Reviews - page 111

As ever, I shall start this iPad case review by reminding you that I only ever use a Smart Cover on either of my iPads, the mini and the Retina. And that on the occasions that I might be moved to use a case (when not actively reviewing one) I like something light and thin.

Which brings me to the Lioncase Pocket Shield for the iPad mini. It’s slim (13mm), it’s light (150g) and it has a pocket!

“Wow, this is cool.” That was my first thought when I saw CamRanger controlling a full-size DSLR for the first time, then wirelessly beaming picture previews to an iPad 15 feet away.

From ISO, to shutter, to aperture, white balance—-even live view and touch-to-focus—-the CamRanger gives you amazing control of any compatible DSLR from your iPad or iPhone. All it takes to get the magic going, is the tiny CamRanger unit and their free iOS app.

Mr. Reader, my favorite RSS reader for the iPad, has added support for a slew of third party sync services. Thus this new 2.0 version places the app at the head of the line when it comes to rescuing you from the impending Google Reader shutdown.

The modern digital camera is a miracle. It can take photos in light so low that you can’t even focus the lens manually. It can record thousands of images onto a single SD card, or it can shoot RAW and let you make incredible adjustments back in the comfort of your own home.

But one thing that has driven me crazy with pretty much every digital camera I have ever owned is its charger. They’re almost universally terrible. Which is why I bought this Digipower alternative. But is it actually any better?

You know who thinks I look hot when I wear this bag? Everyone, that’s who. From the young hipster laydeez to the local barrio ne’erdowells, everyone steals a glance at me when I sashay down the filthy dogs hit covered streets of my dirty Barcelona neighborhood. “Who is that guy?” their eyes seems to ask. “And why is he wearing that short-strapped red leather bag with those pink shorts?” their eyes continue, before rolling momentarily in what I like to think is ecstasy, but which is probably just exasperation.

The bag, though, is worth the attention, and it probably also worth more than its contents. At €180 ($240) it’s not cheap. But then, it’s pretty gorgeous.

When I wrote up the Kubxlab Ultra Thin iPhone Case a short while back, I liked the look of it but figured that it would be yet another iPhone shell case to add to my stack of potential gifts (I’m serious – if you visit my home you won;t be allowed to leave without an iPhone or iPad case in your hands).

Then one arrived. Or rather three arrived, one in each color (dark, light and brown). I carelessly ripped open the packaging, picked one of the three (dark, I think) and pressed it onto my naked iPhone 4, still warm from my damp front pocket.

And I was so surprised that I actually put down my coffee.

Fed up of changing your iPhone case every time you want to use an external battery pack or add a kickstand? Well, Boostcase for iPhone 5 hopes to make that a thing of the past. It’s just one case, but it’s compatible with a ton of attachments that slide into little grooves on its back and add all kinds of extra functionality to your phone.

I’ve been using Boostcase for the past two weeks, thanks to MyBanana, with a kickstand and a hand strap. But you can also get an external battery pack, a card holder, a wallet case, a clutch case, a studded jacket (which isn’t as saucy as it sounds), and more — all of which can be applied in seconds without ever having to remove the Boostcase from your iPhone.

The Boostcase itself costs $35 in a range of different colors and patterns, and for that you also get the hand strap and the kickstand. The other attachments range from $20 to $100.

So, let’s find out whether Boostcase is the only case you’ll ever need for your iPhone.

Hitcase Pro, like Tony Stark’s iron suit, is the penultimate protection for your iPhone 5, even when it’s flying through the air.

That’s because, like the red Avenger, Hitcase Pro isn’t just a suit of armor, like so many cases before it. No, this one’s built for action, with some special mounting and lens capabilities that encourage you take your lovely iPhone on adventures you ordinarily should not, all so you can use its camera to record the chaos and prove you survived.

The  MiniDrive is tiny caddy that lets you hide a microSD card entirely inside the SD card slot on your MacBook Air (or any other Mac with an SD slot). The idea is that you can cheaply add storage to your SSD-equipped Mac.

When I first wrote up the MiniDrive as a news piece, a whole bunch of readers got in contact to tell me how much it sucked, mostly because it didn’t fit properly into the SD slot on their Macs.

