As you may recall, I've been trying out a number of Bluetooth speakers, first the Jawbone Jambox (loud, but massive and expensive) and then the Nokia Play 360 (loud, but still big and expensive). And now the budget contender, the SoundWave SW50, at just over 7cm wide/high and costing less than £30, so roughly a quarter the price of the previous two speakers. I tested the SW50 with both my Nokia N8 and N86 from the Symbian world, with my Lumia 800 from the Windows Phone world and with my Android-powered Galaxy Nexus. Summary: it's almost as loud as the two pricier contenders and amazing value for money, with only one caveat.
As reported last week, Proporta's just launched a bike mounted version of their popular Beach Buoy waterproof case for all touchscreen phones - and I couldn't resist giving it a real world test. Here's my review - is it worth the five minutes set up time to have your smartphone always to hand in all weathers? Maybe - I'd say a more definite yes, if you live in the rainy UK and get lost a lot!
It's a problem, to be sure. You're on holiday and you want to take your Nokia N8 or X7 or similar onto the beach. But, rightly, you're utterly paranoid about sand and splashed seawater ruining your expensive smartphone. Or perhaps you like hiking - or canoeing or any other outdoor pursuit that involved water in any quantity. What you need is this, the BeachBuoy Waterproof Case - I have to say that I'm enormously impressed.
In one of those "why the heck haven't we reviewed this before?" moments, I look at Nokia's really rather spectacularly useful DC-11 universal charger. Talk about hiding its light under a bushel, the DC-11 has several rather unique benefits - though if you want to avail yourself of one you might have to shop around, since at full RRP it's on the expensive side!
Here's a common scenario. You've acquired a spare battery for your smartphone, either by buying one on purpose or by inheriting one from another device. Yet, in order to charge each, you've got to power the device down and swap cells, effectively using the phone itself as the charger. If, like me, you juggle more than one phone and more than one battery for each, this can get very tiresome. Enter this latest mains battery charger from Mobile Fun, compatible with nearly every Nokia smartphone battery from the last few years and reviewed right here. Summary? It's a slam dunk.
Steve Litchfield dons his sports gear and trials the new Sports Tracker application with wireless heart rate monitor. Can this new version of an old favourite, in conjunction with some Bluetooth accessory magic, help you improve your workouts, whether walking, cycling or jogging? (Short answer: Yes. With bells on!)
In a blatant attempt to overthrow me as 'chief AAS case reviewer'(!), Ewan takes on SCreate's Executive Wallet Case for the Nokia X6. Thankfully, he's as fussy as me when it comes to wanting a great case and this one seems to fall distinctly short in a few areas. Watch this space for more X6 case reviews from the bearded one.
The latest roundup in a long series, Steve Litchfield looks at a number of commercial case designs for the Nokia N97 mini? Can any of them please the undisputed case-meister of the Symbian world?
