Gear Review: IntoCircuit 13,000 mAh Power Castle Portable Battery

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Back in October 2014 I reviewed the IntoCircuit 11200 mAh Power Bank. Today we are looking at IntoCircuit’s 13000 mAh Power Bank.

Not much has changed aesthetically for the IntoCircuit power bank. The body of the battery has a nice brushed aluminum finish which measures 5.1″ X 0.9″ X 3.1″.

It might be a little too bulky to keep in your pocket, however it will fit nicely in your backpack, messenger bag, or purse. At the end of the power bank you will find a durable rubber face with a 1 Amp USB charging port, a 2.1 Amp USB charging port, and the MicroUSB port to recharge the power bank. Instead of a “four dot” capacity readout, you get a nice LED status bar showing your power bank’s charge percentage!

Also on board is an LED flashlight that does a pretty good job lighting up the night. The Intocircuit 13000mAh power bank comes with a nice velvet bag to keep the aluminum finish from getting scratched.

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Review: The North Face Surge II – Laptop Toting Rugged Backpack

The North Face makes some of my favorite camping and hiking gear, so I was really looking forward to trying out their Surge II backpack, which was designed to tote around up to a seventeen inch laptop. How does an adventure gear company fare when making a laptop bag? Let’s take a look…

Shop the Surge II on Amazon.
More info on North Face products.

SanDisk Reveals 200GB MicroSD Card, But Can Any Phone Use It?

We continue to see a battle between hardware and cloud solutions for how our data should be consumed. It’s great if you’ve got all your data backed up online, but if you don’t have an internet connection, having locally stored files is tremendously helpful.

As multimedia and gaming gets more storage intensive, popping in a larger memory card is becoming an attractive solution for those phone owners that have the capability to upgrade their storage. Now SanDisk is showing off the largest memory card on the market with their 200GB Ultra MicroSD.

Of course having HUGE storage isn’t particularly helpful if you have slow transfer speeds. SanDisk claims their card will be good for up to 90MB per second data transfer, which means you should be able to fill the whole card up in under 40 minutes on a solid USB 3 card reader. That speed is really helpful for app and camera performance, and is one of the reasons why Google does not provide memory card slots on the Nexus, to guarantee system performance. Sorry prospective Samsung Galaxy S6 shoppers… No memory card slot for you either…

While this is exciting, we’re still not entirely sure how well this card might work with phones that only outright support card capacities up to 64GB or 128GB. Also, having the biggest storage on such a tiny card means stepping up to a really big price tag. This Ultra Card will sell for $399, or four times the price of Sandisk’s $128GB Ultra card.

Being on the bleeding edge doesn’t come cheap. You can read SanDisk’s full press release below.

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Review: BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer – Police Grade Results – Stay Safe While Drinking

The BACtrack Mobile is an interesting addition to our line up of health and safety accessories. Like a fitness tracker, it gives detailed reports on your blood alcohol level, and it pairs with your phone for easy to read results while tracking your drinking over time. I took the BACtrack out for a night on the town, and here are my experiences using it!

Shop the BACtrack Mobile on Amazon.
More info on BACtrack products.

Gear Review: iClever Dual USB Car Charger

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A new year means new gadgets! Keep those new shiny gadgets charged on the go with iClever’s car charger. As you know by now, we don’t do un boxings. So let’s get right into it!

Right out of the box, you will notice the iClever car charger is very light and is very compact with a nice modern design to it. It measures 1.34″ x 1.34″ x 3.25 which is perfect for storing it in your backpack, purse or pocket. There is a warranty card so make sure you fill it out and send it to the manufacturer just in case something does happen to the charger. A instruction manual is included with the charger for those who may be “tech challenged”. The iClever car charger does not come with a USB cable however I am sure you have an extra USB cable laying around or you could pick one up.

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The iClever has not one charging USB port, but two! You should have no problem charging two devices at the same time while you are on your travels. One USB port is a 1A and the other USB is 2A, the latter capable of charging tablets. There is an LED light under the USB ports that let you know your devices are firmly connected and charging. I was able to charge my Lumia and IntoCircuit PC11200 Power Bank with no issues whatsoever.

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If you are looking for a well built, inexpensive car charger that performs exceptionally well, I highly suggest picking up iClever’s Car Charger!

Pick up the iClever Car Charger today!  Continue reading “Gear Review: iClever Dual USB Car Charger”

SomeGadgetGuy’s Favorite Finds from CES 2015

CES this year saw a tremendous number of “evolution” announcements. There weren’t any mind-blowing reveals, but we saw an entire industry looking to iterate and improve on products far faster than previous entries into new territory. Where wearable tech and home automation were buzzwords last year, we saw real practical application this year.

Every show, my goal is to find something I think is cool. It might not be the most practical, or revolutionary, but I want to see a company try something different, something novel. Here are a few of my favorite finds from this year’s show floor!

Click on ANY of the pics below to watch our video coverage from the show floor!

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KickStarter Watch: Andromium Wants to Turn Your Phone Into a Desktop PC

We keep seeing the promise of this never completely fulfilled. Docking a phone into a tablet or a laptop shell. Running custom versions of Linux to reorganize the UI for a more PC like experience when plugged into a larger screen.

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Kickstarter project Andromium thinks they have the solution for using your phone as the brain of a home computing environment. A simple cradle connects to PC peripherals, and custom software borrows the more successful elements of OSX and Windows for a familiar PC look.

With our phones becoming more and more powerful, the idea of a ubiquitous data experience doesn’t seem too far fetched, and the lead designer of this project was formerly a Senior Engineer at Google. The project already looks like it’ll be compatible with several Samsung phones, with more handsets to follow. Best of all the dock doesn’t look like it’ll be prohibitively expensive if the project is funded with an expected retail price of $39.95.

Andromium (Kickstarter)

Pro Gear Review: Kamerar VF4+ Universal LCD Viewfinder for DSLR and Mirrorless Cameras

Shooting video. Using your LCD to compose stills. Outdoor photography can be challenging in direct sunlight. Kamerar’s VF4+ uses brackets and rails to isolate your LCD screen, protect it from the sun, and provide a little extra magnification to insure you land your focus. Let’s take a look!

Shop the VF4+ on Amazon.
More info on Kamerar products.