Review: 2GB SWISS MEMORY USB Victorinox

I've had Swiss Army knives on my keychain for years, it's come in handy on many occasions. Recently I always seem to have a USB flash drive in my pocket too. When I received the SWISS MEMORY USB Victorinox drive from Swissbit it was obvious that combining the two was actually a very good idea. The Victorinox is compact, easy to use and brings the usefulness of the Swiss Arm tools. 

The USB drive comes in a variety of sizes from 128MB to 2GB and is a plug-n-play (unless Win 98) device and price points range from $50USD to $225USD respectively. The Victorinox is small and compact given what it's trying to accomplish. The unit looks and feels very sturdy and would handle plenty of pocket abuse, keychain banging and those occasional across the counter-top tosses. 

The Victorinox has a snapping clasp at one end which holds the flash memory in place. The clasp prevents the USB memory stick from popping out at an undesirable time and provides an aid in retrieving the USB connector when ready for use. The pivot end of the clasp can also be detached from the main chassis of the enclosure so the USB thumb drive can be disconnected. Although the rotation of the USB stick does provide enough room for those tight USB ports we all know about, the ability to quickly and easily disconnect the flash memory all together is definitely a bonus...and Swissbit knows this as it's a patented technology. 

The USB Victorinox comes with the classic tools needed for everyday use. The tools include scissors, filing blade with screwdriver head, 30mm knife, ball-point pen, red LED light, keychain loop and of course the USB flash memory stick. Swissbit does offer a non-tool version for airplane flight but this review doesn't cover that model. The product is 60mm x 18mm x 19mm and weighs about 1.35 ounces. Though the Victorinox requires no drivers for the MAC or PC it does come preloaded with software. The Swissbit data SecureLOCK allows you to encrypt and decrypt files and folders. 

The first time you use SecureLOCK it will walk you through a username and password setup along with a reminder question in case you forget. Once there, the SecureLOCK provides you the flexibility to encrypt the entire drive, or create partitions where they are "public" or "private" areas. SecureLOCK also includes formatting software to clean up everything but the encryption utility region (software takes 488kb of memory out of a 2MB partition), a bootable disk feature and repair utility to check for bad blocks. 

We did run into a small glitch, if the SecureLOCK icon in the desktop tray is closed it prevents the drive from being ejected. Signing back in and logging off didn't do the trick, but rather loggin in and using the Exit button of the software did. Performance wise, the USB Victorinox is middle of the road. In our informal tests of the 2GB version, it took about 6 minutes to write a 400MB folder of mixed file types from our PC to the device. It took about 35 seconds to read the same data back to our PC, but of course results will vary depending on the system running the device and the types of files being transferred.

Tech News to Help You Make Better Buying Decisions

The technology world is a fun and ever changing world. Today, there are literally thousands of products in the marketplace. We are simply swarmed by the sheer number of products that we can choose from. And these are not big ticket items. They could be just small little gadgets like a mobile phone, a portable printer, or a digital camera. Of course, if you have the budget, a seemingly small item may end up costing you a small fortune. 

When making a buying decision, you need to be discerning enough to strike a balance between the price and your own needs and wants. One way to achieve this balance, is to rely on technology news to help you come to a better decision. How technology news can help you. Make a quick visit to any technology news website. There are a plethora of tech sites out there on the Internet. Some are well established websites (think CNET), and others are run by small publishers. Both have their merits. A big publisher usually releases tons of tech related news on all sorts of products. 

The problem is, due to the huge scope of coverage, the focus is usually diluted. You will find different types of content - reviews, product releases, specifications, etc. Some of these content are written by paid tech writers, so there is a commercial element involved. Perhaps some writers are more inclined to write positive things about the products? Maybe. Smaller publishers tend to be more focused, and they usually release news on hand picked products only. 

