Home 2017

A leather Star Wars iPhone X case…Yes please

Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been out for about a week now and if you’ve seen it but still can’t get enough Star Wars goodness Hex has you covered. Their new Limited Edition leather iPhone cases feature five different iconic characters from the movies. Darth Vader, Boba Fett, R2-D2, Storm Trooper and X-Wing Fighter. There are two different case styles available, a wallet case and a snap case. Each case features a character embossed in leather on the back. The wallet case has 3-card slots, a cash pocket, and an elastic closure.

The snap case features premium leather construction, a custom molded polycarbonate case and a raised front bezel for screen protection. Inside each case, Hex printed a quote associated with each character. For example inside the Darth Vader case, it says “Together We Can Rule The Galaxy” and the Storm Trooper case has “Move Along” printed inside.

The Hex Limited Edition Leather iPhone Cases are available for the iPhone X, 8 Plus and 8. They range in price from $49.95-$69.95 and are available from Amazon.

This Intrepid Bag Co. bag holds your entire EDC kit – including an iPad Pro or laptop

The Zinnia Convertible bag converts from a backpack to a crossbody bag, but what doesn’t change is its ability to hold everything you need to carry for your day.  The Zinnia is made of rich, mahogany-colored leather, lined with a wool-blend fabric imported from England, and accented with forged steel hardware and hand-pounded copper rivets.  It’s designed wider on the bottom than the top, so it can stand up on its own.  Its strap easily converts from backpack to crossbody by simply pulling the straps into place – no unbuckling and rerouting straps required.  And the straps are padded for comfort.

The Zinnia Convertible has a padded internal pocket that holds an iPad Pro 12.9 or up to a 13″ laptop, and there’s enough space inside to hold all your other stuff – as you can see from the picture.  The front flap with interior rain flaps keeps the contents safe and dry.  There are several external pockets:  two expanding side water bottle pockets, two easy-access back pockets, and a front pocket with magnetic closure.

The Zinnia is handmade in the USA with vegetable-tanned, full-grain mahogany saddle leather and with UV-resistant marine-grade nylon stitching (used in parachute construction).  It weighs 3 pounds and measures  12.5” x 10” x 4”.  The Zinnia Convertible is $329 from the Intrepid Bag Co.

Optoma NuForce BE Free8 Bluetooth wireless earbuds review

Two words: wireless earbuds. If there has been one product one that’s absolutely exploded in the past few years, it’s probably been these little buggers. And, since Apple released their AirPods, the competition has become increasingly sophisticated. I’ve had the opportunity to review several wireless earbuds here at The Gadgeteer, and always up for trying out another if they look interesting in some way. The Optoma NuForce BE Free8 Bluetooth wireless earbuds had a few things going for them: an interesting look, a cool charging case and I’d already reviewed a few Optoma earbuds in the past and been generally impressed with them. How would the BE Free8 earbuds fare?  Let’s find out.  Gadget on!

Hardware Specs

  • IPX5 water-resistance rating
  • 4-hours of continuous, uninterrupted usage per earbud charge
  • Up to 3 extra charges from charging case for 16 hours total listening time
  • AAC and aptX® LL technologies provide high fidelity audio
  • Patented SpinFit ear tips for secure and comfortable fit
  • Activiate Siri and Google Assistant with the built-in microphone
  • NMFI (Near-Field Magnetic Induction) Technology for reliable connection between earpieces w/ 33 feet Bluetooth range
  • Weight: 1.6 oz

Packaging

The BE Free8 packaging was very sophisticated and upscale.  Outside, images and descriptions of the product.
The rear of the package had an exploded view of the guts of the earbuds, and a list of features.
The inside packaging included a quick-start style diagram, and the earbuds and battery case were snug in a black foam block, with the accessories and instruction manual underneath.

Contents

  • BE Free8 Bluetooth wireless earbuds (left and right)
  • Charging case
  • Micro USB charging cable for Charging case
  • SpinFit short earbud tips (S/M)
  • SpinFit long earbud tips (XS/S/M)
  • Instruction booklet

Features & Functions

Right out of the gate, I was impressed with the look and feel of the

The BE Free8 included two types of their SpinFit ear silicone tips, all of which are shown in the image above.  On the left are three sizes (extra small, small, medium) of longer/deeper style tips, and on the right are two sizes (small, medium) of shorter/shallower tips.  Because of my past difficulties with keeping earbuds in my ears, I went straight for the largest, deepest tips, the ones shown to the far left in the image above.

Ergonomics

Installing the earbud tips onto the bases was simple, and once installed, I played around with the best way to orient the BE Free8 in my ears.  They have an interesting form factor: a generally triangular shape, but quite rounded and with a bit of a lobed contour.  Due to this, I was skeptical that they’d fit in my ears, and if they did, that they’d stay there.  In fact, I was pleasantly surprised.  After I got the SpinFit tips into position, rotated the BE Free8 around a bit until they fit snugly into my outer ear.

