The Grande Specchio: Beauty at a price

Let's see a show of hands: how many people have given or received LCD photo frames as gifts over the last few holiday seasons? Chances are you haven't gotten anything like Parrot's Grande Specchio. When the 10.4" high-resolution screen isn't in use, the frame doubles as a mirror, but that's not all... not even close.

It's a frame that also runs Android, provides a web browser, RSS Reader, and wifi/bluetooth photo sharing. If that sounds a bit ambitious, it is. The Grande Specchio is limited by an interface powered by a row of buttons across the top: no touchscreen here. although that helps you from putting your greasy fingers on the surface of the displey, it also makes things like the web browser virtually useless.

The Grande Specchio is at its best when it is simply the most gorgeous LCD frame to date. The bells and whistles are just that, but could help justify the $649 retail price if implemented better. If price is no object, and you want the ultimate LCD frame, then the Grande Specchio is for you.

Here's a look:

Orb Audio Classic Two Speaker Review

Full disclaimer: Speaker reviews are tricky. It is entirely subjective on our part: we don't care (or perhaps even comprehend) the importance of frequency response, timbre, etc. Also, we don't have any way for you hear the speakers in anything approaching what they would sound like in your home.

With that said, The Orb Audio speakers sound great, and have opened up our ears to focus on the finer points of audio once again. Our default speakers set here at hq is a Kilpsch woofer and stereo speakers from a few years ago. Plugging in the Orb Audio set, heck even using the left and right speakers with our existing woofer made a huge difference. The sound is fuller, and thanks to the design has a much wider stage (hey,we know some of the terms) than what you would expect from speakers this size.

In short, the $698 classic two set sounds far better than that price, and at that price, they are tantalizing for those of who have spent most of our listening time on $200-$300 sets. Orb Audio offers a free in-home trial, which is really the best way to check them out. And as noted in the video review below, don't forget this is a speaker set: you will need to connect them to your home theater receiver, and then connect your sound source (iPod, DVD, Blu-ray, etc) to that.

Root Access: G1 Impressions

Yesterday, we posted a review of the G1 from T Mobile. Jamie also had a chance to play with the phone prior to taping Root Access. Here's his first impression thoughts on the device. Oh, and you may notice the G1 creates considerably more buzzing than the iPhone on our microphone system. Sorry about that...

T-Mobile G1 Review

The quick review? No need to trade in your iPhone. The longer review? Well, first kudos to T Mobile for sending a review unit to an Apple-centric site. It would've been easy for them to pass, but clearly they're proud of their product, and there are some things they can be proud.

The best feature in which the G1 bests the iPhone is camera quality. Still photos look far better on the G1. Beyond that though, and it's hard to tell whether this is the phone's fault or the Android OS, but navigating is clunky. The biggest issues come from the home button, back button, menu button, clickable scroll wheel button at the bottom of the phone. Apple has shown that you only need one button (and maybe another for copy and paste).

It's not fair to compare the phone to the iPhone, as it's not so much a competitor, as a phone doing its own thing, its own way. Take it or leave it. It's good enough that many G1 customers who were thinking about leaving to go to AT&T for the iPhone could change their minds. I don't think many people will be trading in their iPhones for the G1 though.

We'll get a better sense of what the Android OS is capable of in the upcoming slew of other Android-based phones just around the corner.

Here's the full video review:

Snowflake Microphone Product Review

Adam Ford had a chance to give the Snowflake Microphone a try over his last two Ford's Focused podcasts. We were a little skeptical about this microphone based on mediocre ratings online. For us though, it worked great. You do have to select the microphone in audio system preferences, otherwise you're still using the built-in microphone, which could explain some of the issues other have had.

Below is the full video review, but the bottom line is, it's a solid microphone at a decent price to give you far better sound than the built-in microphone. Buy the Blue Snowflake from Amazon.