belt Design Camera retails for $43.00.

T-post is the world’s first magazine, that you can wear. For their latest issue, they’re included augmented reality on their t-shirt for their article that comments on the future of college education. The way it works is that every 6 weeks, the editors at T-posts pick a story topic that is slightly outside the mainstream media. For example, in the past, they have covered the ethics of mind enhancing super drugs. Once a story is done, they send the story to a visual artist to incorporate the text into a t-shirt graphic. They then print the art’s artwork on the outside of the T, and the article on the inside, and they call that an issue! Issues are not sold in stores, you can only get one by becoming a subscriber. Every 6 weeks you’ll get a new t-shirt. The publication believes that this is a very important method of using Fashion and Art to spread the word about an important topic. Everytime a subscriber reads a shirt, they are sharing the story with others and interpreting it in their own ways.

Well it looks like Bill Gates will now be subjected to Lady Gaga trends, the fail whale, and follow friday because 12 hours ago he finally joined Twitter! His first tweet was “”Hello World.” Hard at work on my foundation letter – publishing on 1/25.” This may just be a jovial way of Bill saying ‘hi’ to his new twitter palls but Hello World is actually an output of a simple program that is taught to beginner programmers. Whether that was intended or not remains to be seen, but knowing Bill – it’s certainly a possibility.  So far it seems Bill has taken a break and his last tweet for the night was “@aplusk thanks to you and all the other people who have welcomed me. I’ve got a lot to learn about Twitter but look forward to sharing more.” and as usual, Ryan Seacrest seems to be blessed, since he got a reply from Mr. Gates as well.  As of 2:49am EST, we followed Bill Gates and his number of followers were bumped from 142459 to 142460. We must point out that one of the strangest people he is following in the midst of the White House, New York Times, and Microsoft is Ashley Tisdale….um, Bill, whyyyy?? I’ll just cough it up to one of your daughters getting a hold of your account…

It looks like magicJack just got introduced to some serious competition. The TK6000 by Nettalk is a small device that can connect to any standard phone and an internet connection, and from there you’ll be able to make unlimited Free Calls throughout the U.S. and Canada – for a lifetime! It gets even better –  there is no computer required, you just need to have an internet connection handy. Other features included are voicemail, 3-way calling, free directory assistance, a U.S. phone number and competitive international rates. Currently, the TK6000 is available for 4 payments of $24.95. Yes, that payment plan sounds cheesy, and yes the name “TK6000″ is not nearly as clever as “MagicJack” or even “Skype”- but if this little box is really going to offer you free phone calls for life, we know more than a couple of people who will be all over it.

The Sony Ericsson HBH-PV720 Bluetooth Headset is a super stylish bluetooth headset that has been designed for the fashion-conscious woman, or man. The headset comes with two extra panels so that you can easily match the headset to your outfit or to fit your mood. The HBH-PV720 also features auto-pairing for a hassle-free experience when connecting it to your cell phone.

Want to win the the headset for yourself? Shoot us a tweet or an email telling us how much the HBH-PV720 weighs. If you’re tweeting you must tweet at us and include this “@chip_chick Win the Sony Ericsson HBH-PV720 Bluetooth Headset #SEAccessoriesPrize http://bit.ly/6uVvdS“

HINT: The answer can be found on the HBH-PV720 product page

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FloTV is a relatively new live TV device by Qualcomm. It is already revolutionizing TV on-the-go. You may recognize FloTV because it’s incorporated into various cell phones such as Verizon’s V CAST, or AT&Ts Mobile TV. Live television is broadcasted straight to the FloTV device or your cell phone through dedicated airwaves. This means it’s not streaming and hence no buffering is involved. It also means all devices that play FloTV need a FloTV chip inside of them to receive its signal. FloTV service and the FloTV device are really neat, and we will have a hands-on review coming soon. Meanwhile, they have made an announcement that they will be bringing Flo to the iPhone. To make this possible FloTV will be incorporating a chip inside of Mophie’s juicepack for the iPhone. So you can watch TV and charge your iPhone too—Win-Win! There is no word on price as of yet.

Currently FloTV’s portable touchscreen television (PTV) comes with 6 months of service and is $14.99 per month after that, but it is uncertain whether or not this monthly fee will stay the same for iPhone. FloTV’s iPhone expansion, through Mophie, will be released in the first half of 2010, and possibly in the first quarter. If it’s as great as their PTV device then we’ll definitely be waiting in line for one.

