Otterbox’s new ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ cases are the best co-pilot any iPhone could ask for

On Tuesday, Otterbox released their new Solo: A Star Wars Story collection of iPhone cases in anticipation of the 2018 Star Wars film. They join the previously released Galactic Collection of Star Wars Otterbox cases as part of the companies Symmetry Series.

“You don’t have to be a scoundrel to protect your favorite co-pilot,” said OtterBox CEO Jim Parke. “Star Wars fans are getting ready to view the epic tale of their favorite smuggler, Han Solo, and now there’s a Symmetry Series that proves their allegiance.”

Cases worthy of the galaxies favorite smuggler

There are 3 different galactic designs to choose from. The “All New Millennium Falcon” featuring a shiny version of the galaxies most infamous ship, a younger goggle-wearing “Chewbacca” and “All or nothing” which displays different Star Wars symbols.

The Symmetry Series is designed to protect from both drops and bumps all in a sleek one-piece design. And easily slides into pockets and purses.

The polycarbonate case features a raised, beveled edge to protect the screen and grip along the edges.

Perfect for making the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

The cases are available for the iPhone X/8/7 for ($44.95) and 8 Plus/7 Plus for ($54.95). You can smuggle yours today from Otterbox.com.

The Gadgeteer may receive a commission on purchases made from affiliate links on our posts.

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Otterbox’s new ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ cases are the best co-pilot any iPhone could ask for originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 18, 2018 at 11:00 am.

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Aicook Blender, 15-Piece Smoothie Blender Mixer review


What is it?

The Aicook 15-Piece Blender is a portable blender that is designed to blend fruits, and vegetables, and many other ingredients that are used to create smoothies or health drinks, etc.

What’s in the box


Package contents:

1 x High torque power (Base unit)
1 x Stainless steel flat blade
1 x Stainless steel cross blade
1 x Tall Cup
2 x Short Cup
1 x Shake and take Cup
1 x Sip & seal lid
2 x Stay fresh re-sealable lid
2 x Handled lip ring
1 x Recipe guide
1 x Instruction manual
1 x Service card attachment

Design and features

The first thing that I noticed about Aicook Blender is its similarity to the Nutribullet Blender. The base unit is the same in size (circumference), height, and weight, and almost identical in design.
The cups are also very similar and of the same material, but my Nutribullet did not come with a stainless steel flat blade. The blades and housing are almost identical as well, with the exception of their weight and how solid they feel. The Aicook blades and housings feel much lighter and not as well built.

On to testing:

In my household, eating healthy is an everyday endeavor, so ingredients are always readily available. We started with the cross blade and a fruit combination of watermelons, and bananas, and within seconds the Aicook pulverized the fruit into a just about perfect drink, and it did so in a third of the time that it takes the Nutribullet to do the same job.

This was really exciting since it did the job in about 30 seconds and there was no undesired pulp to strain. We tried the same blend again with additional fruit and milk to make a milkshake, but since there is only one speed, we were unable to get the thick milkshake texture. It was either it needed to be blended more because chunks of fruit still remained, or a few seconds later, it was complete liquid.

Nevertheless, we were very happy with the way it blended our health drink mixtures.

We use a lot of almond products in our health food creations, and in many cases, we use the Nutribullet to blend almond nuts into a flour type mix, that we then use to make various dishes.

Since this was a test, we used just a small amount of almonds with the flat blade.


We blended them for about 30 seconds, and we could see the almonds being blended into a nice texture, of what we call our version of almond flour or meal. After checking the texture, we blended for 30 more seconds and it was just about done with the exception for a few almonds.

We were very happy with the mixture and we figured that it only needed about 15 more seconds of blending. We put it back on and started to blend but in about 10 seconds we heard a pop and there was a strong smell of burning rubber. Lo and behold, when we took off the cup, the rubber gear (or what seems to possibly be some composition of rubber and/or plastic) that engages to perform the blending had broken apart. This was very disappointing since otherwise, the blender performed amazingly well and handled tasks much faster than the Nutribullet.


Based on this issue, we decided not to risk any further testing.

What I like

Despite the failure of the flat blade and its housing, I really like this blender. It works at a great speed that does the blending job very quickly, and it blends to liquid form very quickly and effectively. The base unit is solid, and the set comes with all of the accessories that anyone would need.

