Archive for the ‘Electronics’ Category

Transcend 8 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card TS8GSDHC6 Discount

Monday, November 9th, 2009
Transcend 8 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card TS8GSDHC6

Product: Transcend 8 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card TS8GSDHC6

List Price: $39.99
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I recently bought this 8GB SDHC card for my Canon SD1000 camera. The card works very well and I’ve had no problems with it so far. If you’re in the market for an affordable high quality SDHC card, this may be the one for you. Sorry, I kind of sounded like a used car salesman right there, didn’t I? I assure you that I don’t work for Transcend. But, here’s why I think this card is awesome:

Pros:

-Affordable!

-Large 8GB capacity

-Class 6 read/write speed (which is the fastest speed currently available)

-Lifetime warranty (at least that’s what the package says :)

-Transcend is a reputable company that’s been making memory products for a very long time. ( I swear to the tech Gods that I don’t work for them!)

Cons:

- I can’t think of any right now. The closest thing to a “Con” that I can think of is that if you buy this card now, it will probably become cheaper in a month or so :) No, make that 2 weeks.

IMPORTANT SPECIAL NOTES ABOUT SDHC MEMORY CARDS:

-SDHC cards are not compatible with most older SD cameras, SD devices, or SD card readers.

-SDHC cards are rated by speed using different “classes”. There are currently three data transfer speed classes available for SDHC cards. These classes are “class 2, class 4, and class 6″. For example, “Class 2″ would have the slowest read/write speed while “Class 6″ has the fastest read/write speed. So if you have a device in which speed may play a crucial role, make sure you buy a higher “class” SDHC card. Again, this SDHC card has the fastest read/write speed available right now. Class 6 has a minimum read/write speed of 6mb/sec… while Class 2 has minimum speed rating of 2mb/sec, and Class 4 is 4mb/sec. Starting to see the pattern?

SO WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “SD CARDS” AND “SDHC CARDS?

SDHC is basically an upgrade to the older SD cards. The reason they upgraded it was to achieve greater data transfer speeds AND capacity than previously possible with normal SD cards… and to do this, they had to redesign the card (which is why it’s not compatible with normal SD devices). This was necessary because digital cameras and digital video cameras these days have higher resolutions, which equate to larger file sizes and faster data transfer needs.

I hope I haven’t confused everybody by going into this much detail, but I can’t help being the nerd that I am. If you are confused, don’t hesitate to comment on this post and I will try my best to answer your questions. Also, any feedback is always welcome!

Conclusion: Buy the card if you have a new device that uses SDHC. It rocks! (This message has been approved by the “Duke of New Mexico”)

I recently purchased a Canon Powershot A720IS digital camera that is capable of recognizing and using up to 2 TERRABYTES of memory card (in the future) so I wanted to get the largest memory card I could install for now. I wanted to use the camera both on dry land and with an underwater housing for shooting stills and video on dive trips. Camera specs said an 8 GB SDHC card would record one hour of hi res video at 30 fps. Or nearly 2300 hi res stills at 8 megapixels.

A test of the Transcend 8GB SDHC card in the camera ended up shooting 70 minutes of full screen, 30fps digital video that could not be distinguished from my DV camcorder video quality. Playback from the memory card to the TV was so fast & efficient there was never a single “stutter” on the screen. The card speed is genuinely FAST as advertised. Low level formatting of the card allowed for very acceptable rapid-fire sequential still photo shooting speeds when light levels were bright enough that the flash was not needed/used. Something like 2 photos every 3 seconds. Files were flawless in display, both for stills and video.

This product was significantly lower in price than the Kingston 8GB SDHC card I originally bought with the camera. I’ve used both interchangeably and cannot see any different in the speed or capacity and quality of imagery is identical. For the money I’ll stick with Transcend and am looking forward to getting their 16GB card once the price drops substantially below the $100 mark. That would provide nearly 2 1/2 hours of video on my still camera or 4600 highest quality stills. I’m afraid my camcorder will be collecting dust much of the time. A big advantage to video on the card is there are NO MOVING PARTS, e.g. a mini DV tape cassette and camcorder or VCR playback unit needed to dump the video and stills to my Mac for editing and burning DVDs. I just stick the card in the MicroMate USB card reader, plug it in the computer and bingo, ready to sort thru and dump to the hard drive. Since the card is formatted by a Canon camera it automatically boots up the Canon Viewer software too. That should work the same for other brands of still cameras formatting this chip.

Celestron Accessory Kit for FirstScope Telescope Sale

Monday, November 9th, 2009
Celestron Accessory Kit for FirstScope Telescope

Product: Celestron Accessory Kit for FirstScope Telescope

List Price: $29.95
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While the telescope is excellent, the accessory kit was of little practical use. The scope that attaches for use in finding stars is of little or no value. It is hard to look throught it as the telescope base is so close that one can not get their head in position to use it. The software would not run properly and the extra lenses were of little value. The moon screen is okay but by itself it is not worth the price.