Planon has redefined the meaning of a mobile office. DocuPen is a bluetooth-enabled scanner which scans full-sized documents wirelessly in seconds—anywhere! To complement DocuPen perfectly is PrintStik, the pocket sized printer, which is also Bluetooth enabled. The 9” DocuPen has mini rollers which make it really simple to accurately scan a document, with no warping. Simply start at the top of the page, and slowly scroll seconds to scan a document. Depending on the model it will take 2 to 6 seconds. DocuPen stores the document for retrieval at any point in time. The color models all come with a microSD expansion slot for expandable memory. DocuPen allows you to wirelessly print to PrintStik over Bluetooth. This can be set up to immediately print following a scan. DocuPens range in resolution from 400 to 1200 DPI. They all come with a lithium ion rechargeable battery. The DocuPen weighs only 2.5 ounces. Prices range from $339 to $439 and is currently available to purchase.

The Planon PrintStik uses monochrome thermal printing, so it doesn’t require ink. It prints 3 pages per minute, and comes with a 20 page printer cartridge included. The 11” printer weighs only 1.5 pounds. In addition to printing from DocuPen, it will also print straight from your BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, or Bluetooth printing enabled device. The battery lasts for 30 page prints. It even includes a carrying case. The cool thing is that it prints actual A4 and Legal sized documents, nothing gets shrunk down. The Bluetooth printers start at $199 and go up to $349, and is currently available. They vary based on resolution (200 or 300dpi native) and the extras that are included. The quality is pretty good for the size of the device. It prints very similar to receipts. The blacks may be a bit weak depending on the scan, but that’s probably just something you can fix by getting used to the device. The cool thing about thermal printing is you don’t have to worry about smudging, or other pitfalls of ink like drying up or leakage from temperature and pressure changes. If you find yourself needing copies of documents while on the go, then you will certainly want to invest in the DocuPen and PrintStik .

If you haven’t downloaded the Office 2010 beta from Microsoft’s website then do it! Office 2010 is great, and the beta is free. They just announced the prices…they are as follows:

Package	Full Packaged Price	Product Key Card Price	Includes:
			Word 2010	Excel 2010	PowerPoint 2010	OneNote 2010	Outlook 2010	Publisher 2010	Access 2010
Home and Student	$149	$119	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Home and Business	$279	$199	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Professional	$499	$349	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Professional Academic	$99	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

*Office Professional Academic is available to all students, even including highschool and elementary school.

From Microsoft – “The Product Key Card is to help you unlock the power of pre-loaded Office 2010 on new PCs, Microsoft is introducing an all-new, single license Product Key Card sold at retail. It is a single license card that unlocks the functionality of a pre-loaded Office 2010 image on a new PC. The packaging is smaller than the full package product and provides a simple way to purchase software for a variety of new hardware, including netbooks. It enables Microsoft to offer a lower price on Office 2010 because no media is required and it is a single install.”

Also, it’s important to note that the Product Key Card pricing is valid for a single installation of the product, while the boxed product pricing follows these parameters:

• Office Home and Student boxed product is available in a Family Pack, allowing usage on three PCs in one house
• Purchase rights for Office Home and Business, Office Professional, and Office Professional Academic boxed product allow for usage on two of your PCs.

For a complete review of the LG eXpo, go here.

The LG eXpo is the first phone available in the U.S. with a projector function. We’ve been hearing about projector phones coming to market for a while now, and almost thought that they’d never really materialize. But finally, one projector phone has made it’s way to U.S. shores. To get up and running with the Mobile Projector accessory, You have to remove its battery cover for it to attach on to the phone since LG’s Mobile Projector attaches onto the LG eXpo’s backside.  It adds a nice amount of bulk to the phone, but it’s totally worth it. We appreciate the fact that you can easily remove the projector when you need to so that the phone can slim down when you’re not using the projector feature.The Projector adds 50grams of weight to the device and is about as thick as the device itself. Unfortunately, while the projector is attached to the phone, the phone’s camera will not work. Also, when the projector is in use, it tends to get very hot just like big projectors do. But not so much so that you can’t hold it.

