Christmas Surprise - GoPro Hero3 White Review (Coming soon).

Yes - I know I said that I'd never review the GoPro because there was no point, everyone already knows that it's the best action camera. Well in a U-turn worthy of a politician, my next video will be an action camera comparison featuring the GoPro Hero3 (White) in a head-to-head battle against the Sony AS10. I'll explain the reasons behind my change of mind in the review. 

Unfortunately I've realised today though that I'm not going to be able get this video finished this side of Christmas. The bad weather in the UK over the last couple of weeks has delayed shooting and currently my rough-cut of this review is still over an hour long and is missing a few sections. 

I'll therefore be spending all the time I can find over the holiday period to get this review completed as soon as I can. It probably wont come as too much of a surprise to regular readers/viewers to find that my favourite camera of the two is probably not the one that most people will end up choosing.

In the meantime - all I can do is wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a gadget filled new year.

Mat ™Techmoan.com

Rechargeable Hand Warmers (Winter 2012 update)

Just a quick video about rechargeable hand wamers. You may decide that you prefer the more readily available lighter-fuel powered Zippo Hand Warmers. After all having something in your pocket that's on fire is always going to be cool.....and hot.

Battery powered devices do have some things in their favour though. For exampe, they can easily be switched off and recharged from an office PC ready for the journey home, and you wont get far trying to charge your phone with lighter fuel (at least not until fuel cell chargers become readily available anyway).

I should have mentioned that these hand warmers take a good few hours to charge up (a full morning or afternoon) and they take about 5 minutes to reach their maximum temperature. I've been very glad of these in recent weeks...it's just a pity I can't find a similar piece of technology that could unblock my head before I recorded this video voiceover. 

You can buy the Blue one here and the red one here. There are also other colours available if you have a search around on ebay.

A Cheap Mini HD Car Dash-Cam with GPS

My Car DVR reviews are usually quite popular, but with so many models available and a limited amount of time and money to allocate to them, I have to choose which ones I'm going to review very carefully. To catch my eye a dash-cam must offer something that sets it apart from the crowd.

The stand-out features of this particular camera are that it is both affordable and small,  but is it a bargain or is it just cheap and nasty? Decide for youself after watching the video below.

The auction I used is no longer live - CLICK THIS LINK for possible sellers.

MORE INFO - 

The camera is 74mm long and 28 mm in diameter. It weighs 1.48oz / 42g (without cables).

Someone wanted me to explain how to format a card without using the onscreen menus. Well the easiest way is to put a card into is that is formatted as NTFS. When the camera is switched on a Menu comes on screen that says "Card not Formatted - Format Yes/NO" - To choose Yes press the down arrow once then press the centre button. It takes about a minute or two to format the card. After that you can power it down. It should now work as normal - however you really need a video cable to be able to alter any of the other menu settings. The card format is identified by my PC as FAT.

The other small camera mentioned earlier in the video can be found on ebay by

Thanks to John in the comments who discovered that they do make a model with a 12V plug on it - I've now ordered the

UPDATE - 25 Dec 2012

Download Sample Day & Night Clips Here (If you really want)

The original AVI files were all too long. Unfortunately my video trimming program (MPEG Streamclip) refused to handle the original .avi files so I've had to convert then to .mp4. This has had no effect on the quality though. After a lot of people have reported problems with their ISPs banning access to my sample clips uploaded to Mediafire - I've put these on Dumptruck.  Please let me know if this file storage facility is also banned by your ISP.

Henge Docks Clique - Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and Trackpad holder

I've got three video review projects on the go at the moment and all of them seem to be getting increasingly more complicated each day. So to give myself a break, I've decided to create a quick and easy video instead. 

This is a video about a simple product that does it's job perfectly. The Clique from Henge Docks. It's an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and Magic Trackpad holder. In my opinion it's an essential purchase for anyone who is planning on using a Mac Mini as a HTPC. It's the closest thing possible to an Apple made all-in-one HTPC keyboard and trackpad. 

Now back to editing those other more difficult videos…perhaps there is a video reviewers equivalent of writers block?

The Winners of the ACase Superleggera Pro iPhone 5 Cases

Congratulations to the three lucky winners of the ACase iPhone 5 cases. 

The winners are;

cuddles6938

argentinadrivers

prt1667

I hope you like your case (even if you got the pink one), I'll be in touch with each of you via email.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and I'm sorry for those who missed out this time.

I'm off to do some more editing/filming....I'll try to get a new video out this weekend.

Heads-Up! Here's a HUD that plugs into your car's OBD socket.

It's good to review a category of device that I haven't looked at before, and whilst there probably is no reason why anyone would need a Head Up Display in their car, it's still quite a fun (but quite expensive) gadget.

Concept cars have featured HUDs for years now, but there are some less exotic vehicles already on the market that are fitted with these, most commonly to show the speedo. I'd be interested to find out how the manufacturers resolved the double-image issue that I experienced with this device. I assume that most would use an angled piece of perspex or a reflective sheet…but it's something that I'll need to look into. If anyone reading this has a car with an HUD, please let me know how well it's implimented.

If you do want to purchase the Actisafety ASH 3, it is  for about £90

Technical details abut this review (people might ask - so I'm pre-empting the question)

This was a difficult one to shoot because of all the low light footage. You will notice a lot of blocking and grain in some shots taken inside the garage. The blocking gets added when I render out the finished video from iMovie (it looks fine during editing).  I've tried using different bit rates and formats without any success.  My camera also didn't like focussing on a reflected object on a windscreen in the dark….normally this would be a good thing, but on this occasion, that's exactly what I wanted to do. The cameras used were as follows. The Sony HX100V for the product shots. The moving in-car night footage was shot with the Koonlung Wired Bullet Camera, and the parked-up night footage was an iPhone 5.

iPhone 5 Cases from ACase and Tech21

A quick look at a couple of cases for the iPhone 5, the ACase Superleggera Pro  and the Tech21 Impact Snap Case with Cover.

It's a bit of a shame to cover up the iPhone 5 with a case, but if you want to protect it then it's an unfortunate necessity. I saw Jerry Seinfeld mocking his friend's use of an iPhone case in 'Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee', suggesting that he might as well walk around wearing a protective helmet too, which did make me smile, but Seinfeld could afford to buy a new iPhone whenever he wants, whereas most people are not so fortunate.

I did try using my phone commando-style for a couple of weeks but that meant that I was reluctant to put it in the same pocket as my car keys, and as the other pocket of my jeans barely holds my wallet, this was not a sustainable situation.

There was a Kickstarter project for a case similar to the one from Tech21 but with the addition of a magnetically closing flap, unfortunately it didn't get funded. I doubt I'll ever find the perfect case, if such a thing could even exist, but I'm going to keep looking.

These are just two of many iPhone 5 cases already on the market, and countless more will no doubt launch over the coming months, but I think that it is very unlikely that I'll revisit these in the form of another video, they aren't really interesting enough things to talk about.

Buying links (Ebay searches)

COMPETITION

I'm going to give away the three Superleggera iPhone 5 cases from ACase shown in the video. If you want a chance at winning one of these then here is what you have to do.

1) Subscribe to my channel on Youtube.

2) Using the 'Contact Me' form (over on the right) send me a message with the subject "ACase Competition" and in the message just put your youtube username, nothng else.

On the 1st December 2012 I'll pull out three usernames and contact you on the email address you have provided to organise delivery. (Yes this prize draw is open to any of my subscribers around the globe).

Colours will be allocated at random...so I apologise in advance to the person who gets the pink one...you will both win and lose at the same time.

Good luck.