What needs to be improved

The only complaint that I have about this blender, and it is a major one, is the quality of the blades and their supporting housings. Not only does the quality need to be better, but if it is the case that the part I received was simply defective and not a good representation of the usual quality, then the quality control needs to be much better. And, since the blender is capable of such great speeds, the ability to have a speed selector would be a plus.

Final Thoughts

The Aicook Blender has all of the potential to be a great product, and at its price point it is very competitive. While the base unit is well built, it seems that they skimped on the build quality of some of the other parts, possibly to keep the cost down. While I had the unfortunate experience of the equipment failure, I still like this blender and I may purchase a replacement flat blade (if available), and try it again.

Price: $65.99
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Aicook.

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Aicook Blender, 15-Piece Smoothie Blender Mixer review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 18, 2018 at 10:00 am.

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Baron Fig gets to the point with new Squire Click ballpoint pen

We’re no stranger to Baron Fig ’round these parts; I’ve reviewed the Confidant Hardcover Notebook, the Vanguard Softcover Notebook, and the Squire Rollerball Pen. Although I really like Baron Fig’s notebooks, I’m a bit obsessed with the Squire Rollerball Pen. Its just-right length, balanced weight, ergonomic shape and finish, and smooth writing tip all contribute to making it my daily pen of choice. Baron Fig has recently launched their Squire Click, a “clicky” variation of their original twist version. The Squire Click features an aluminum body, dimensions of 5″ x 0.35″ and a weight of 0.7oz and comes with a black ballpoint ink cartridge. Available in Charcoal and Fig Wine color schemes, the Squire Click retails for $45.00. Visit BaronFig.com for more info or to order.

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Baron Fig gets to the point with new Squire Click ballpoint pen originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 18, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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The Coach phone crossbody bag is a perfect go-to-lunch bag

Unless you’re one of those ladies who can stuff everything you need in your pockets, you probably carry some sort of bag whenever you leave the house.  When you leave for work, you probably have to carry a bigger bag to fit everything you need for your job plus the things you need for the day away.  And you probably don’t want to lug that bag around when you go out for lunch or stop off to run a couple of errands on the way home.  Having a small bag just big enough for cash, cards, and a phone tucked away in your large bag makes those quick runs easier.  Coach has a crossbody phone bag that’s perfect for those quick errands or a lunch outing.

The Coach Phone Crossbody is made of smooth leather.  Inside, it has all the functionality of a normal Coach wallet, plus it has room for a phone.  The wallet has a snap closure, as does the interior phone sleeve.  It has six card slots and a zippered pocket for cash, coins, or other small items.  The strap has a 22.5″ drop so you can wear it as a shoulder or crossbody bag.  You can remove the strap for use as a normal wallet.

Closed, the tri-fold wallet measures 7″ x 3.75″.  It can accommodate all phones up to the size of an iPhone X and Samsung S7 Edge.  It’s available in black or oxblood with light gold hardware, melon or heather gray with dark gunmetal hardware, or marine or peony with silver hardware.

The Coach Phone Crossbody is $135.00 at Coach.

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The Coach phone crossbody bag is a perfect go-to-lunch bag originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 18, 2018 at 8:00 am.

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EZVIZ ez360Pano panoramic WiFi camera review

I’ve been using home security cameras for many years now. I find that they give me peace of mind when I know I can check in at any time and from anywhere to see what’s going on when I’m not physically at home. But there’s one problem with most cameras that don’t offer a motorized pan and tilt feature. The camera’s field of view usually isn’t wide enough to let you see an entire room without setting up multiple cameras. That’s where the EZVIZ  ez360Pano WiFi camera shines. Let’s take a look.

What is it?

The EZVIZ ez360Pano is a panoramic WiFi camera with a 360° field of view and a maximum of 1344 x 1344 pixel resolution in fisheye mode.

The EZVIZ ez360Pano offers two-way audio, night vision, microSD local recording, cloud recording with a subscription (the camera comes with a 30-day free trial), and it supports dual-band WiFi 2.4GHz/5GHz.

What’s in the box?

EZVIZ ez360Pano camera
Mounting plate and hardware
USB power cable
Power adapter

Design and features

The ez360Pano camera is about the size of a tennis ball, with a metal housing around the camera lens.

There’s a microSD card slot in the base of the camera that is protected by a snap-on cover.

And there’s a micro USB connector on the base that is used for power.

The camera needs to be mounted to a wall or the ceiling using the included base plate and hardware. Unfortunately, the ez360Pano camera isn’t designed to be placed on a shelf or a window sill.