The projector turns on by pressing the camera button. Hitting the camera button will also make the projector switch from portrait to landscape. Focusing is done by sliding a button on the side of the projector. While the pico projector works best in a truly dark room. The projected image can get impressively big – we’re talking as big as 4 to 5 feet wide without losing too much picture quality. However, this accessory is no replacement for even one of the high end mobile projectors out there, but still it produces quite an impressive viewing experience. I was able to watch a some YouTube clips and some short video clips while sitting on my bed in my bedroom with the lights turned out, and it was a neat thrill. Of course this is going to be one cool tool for a businessman/businesswoman on the go who often needs to whip out a presentation or a video on the spot.

Conclusion:

We can imagine that many people would love to use the phone’s projector to watch videos together with friends, which definitely gives it a lot of appeal to college kids and teens. For a relatively new smartphone feature, LG did a very good job of implementing the mobile projector accessory. It works well and is easy to use. Here is to hoping that mobile projectors become the new standard in smartphones, because this is one cool technology that pushes the smartphone envelope.

The Good:
Only adds 50 grams of weight to the phone, can be detached and reattached when needed, easy to use and set-up, works well and manages to project a big picture on the wall

The Bad:
Not a serious projector replacement, only projects well in truly dark rooms, tends to get hot during use

For a complete review of the LG Expo’s Mobile Projector, go here.

The LG eXpo is the first phone available in the U.S. with a projector function. We’ve been hearing about projector phones coming to market for a while now, and almost thought that they’d never really materialize. But finally, one projector phone has made it’s way to U.S. shores, and is it all it’s cracked up to be? Read on to find out.

The LG eXpo’s mobile (pico) projector accessory is a major draw for this phone, but even without the projector feature, the LG eXpo has a lot of features to stand with on its own. The phone is feature rich with Wi-Fi, AGPS, Bluetooth, a MicroSD card slot for expanding its memory, and all the features you’d expect in a modern day smartphone.

Performance:
Under the hood the LG eXpo is running Windows Mobile 6.5 and a powerful 1GHZ Snapdragon processor. This is the first Windows Mobile 6.5 phone that I’ve used, my last Windows Mobile phone having run Windows Mobile 6.  The improvements over Windows aren’t drastic, but 6.5 does seem to run faster and the interface feels more modern, cohesive and uncluttered. Overall I’m enjoying 6.5 much more then I did 6. The home screen is now much more intuitive, not to mention, prettier. It contains shortcuts for all of the important apps like your email, and you can browse through and access your photos, play music files without leaving the home screen, view missed calls, recent text messages calendar appointments and more.

Design:
The LG eXpo is shorter and has more narrower than the iPhone, but with its built-in slide out keyboard, it’s also thicker. Still it’s a nice size and very comfortable to hold in your hand. It’s black and silver coloring also lends to it being a rather nice and sophisticated-looking phone. It’s not quite a head-turner, but its still somewhat of a charmer.
In particular, one very unique feature of the LG Expo is the Smart Senor which is located below its display. We’ve seen this kind of technology on business laptops, but we cant remember ever seeing it on a smartphone. The Smart Sensor is essentially a fingerprint reader that you can use to unlock your phone. That is definitely a lot more secure and convenient than using a pin number. The smart sensor also doubles as a kind of 4 directional D-Pad that lets “turbo”-scroll through menus, lists and down web pages. Unfortunately we didn’t find it very comfortable to use because of its ridges, and we generally preferred skipping out on using it altogether as a D-pad.

Display:
The eXpo sports a 3.2 inch WVGA, 16M color 480×800 resistive touch screen. The display is very bright with great color reproduction. It’s one of the best displays I’ve seen on a smartphone and it makes the eXpo great for viewing photos and videos. On-screen text and graphics also look exceptionally sharp and crisp, making the LG eXpo great for reading.

Putting those positive aspects aside,  the display also ends up being one of the LG eXpo’s weakest aspects. If you try to operate the eXpo with your finger, you need to use hard presses or else you won’t be able to successfully hit buttons and select apps. Because its resistive, it does operate better using your fingernail than it does with the front of your finger. This is nothing like the iPhone, or other capacitive phones on the market which require relatively light amounts of pressure – those smartphones really just need a light tap to launch an app. Not so with the LG eXpo, the eXpo requires hard presses which can be frustrating at times. Also, when trying to push down on smaller icons, like the “X” for closing a window, my finger often wasn’t able to select it and I found myself resorting to my finger nail or to the included Stylus to operate the phone. When it comes down to it, the most efficient way to operation the eXpo is with the included stylus. Unfortunately, using a Stylus in 2010 seems like a step backwards in a world where capacitive multi-touch is slowly becoming the standard.

