I’m a big fan of high-end headphones and jumped at the opportunity to review Denon’s C820 ear candy. Just the specs alone made me want to pull up my most sublime musical selections.
What is it?
The Denon C820s are “dual-air compression” dual wired earbud type headphones that fit snugly and deliver sweet, sweet music into your ear-holes.
Hardware Specs
Impedance – 16 ohm
Sensitivity – 115 dB/mW
Frequency response – 4-40,000 (Hz).
Maximum power input – 250 mW
Weight – 10.4 g (not including cable)
Aluminum, die-cast resin construction
What’s in the Box?
C820 Headphones
Rubbery earphone holder
Four extra ear tip pairs of various sizes
Instruction manual
Cord clip
Design and features
The C820 headphones arrived in blue and white boxing nestled into a rubbery-feeling holder. A number of different size ear tips are included.
I tried several pairs and decided the default memory-foam ones were the most comfortable and provided the best sound isolation. I was a little worried that the angled metal bits that the cords connect to would cause some discomfort, but I was pleasantly surprised. No problem there. Please excuse my scruff.
The cords are heavy duty and should hold up well for years of being tossed into my pockets or day bag. These headphones FEEL sturdy. They are metal and have some decent heft to them. Rapid head movements might make them pop out, but I had no troubles even when using them while mowing the lawn. I used the cord clip for a bit of added security, Good sound isolation means I can keep the sound at a safe level even with the mower blades engaged. The 1/8″ stereo jack is narrow enough to fit into most cases without the need of an adapter.
I pulled up a relatively eclectic parcel of tunes. Music of the Koto, Eric Clapton, Handel’s Messiah, and Kenji Kawai’s “Making of a Cyborg” from the 1995 Ghost in the Shell anime film were a few of my choices.
These headphones are impressive. Even at reasonable volumes the bass booms. In fact, I had an odd sensation during a particularly bass-filled passage. The specs indicate full spectrum sound down to 4Hz and Denon wasn’t kidding. These headphones produce sound you can feel. You know that sternum-vibrating bass you feel when you go to a live concert? These headphones gave me that bass-shaking felling in my ears that I expected to feel it in my torso. Delicious!
Treble is also well-represented with crystal-clear highs. I was easily able to pick out tiny details featuring the triangle in the percussion section of orchestral pieces.
Great sound, tough construction, and good sound isolation, what more could one ask?
What I like
Metal construction
Tough cords
Extremely wide frequency response
Comfortable
What needs to be improved?
Nothing. These headphones are works of art.
Final thoughts
While testing these headphones, I accidentally bumped the volume bar while listening to Family Force 5’s “Put Ur Hands Up.” I actually scared myself! I felt the same way I did as a kid when I visited the stereo section in the department store and turned on a stereo to find someone had spun the volume knob all the way to the upper limit and everyone in the entire store knew some unsuspecting chump had punk’d.
I’ve been a long-time fan of balanced-armature headphones with their flat frequency curves, luscious bass, and crisp highs. For many years my Etymotic ER-4 headphones have been my go-to choice. I believe Denon’s C820 headphones with their comfortable fit and “dual air-compression” drivers may have usurped my beloved ER-4s as my new audio buddy.
Price: $159.00 and worth every penny Where to buy:Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Denon.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
These days, our phones are an extension of our daily lives, and we take them with us everywhere we go. I am no exception, and when in my car, I usually lay mine on my center console/armrest and just have the charging cable draped wherever and plugged into my USB power jack. Whenever I need to glance at my phone, it has been an issue since I would either quickly glance down at my center console while driving, or grab the phone as soon as I am at a traffic light or stop sign. While many dash mount phone holders are available, my issue has been that I have always hated fiddling with the buttons that need to be depressed to remove the phone, or fiddling to depress the phone correctly in the holder to engage the manual mechanism to lock it in securely. The VAVA-Touch Phone holder aims to resolve these issues, so, let’s see how it did.
What is it?
VAVA E-Touch Phone Holder for Car, Electric Auto Lock iPhone Mount, is a dash mountable cell phone holder that electronically manages to secure and release your phone.
