Circuit Central

The MviX MV-500U multimedia player is an all in one entertaiment device that plays music, photos as well as movies on a television. It allows high definition component output as well as standard RCA and S-Video. Upon receiving the Mvix multimedia player, I was pleasantly surprised that the unit is much smaller than I had pictured in my mind. Installation of a hard drive in the multimedia player was dead easy. ..simply remove the side panel, insert a HDD of your choice and connect the cables, put the side panel back on and away you go. A spare 250GB HDD was installed into the multimedia player and it wasn’t long before I was ready to transfer some files over.

Transferring files is an easy process since the multimedia player is a plug and play device. I do suggest that you connect the player into a USB 2.0 port as transferring large files can take a while if you’re using USB 1.0. A neat feature of the Mvix multimedia player is that it allows you to copy over an entire DVD movie’s contents into the HDD and it will preserve the special effects, menus and extras. I began transferring a range of movies, pictures and Mp3 to test the multimedia player’s capabilities. It played all the files flawlessly without any hiccups and it was nice to see that the sound quality was good due to the fact that the multimedia player supported optical output. The mv-500u contains a built in FM transmitter to transmit sound to a number of choices of FM frequencies. This is handy for in car installations where the multimedia player can be connected to a optional car pack.

Overall, a great multimedia player due to its versatility and features. Firmware updates can be obtained for free from the eUnicorn website to support the latest file formats and codecs. the MviX mv-500U multimedia player is a great addition to the living room!

LED lights seem to be used in everything these days from mobile phones, PDA’s as well as computer cases. The reason? They are bright and use very little power. The next step was taken in introducing LED technology into the everyday PDA stylus to allow the user to conserve power by using an in-built LED in the tip of the PDA stylus. This means the PDA’s backlight dones’t need to be on allowing for extra operating time by conserving the battery. The iPaq PDA LED stylus comes in different colours of orange, green and white as well as for some Palm PDA models. Overall, a great gadget to replace those missing styluses or as a spare.

The last thing you want is being stuck doing nothing without your music because your iPod mini has ran out of charge. iPods are great, but with the increasing memory capacity and features, the demand on the battery is quite high. While Apple have their own battery replacement program, it is quite expensive and you will need to send them your iPod - meaning you’ll go for weeks without your music!. For the DIY inclined, in comes the iPod Mini battery. Its easy to install, no soldering is required, has all the non scratch tools required to unassemble the ipod and is rated at the same capacity as the original (rumors has it that a higher capacity ipod mini battery may be available in the future. There’s also other replacement batteries for the iPod family such as the iPod photo and 3rd gen iPods.

The DKU-2 data cable is actually a bit of an oldie, being around for quite some time now. However, people are always asking what the difference is between the aftermarket and original Nokia branded data cable. The simple answer is nothing (except for the price difference). It is true that some older data cables did not support Nokia’s free software - Nokia PC Suite, however this DKU-2 data cable is completely compatible. The same applies to the DKU-5, CA-42 and CA-53 data cables.

Installation was a cinch and I was soon ready to upload/download logos, ringtones, games, snaps taken from the phone’s camera and editing my address book (using a computer keyboard to edit my address book was much easier!). The DKU-2 data cable also allows the use of your mobile phone as a GPRS modem to access the Internet. At this current time of writing, the following models are compatible with the DKU-2 data cable: Nokia 3230, 3300, 6170, 6230, 6230i, 6235, 6255, 6260, 6630, 6650, 6670, 6680, 7270, 7600, 7610, 7700, 7710, 9300, 9500.

I was getting sick of entering data on my PDAs the old and slow fashioned way. Somehow, using an on-screen keyboard with keys only about 5mm wide didn’t seem right to me. Solution? The Xema/Chainpus Bluetooth Keyboard. I’m glad these Bluetooth PDA Keyboards came into the market as entering data is one of the worst things I hate about PDAs. I have road-tested the older IR keyboards, but Infra Red is old technology and is being superceded with bluetooth. The bluetooth keyboard was much more easier to setup since it did not require a line of sight with the PDA. I did not test the full range of the bluetooth keyboard, but I could place the PDA about 2 metres away and the keystrokes would still register. Besides, why would I need to place the PDA any further? My eyes would have trouble seeing what’s on the screen before the bluetooth range even reached its limit.

It’s a full QWERTY keyboard and foldable to a compact size. I liked the fact that it came with a bonus carry case too and unlike the old IR keyboard, this one had a LED status indicator that tells you the bluetooth status (dicovery mode/connected) so you know what’s going on. The Circuit Central Smart bluetooth keyboard is a must for any business user or for those (like me) who hate the on-screen keyboard.

Order your Circuit Central Smart Bluetooth Keyboard

The Memphis portable hard drive is a sleek and unique looking device. Made of aluminium, it is extremely durable and assists in reducing heat. No more messy A/C power adaptors as it draws power from the USB port. High speed USB 2.0 data transfer at blistering speeds of up to 480Mbps and is backward compatible with USB 1.0 and 1.10. What makes this portable hard drive unique is its excellent one of a kind design and docking cradle that comes included for fast and mess free data transfer. The Memphis portable hard drive case requires a standard 2.5″ notebook hard drive or one can be installed for you from a choice of 40GB, 60GB or 80GB.

I have other HDD cases, but this one is just so damn cool looking. Portable hard drive storage has never been more attractive!

Order your Memphis USB 2.0 2.5″ Portable Hard Drive with Cradle

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.

Order your XDA II, XDA IIi High Capacity Battery

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