Bluetooth Product of the month - Insignia NS-B

Well as you may know I recently replaced my Cingular 8525 (HTC Hermes) with a Samsung Blackjack 2. Unfortunately the Blackjack had no good way to listen to all the music I loaded on my new 4GB SDHC Card, such as the headphones that HTC was nice enough to include with the Hermes. Sice I was going to have to throw down some lootro to get some headphones anyways. I figured I might as well check the price on some bluetooth headphones since it had been awhile. Was I ever glad I did. I ended up picking these babies up at Best Buy for less than 50 bucks. In the words of the manufacturer here are the feature specs:

Enjoy all your favorite songs from your Bluetooth-enabled MP3 player, cell phone or PC with these Bluetooth-compatible headphones that feature a behind-the-head design for a comfortable fit.

Wireless Bluetooth connection to your Bluetooth-enabled MP3 player, cell phone or PC

Behind-the-head design

Over-the-ear style for a comfortable fit

Stereo sound for quality listening

10 hours of continuous music play

Built-in microphone

These headphones use both the Headset and Headphone Bluetooth 2.o Profiles which allow for seamless switching between listening to music and answering the phone. That means when I get a phone call, the music is paused and I can answer the call and talk directly from the headphones. When I hang up the music automagically starts playing again. SWEET!!!!!!!!!!

PIC-0017

PIC-0017, originally uploaded by parksjsn.

- Taken at 9:58 AM on April 28, 2008 - cameraphone upload by ShoZu

Tunak Tunak Tun

My new phone

Well after struggling for two weeks with absolutely no signal and tons of dropped calls as well as the occasional "stop screening your calls" I decided to give up on my trusty Cingular 8525 (Hermes) and purchased a Samsung Blackjack II. With its non touch screen, I thought it might handle the abuse better. After a week of use I must say I was quite impressed and just may keep it. It has more memory than my Hermes did, integrated GPS (NICE) and a two megapixel camera for snapshots and video. It takes a Micro SD card for extra storage memory. What was I to do but load Garmin Mobile onto my card and check it out. While it does take a while to get a GPS lock with the internal GPS (about 1-2 minutes) the ability to not have to carry an extra bluetooth GPS around everywhere, as well as worry about if its charged up or not is priceless. Once I had GPS lock the GPS was verry accurate even under cloudy conditions. Garmin Mobile works well also. I dont think I like it as well as TOMTOM, but it may just take some getting used to. TOMTOM found routes to places I was going that most people may never even know exist. I will have to see how well Garmin can preform under these same conditions. A few other programs I consider must haves for the blackjack II are Shozu, Windows Live Search, Google Maps,(which works well with or without GPS) Kevtris ( A tetris clone), MobiTV and SBSH Facade a completely customizable homescreen plugin for smartphone devices. All in all I think this phone is the first I've seen that makes me consider replacing a PPC Phone. The only features I truly miss are easy documnet editing, Remote desktop connection and a flash for snapping pics in less than ideal lighting conditions.