27 Dec 2011

Hottest gadget accessory of 2011 - Beats by Dr. Dre

No! The hottest gadget accessory is not the multicoloured iPad covers or your Wi-Fi signal detecting T-shirt (though I would love to have one).

The hottest gadget accessory this year are the headphones. And I am not referring to just any headphone but Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. I first noticed them in some celeb pictures but now I see them everywhere.


Pic by MB-one (Alexander Kaiser)

I noticed a couple of University students with the headphones hanging around their neck and asked them what they liked about them. Their reply: "They are cool!"

They do look nice but they are definitely not cheap. For example one of the best selling headphones on the Apple store is the Monster Beats by Dr. Dre High Definition Wireless Bluetooth Headphones which costs £249.95. However, according to some of my techie friends, its' just a fashion fad and you can have comparable or better quality headphones for lesser, for example, the Sennheiser MM400 Bluetooth Headset (in comparison to the Beats headphones), only costs £184.95.

Check out the list of the best budget headphones on the Stuff website.

19 Dec 2011

TomTom Vs Google's Navigation app

update: 20/12/2011

Car navigation systems maker TomTom has been experiencing a slump in sales and has recently detailed plans to cut around 10% jobs globally. A major reason for this is attributed to the development of GPS enabled mobile phones and more specifically the Android phones which come with Google's turn-by-turn Navigation app.

The major advantage of the Navigation app. over TomTom is that it is completely free. Furthermore, maps are updated more frequently and the updates are free as well.

I bought my TomTom One in 2007 and upgraded the maps in 2009. As I wrote in one of my old post, I was thoroughly disappointed with the new map. Several post codes were missing - including some which were present in the older map.

Quite recently I was going over to a friend's apartment here in Coventry and like several new builds, I could not find the address on my TomTom. In the end I had to use my Samsung's Navigation app. It was a bit frustrating a couple of time when the map lagged behind and I had to slow down a couple of times. However, it did get me to my friend's apartment in the end and even showed me a picture of the building when I arrived.

All Satnav makers including TomTom and Garmin are going to face some serious challenge from Google in the near future and I feel that offering frequent and free updates to their maps might be one way to retain their customers.