What’s in the box
1 x Phone Holder
1 x Micro USB Cable
1 x Instruction Booklet
Design and features
This is a typical vehicle cell phone holder, with a suction cup at the bottom, that in this design is secured by pressing the base onto the dash and turning the gray colored part of the base clockwise to secure and counter-clockwise to release. At the bottom part of the holder mechanism, there are two ports, one USB, and one micro USB. The micro USB port is used to power/charge the battery that is built into the holder, and the regular USB port can be used to power/charge your cell phone or any other USB accessory. The built-in battery means that once charged, the holder can operate and charge your device without being plugged into a power source.
Just below the phone holder, there is the arm that holds the phone holder mechanism, that can be extended to move the phone and holder closer to you or further away from you.
To the right and left of the ports, you will notice a “bulge” on the surface of each side. These “bulges”, are actually the touch-sensitive areas that disengage the arms of the holder to release the phone. When the phone is placed in the holder, the arms automatically and electronically close. This is accomplished by the pressure that is placed on the back of the holder when the phone is inserted. The picture below shows the accessory charging cable plugged into the bottom of the holder. This cable can be used to charge any accessory that can be charged via USB, or to power any such device.
VAVA E-Touch Phone Holder mounts to the dash or windshield if so desired. The following picture shows the side view of the holder, mounted to my dash with both the power cable and my iPhone lightning cable attached. On the top of the arm behind the holder is the knob that secures or releases the extension arm.
To the right of the top knob is another knob that releases and secures the arm so that you can raise or lower it to the desired position.
This next picture is just a front facing view, with the cables attached. This is what you see from the Driver’s perspective before you attach the phone. Notice the gray pad at the surface of the back of the holder. That surface is the pressure pad that is engaged when you place your phone into the holder. The pressure on the pad activates the arms to securely close onto the sides of your phone
Once the phone is seated in the holder, the securing arms automatically close. In the following picture, I have my iPhone in the holder, with the lightning cable attached to charge the phone.
What I like
I like that the holder mounts in a very sturdy way to the dashboard, and when I tested it while driving on very rough NYC roads, the vibration was minimal. It is well built, and the electronic mechanism for opening and closing the securing arms works well.
What can be improved
What can be improved and what is my biggest disappointment with this holder, is that QI wireless charging is not built-in. The ability to place my phone in the holder, and have it charge wirelessly would make this a 5-star review.
Final thoughts
The VAVA E-Touch Phone Holder for Car, Electric Auto Lock iPhone Mount is a well-made mount, and it adds ease and convenience to secure your cell phone to the dash or windshield while maintaining it within proximity for easy viewing and access. The fact that it stays well secured to my dashboard and is not very affected by vibration makes it easy and practical for me to use. I currently have it installed in my car, and I use the charging port to power/charge my iPhone. I do believe that I will continue to use it at least until one with QI wireless charging is available. However, I am not convinced that the convenience of the powered security arms makes it a great value at its current price point when compared to other available holders that while not powered, are much cheaper.
Price: $29.99 Where to buy: Amazon Source: The sample for this review was provided by VAVA.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
It’s hard to get the same movie-watching experience at home as you have at the theater. Some things are better at home (cheaper popcorn, more comfortable seats, no talking strangers), but other aspects, like ambient lighting, are more difficult to control. Room lights can wash out the TV screen, but watching in a dark room can cause eyestrain and means bathroom trips without those neat little pathway lights theaters have.
Dr. Andrew Weil describes an experiment that determined people experience less eyestrain when they watched a movie against a lighted wall. I don’t know about your setup, but there’s no room behind my TV for a lamp to light the wall. A lot of ingenious companies have come up with LED light strips that attach to the back of the TV to wash the wall with light. Some of these are static lights of a single color, but some companies have come up with systems to wash the wall in moving colors that match what’s on the TV screen. The Gadgeteer was recently offered the chance to review the Minger LED Smart TV Backlight kit with Camera which promises to wash the walls with moving colors. Since I was already looking for a backlight for my TV, I asked to be given the chance to review the Minger kit. Let’ see how it works.