My experience has been fine, so I’m putting down those bad experiences to being the first wave of Kickstarter order fulfillments. That’s no excuse, clearly – if you sell something it should work – but I can only review what I have to review. And so I will.

UPDATE: This MiniDrive has nothing to do with the Nifty Minidrive I saw at CES. Sorry for any confusion.

Bluelounge’s new MiniDock really is mini. It’s a tiny little dock which perfectly matches the cuboid charger that came with your iPhone or iPad mini, and turns it into a wall-mounted dock. The device is as portable and effective as it is handy, especially if you never use a case. I have one here in Cult of Mac’s Spanish HQ, and I have been putting it through its paces in our Extreme Test Lab.

Pan Am, a U.S icon that died in 1991, thankfully before it’s name could be ConCatenAted into PanAm, and not before some clever entrepreneur with an eye to the future squirreled away dome of the planes’ old life rafts.

Fast forward to today, when those rafts are being chopped up and made into cases for another American icon: the iPad. For just $20, you can wrap the back of your tablet in a strip of – uh, whatever life rafts were made of in the 70s.

I have been using one on my iPad mini for the last week or two. It’s fantastic, but I had to administer some tough love to get it onto shape.

I reviewed the Acase Collatio for iPhone 5 back in May, and I mentioned it was one of the best leather wallet cases I’d tested to date. It looked terrific, its build quality was excellent, and it was nicely priced. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Acase’s leather iPad mini case, then.

I have to be honest, I’ve had it stashed away in a cupboard for a while. I got it not long after the iPad mini was released, but I had so many cases to review at the time that I ended up forgetting about it. Reviewing the Collatio reminded me it was there, and I’ve been using it on my iPad mini since.

Like the Collatio, the iPad mini case is made entirely of leather, and it has a front cover that folds over to protect your display. When you’re using your device, the front cover doubles as a stand for typing or watching movies.

Magnets inside the front cover wake your iPad when you open it, then put it back to sleep again when you close it. They also ensure the front cover stays closed when you want it to.

The case provides access to all of your iPad mini’s ports, buttons, and cameras, and it comes in black, chestnut, and vintage brown, with a $39.99 price tag.

The FitBit Flex is a $99 rubber band you wear around your wrist to track how many steps you’ve taken every day. It connects via Bluetooth to your iPhone, or through a dongle to your Mac. If you are utterly sedentary, it’s a fantastic gadget that may very well encourage you to make some slight adjustments to your lifestyle before your heart explodes in front of your computer desk one day. If you are already even lightly active, though, the FitBit Flex is a puzzle of a product that seems fetishistically focussed on how much you walk while utterly ignoring how much you bike, swim or even run.

There are a few things I really like about Kubxlab’s AmpJacket. It’s soft and squiggly, so it’s kind of fun to play with even when not on the phone. It’s also very small when you consider what it does – it’ll even slide into a pants pocket. And finally, there;s the fact that it not only amplifies the sound fro the iPhone’s speaker, but protects that iPhone and even raises it out of the way of spills in the kitchen.

Remember that $7 cardboard iPad case I wrote about a few weeks back? I have two here in my apartment, and I have been testing them out for the last week. The review follows, but here’s the short form: They’re surprisingly good; they’re excellent insulators; they’re good for making shopping lists.

Some of us can pick up an iPhone and master its virtual on-screen keyboard in a matter of minutes, but for others, it takes a bit of time — especially if you’ve just come from a BlackBerry or another smartphone that has a physical keyboard built-in. For those of you in that latter group, the NUU MiniKey for iPhone 5 is here to help.

The MiniKey is a clip on case with a special feature: a slide-out physical keyboard that aims to give those who don’t like typing on glass a more traditional solution. Its keys are “designed to match the ergonomics of typing with both thumbs” in an effort to help you type faster and more accurately.

The MiniKey has a built-in Li-Pro rechargeable battery (380mAh) that charges via USB, and like most wireless keyboards, it connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth. It boasts 42 backlit keys, with functions for media playback, numbers, common symbols, and more.

I reviewed the MiniKey’s predecessor for iPhone 4 a couple of years ago, and I was pretty impressed with it, so I couldn’t wait to try out the latest model and find out whether it’s worth its $60 price tag.

