Review of the: Oregon Scientific Radio Controlled Daylight Projection Clock with Outdoor Temperature

Oregon Scientific Radio Controlled Daylight Projection Clock w/ Outdoor Temperature

Price and stockist: £89.99 from Oregon Scientific (Alarm Clocks Page)

The Oregon Scientific Radio Controlled Daylight Projection Clock is not the ordinary alarm clock that you might have lying around the house. The device itself features a very large and bright vertical display that can be used to show the time, the outdoor temperature, the indoor temperature or the time that the alarm function is set to go off. It also features a motion sensor up top and a rather unique element for a device such as this, a built in 180° projector. This projector enables realtime data, such as the time and temperatures etc, to be displayed onto walls, ceilings or onto special projection screens. The clock doesn't compromise on looks nor style either, it looks very sleek on the desktop whilst still performing to the highest of standards.

What's Inside the Box?

To watch my unboxing video, please click here.

Build Quality

The device has been constructed using high grade plastic to ensure a sturdy feeling unit that will not break easily. The plastic doesn't creek or warp when pressure is applied, although in this relativly high price range creeks should not be expected anyway. I do feel however that the bottom silver plastic rim could have been produced out of metal rather than out of plastic. Overall I am extremely happy with the build quality of the clock.

Usability

Setting up the clock is an amazingly simple process, if you can fit a battery, you will be able to successfully set up this clock. Having said that, please beaware that the installation of the small circular battery into the carpartment on the rear side of the device can be quite fiddily as the compartment is spring loaded and the battery keeps on popping up due to this. The time sets itself so long as you slide the switch to the correct posistion for your location, EU or UK. Setting the alarm is also very simple, and the instruction manual is of a very high standard just in case you get stuck along the way.

Projector

The clock's in built projector can project onto almost anything including doors, walls, ceilings etc. The projected image is bright and the focus can be adjusted by using the focus wheel on the side of the unit. Try to avoid using the projector with dark coloured walls as this doesn't work very well.

Conclusion

Oregon Scientific have created a superb product that is so much more than just an alarm clock. Featuring a projector, radio controlled time keeping, a motion sensor, and outdoor and indoor temperature monitoring, the Oregon Scientific Radio Controlled Daylight Projection Clock with Outdoor Temperature is an amazing product for just £89.99 from Oregon Scientific (Alarm Clocks Page).

Rating

9.5* out of 10*!

Pictures of Google’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich leak online, running on a Nexus S

Are you feeling hungry for some Ice Cream Sandwich? Well the guys over at Android Police and RootzWiki seem to think so after leaking two pictures showing a Google Nexus S running a very early build of Ice Cream Sandwich. These pictures seem to show more of a blueish theme to the OS with the battery indicator level depicted in blue in the status bar as well as other changes including a four icon dock and new icons. Most new implementations have actually been carried down from Honeycomb 3.x, including the semi transparent Google text search and voice search seen at the top of the home screen. The camera app is also said to be getting a new mode, Panoramic Shot, and the Gmail app supposedly matches the rest of the OS.

HTC Sensation plagued with touchscreen issues

In its short while on sale to customers, HTC’s flagship Sensation handset has had its fair share of problems. The most noticeable of those being the infamous ‘death grip’ that when a users hand covers the WiFi antenna, the signal begins to drop. Now owners of the Sensation have another thing to worry about, touchscreen issues. Users with the issue have been reporting that their screen becomes unresponsive and fails to detect user input even after a few tries. There is currently a 65 page thread on the XDA-Developers forum with over 650 posts from disgruntled owners suggesting that the problem is not limited and is in fact a widespread issue.

The problem doesn’t become apparent straight away. New handsets seem to work perfectly for the first week or so and then the touchscreen begins to fail the registration of user inputs. This is very noticeable on the ‘Ring Style’ lockscreen as the ring keeping slipping away despite user input. When users contacted HTC regarding this unacceptable fault, HTC did what they do best, ignore its customers. HTC Support suggested to perform a factory reset but to no avail. Replacing the actual handset hasn’t worked either, some users are still suffering from this issue even on their third or forth Sensation handset!

Users are also reporting that the phone has other issues most notably with its 8 megapixel camera, saying that when you tap the shutter button on screen, the phone tends to restart at will. All this points to a terribly buggy firmware running on HTC’s supposed flagship device. With a locked bootloader users cannot install a custom ROM to try out and see whether or not that fixes the bugs.

For a flagship device HTC have really made a mess of it all. I feel that they rushed the Sensation into production too soon in order to compete against Samsung’s Galaxy S II dual core smartphone. Could this be the downfall of HTC? Let us know if you are having issues with your Sensation, we will be glad to know.

Q&A: Should you buy an SSD (Solid State Drive) or a conventional HDD (Hard Disk Drive)?

This is a question that gets asked quite a lot in the tech community, should you buy an SSD or an HDD for your PC? The answer depends on what you would need the extra speed that SSDs provide for and whether or not choosing one would be a cost effective solution. For instance, you are given £500 to spend on a storage solution for your new high end PC. For that price you could only get a 240GB Patriot Wildfire SSD* whereas you could pick up 1TB+ hard disk drives for the same price or less*. One common setup that is popular among gamers and enthusiasts is to have a small sized, fast SSD as a boot drive (to host the Operating System) and have single or multiple larger hard drives that they then use for file storage. This is a great method to cut costs but still retain high grade performance when needed.

Eventually SSDs will fall in price, just like RAM has over the past few years, meaning that many more people can experience Flash Storage performance without breaking the bank. Until then, HDDs or SSD & HDD combos will work just fine.

*Capacity and price may vary depending on make, model etc of the drive. Always research components before purchasing them to ensure that you know what your getting for the money.

Blockbuster UK flyer leaks PS Vita release date

Remember when Sony said that the PS Vita (or NGP as it was known then) would be hitting the shelves of stores ‘this holidays’? Now Blockbuster.co.uk have created a ‘New Releases’ flyer that details the UK launch of PS Vita for 28th October 2011. The flyer also details two pre-order offers, one for the WiFi only model at £229.99 and another for the 3G & WiFi SKU for £279.99.