What’s in the box?
The first component is the 8.5 feet of LED strip lights. This kit is sized to fit a TV with a 55″ – 65″ screen. They also offer a kit for a 46″ – 55″ screen. I received the larger kit for my 65″ Samsung TV. The strip was nicely coiled around this film reel, so there were no kinks. The back of the strip has a press-to-stick adhesive to make applying it to the TV simple. It’s actually three strips of lights, with permanent connectors already joining the strips. This makes fitting it around the corners at the sides of the TV a snap.
The controller box also has adhesive on the back to attach it to your TV. There are three connectors on the box. Two USB connectors attach it to the camera (on top of box) and to the light strip (bottom of box). You also attach the included AC power supply to the bottom of the box.
Please note that the seller calls this the Minger system, but some of the components are marked iHoment, and the controller app is called iHomentLight.
Instead of reading signals through the TV’s HDMI cable, and thus limiting the equipment it can work with, the Minger system attaches a camera to the top of the TV to “see” what’s on the screen. The stand attaches to the TV with an adhesive base. The camera plugs into the iHoment controller attached to the back of the TV.
These four red cards are used for calibrating the Minger system. They have adhesive strips on the back so you can attach them to the four corners of the TV’s screen. They remove without leaving behind a residue.
Lastly, you’ll get a detailed set of installation instructions. The included paper tape measure is needed for installation. You’ll use it to find the middle of the top of the TV so you can apply the strip lights evenly on the top and sides of the back of the TV.
Setup
The installation guide has illustrations and instructions in three languages for each step. You first find the midpoint of the top of the TV, and center the long strip to the top using the adhesive back. The short strips attach to the sides, with the end with the USB plug on the right side (as you face the back of the TV) and the end with no connector on the left side.
The adhesive on the strips attaches easily with light finger pressure. The back of my TV isn’t smooth plastic; it has thin, raised lines on the surface. I’ll need to periodically check it for a while to be sure it’s sticking well to the textured surface over time.
I couldn’t move the TV far enough from the wall to get a great picture, but you can see the installed light strips from this angle.
The pictures on the manufacturer’s website show the controller box beautifully centered on the TV, but I can’t do that with my TV for two reasons. First is there’s a bunch of connectors and plugs in the center of my TV, and they are hidden behind a removable door. Secondly, my TV has a cable guide system to hide all the cables so nothing is visible below the TV. I need to guide the power cable over to one of the TV’s legs so I can conceal it with the rest of the cables. I’ll probably end up just using some 3M Command cable guides to run it down the back of the leg and behind my media cabinet.
This is the camera adhered to the top center of the TV. I was really unhappy at first about having something sticking up off the TV in front of my picture my daughter painted for me, but the camera is pretty discreet.
Here’s the TV with everything installed and ready for calibration. I turned off the TV and left on the room lights so the camera could “see” the color of the calibration patches, as instructed. I pushed the TV and media cabinet back into place so the TV would be lighted as it normally is in my living room.
I downloaded the iHomentLight app from the Apple App Store to my iPhone 7 Plus. (The app is designed to fit the iPhone screen, but it will run on the iPad, if needed. There’s also an app for Android.) After connecting to the iHoment controller via Bluetooth, I was able to select the calibration setup from the app. The app walks you through every step of calibration.
During calibration, the lights blink and change. When calibration is complete, the backlights turn to steady green.
I’m ready to start watching TV!
Performance
This is how my living room normally looks while I watch TV. I turn off all the other lamps in there because they cause screen glares and reflections. I leave on the lights flanking the TV so we can see if we need to leave the room. It’s okay this way, but the two lamps can be a bit harsh, even when I dim them. The lede photo (at the top of this review) shows my TV with the Minger lights in use.
By the way, the images you’ll see in photos and in the short videos are from Thor: Ragnarok, Annihilation, and episodes of the Supernatural TV show.
There are three modes for the light strips. First up is the Color mode. This allows you to choose a color by selecting one of the pre-selected colors or by scrubbing the slider bar to choose a custom color from the gamut.