I agree witht the other review. The spotter scope is cheaply made. It mounted on the telescope fine, of the 3 screws that hold the spotter one would not even screw in fully not holding in the mount properly. The image is also upside down making it difficult to find objets to focus on in the day time. I read somewhere else that someone used a “red dot reflex” scope for a bb-gun and worked well with this telescope. Will probably be my next purches for this telescope.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W290 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom and Super Steady Shot Image Stabilization (Silver) Sale

Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W290 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom and Super Steady Shot Image Stabilization (Silver)

Product: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W290 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom and Super Steady Shot Image Stabilization (Silver)

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I originally bought a Sony DSC-S950, for around half the price of this camera, but I returned it the same day due to a faulty flash bulb. I decided to upgrade to the W290, because I wasn’t very happy with the S950 – it felt cheap, and lacked features.

I’ve put together this list of pros and cons of this camera. Don’t let the seemingly long list of cons scare you though, as they are all quite minor and not even important enough for me to rate this camera anything less than 5 stars. I just felt it was necessary to list everything I could think of. Sorry, I couldn’t properly review the HD Video capability, because I don’t have the HD cables (see below), and my computer seems to be too slow to properly play back HD video.

Pros:

-BRILLIANT colors! I am very very impressed with the colors in my shots, especially when shooting outdoor scenery shots (which is primarily what I purchased this camera for).

-Night-time shots using a tripod turn out very well also, giving as much detail as one could see with their naked eye.

-Smile shutter, as mentioned in previous reviews, works flawlessly. One thing that doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere, is that when it’s in Smile Shutter mode, it will continue to snap photos automatically as long as it keeps detecting smiles, which is very cool. So if you are taking a group picture, and you’re one of those people that likes taking 3 shots of the same thing “just in case”, just keep on smiling and the camera will take care of that for you.

-there’s a 3-shot burst mode, where it automatically takes 3 pictures when you click the button: one with your default EV, one at -1EV, and one at +1EV (or different intervals even, if you choose). That once-in-a-lifetime shot you take will have 3 different versions automatically, and you can choose the one you like the most and delete the rest later.

-The Intelligent Auto mode works fantastically, it takes a lot of the stress out of taken urgent pictures. The only time I ever don’t use it is when I have plenty of time to plan for a shot.

-Startup time is great! I’ve seen other complaints from people that say this camera takes too long to startup and be ready to use, but those people must be the most impatient people ever, because this thing is faster than any other camera I’ve owned, digital or otherwise. When you click the power button, the lens fires out lightning fast and the screen immediately displays the picture and is ready for action. Probably takes about 0.5 seconds from pushing the button to being ready to use.

Cons:

-Plastic cover on LCD screen protrudes from the camera body, making it more easily scratched. I would recommend getting some screen protectors, as I’m about to do.

-the jack for the all-in-one cable is on the bottom of the camera, which will be great once a dock is available, but in the meantime it’s a very inconvenient place to plug in the cable. It forces you to lay to camera on either the lens side, or the LCD side (which, as mentioned above, is designed in such a way that it could be scratched quite easily without a screen protector)

-Doesn’t come with HD video cables, only the typical yellow/red/white RCA analogue cables. Seeing as how this camera records HD video, it would be nice to be able to play it back in HD on my tv without burning it to a DVD first. You can buy the HD cables from sony if you really need them, though.

-Comes with an NP-BG1 battery, which disables the camera’s ability to show you the remaining minutes. You have to buy the optional NP-FG1 battery to see that. That’s the only difference, both batteries have the same capacity. It was obviously designed that way to force us to buy a second battery… but that was fine with me, since I planned on buying one anyways.

I would definitely recommend this camera to anyone looking for a great quality point-and-shoot digital camera!

This camera works great! I have only had it a week but it is great. The smile detection works pretty well. I noticed subjects that wore hats had troubles with their smiles being detected, possibly due to extra shading from the bill of the hat, but for my one-year-old daughter, it took almost 10 pictures in 30-45 seconds automatically while she was having a laughing fit. A lot quicker than I could do. I also like how the portrait mode takes 2 pictures to try and get one without eyes blinking, and if it detected a blink, it alerts you to that. The HD video shoots pretty smoothly. I haven’t gotten a chance to check out what it looks like on TV, but it shot well. I was worried about being able to keep this steady when taking pictures, but I do better with this camera than I did our old Canon Powershot A530 (it was taking upwards of 5 minutes to charge the flash for one picture with brand new batteries!…thus being the purchase of a new camera).

It takes a couple seconds for the camera to turn on, so if you think you may have a shot to quickly take, be prepared and turn the camera on early. Also, I am nervous about the rechargeable battery versus just dropping in new AAs. It seems like the battery takes a little too long to charge fully, but so far I have just charged it while sleeping.

Overall I am extremely satisifed with this camera. I mainly need a camera to capture my daughter’s memories and will mostly send them out over e-mail and print out 4×6 images for my wife’s scrapbook. This camera is giving me hope it will take pictures well. The picture quality looks great and it seems slightly faster than my old Canon for taking successive pictures.