Being small, they can't possibly cover everything under the sun. So it's a wise strategy to adopt. Often, you find articles that are much more in depth. The owners are also more likely to be very passionate about the tech products they are writing about. When buying a tech gadget, you usually pay more for newer technology. The important here is to remember that everything new comes with a much heftier price tag. The technology may not be necessarily better (e.g. buggy since it's new), but you still end up paying substantially more for the product anyway. If you want to save some money, just be patient. Keep browsing the tech news to keep yourself abreast of the changes. For instance, how is the technology improving? What are others saying about the brand new gadget? If you read nothing but great reviews on the product, that is a good sign.

Nokia 3610 - A Stylish Gadget!

Nokia 3610 is a stylish and fold quad band GSM handset featuring 1.3 mega pixel camera, mp 3 player, MicroSd card and Bluetooth technology. It also incorporates much advanced version MIDP Java 2.1 of Java based applications with flash light and additional APIs. Features of Nokia 3610 This handset runs on the platform of Nokia OS. The interface is quite user friendly. 

The overall user memory that is made available by this mobile device is of 30 mega bytes; however one can also increase this storage space by purchasing external memory card further. This phone offers huge options for communicating through messaging such as IM, SMS, MMS and SMIL. The users can also send e-mails; the protocols used are IMAP 4, SMTP and POP3. The battery BL 5C 3.7V with the amperage of 1020 mAh is integrated in this outstanding panel that offers the GSM talk time of 4.5 hours while in standby mode, the device can run for 19 days, that is really cool. 

For personalization of handset, several themes, screen savers and beautiful wallpapers have been also provided under the Extra option of mobile phone. Most importantly, an HTML browser is also integrated in this unit that makes use of transmission control protocol for transferring or downloading files from internet. However, a nokia web browser is also introduced for the convenience of customers. The regional availability of this gadget has been announced in Europe, China, India, North Africa, Middle East, Asia pacific and Africa. 

The frequency bands supported by GSM networks are GSM 1800, GSM 1900, GSM 850 and GSM 900. Data bearer technologies incorporated in this design are HSCSD, CSD, GPRS and EGPRS. This is not the end of list; rather it is equipped with more features like flash light, OMA multimedia messaging service, OMA device management, DRM delivery report and Digital rights management.

Samsung M8800 - Innovative Gadget!

With high definition features and stunning look, Samsung M8800 is a well designed handset that comes loaded with a touch screen interface. The vivacious TFT 3.2 inches display screen with the support of about 256 thousand colors renders the pixel resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. The vibrant and high quality touch screen would allow the customers to see videos and enjoy games without any hassle. The light weight handset weighs about 121 gm with slender dimensions of 107 x 54 x 13 mm making it a pocket friendly mobile phone. 

Major features of Samsung M8800 For guaranteeing wider network coverage, both 2G as well as 3G technologies are acquired by this handset including the frequency bands of GSM 1900, GSM 1800, GSM 850 and GSM 900 and HSDPA 2100. The resistive TFT touch screen display supports about 256 thousand colors and uses the resolution of 240 x 400 pixels. The integration of accelerometer sensor makes it possible to rotate the unit in desired modes whenever viewing the photographs. 

 For the personalization of the gadget, various mp3 as well as polyphonic ring tones have been embedded in the set. Moreover, one can also download other attractive ring tones from internet through the support of inbuilt web browser. The internal memory of 200 mega bytes can be extended by incorporating external memory cards up to 16 giga bytes. Various data technologies integrated in this handset are GPRS class 10, EDGE class 10, HSDPA 7.2 mbps and wireless Bluetooth technology with the latest version v2.0 with A2DP. 8 mega pixel camera with various additional options has been incorporated in the design that are highly significant for improving the picture quality. 

These are WDR (wide dynamic range), image stabilization, blink and smile detection, face detection and geo tagging. One can also record high quality videos in WVGA at the rate of 30 frames per second and QVGA display at the rate of 120 frames per second. Various other options are inbuilt web browser, multimedia messaging, FM radio with RDS capability, Java applications, voice memo, voice dialing and many more.