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about an upcoming iPhone app called Analog Camera. Developed by Realmac Software, maker of popular to-do app Clear, Analog Camera is a gorgeous app for taking pictures and quickly applying Instagram-like filters.

Now that Analog Camera is available for download in the App Store, it’s time to decide if it belongs on your iPhone’s Home screen.

I love it when hardware integrates with iOS devices, endowing them with new powers they never hoped to possess. The Withings WS-50 smart scale, paired with their very good iOS app, does just that.

By connecting to your Wi-Fi and sending your health stats to the cloud, the Withings WS-50 smart scale allows you to effortlessly track your weight, body mass index, indoor air quality, and even your heart rate. All you have to do to make it work, is step on the scale from time to time, then boot up their app to see just how fat or cut you’re getting.

Apple might not make bumpers anymore, and Antennagate may be a thing of the past, but there are still some good bumpers out there… and top of the list is the AL13.

Add the Olloclip accessory lens’s price to the cost of this new Olloclip Quick-Flip case and you get to $120. That used to be the price of an entry-level camera from a fairly decent brand, but I’d recommend you buy the Olloclip gear instead. Your iPhone’s camera way, way better than a $100-200 point-and-shoot, and the Olloclip gear makes it much easier to use.

The BookBook from Twelve South has long been the best and most luxurious leather wallet case for iPhone, but it has a new contender from Acase that wants to steal its crown. It’s called the Collatio, and in many ways, it’s very similar to the BookBook.

As well as holding your iPhone 5, the Collatio holds up to three credit cards, and features a larger pocket for bills, receipts, and anything else you’d like to stuff in there. It provides access to all of your iPhone’s buttons and ports — though you will need to open it up to use the volume buttons and mute switch — plus its front- and rear-facing cameras.

The biggest difference between the Collatio and the BookBook, however, is the price. While Twelve South’s offering will cost you $60, the Collatio is just $40. But is it as good?

Once I started my review of the ScanSnap iX500 document scanner, the new model in Fujitsu’s hugely popular line of top-tier ScanSnap scanners, it didn’t take long to see this machine was going to earn its pedigree.

With a small footprint, dashing good-looks, scanning direct to an iOS device, and progressional-grade intake rollers, the iX500 actually makes digitizing papers easy, and dare I say, maybe a little sexy. Its included software suit also makes sense of doing something with all those scanned docs.

There’s a reason many consider Fujitsu’s ScanSnaps the finest scanners around, and the iX500 continues in that legacy with some useful new features.

External battery packs are one of the least sexy aspects of the mobile age. They’re the equivalent of the plastic gas can in the back of your trunk: stinky, unsexy, and probably empty when you need it.

Lenmar’s Helix battery pack isn’t particularly sexy, but it doesn’t smell (despite the “Undead Power” branding, which implies putrifying flesh) and it’s unlikely to be empty when you need it: it has a massive 11,000mAh battery inside, capable in theory of charging a third- or fourth-gen iPad from 0% to full. All in a battery pack not much bigger than a deck of playing cards.

When my fingers are covered in egg, or I want to use my iPad as a second-screen when working at my Mac, or when I’m performing computer surgery and I want to keep iFixIt in the corner of my eye, there’s a lot of situations in which I might want a stand for my iPad.

Unfortunately, of the few I’ve tried, I’ve found most of them only to be good in specific situations: great for, say, using your iPad as second monitor at your computer, but not good for cooking or doing computer surgery.

The iOStand by iOMounts is the first stand I’ve really liked, because sometimes simpler is better. But it’s not perfect.

For the past six year that I’ve owned an iPhone, not once have I thought about buying a dock. What’s the point? You’ve got your cable right there anyway, and unless it adds some great functionality to the iPhone, I’ve never seen much point in them. But the Projectone from Karas Kustoms has changed my opinion on the usefulness of iPhone docks.

The Projectone is a machined aluminum dock for your iPhone 5 that passively amplifies sound like a megaphone. Its simplistic style and industrial stylings make it one of the best-looking iPhone docks we’ve seen in a while, but is it actually worth its $45 price tag?