Speaking of the stylus, this is the first Windows Mobile phone we’ve seen come packaged with a stylus, yet it doesn’t have a stylus slot built into the phone to actually hold the stylus. On the top left corner of the device there is a place to tie the lanyard that is attached to the bundled external stylus. Sure, you can operate the phone without a stylus, but it’s more efficient to use with the stylus, so we wish they would’ve incorporate a slot to hold one. Instead, the stylus hides inside a matching attractive black/silver casing, and it can be extended for more ergonomic use.

Keyboard:
The LG eXpo also has a slideout keyboard which is very comfortable to use and even people with big fingers should have no problem using it. The only issue that some might have with it, is that its keys don’t have much bevel at all and are pretty flush against the base. However I didn’t have any difficult typing on it. The keyboard’s characters also conveniently light up when you type on it in dark environments, which is a nice and very convenient touch. This is also necessary if you want to use the keyboard while the projector is on in a dark room, or else you wouldn’t be able to see what keys you are typing on.

Call Quality:
Call Quality on the LG eXpo is good. I tested it in New York City. I was able to hear callers loud and clearly and they said the same of me. The speakerphone also plays pretty loudly.

Internet:
Internet Explorer has been much improved in Windows Mobile 6.5. I don’t recall loading websites this fast in Windows Mobile 6, even on a 3G connection. On previous Windows Mobile phones we have recommend using Opera Mobile or SkyFire, which is a free web browsing app that offers a faster surfing experience on mobile devices. But this time around we don’t need to recommend SkyFire, and actually the built-in Internet Explorer offers a decent web browsing experience.
Testing the eXpo in New York City, using AT&T’s 3G network we experienced the following loading times:

3.5 seconds for NYTimes.com (mobile version)
3.3 seconds for CNN.com (mobile version)
38 seconds for ChipChick.com
13 seconds for Google.com (mobile version)
13.9 seconds for YouTube (mobile version)
8.5 seconds for ESPN (mobile version)
5.4  seconds for TMZ.com (mobile version)
25.9 seconds for SmashingMagazine.com
16 seconds for Bensbargains.net

Software:
The LG eXpo comes with a wealth of software applications, including Microsoft Office: Excel, PowerPoint, Word, an Instant Messaging app for AIM, Yahoo and MSN, AT&T GPS Navigator, Sprite Backup (for system backups), Adobe Reader, a Mobile Java app, an RSS Viewer, a Podcast app, a stopwatch, a Tip Calculator, and much more. All of these apps really add to the eXpo being a very resourceful smartphone, so much so that it’s almost a mini computer. The are a bunch of cool games included like Tetris, and Monopoly. The games play really well on the eXpo and help show case its beautiful display, unfortunately most of these games are just demos. The Windows Marketplace application also gives you access to a wealth of other convenient apps. Sure, it’s not quite as robust as the appstore, but there are many great apps available there, and many of them are free.

LG has also bundled the phone with their LG Menu software. LG Menu essentially an additional menu system GUI for a user to use if they so choose. It breaks down the phones’ apps into 4 rows of apps – Communications, Multimedia, Applications, and Settings. The GUI is organized nicely enough, but there really is no point to it since Windows Mobile’s menu system is pretty good this time around. LG also includes a Task Manager. The included LG Task Manager is kind of slick, as it displays screenshots for currently opened applications. However, the close buttons are too small and difficult to close unless you’re using the stylus.

Multimedia:
The bundled headphones use a microUSB connector, so that means you can’t use a standard pair of 3.5mm headphones without an annoying adapter. Common LG, haven’t you learned anything from HTC’s past mistakes? This pretty much takes the eXpo out of the running for being a serious music device. But other then that it’s multimedia features are solid. Videos play very smoothly and as I mentioned before, the display is great for photos and video.

Camera:
The eXpo has a pretty pretty robust 5MP camera with autofocus a flash, and video recording. The device takes good pictures, but it’s flash isn’t all that helpful in low light situations.