For this picture, I choose the static red color, with the brightness setting maximized. I wouldn’t use red, but the static color is a nice way to add some light to the room without using those lamps to the side of the TV. If I were going to use static, I’d select a blue and dim it down a bit.
By the way, my living room is painted a medium blue. This color will impact the appearance of the colors the Minger system is shining onto the wall behind the TV. They will differ from the actual color and brightness you’d see against a white wall.
The next mode is Video. This mode uses the camera to monitor either Part of the screen (the edges) or All of the screen to select the colors for the strips. With All selected, the camera seems to select the color in the center (from left-to-right) of the screen, about a third of the way down from the top to use for all of the lights on all three strips. With Part selected, the camera monitors the edges of the screen and selects different colors for the various positions of the light strips, so it seems the color is bleeding off the TV screen onto the wall. Part monitoring is shown in the above video. All other clips for the Video mode show All monitoring.
You can also choose Dynamic or Mild for the speed of the color changes. The Dynamic changes are quick and abrupt – suitable for action movies, especially. The Mild changes are slower and less abrupt. Again, I’ll try to show this in videos.
Something I noticed that didn’t depend on the settings in Movie mode was that the color changes seen on the wall lagged a bit behind the color changes on the screen. (I’m sure this was an artifact of the time needed for the camera to read the color, send it to the controller box, where it was evaluated, and instructions then sent to the light strips.) This was especially true when the action on the screen was changing rapidly. While I was carefully watching the performance of the Minger system for this review, I was aware of the lag. When I was just watching a show, I wasn’t really aware of the color lag. It didn’t bother me that the color on the wall didn’t match what was showing in that portion of the screen when using Part mode any more than having the entire wall washed with a single, but changing color when using All mode.
I did enjoy the changing color display on the wall behind the TV regardless of what mode I was using. I didn’t prefer the Part or All option over the other. I just liked the movement of the colors that mimicked the action on the screen.
I didn’t dislike having a single, unchanging color on the wall with the Color mode. That was actually a nice ambient light that was easy on the eyes, but I did prefer the motion of the Video mode.
You’ll notice a power button at the top of the app screen. Because the light strips aren’t plugged into the TV itself, you’ll need to open the app and turn on the lights manually each time. This also means that you can use the light strips even with the TV off. The system uses a microphone to “listen” to ambient sounds and creates a light show based on what it hears.
My video shows the color display while listening to Gary Numan’s I Am Ruin from his Savage (Songs from a Broken World) album. The lights were also just as happy to dance to the sounds of a conversation I was having with my husband. I can’t imagine what it would do at a party with music playing and a lot of people all talking at once!
I’m sure that there are many other light kits on the market that do what the Minger system does, but most of the other kits I’ve seen cost much more than the $60 this system costs. I haven’t tried any of the other systems, but I think they’d have a hard time performing so well that I’d be willing to pay a premium for them when the Minger kit does such a great job.
What I like
Easy installation
Neat installation with only one wire coming off the TV
Lots of color modes so I can customize how I like it best
Nice ambient lighting for the room without reflections or glare on the TV screen or bright lights shining in your face
Can create a light show for music without having the TV on
Could even use the kit as an accent light for the room without watching TV or listening to music
Using a camera means you don’t have to insert it into the cabling path of your home theater setup
Camera also means you can use it with older TVs without HDMI
What needs to be improved
Some people may be bothered by the slight lag in the color change, especially action movie fans
Final thoughts
The Minger kit is still installed on my TV, and it will stay there. My husband, daughter, and I all agree that the Minger LED Smart TV Backlight kit with Camera makes watching TV and movies at home more like going to the theater. It’s a keeper!
Price: $59.99 Where to buy: Amazon 20% Off Code on Amazon: WFW5U34K (Expired 07/15). Source: The sample of this product was provided by Govee for Home
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
As the “perfect earbud” search goes on, I got another opportunity to test and review a contender. Here we go:
What is it
The Kitbeez True Wireless Earbuds with Power Bank, are a pair of very small earbuds with a charging case and a built-in battery, and a removable power bank that can charge devices with micro USB, micro USB-C or Lightning jacks.