Sound

The SpinFit tips didn’t really seem to be anything particularly special compared to the many other audio headgear I’d tried previously.  They are round and made of soft, compliant silicone, and in fact, I’d even tried other earphones that included both short and long tips.  However, the combination of the SpinFit tips and the overall shape of the BE Free8 and how they fit into my ears seemed to help with ambient noise blocking.  This, coupled with the AAC and aptX LL enabled the BE Free8 to them deliver some really good sound.

Phone Features & Controls

The BE Free8’s controls are limited to a single, tiny button on each earbud.  And when I use the word “tiny,” I mean it—these soft buttons are only a few millimeters in diameter.  For this reason, I found them difficult to locate when I reached up to activate one of the BE Free8 controls.  I had to basically feel my way around the earbuds until I located them.  I thought I’d get used to this after a while, but even after using the BE Free8 for several weeks, this wasn’t the case.  Additionally, I would mention that the only indication of which earbud was left or right was a tiny letter “L” and “R” on each of the tiny buttons.  These letters on the buttons were harder to read than the buttons themselves were to find while wearing them.  I found all of this to be a bit of an ergonomic fail.  The buttons themselves control such features as audio pause/play, track advance and Siri (0r Google Assistant) activation in normal mode, or answer/ignore/hang up a call when in phone mode.

Moisture Resistance

The BE Free8 touts an IPX5 standard water- and weather-resistance rating.  I can’t exactly test for strict adherence to this standard, but I can vouch for the fact that I used the BE Free8 during exercise, and they didn’t seem to be affected by the…ahem…generous amount of sweat I typically generate during a strenuous workout.  If they can pass my workout sweat test, that’s more than good enough for me.

Battery Life & Charging

 

The BE Free8 includes a sleek-looking charging case.  This case is gloss black with a bit a teardrop shape and looks to me like something a Sith Lord or ninja would favor.  Which is very cool.

The case has a flip-open, spring-loaded lid and there are two charging pockets that the earbuds fit down into, with each pocket including tiny charging contacts.

Above, the flat, ribbon-style micro USB cable has been plugged into the battery case so that the case can be charged.  There are three tiny, white LEDs that illuminate left to right to indicate the charge level of the case.  Optoma claims that the earbuds themselves will provide 4 hours of usage on a full charge, while the charging case adds an addition 3 extra earbud charges for a total of 16 hours of battery life between the earbuds themselves and the charging case without having to recharge anything.  I think that’s theoretically possible, but this brings me to a difficulty that I had with this product, which I detail below.

When I placed the earbuds into their charging pockets and closed the lid, I was never quite sure that the earbuds were fully seated onto the charging contacts, even with the lid closed, which should have pushed the earbuds down and held them onto the contacts securely for charging.  The result was that I don’t think the earbuds were always being charged while in the charging case, which limited the battery life of the earbuds.  After analyzing the situation, I think that this was caused by the use of the largest, longest earbud tips.  The size of these tips seemed to make the earbuds more difficult to insert into their charging pockets—they didn’t seem to fully seat, even with the lid closed, which may have prevented the earbuds from charging.  If using any of the shorter and/or smaller earbud tips, this didn’t seem to have been a problem at all.

Bluetooth Connection

Initial pairing of the BE Free8 to my iPhone 6 Plus was quite simple.  Pressing each of the tiny earbuds and holding for about 6 seconds put them into pairing mode.  I then just selected “BE Free8” and boom, they were paired.  However, they did not seem to want to remain paired.  About every third time I removed the earbuds from their charging case, they needed to be re-paired with my iPhone all over again.  This became very annoying.

Optoma touts Near-Field Magnetic Induction (NFMI) technology for a reliable connection between the earbuds, with a range of at least 33 feet, and I did find that to be the case.  Aside from a second or two of unexplained static here and there, I very seldom lost connection with my iPhone, and I don’t recall ever losing the connection between the left and right earbuds.

Positives

  • Slick battery charging case–looks cool
  • Earbuds fit pretty well (in MY ears at least)
  • Good sound, decent ambient noise blocking

Negatives

  • I had to re-pair them often
  • Largest size earbud tips got caught in the charging case and kept flipping inside out
  • Battery case sometimes didn’t seem to charge the earbuds

Final thoughts

The Optoma NuForce BE Free8 Bluetooth Wireless Earbuds were a bit of a mixed bag for me.  I found their high gloss black styling to be very cool looking, including both their battery case as well as their charging case.  Speaking of the charging case, it seemed to generally work well, but occasionally one or both of the earbuds would not charge fully, I suspect due to the lid not completely closing.  Their sound was good, and they held a charge for a very serviceable amount of time, even longer using their battery charging case.  They fit fairly well in my ears, provided that I was able to get them positioned just right, but I did have to re-adjust them occasionally, and I also had to re-pair them more often than I would have liked.  Overall, the Optoma NuForce BE Free8 Bluetooth Wireless Earbuds have great styling, good feature set and sound, but at $149.00 they seem a bit pricey considering their shortcomings.

