Featured Portables Reviews

Very few of the portable LCD TVs available on the market are from what we would refer to as mainstream manufacturers. As a result, we are greeted with an influx of new names with which to familiarize ourselves. Eviant is a name I had not been familiar with, and indeed the company only seems to make two portable LCD TV products – the T7 7" and T4 4.3" models. That's a considerable amount of specialization and, with the wide product availability we've seen in many retailers, products need to stand out in order to be selected from the sea of available models.

Pioneers new magic "ET" box they demoed at CEDIA was out of this world. Pioneer's ETAP focus is downloading, streaming and storage of personal media with a home theater approach to delivering networked media in the living room. Think Media PC without the PC. The ability to copy what they refer to as “content managed Blu-ray discs” is pretty awesome. The Pioneer reps also talked about the ability of stacking up to 14 hard drives for an almost limitless data storage and streaming solution. During the demo, we watched Blu-ray discs streamed to an iPhone which was icing on this dream cake we are all wanting to take a bite from. Best of all, it seems the retail price is targeted to be less than their flagship Blu-ray player (around $1500-$2k). Availability is uncertain, but you can expect consumers lining up to the door when they start shipping.

With summer here, many of us will find ourselves on the road. Lately I have been spending countless nights in hotels, so I thought it was time to bring you a roundup of portable travel speakers for your laptop, iPod, iPhone, or other MP3 player. There are a wide range of choices that include tiny solutions that sound tiny, as well as some pricey options that are well worth every penny. Most of the speakers I tested fit easily into a backpack or small suitcase. From this roundup, you are sure to find a good fit for your needs.

We do a lot of travel, and stopping to remove a laptop from your carry-on luggage is one of the things that, like removing your shoes, slows down the boarding process more than all other inconveniences combined. Skooba Design has produced the new Checkthrough Brief with TSA approval that allows you to split the bag in half and feed it through the x-ray machine without any need to remove your laptop computer. It's convenient, it's easy, and it works.

The Slappa Ballistix Aura Pro-Tour Backpack is a gear-lovers dream system for porting your equipment around town or across the country. This bag has it where it counts, with a top-loading removable storage system, padded laptop storage, comfortable shoulder straps and enough mini compartments to carry all the accessories in the known universe... OK, maybe only half of all known accessories. Incidentally, our readers can take advantage of 10% off using discount code "audioholics".

The iTube Red-i from Fatman is easily the coolest docking system for iPods that I have had the pleasure of enjoying on my desk. So much more than a dock and speakers for your iPod, this system can easily be the heart of your small two channel listening setup in your home, office or apartment. If you are considering docking speaker systems for your iPod and plan to spend around $500, this is a no-brainer. For the true Audioholic, this system blows the others away. Maybe you are considering a small Bose or other "big-name" all in one speaker dock product for your den or office. I suggest you rethink your purchase.

Nextar introduced the new ‘Ribbit’ MP3 player with durable OLED display that looks like a little frog. The Ribbit supports both MP3 and WMA files and has voice-recording capability and comes in green, pink, black and blue. Now, don't all you Audioholics start fighting - there's enough to go around. ;-)

The Audioengine W2 turns your iPod into a wireless remote music streaming server, allowing you to play all your songs wirelessly from your iPod to any stereo system with support for lossless quality. To get it working you just plug the digital Sender into your iPod and connect the included Receiver to your stereo. In 2 minutes (theoretically) you have complete control of your music from your iPod.

Here's an interesting product. Let's say you are at your daughter's birthday party and she's turning six. Using your cell phone, you can take a quick video of your daughter blowing out the candles. You can then immediately send that video to your mom's ImpactV digital photo frame, which might be sitting in her living room on the other side of the country or on the other side of the world. With no action on her part, and no wires or cables involved, the video magically appears on her ImpactV. That's really cool.