What’s in the box
1 x Pair of Kitbeez True Wireless Earbuds with Power Bank and charging case
3 x Pair for EarGels
1 x Micro USB Cable
1 x Micro USB-C Male Adapter
1 x Lightning Male Adapter
1 x Instruction Booklet
Design and features
The Kitbeez True Wireless Earbuds with Power Bank consists of a base unit that is a USB power pack, and it plugs into a charging base for the wireless earbuds. When the 2 halves are connected, the entire case measures approximately, 3 inches x 2 inches x 3/4 inch. These measurements include the top cap that covers the earbuds when they are placed in their charging case.
The base unit which is the USB power pack/charger has a micro USB connector that plugs into the charging case. This is illustrated by the pictures both above and below. The earbuds then sit in the charging case to be stored and recharged. In addition to the micro USB connector on the base unit, there is also an LED indicator that shows the charge level of the power pack, and female micro USB jack that is used to charge the base/power pack.
As illustrated below, on the front of the case on the base unit, there is a button that when depressed shows the charge level as indicated above by the blue LEDs. The back of the unit has the following imprinted information:
Model: X2-TWS
Input: 5V/1A
Output: 5V/1A
Capacity of earphone: 45mah
Capacity of charging base: 1600mah
Two additional adapters are also included with these earbuds. They plug into the male micro USB connector of the base power pack and allow you to plug in and charge any device with a micro USB-C port or a lightning port.
The picture below on the left shows a micro USB cable plugged into the base power pack to charge it.
Performance
The Kitbeez True Wireless Earbuds perform well in a few categories. The sound is decent with a good balance of lows, mids, and highs. No one frequency range overshadows the other, which is nice for earbuds that are on the relatively lower side of the price scale. The lows are acceptable but do become somewhat distorted at higher volumes. Any distortion can be easily remedied by lowering the volume a notch or two. The earbuds are very small and light and stay in your ears quite well, although I am still not convinced that they will always stay in place while sprinting across a hard surface.
The Bluetooth connection is very stable, and I only experienced disconnections when I was in an area with known interference. Charging time is great, and the earbuds’ power lasts quite long on a full charge even when played at high volume levels. The active noise canceling works, but since it is always active, I was not able to turn it on and off for a comparison. While I was able to use these earbuds for phone calls, there were times when I had to repeat myself several times because the person on the other side of the call could not hear me clearly.
In terms of music, I tested them with my usual genres of Contemporary Jazz, R&B, Reggae, Easy Listening, Gospel and “borderline” Classical, and the sound reproduction was always relatively acceptable. They are not audiophile grade by any means, but they work well for daily use while going about my business.
What I like
I like that the sound of the earbuds is decent and loud enough and that they are quite small. I also like the charging options that the base unit provides and that they seem to last a very long time on one charge of the base unit. Once properly charged, I used them for at least 2 weeks at about 1 1/2 hours each day from Monday to Friday without ever having to recharge the base unit. After the 2 weeks, I decided to charge the base unit albeit that the LEDs still showed 2 of 4 lights indicating that it was still at about 50% charged.
What can be improved
1: The earbuds have no visible markings that I can see to tell me which one is left or right, and I only know after I place them in my ears and the voice command lets me know. About 80% of the time, I had to switch them around. I did not really hear any difference in performance when they were in the wrong ear but just knowing that they were in the wrong ear compelled me to switch them around.
2: When connected the base unit to the charging case, you have to pay extra attention to the connection and fiddle with the two halves while looking at the earbuds seated in the case to ensure that they are charging. For the first few days of testing these earbuds, I just “dropped” them into their charging case and assumed that they were charging. When I went to use them, one side was “dead”. The next day, I tried leaving them to charge overnight and got the same result. After some further investigation, I found out that I had to plug the base unit in and out of the charging case a few times until it seated properly.