Conclusion:
The LG eXpo is a solid Windows Mobile phone with a well rounded feature set. We love the fast web browsing, its beautiful display, and that it packs in pretty much everything but the kitchen sink- heck, it even has a fingerprint reader. Unfortunately we are frustrated by the fact that we have to use a stylus to operate the device efficiently, and worse, the stylus has no place to be stashed inside the device. But if you can look past those gripes, you’re going to be wowed and quite taken by its mobile projector accessory. There literally is nothing quite like it out there. The LG eXpo can really be a swiss army knife of a smartphone for a businessman. Need to whip out a presentation on the go without any hassle? The LG eXpo will be there for you. And even though the LG eXpo’s multimedia capabilities are capped a but by the lack of a 3.5MM jack, we can imagine that many people would love to use the phone’s projector to watch videos together with friends, which definitely gives it a lot of appeal to college kids and teens. However, where the LG eXpo lacks, the projector comes in and wins you over. For a relatively new smartphone feature, LG did a very good job of implementing the mobile projector accessory. It works well and is easy to use. Here is to hoping that mobile projectors become the new standard in smartphones, because this is one cool technology that pushes the smartphone envelope.

The LG eXpo can currently be purchased for as low as $99 on contract with AT&T. The Mobile Projector accessory should be available to purchase soon.

Keep checking out ChipChick.com for a special giveaway announcement, as we’ll be having a special LG eXpo giveaway soon.

The good:

A Swiss army knife for a businessman, mobile projector works really well, display is bright and colorful, fast internet browsing, tons of bundled software, nice form-factor with slide-out keyboard

Bad:
No 3.5mm jack for headphones, touchscreen requires hard presses/ a stylus to operate efficiently, there is no internal slot to hold the stylus, smart sensor isn’t very comfortable to use and feels a little funny operating

For a complete review of the LG Expo’s Mobile Projector, go here.

The Celluon evoMouse Pet certainly steps out of the box with a non-traditional design that probably won’t catch on, but it definitely catches your eye. As a matter of fact, from the side of the device it almost looks like a dog! The evoMouse Pet utilizes your finger as the pointer without having to actually push the mouse around. You can perform common mouse operations using only your fingers. You can control the cursor, click, select, and even double click. Plus, the evoMouse even features multi-touch functionality including scroll, rotate, zoom, forward, and back. It works with any computer that has a USB port or bluetooth connectivity.  There is no word on availability or pricing but we will be sure to update this post once there is.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of LG Chocolate Touch. All opinions are 100% mine.

I don’t think of the LG Chocolate Touch as a phone with a killer music player, I think of it as a killer music player with a phone. The Original LG Chocolate was also media center oriented, but wow, was I surprised with the quality of the audio this phone was able to play. Who knew my mp3s sounded so good? Let’s be honest. God didn’t create all mp3s the same. Nor did he create all headphones and auditory perceptions the same. The Chocolate Touch coupled with the patented Dolby Mobile Technology gave me the power to make any mp3 sound exactly as I wished it could sound. This phone also restored the little faith I had left in my 3 year old ear buds. A few of my songs even convinced me I was listening to music in surround sound. Now I am an avid iPhone user, and swear by the phone, but for a company that started off making music players and progressed to the phone, I want to know why they can’t make MP3s sound as good as Chocolate. It certainly offers an extremely rich listening experience with “potent bass and sparkling clarity.”

One feature that should be a universal standard for all phones and MP3 players is enabling the device as removable storage for your computer and allowing you to drag all your music on as if it were a flash drive. It just makes life easy [end point]. Obviously, the first thing I wanted to do upon receiving the LG Chocolate Touch loaner was to get my music on there and see what all the fuss was about Dolby Mobile. It was a good sign that the box came with no CD, which meant probably no required drivers, which hopefully means no required software installations? Yes! I was able to plug the phone into right in to my computer, see the drive as an external storage device (like a flash drive), navigate to “My_Music” and bam, I was transferring songs in seconds. Love it! I didn’t have to install any software, perform any conversions, or get through a lengthy syncing process. Even better, I was also able to retrieve the test shots and vids I took with the camera from the storage device. Adding photos was just as breezy, no wait, breezier*. I didn’t have to specify photo albums to share or optimize. Just dragged and dropped all the pics I wanted to add. With Windows this was all extremely easy, when I wanted to add more music from my Mac I ran into an issue–lack of support. I couldn’t access my Chocolate Touch via its microUSB cable. Fortunately, I figured out a work around and hat didn’t turn out to be too big of an issue. I was able to just remove the MicroSD card from the phone, pop it in an adapter and then in to my computer. Once again I had easy access to the files on my phone including pictures, videos, and music. Just make sure you set the phone to store these files on the external memory, rather than internal, in the settings.

