Circuit Central

It was about time somebody came up with a high capacity PDA battery for the power hungry XDA series PDA phones. This battery was hooked up for its initial charge and I must say, it took quite a while to fully charge up this 2400mAh monster (that’s twice the capacity compared to the original 1200mAh battery!). However, after the first initial charge, I noticed that the subsequent top up charges on the cradle was done very quickly. I had several bluetooth devices connected to the device and was making quite alot of phone calls on it as well as leaving the radio on a for almost a full day. I purposely used the device heavily and I was pleasantly surprised that at the end of a days of heavy usage, the XDAII, XDA IIi High Capacity battery was still at 80%. I also tested it out by playing a little movie clip over and over again to see how long it would last. The original 1200mah XDA battery lasted for about 3hrs while this high capacity lasted for an astounding 7hours! That’s more than double the battery life and in my opinion, this battery offers excellent value for money. The only downside (unavoidable downside I might add) is that the battery is thicker than the original - which adds extra weight to the XDA unit. However, considering the obvious benefits, this was well worth the trade off. I can can finally use the XDA to its full extent without having to constantly worry about the battery on my XDA or carry extra chargers around. A definate worthy upgrade over the standard XDA battery.

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We did a review of the GrandTec IP Camera III recently. This security WiFi camera is exactly the same in terms of the casing and majority of the features. The only difference? The lack of wires! We got our hands on one of these, hooked up the power supply and it was pretty much detected and connected to our WiFi network within 40 secs. It was all ready to go. The real test was the range. We have tested regular RF (radio frequency) spy cameras before, but the range on the GrandTec WiFi camera blows it away compared to the RF spy cameras. Through several walls, it worked perfectly without any glitches. So we decided to make it go through 3 walls…then four, it was still going strong. We then decided to make it go through a brick concrete wall plus plaster walls on top of that and that was when it started reaching its limit. It was still transmitting the signal, however the there were some slight intereference in the picture (it was no big issue really). The included security software was a great bonus that many packages out there do not come with. It had motion detection recording which converted a PC into a DVR device. All the captured video clips were all date and time stamped and filed neatly into folders for future review. It can even send an email out to alert movement has been detected and remote access can also be setup to view the camera from a remote location. Great! Overall, the GrandTec WiFi camera is the best wireless security camera we’ve encountered so far today. Not only is it practical, it was pretty cool testing this gadget out.

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I got the opportunity to test drive the new GrandTec HDTV USB TV Tuner today. The unit had an attractive design with a honeycomb look throughout the case. I was quite surprised in the size for what it can do. I connected the TV Tuner into a USB 2.0 port and it was ready to scan for channels (only to come back with no channels detected). I was expecting this as I was living in the fringe areas where reception was…well very poor (our TV antenna wasn’t indesperate need of replacement too). Anyway, I then hooked up the included external TV antenna and we were in business. All the channels were picked up and I was now watching HDTV on my PC laptop monitor. The picture quality was great (it is high definition afted all), and sound was perfect. I did notice however, that the USB TV Tuner itself got a little warm - which explains the honecomb design, but wasn’t a concern as it dind’t get too hot. Overall, a good unit and the reception problems I had was attributed to the poor reception in our area. I believe in strong signal areas, the plug-in TV antenna wouldn’t even be needed.

The GrandTec HDTV USB 2.0 TV Tuner is a great companion for laptop users to catch up on some TV while out on the road.

Order your GrandTec HDTV USB 2.0 TV Tuner