3: This is my biggest issue with these earbuds: With a few exceptions, almost all of the wireless earbuds that I have tested disconnect when put in their charging case. This is not the case with these earbuds. Initially, After I placed the earbuds in their charging case and tried to answer a few phone calls, I could not hear anyone on the other side of the calls. I checked to see what was wrong, and I found out that the earbuds were still connected to the Bluetooth on my phone. I tested this several times with the same result. After that, I knew that I had to physically power down the earbuds before placing them in their case to release the Bluetooth connection, or I would have to go into the settings on my phone and disconnect. Since this discovery, I have been powering them down after each use.
Final thoughts
Honestly speaking, I did not expect a whole lot from these earbuds, considering the price and some of my previous experiences. However, they work quite well for daily “runabout” use, and having the USB power pack is a great convenience since it can be used universally to charge other devices. Recommending earbuds based on sound is very risky since this dynamic is based on individual perspective and very subjective. For the cost, and the features offered, I would say that these are definitely worth a try, and are a good value.
Price: $54.99 Where to buy: Amazon Source: The sample for this review was provided by Kitbeez.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
If you’ve ever tried typing a memo or a lengthy reply to an email on your smartphone, then you’ve probably experienced that frustration of cramped fingers, getting the cursor in the right position, or wrestling with highlighting a bit of text to copy. Logitech’s KEYS-TO-GO portable keyboard is a serviceable remedy that comes with a few small hurdles of its own.
What is it?
The Logitech KEYS-TO-GO is an ultra-light, super-portable standalone Bluetooth keyboard specifically made for mobile phones and tablets.
Hardware specs
Works with all Bluetooth-enabled devices
Height: 5.39 in (137 mm)
Width: 9.53 in (242 mm)
Depth: 0.24 in (6 mm)
Weight: 6.35 oz (180 g)
Powered by rechargeable battery, a single charge lasts up to 3 months (2 hours of typing per day)
Full-Size Keyboard with sealed edges
17 mm key pitch
Scissor Keys (1.2 mm key travel)
Keys wrapped in spill-proof, crumb-proof covering
Full row of iOS shortcut keys
What’s in the box?
KEYS-TO-GO Bluetooth keyboard
Attachable phone stand
USB micro adapter
Documentation
Comes with all you see here.
Design and Features
In my initial tests with the KEYS-TO-GO, my first thought was that it was going to take a lot of time to get used to typing on it. The overall size of the keyboard is maybe 85% of the Apple Magic Keyboard that I type on every day, which is admittedly already diminutive compared to many standard PC keyboards. But boy does that little bit make a big difference.
Setup
Pairing is as easy as any Bluetooth device. After the initial pairing, the KEYS-TO-GO connects automatically upon powering on. The indicator light emits a blue light while the Bluetooth is connecting (very brief) and changes over to bright green, indicating that it has a good charge. Then the light remains off until the batter button is pressed or the battery itself starts to get low. There is no key backlight or indicator that the caps lock is enabled.
The indicator light also glows while charging over the included USB micro adapter, and emits a slowly pulsing light.
Usage
First impressions of the key travel, which is arguably the most important aspect of any keyboard… it feels similar to the Apple iPad Smart Cover keyboard. There is a decent amount of separation between the individual keys, lessened by the tension of the rubber material stretched over all of the keys. You can feel the adjacent keys dip a little bit in response to the material being depressed next to those keys. For a touch typist like myself, it certainly doesn’t feel as “clean” as typing on a regular keyboard for that reason. It feels easy to accidentally press the key next to the one you were aiming for.
KEYS-TO-GO vs. my hand.
I’m getting used to it, and it’s certainly better than many travel keyboards I’ve tried in the past. And it’s practically silent.
Being used to Apple’s Magic Keyboard that they bundle with their iMacs or the keyboard they embed in their laptops, I’m accustomed to a low profile and low travel keyboard. The Logitech’s keys are slightly lower than any of those.
Apple Magic Keyboard vs. KEYS-TO-GO
The whole keyboard feels sort of “spongy.” The home row key bumps on the F and J keys are very prominent, so that serves to realign my hand after moving them off the keys or making a strange combination.