If that seems like more work than you’re willing to go through, you can connect your Mac with your LG Chocolate via Bluetooth. Similarly all of your phone’s folders and files will pop up enabling you to add pictures, videos, and music, or pull files directly from your phone, wirelessly! There were a lot of bluetooth features on the LG Chocolate Touch, which seem to still be rare for cell phones (ahem ahem iPhone). In addition to sending and receiving files (from phone or from computer), I was able to easily to print directly from my phone to my little wireless Polaroid PoGo printer. I will say I was a bit disappointed that LG Chocolate was unable to pair to my Sony MW600 A2DP Bluetooth headset. It does has A2DP bluetooth stereo streaming support. I guess it just didn’t like my Sony (or vice versa).

Navigating music was easy on the LG Chocolate Touch. Everything is very simple. It doesn’t have the fit and finish of, lets say, the iPhone, but music and media is well organized in a minimalistic fashion still organized by song, genre, artist, album. All of the music on Chocolate, which I had originally organized in iTunes, preserved its meta information i.e. artist, track name, and even the album art. There’s a search button too allowing you to find any song you’re looking for. Another feature I liked was the ability to make playlists on the fly. Notice I said playlists and not playlist. If you’re not in the mood for your own music then tune into the built in FM Radio. FM Radio requires headphones, which it uses as an antenna. You can still play the music over speakerphone, as you can with any of the music on the phone. The FM tuner interface is nice, allowing you to set 12 presets. It also pulls song information (RBDS support) from many of the stations.

When playing music you have options–to keep you entertained and to ensure the greatest possible listening conditions. The most unique is the Join the Band feature. This allows you to join along by playing the keyboard or drums while playing any song of your choosing. The Rhythmical Beat feature is another unique option enabling your handset to vibrate to the beat of the music. I have not yet figured out when this would be necessary, but never the less–cool. For songs lacking cover art you can choose your own image from your picture album. The best feature is the Dolby Customizable EQ settings. As I mentioned earlier, all mp3s are encoded differently and not going to sound optimal on just any headset. These EQ settings give you the control to choose what sounds best. With Dolby presets: flat, bass boost, treble boost, vocal boost, and classical you are sure to find your ideal sound. If you’re feeling daring enough you can use manual EQ and adjust EQ settings across 4 bands. I put music ranging from heavy metal, to indy, to oldies on my Chocolate, so I found myself often changing the EQ for a more pleasant sound. Multi-tasking is great while music or FM is playing. Your listening experience will be uninterrupted. Also on the homescreen is a nice little audio visualizer while music is playing. The speakerphone on the phone, as mentioned, will play your music and FM radio. You can certainly crank it up, but the audio does not live up to the Dolby name. The quality is just subpar (but I remind you, it is loud). Also the speaker is located on the back of the phone, so unless you place your phone screen down on a surface, it will sound muffled.

When your phone is also your camera, it should work like a camera. Hence there should be a physical button to quickly turn it on and a physical button to quickly take a picture. The Chocolate Touch thankfully has this dedicated camera button, allowing you to be taking a picture within seconds of removing the phone from your pocket (not forcing you to go through on screen menus to get to the camera). Also, hold down the camera button for 3 seconds to enter the video camera. You can record 30 second clips to send your friends, or save up to one hour of video. The pictures from the 3.2 megapixel camera come out pretty nice with the default/maximum resolution of 2048×1536. The videos also come out pretty nice, for a phone. Just up the resolution to 320×240 and you should be more or less satisfied. On both Camera and Video Camera there are customizable brightness, white balance, shutter sound, color effects, and self-timer, which certainly come in handy when trying to perfect a picture or video. No camera flash, but that is okay since they usually stink anyway on phones.

Overall I was pretty impressed with the media center aspect of LG’s Chocolate Touch. You can store movies on it too, which is great for those long car and train rides. The only issues I had with this media center of a phone is that there are no hard button audio controls: play/pause skip track…

Specs:

Internal Storage: 1gb
External Storage: MicroSD (not included) up to 16gb
Compatable Audio: MP3, WAM, and unprotected AAC/AAC+ files
Video formats: WMV, MP4, 3GP, and 3G2
Display: 3-inch touchscreen
Camera: 3.2 megapixel
Camera Resolutions: 2048 x 1536 (default), 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 800 x 480, 640 x 480 Pixels
Video Resolutions: 320 x 240, 176 x 144 (default) pixels
Bluetooth: version 2.1 with A2DP
headset jack: standard 3.5mm
Dimensions: 4.3 x 2.2 x .47 inches
Battery: 5.1 hours talk, 470 hours standby