e-Gadgets Show

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UK market is full of Kindle sleeves, skins, covers and cases. They come in different shapes and colours. From leather cases to neoprene covers. Some become very popular, like Amazon’s lighted cover or skins from Diabloskinz. Selection is overwhelming and average customer struggles to pick up best cover for latest Amazon Kindle. He pick ups whatever is suggested by giant retailers like Amazon where number of often questionable reviews point to the superior quality of an item. So reviews of covers do not help, as the number of 4 and 5 star products is increasing.

Best practice is to rely on your common sense and create criteria of choice. First of all ask yourself how often and where are you going to use latest generation Kindle? Are you going to read at night, during your way to work, at home or maybe using it during long journeys? You don’t need a fancy and expensive cover if you going to use your Kindle solely at home. I doubt you will need lighted version of Kindle cover as you may use lamp for a night reading.

Problem with choice rises when you want to make reading device more portable. It is important to know where you are going to store your e-book reader during your journeys. It might happen that most of the journey your favourite e-reader will spend in the backpack. It forces you to select a case which will provide maximum protection against screen scratches. Minimum you can do is to equip your e-reader with screen protector. They are really cheap and do the job. Kindle covers range let you select wrap for any occasion but not many of them are good in shock absorbing. Remember that even top manufacturers like Belkin, Tuff-Luv or Cole Haan cannot guarantee 100% protection despite superior quality of their cases.

Good Kindle Cover

I don’t like to review gadgets and normally I will never do it on my blog, however, with extensive number of poor covers on the UK market I decided to select best ones and present them in today’s post.

I got my favorite covers and they come from Snugg. You may be not familiar with the name however Snugg is responsible for manufacturing my favorite Kindle case. This denim-style item is made of real denim and it has the most unusual look I’ve seen so far. It holds Kindle tight limiting its movement which gives extra protection against potential scratches. Case is user-friendly. It allows to operate the buttons while Kindle is placed inside. It guarantees protection even while you hold and operate the Kindle 3.

Another good cover is the lighted leather cover from Amazon. People complain a lot about the price of this item, and I agree. It is a bit pricey but it’s very functional and well designed. It has a little LED light attached which allow to use Kindle at night or in dark condition. Light doesn’t disturb you – you will not notice it while reading. It fits Kindle perfectly.  Taking Kindle out of cover and putting it back is and easy one-move process.

The last one from my top 3 of kindle covers is cover manufactured by Belkin. This apple-shaped cover is available in the incredible range of colors. You may easily find the one which suits you the best. My favorite is Bowery Stripe and Scuba Blue one. This neoprene cover is equipped with the zip making whole in-out process hustle free. It doesn’t hold Kindle as tightly as a previous items but is more than adequate  and has the design which compensate it.

My list could be very long but I think those three items described above gives you some idea what is hot and what is not. Cases are not something very expensive but were created to protect your big investment. That is why it is wise to spend a while on research of good Amazon Kindle covers, sleeves or skins.

I will try to review more accessories for Kindle and other devices so you will get the picture what is hot. Stay tuned…

iPad

So this is a question worth answering as two devices has similar features and capabilities. And they have one particular characteristic in common: they’re very pricey.  Is there any sense of buying iPad if you own iPhone already? Well, that depends. In this post I would try to answer all your question related to this matter.

First of all: which version of iPhone do you own? If you own iPhone 4 then I suppose buying iPad will be pointless. However, if you own version 3 then think twice. You get a lot of options with iPad which are not available on your iPhone. This include graphics manipulation software and so forth. These things might be costly when buying separately – iPad gives you them for FREE.

Another thing is: do you own laptop? Any laptop I mean. Don’t get me wrong but I don’t think iPhones are to comfortable. From time to time you want to watch movie on bigger screen and in comfort. You may want to press bigger buttons, use more complex software, do more advance stuff. iPhone is great but will not fulfill all your requirements. Be honest – it’s a gadget, a toy. Serious software for serious tasks usually requires better parameters in order to run. You need something bigger – iPad might be a solution as it’s more capable of undertaking bigger tasks.

There are few more things to consider like your budget or needs. It is very individual. You may want to read more about iPad here.

iPad2

Yesterday, to our surprise, Steve Jobs – Apple Computers CEO presented a new iPad2. He said he thinks i Pad’s competition is not even close to its first version, however the didn’t want to seat on laurels and made another step forward. New version of iPad is almost 1/3 thinner than previous one. It comes with around 650 apps allowing to manipulate graphics and music, watch movies and much more (obviously).