That said, it is very well suited for travel. You can throw it in any tote bag, backpack or purse. The keyboard itself is about as thick as a newer Kindle. Thinner than an iPad or iPhone. And it’s waterproof, save for the ports on the side, so spills are no problem.
I like the function keys at the top. It’s something I miss on my iPad Smart Cover’s keyboard.
KEYS-TO-GO vs. 12.9″ Apple iPad Pro and Smart Keyboard.
Those function keys are, from left to right: – home button – app switcher – search – keyboard language selector – software keyboard show/hide – screenshot button – media keys – volume keys – Bluetooth pairing – battery
There is also an odd function key that enables a handful of extra functions, such as hitting FN-C for copy and FN-V for paste, or FN-left or right arrow for highlighting the next word in either direction. And that’s it. I would have much rather that space be utilized to make the CMD key twice as wide as it is… like I’m used to on my other keyboards.
It’s worth noting there’s no escape key. But I suppose there are not a lot of mobile apps that utilize the escape key. Even Apple doesn’t have on on their iPad Smart Keyboard.
The battery life is advertised to last for months when averaging two hours a day of typing time. However, I found that two weeks at that same pace of roughly 2 hours a day seems to drain it enough to put it in the red. It’s possible that I could have left the keyboard in the on position overnight, or over a weekend… that certainly would have done it. I will have to do more testing to see if that was the case. Still, a few weeks of life without having to recharge is excellent.
The inclusion of an attachable phone stand with the KEYS-TO-GO really positions it as a mobile phone keyboard, and that makes a lot of sense. Even with an iPad or tablet, typing in landscape format is fairly serviceable for long-form emails and documents. However, it’s not so easy on an iPhone. Being able to pull this keyboard out of your backpack or purse at a coffee shop or bookstore sounds like a great proposition on paper.
As minimal a typing experience as you can get, an iPhone with a keyboard.
However, in practice, I’m having a hard time thinking of a time or place where I’d prefer typing on the tiny screen of my iPhone vs. a laptop or tablet. If you knew you needed to type out something lengthy, then you’d probably just take something more comfortable (i.e. a larger screen) to type on. The KEYS-TO-GO does pair well with a tablet, provided you have something to prop it up with.
You do need a flat surface in front of you. Trying to type with the KEYS-TO-GO on your lap, on an iPhone, is nearly impossible.
This rubberized coating can take some abuse, too.
This keyboard seems best suited for people who want to travel super light, as in just this small keyboard and their phone, which is certainly an idea I can get behind. If only this keyboard was a tiny bit larger, or my hands were a bit smaller. Personally, most of my bags are large enough to where I could carry around an additional Apple keyboard (which only costs $20 more, new) and use that exclusively with my phone rather than deal with to the differences in key travel and key size.
What I liked:
Ultra-lightweight and portable
Spill-resistant
Phone stand is nice
What needs to be improved:
The keyboard layout is just a little too cramped for my taste
For the price, there are many fuller-sized options
Final thoughts
The KEYS-TO-GO works well in a pinch, provided you have a nice surface in front of you to type on. I’m sure I could get used to typing on it, given time, but personally, there are better solutions for me that are within the price range. I can appreciate their vision of toting this keyboard to use with your always-on-you mobile phone, so it would be easy to recommend to someone who wants to travel light and still accomplish the goal of long-form typing on their phone.
Price: $69.99 Where to buy: You can pick up a KEYS-TO-GO Bluetooth Keyboard from Logitech’s website and Amazon in black, stone gray, blush pink or smoky blue. Source: The sample of this product was provided by Logitech.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
At the bottom part of the holder mechanism, there are two ports, one USB, and one micro USB. The micro USB port is used to power/charge the battery that is built into the holder, and the regular USB port can be used to power/charge your cell phone or any other USB accessory. The built-in battery means that once charged, the holder can operate and charge your device without being plugged into a power source.
The picture below shows the accessory charging cable plugged into the bottom of the holder. This cable can be used to charge any accessory that can be charged via USB, or to power any such device.
