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Sennheiser HD 800 headphones here to save world

Crave UK flew all the way to Germany last week to hear what was promised to be the best headphone in the world--the greatest, most paradigm-shifting personal audio equipment man has ever seen. With his ears.

After an afternoon of listening tests at Sennheiser HQ with Professor Sennheiser himself, even Sceptical Cat (she travels everywhere with us) admitted she was close to believing the company's claim. They're the successor to the superb HD 650s, Sennheiser's new flagship headphone--Damen und Herren, the $1,400 HD 800s! … Read more

Instinct's calendar syncing put to the test

I know that it's been a while, but I did promise you last month that I would report back on my experience with the Samsung Instinct's new calendar syncing ability. I apologize for the wait, but the holidays and CES prevented me from getting an activated Instinct handset from Sprint.

Fortunately, the wait proved to be the worst thing about the experience as the new feature worked pretty much as promised. Once a review model arrived, I had to download three software updates, which took about 20 minutes, but they loaded without incident or a missed connection.

After installing the updates and syncing the phone with my CNET OWA (Outlook Web Access) e-mail, a new "work calendar" update button appeared under the calendar menu. Pressing that button synced the Instinct and my Outlook calendar in just a few seconds. The data connection cut out on my first try, but the second attempt brought success. All of my current appointments then appeared under their appropriate day with the correct time, location, and description. To get back to the calendar from the main menu, I could choose either the calendar or e-mail icons.

As Sprint promised, I was able to create a new appointment on the Instinct, which then synced back to my PC automatically. Also, I could get meeting reminders, accept or decline new appointments, and edit or delete current meetings right on the phone. Any edits made on the Instinct synced back to my PC in just a few seconds; the reverse process took a bit longer. Yet, it was a satisfying experience on the whole.

Still, there were a few quirks.… Read more

USB 3.0 will crush eSATA, FireWire

Intel demonstrated a working version of USB 3.0 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. Here's why it will make eSATA and FireWire obsolete.

When USB 3.0 is expected to hit the market in early 2010, it will have been 10 years since the now ubiquitous USB 2.0 was introduced (April 2000). The current USB 2.0 specification runs at a theoretical maximum speed of 480Mbps, and can supply power (for those looking for the hard details, you can find the USB 2.0 specification here (zip file).

According to the USB Implementers … Read more

Sennheiser's awesome--and rather expensive--HD 800 headphones

If you're someone doesn't like to pay more than $50 for a pair of headphones, look away, now. If you're someone who doesn't mind throwing down $300 for a pair of cans, you should probably look away, too. But if you've got $1,400 to burn on a sweet pair of headphones, read on because that's what Sennheiser's new HD 800 will retail for when they come out in February.

What do you get for $1,400? Well, for starters, the newly designed earcups are finished in Japanese Alcantara, which is a special … Read more

LG HBM-800 is a headset and speakerphone in one

LG seems to be leading the way in combining Bluetooth headsets with other things. The LG Decoy, for example, was one of the first cell phones to have a built-in Bluetooth headset in the back. Now at CES 2009, LG has introduced the LG HBM-800, a Bluetooth headset and speakerphone in one. This isn't new--we've seen this before in this Kyocera Portable Speaker--but we can't think of many others like this one.

On its own, the headset is like any other Bluetooth headset. It has dual microphones for echo cancellation and noise suppression, plus it has … Read more

A tale of two Delves

During its touch-screen phone marathon this autumn, Samsung left almost no carrier untouched. And that includes both U.S. Cellular and Alltel. Instead of the Behold, the Omnia, or the Eternity, both carriers opted for the Samsung Delve instead.

From the outside, both the Alltel Delve and the U.S. Cellular Delve look a lot like their touch-screen counterparts. They show some unique physical aspects, but front and center on both devices is an expansive touch screen with a vibrant resolution and a responsive TouchWiz interface.

Both handsets offer solid mid-range feature sets that center on multimedia. You'll find … Read more