I installed the EZVIZ ez360Pano camera in a temporary location on a support beam for our upstairs banister. I would have rather installed it on the ceiling, but we have a cathedral ceiling in the main room of the house with no easy way to get to it or provide power. So I settled for the easy way out and rubberbanded the camera to the stair rail. You can just call me the MacGyver of home security cameras.

EZVIZ app


Setting up the camera is relatively quick and easy using the EZVIZ app. The app guides you through the steps of connecting the camera to your wireless network by using the QC code on the bottom of the camera and with sound. Yeah, don’t ask me about the sound part, I was really confused and surprised when the app showed that it would be using sound waves (I couldn’t hear anything) to set up the device.



Once the camera is placed and connected to the network, it will show up on the home screen of the app. The home screen shows a snapshot of the camera’s live view at app launch time. Below the snapshot is a link to the messages page and settings page.

The messages page is a list of motion detection alert thumbnails. Tapping the thumbnail image will let you view the captured video.


The app allows you to switch the view style from ceiling mount to wall mount and you can also choose from fisheye, 360 panorama and quad split screen views. The fisheye view is shown above on the right.

Turning the phone to landscape orientation enlarges the view. In this view, you can’t zoom in or anything. What you see is what you get.


This is the 360 Panorama view which I like best. The app offers a cool feature when you’re in this view. It lets you watch all the motion captured video clips one after the other for the current day and 2 previous days. It’s kind of like a time lapse of the entire day’s events. If you have a micro SD card installed in the camera, you can also view the video history which shows a timeline and red lines for different events. You can scroll through the timeline and watch the clips that way too.

When you turn the phone to landscape orientation you can see a full-screen view in 360 panorama mode. You can’t zoom using two fingers in this view.

The EZVIZ ez360Pano camera has really good night vision as you can see from the image above.

This is what the screen looks like if you choose the ceiling mount 360 panorama view mode. I’m sure this mode would look much better if the camera was actually on my ceiling…

The only viewing mode which allows you to pan and zoom with your fingers is the quad split screen view and as you can see from the image above, that mode looks pretty bad. I think each section should have a larger frame around it so you can more easily differentiate between each window.

The EZVIZ  ez360Pano WiFi camera comes with 30 days of free Cloud Play which saves the notification video clips to the cloud and also lets you watch a video montage of the current and previous day’s motion detected events.

The camera comes with a 30-day free trial of the Cloud Play service which saves the motion clips to the cloud. After the 30 days, you have to subscribe to one of their plans for each of your EZVIZ cameras if you want to store the video clips in the cloud for safe keeping. The prices are:

7 Day Playback per Camera
Save 7 days of video
$5.99/month
$59.99/year

30 Day Playback per Camera
Save 30 days of video
$10.99/month
$109.99/year

Of course, you can also use a micro SD card in the camera which will also store the motion clips.

What I like

  • I like the 360Pano’s 360-degree wide view because it lets me see a large area without needing to pan and tilt.
  • Easy camera setup

What needs to be improved

  • micro SD card is only used to store motion detection clips and not 24/7 video.
  • The app doesn’t offer the ability to block certain areas of the view from sending motion detection alerts.
  • The push motion notification alerts sent to Android devices can’t be dismissed by swiping them from the lock screen. You have to go into the app for them to disappear from the notification bar at the top of the phone’s screen.
  • The app only allows you to zoom and pan in quad view which offers four tiny windows that are hard to see on a smartphone display.
  • The app doesn’t always remember camera view mode settings.
  • Cloud Play subscription is per camera.

Final thoughts

The EZVIZ ez360Pano WiFi camera is a nice camera because it has such a wide angle view. It’s also easy to setup and does a good job of capturing motion and delivers a clear image even in the dark. The main things that I don’t like about this camera are the Cloud Play subscription service and the fact that the camera doesn’t record video to the micro SD card 24/7.

Right now there are so many security cameras on the market that it’s a buy’s smorgasbord. While the ez360Pano does offer the panorama feature which 99% of other cameras lack, the price per camera and the subscription fee per camera may take this one out of the running for a lot of potential buyers.

Price: $179.99 (Cloud Play subscription is an additional purchase but is not required)
Where to buy: Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by EZVIZ.

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EZVIZ ez360Pano panoramic WiFi camera review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 17, 2018 at 4:59 pm.

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