Despite smaller size iPad2 is even faster, much faster. Based on A5 chip, which guarantees 2 times faster CPU, tablet is described as “dramatically” faster by Jobs. No surprise, Apple promise that graphics will be faster 9 times. Incredible. It has built-in two camera, one on each side of tablet. How impressive is that? Well, Without any doubt new iPad is a serious blow to a competition which struggle to come close technological gap between them and Apple.

Fact that Steve Jobs presented iPad2 personally shows that Apple is in excellent condition and the most innovative computing company is capable of bringing new standards into industry.

Link to the video: Presentation of iPad2

Facebook

I didn’t expect this move but here it is – Amazon promotes their flag product in UK’s television. I was quite surprise especially knowing how big impact has Amazon on web world. Do they really need to promote Kindle in TV? What does it mean for an on-line world? I think it is just a second time when company which starts on-line is advertising tangible product they manufacture in national television. First was Google with their phone. Now it’s Amazon with it’s Kindle.

It just proves that Amazon is a real giant at the moment. Not in terms of their influence on Internet and shopping habits. Giants in the same terms as Tesco or Sainsbury. I would not be surprise to see them offering car insurance services in few years. This is truly a raise of a giant we can witness ourselves.

Kindle 3 is a massive success with over 8 millions copies sold world wide. Considering the price of an an item we can only imagine how much profit did it bring to its manufacturer. A lot I would say.

So Google is manufacturing mobile phones, Amazon is making Kindles. Who’s next? Facebook – I predict. I see Mark Zuckenberg’s company to start selling tangible goods in a very near future. Then the Groupon as so forth. The success is in the brand. We would be interested in gadgets manufactured by Facebook from day one only because they would be Facebook branded.

For me Kindle ads in TV are a sign of a change on the market. All major brands have to move to the Internet to stay being recognized by customers. For younger generation Facebook, Amazon and Google are better known than Nike or Adidas. And I predict it will be a global trend. Internet true giants will shape the world of a future.

HTC

This is a very good news for all iPhone haters. UK charts shows clearly iPhone is not the most popular smart-phone anymore. HTC based on Android system is a winner, at least for now. What does it mean for average consumer? Nothing really. It means only UK citizens are bored with iPhone 4. Not because it isn’t technically advanced. It is by all means the best and most user friendly smart-phone ever manufactured. But it shows also people buy because of the trend. They buy because other people buy. Don’t get me wrong. HTC is a great yet simple phone and deserves first place. But it’s most popular thanks to a thousands of teenager who choose HTC because of it’s price. It is much cheaper than iPhone and finally a 500$ per phone madness is being stopped.

HTS is based on fantastic Android operating system – brained by Google. It is the most advanced system produced so far and it is an engine to a number of models of few brands. For a long time it was thought Blackberry will be the cell which will dethrone Apple 7th wonder. Not everyone knows that Android phones (in total) outsold i Phones ages ago. However, none of the models could compete with iPhone. Blackberry was the closest but it is a HTC which takes a gold.

Personally I think it is a great news for customers as thanks to the smart-phone-wars they can get better cells for less. The whole ranking shows clearly that nothing can be take for granted and companies have to work instantly on technologies (think about Nokia sells decrease) and marketing. Neglecting on this may mean drop in profits.

Intelligence through e-Readers?

Research commenced by American sociologists and psychologists showed that new generation of young people learn almost 40 times faster than a previous one. How come? – you may think. Everyone complains about drop in education standards yet results showing new generation is forty times smarter than we are? Not many people understand that the main benefit of technology evolution is a increased access to information. What does it actually mean? It mean no more that new generation got much better access to the information and knowledge than any generation before. Information on specific topic can be found withing the seconds with advanced search engines, science blogs and internet encyclopedias.

OK, so what do all this have in common with e-book readers? Well, e-readers give you access to the endless number of books which you can store on your hard disk. This is your compact library which allows you to access any fragment of book within a seconds. Previous generations had to spend days in libraries just to gain the same knowledge.

How does it affect your brain? You learn faster. You boost up your intelligence level and keep your mind at work all the time. Thanks to this you generate brand new ideas, improve the ideas already existing and so forth. E-readers are very portable. You can carry them and use under almost all conditions. It was not possible with paper books. This is something we have to realise – our improved learning abilities improve our lives and lives of the future generations. E-readers are another brick added to the evolution of human kind.