Belkin TuneFM Ipod FM

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Become a radio jokey with your Ipod and Belkin!

Today, I am going to talk about a very useful gadget. The discovery of this gizmo was out of necessity. I've a Fiat Linea emotions. The car came with a company fitted stereo
from Blaukpant. But it is not so great unlike the car

First, there are no pre amp out. Yes you read it right - no pre-amps. It simply means that I can't hook a woofer to it. The story does not end there. It doesn't have a USB socket nor an aux port to connect my Ipod to it. I tried my best, went pillar to stone, but there was nothing that could fix this Italian junk.

The only option left was FM. If my Ipod could radiate those sweet n cripsy FM waves, it would redeem me from those agonies. Belkin made me happy!

Belkin TuneFm is an amazing device. It can transmit music over the FM. It plugs straight into the Ipod. There is a console on top to select the frequencies in the FM band (88- 107 Mhz) There are 2 preset memories to store favourite frequencies. It draws power from the Ipod, but does not drain it significantly. I managed to run it for 7 hours on a single charge. If you drive that long, chances are, that you will drain faster than the ipod.

Performance it decent. Reception was fair when I kept it close to the set over the dashboard. It took some time before statics disappeared completely leaving only the "sound of music". There is an option to boost power in two steps before it turns into non stereo mode where it guzzles maximum power

It is intelligent too. When I stopped playing songs on the pod; It stopped radiating. No wonder it lasted so long. Range is also decent. I managed to latch it on my home theater from virtually every corner of the room. Now where ever I go, I carry my party DJ along with me

Price can be a put off specially as compared to bluetooth transmitter. It cost me a little over 40$. But looking back at my car, it worth every single penny to me. It also comes with a car charging kit for those long drives down to the country sides.

So check it out at the local computer store near you ASAP

Nokia C6 - worth it !

When Apple announced the launch Iphone on Jan 9 2007, little did anyone know that it will change the psychy of mobile users in the generations to come. Touch screen became an instant hit. People felt their old phones were sluggish and orthodox like grandma. But Apple was not pioneering it. It never did with most of its product except MAC. There were already touch screen phones in the stable from O2 and Imate. These phones were expensive, bulky and based on slow and sulky Windows Mobile. They never caught the attention like Apple Iphone did. I too bought HTC touch soon after the Iphone was launched, only to abandon it a year later. Windows sucks !

Now there are plenty of them, and all types of them. The mother earth has suddenly woken up to touch, and to goad it further is Nokia C6. A symbian based phone, which draw its virtues from the biggie Nokia N97 - The disastrous N series from Nokia.

It has got everything you need and nothing you don't. It has 3.2" inch touch screen with an appreciative Qwerty keypad. The screen resolution is 640 x 360 (nHD) with resistive touch. It has adorns gizmos like brightness control, orientation control, proximity sensor and ambient light detector. It virtually copies everything it possibly could from the Iphone.

It works on both GSM (2G) and WCDMA (3G) networks, which is good given that the 3G launch in India is imminent. It also supports POP3 email clients and office stationerys like word, excel and pdfs. Its internal memory is 200 MB with external, hot swappable, micro SD card expandable to 16 GB. Talk time on GSM network is 7 hours and on WCDMA network is 5 hours. It has inbuilt GPS with free Nokia Ovi Maps and apps. There are two cameras on either side with 5MP resolution on the back.

It also feeds the social networking (SNS) hunger with personalise home screen that brings live updates from Facebook, Tweeter and Orkut. It would be interesting to see if Nokia has moved on from its booring UI to something innovative and fresh.

This device intends to be useful for all types of varied users. The phone is yet to be launched in India. It is expected to arrive in the last quarter of May 2010. The price is pegged at Rs 13500, which is very competitive for the features it gives.