Price: $149.00
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Optoma.

Waterfield Design Ranger iPhone X Case review

Hailing from San Francisco, Waterfield is known for their unique approach to bag & accessory design. Their products are *just* a bit different from what you’d expect. Take the Ranger iPhone X Case, for instance. It’s a beautiful full-grain leather case… but there is a lot more going on under that rugged exterior. Let’s go check it out! 

What is it?

The Waterfield Ranger iPhone X Case is a full-grain leather holster-style case for your iPhone. It’s specifically designed to the iPhone X specifications but will work for an iPhone 6, 7, or 8. An iPhone 7 Plus/8 Plus size is also available. I’m using an iPhone 6s for all the pictures you’ll find in this review.

Design and features

The first thing you’ll notice about the Ranger is the use of a magnetic Fidlock snap closure on the cover flap. The “male” end on the flap automatically snaps into the “female” receptacle on the case when it drops in place and is opened by pulling down on the tab. I love Fidlock hardware. It’s great for  one-handed release, but keeps the cover tightly secured when not in use.

Once you’ve opened the flap, you’ll find an ultrasuede-lined pocket for your phone. Contoured edges and open sides make it easy to slide your phone in-and-out with one hand, even if you have meaty fingers. There’s also a second pocket on the front face for small items like cash or your earbuds, but you won’t want to keep any cards in there with magnetic strips (the magnets on the case will scramble them).

On the rear of the case, you’ll find the attachment clip: a beefy 4” long leather strap that snaps to the rear of the phone case via a pair of quarter-sized magnets (one mounted on the strap, and one mounted on the case). These magnets are seriously strong, powerful enough to clip the case over your pants top, your jeans pocket, or even an open exterior pocket on your bag. I’ve been attaching the case to the exterior pocket of my Saddleback Mountainback gear bag, and it’s still super-secure despite all that heavy waxed canvas. It’s great for providing you options if you forgot your belt!

Rounding out the design, there’s a slot cut out on the bottom of the cradle to allow access to your iPhone X cable port. This slot is also wide enough that it doesn’t interfere with the phone’s speakers.

The Ranger uses a full-grain distressed leather that’s just beautiful. It’s soft and supple out of the box with luxurious hand feel, and there appears to be no dye bleed after several weeks of use. It smells fantastic out of the box and, as you can see from the photos, is picking up some nice character after several weeks of use. Waterfield also offers the case in either chocolate leather (shown here) or black if that’s your preference. Personally, I think the chocolate leather shows a bit more character.

I’ve been waiting to get my hands on a Waterfield product for a review, and I’m impressed. The materials and components are all top notch. Everything is made in San Francisco in small batches, and you can see the quality craftsmanship that goes into the finished product.

Positives

  • Simple one-handed access to your phone.
  • Great soft, supple leather quality.
  • Fidlock magnetic closure automatically snaps shut.
  • Extra strong magnet clip ensures that it will stay put — even through thick fabrics.

Negatives

  • Magnets will scramble magnetic strip cards — keep them in your wallet.

Final thoughts

Holster-style phone cases have fallen out of popularity with phones getting leaner & tougher, so your relative happiness with this case will depend on your personal preference. It’s easy to operate with one hand, and the versatile clip design allows for multiple attachment points. Like all Waterfield designs, the materials and hardware are fantastic. If you like a holster style phone case, the Waterfield Ranger is just about as good as it gets.

Price: $89.00
Where to buy: Waterfield Design
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Waterfield Design.

Last chance gift ideas for shopping slackers

Are you one of those people who hasn’t even STARTED shopping yet? With less than 12 hours until Christmas, you’re either ultra brave or the world’s best slacker. Either way, it’s not too late, there’s still hope for you and everyone else in the Last Minute Holiday Shopping Club.

What’s the solution to your gift-giving woes? Gift cards! And the best part is that you don’t even need to change out of your pajamas or leave your couch to buy them if you go the digital gift card route. You can choose from Amazon gift cards, Starbucks, Google Play Store, iTunes, and many more!

Head over to Amazon, choose the store and the amount you want to spend and bing, bang, boom, your Christmas gift giving crisis will be averted!

You’re welcome. Now quit slacking and visit Amazon now.