Comments on: What’s in Kevin’s CES Gear Bag?

By: Hostgator Reseller

Hostgator Reseller — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 03:41:02 +0000

if only they made the MSI xSlim in 10″ …. why did they have to go to 13? WHY???

By: Ethan

Ethan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:13:01 +0000

I am going to buy either the HP mini or the wind which does everybody think is better

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:58:29 +0000

as for battery life on the Zi6, its fairly good. I recorded the whole 15-20 minute show of the World Showcase players performance of Arthur and the Holy grail (grail grail grail Huh!) and nary a drop in the battery meter. The lack of any moving parts really helps battery life.

By: Scotty

Scotty — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:40:37 +0000

Kevin, I forgot to mention what I think is the “last nail in the coffin” for your solar iPhone project that I calculated this past weekend.

At 10 cents for a kilo-watt-hour a complete iPhone recharge (according to my killa-watt meter) is roughly .025 cents. Since you get a charger with your iPhone the entire cost of your solar charger has to be paid off to get “free charges”. $90 / $0.0025 = 36,000 complete charges.

Which seems impractical on a couple fronts. That’s about 100 years even if you charge your iPhone completely roughly every day. I seriously doubt the battery in the solar charger even has 36,000 charge cycles in it. Nor do I think the solar panels will last that long. And I predict even you will be using a 3g phone again before you reach break even.

Mt advice: leave the solar charger out of your gadget bag and save the planet the carbon foot print for the added weight on your CES trip. :-)

By: Chris K

Chris K — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:16:06 +0000

DSLRs aren’t just great for quality, they’re also very, *very* fast, and last a lot longer on a battery, since they’re not necessarily cranking up the LCD, etc.

I have a decent Nikon point-and-shoot, and a mere D40 DSLR, and I know which one I’d use to take a bunch of pictures at a show.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:24:37 +0000

Sean, I think the quality of the output is pretty decent for the price. Good point about the batteries. It comes with two rechargeable AA batteries and when I carry a device like this, I always carry spare standard batteries in my bag.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:07:00 +0000

Interesting stuff. I will be very interested in seeing how the Kodak does on the HD video. I have been considering upgrading my SD Flip Ultra, but I am not sure that HD is worth it to me yet. It will be interesting to see how the batteries in that hold up. It’s nice that you can put a 16GB card in it, but can you really record that long on a single charge. Looking forward to the CES coverage.

By: Richard Brennan

Richard Brennan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:05:42 +0000

No tablet for either you or James?? Long live the keyboard, I guess. Looking forward to your posts from the floor.

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:49:47 +0000

The real reason I am taking the extended iPhone battery is not because of the 3G, I easily get all day battery using 3G. I intend to be using the iPhone camera pretty heavily doing liveblogging and that camera eats the battery pretty quickly in my experience. As for the card reader, mine is a little bigger than a USB flash drive and weighs just a few ounces. :) Kevin’s not saving much on that front.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:46:45 +0000

Gavin, I do have a point-and-shoot Panasonic Lumix that I took last year. It’s not much smaller or lighter, so the extra picture quality of the Canon is probably worth it. If the Kodak had some type of optical zoom, I’d simply take that. Still on the fence with this for the reasons you point out.

By: Gavin Miller

Gavin Miller — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:39:07 +0000

I must admit I rarely use 3G on my iPhone and easily get my full days use. I just turn on 3G when downloading a large document on email or if I’m needing some info off the web.

My exchange email works just fine over GPRS or Edge. It’s a sacrifice for battery life but not a dealbreaker.

Will you really use the DSLR much Kevin? While the quality will be fantastic, is it needed for blogging? Wouldn’t the Kodak do the job, or possibly get a cheap 3x optical zoom camera. Just thinking of your back! ;-)

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:31:38 +0000

No way I can get one in time Scotty. My flight leaves in < 24 hours. At this point, I need to go with an established work environment so it’s either the Wind or the MacBook. Amazingly that battery for Acer Aspire One costs more than the battery I bought for the MacBook. Yikes! :)

By: Scotty

Scotty — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:24:34 +0000

Kevin mayhaps you could still get yourself an Acer Aspire One with this 10 hour battery pre-CES?

http://www.aspireoneuser.com/2009/01/03/extended-battery-white-7800mah-5999-usa-131/

Real keyboard and 10 hour battery life: a little piece of heaven.