May 18, 2012

Green Power – The way forward

Powerfreakz Solar Charger reviewNext time you are in the office take a look and see how many hand held devices are on charge. In our office just now we have three mobiles as well as the trusty digital camera and an iPod plugged in all using power when they probably don’t need to.

That’s why when WhatsGoodOnTheWeb was asked to take a look at the Powerfreakz 2500solar portable charger we jumped at the chance. Basically this is a solar charging station for your mobile or ipod, it comes with all the relevant adaptors so you can plug it in to practically anything.

The cost of the charger is about £49.99 which is a little pricey when you can just plug your phone in the wall but this does not account for how much it costs to charge a mobile. We found an article online that said it costs up to 8 pence a time to charge a mobile so every year your mobile costs you about £30 to charge.

If you use the Powerfreakz 2500every day you could save a small fortune and don’t forget that by using a solar charger you are also helping the environment so we think this is an essential item for every travellers kitbag.

Sporty Data Protection

The Toughdrive SportSo you’ve got put all your music onto your PC, stored all your digital photos to your desktop and saved that all important CV but what will you do if it gets stolen or you manage to drop a cup of coffee on it? Generally speaking you would have a problem but What’s Good On The Web have been asked to review a new range of toughened external hard drives from Freecom that we think are pretty good.

Designed to be toughened against general knocks, spills and drops the Toughdrive Sport is probably the ideal solution for anyone who happens to be a little clumsy and is looking for data security and backup without having to spend a small fortune. We are not sure you’d carry it everywhere with you but it is a handy size so easy to store.

The drives come in a range of very impressive sizes from 250 GB up to a massive 640 GB which is more than enough to store everything you need to backup those, in addition they come with built in encryption so if you manage to misplace the drive anybody who finds it can’t get hold of your personal data.toughdrive sport

We’re not going to give you the technical specs because you can read them all on the Freecom website suffice it to say this German engineered external hard drive is all that you would expect – tough, well designed and actually looks pretty cool. Yes, the top of the range device is a bit pricey at over £110 but for piece of mind and data security you probably cant do better.

To ensure your data stays safe at all times it is recommended that you backup data to an external hard drive such as the Toughdrive sport and store it in a separate location.

Save on mobile call costs …. Get a walkie talkie

Admittedly the last time I used a walkie talkie for any length of time it was nearly twenty years ago and they came as part of my “Professionals” spy kit but they were great fun (over about 5 meters!!). Since then I have seen no need to buy a set even though I’ve seen them in use on the ski slopes and sometimes even by families in large shopping centres.

When WhatsGoodOnTheWeb was approached by Doro recently to do a review of their walkie talkies we were therefore just a little bit sceptical – (I couldn’t see myself nipping out to play in the street with them). When the box arrived I was therefore very surprised that Walkie Talkies have moved on miles since I last had a go.

The ones I had a go of were the Doro WT96 model which are splash proof and come with an impressive range of frequencies.

As with anything we review here at WhatsGoodOnTheWeb we always look for the best way to use them so having recently had the shock of a large mobile bill we thought these would be ideal for our next Summer Holiday.

Imagine sitting at your table passing your drinks order to a friend at the bar or keeping in touch with your family down by the pool whilst you sit on the veranda reading a book. These will help save on the mobile bill and could just pay for a couple of extra drinkies.

The Doro walkie talkies were easy to use and have a good range (we tested them over about half a mile in a town) and Doro say they work up to 10Km in open country. At about £75 these are definitely not the cheapest on the market but we would say they are value for money as they are well built and very easy to use.

If you are interested in buying a set of Doro WT96 Walkie Talkies they are available online at Amazon, Pixmani or Staples

Don’t get lost this summer

Many of us here at WhatsGoodOnTheWeb have a very poor sense of direction so booking a hire car whilst on holiday can be expensive as end up paying a small fortune for a local satnav.

That was until now.

We’ve been speaking to Navmii who have come up with a range of low cost Satnav applications for mobiles that will save us all a fortune this summer. Although we’ve not been able to try them yet (we will do later this year so watch out for the update) you can download an app for your mobile for as little as £2.99 that will guide you through the streets saving you getting lost and also a fortune.

The countries covered at the moment include Spain, France, Netherlands and Germany as well as a couple of US states. We’ve also been told by them that they will be looking at launching a low cost satnav for the UK but this won’t be for a while yet (Yippee!!)

The apps are simple to use – just set your destination and off you go. As they use the GPS not the mobile network they don’t cost anything to use which is a real bonus. Last year I personally spent about £20 using my Google maps as a navigation device just for one journey …… ouch.

 So if you are looking for a satnav this year for your holiday we’d suggest that you search for Navmii on the iTunes store.

Turn your NetBook into a TV

If you are like me the last time you bought a PC you were probably offered the option to have a TV tuner fitted. These are great if you just want to watch TV on your desktop but if you are a laptop or netbook user without a full sized external ariel they can be a complete waste of time.

When I was offered the chance to review one of the new “Avermedia Digital TV on my PC” USB Devices I was therefore very sceptical. As well as previously having issues with TV tuners for PC’s we live in a rural area and our digital TV signal is sketchy to non existent to say the least.

The box arrived from Avermedia with the simple instructions – open the box and plug it in. Thinking a good test would be to try the device on my netbook I did what everyone else does, opened the packaging and plugged it in (without reading the instructions I might add !!!).

The USB digital TV tuner automatically pre loaded the software on the USB stick with no hitches and I was ready to go. I plugged in the tiny digital antenna and with a few clicks was quickly finding all the local Freeview channels.

To be honest I think the product is great – the picture was very good quality and the sound was spot on. If you are looking for a gadget to buy for someone who travels and gets fed up with the standard five channels on hotel TV this is great. I’m looking at using it next time we go away as it means I can keep up with the latest on “Corrie” with no troubles.

Device Tested: Avermedia AverTV Plug and Watch

VOIP on your mobile

www.nimbuzz.com

Nimbuzz is a new VOIP service that works with your PC or Mobile – as it is so new we have very little idea what it does at the moment or even how it works.

We’re not going to rate it at the moment as we’re not even sure it works for UK users. If the owners want to contact us though please feel free to tell us more.

We’d love to know the following:

  • How does it work?
  • Can we use it in the UK?

If you have the answers please let us know.