Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Cut the cord, keep the convenience

The Simple.TV is aimed at frugal households looking to save on cable costs without missing their generic investigative dramas. After connecting to a coax cable or HD antenna, a USB hard drive, and a home network, the device allows users to watch live shows in 1080p on their main TV, as well as on a [...]

The ultimate cheat sheet on human experience

Having a firm grasp on history has always been a core pillar of a proper education. It provides context, insight and understanding on how things came to be, which is especially invaluable for those seeking to innovate. There are obviously innumerable texts on the subject, but for those looking for a casual refresher, it doesn’t [...]

Chills beer in just five minutes

Technology is constantly striving to indulge our inner sloth. Manually setting reminders on your phone was deemed too arduous, so now you can speak them. Pulling out keys, inserting them into the ignition, and twisting was just pointlessly strenuous, so now we just push a button. Going to rent a movie at Blockbuster defined drudgery, [...]

Android or iOS? It's all good.

Android owners continually get the short end of the stick compared to their iPhone counterparts when it comes to the accessory world. Pioneer’s new App Radio 2 does its part to remedy the situation, by adding support for MHL capable Android handsets, in addition to the iPhone 4/4S compatibility the of the original version. That [...]

Ever clever bag brand Killspencer has just released this nifty accessory that’s designed to tote your toiletries like any other dopp kit to your destination, without ruining your luggage thanks to a waterproof white tarpaulin lining. Once you’ve unpacked, the bag can then easily fold flat to become a document/tablet portfolio for your jaunts on [...]

Esteemed photo journalist Vincent Laforet is considered a pioneer of DSLR video and his short film Reverie helped significantly boost Canon’s 5D Mark II camera into the forefront of the amateur digital film community. Hoping that lightening could strike twice, Canon gave Laforet early access to the EOS C300 to demonstrate the dynamic capabilities of [...]

Better late than never

After buying out Ericsson’s share of their joint venture earlier this year, Sony’s inaugural run of solo-branded smartphones shows the Japanese heavyweight has no intention of ceding the market just yet to Korean competitors like Samsung and LG without a fight. The Xperia S features a 4.3-inch 720p display with a 1.5GHZ dual-core processor, a [...]

Gadget guardian angel

The long standing feud between your precious gadgets and their arch-nemesis, water, may be officially called off thanks to Liquipel. What is Liquipel exactly? It’s a potent combination of witchcraft and voodoo, or at least that was our first reaction after watching the demo video, which we’ve convienently embedded for you after the break along [...]

Black bar banisher

We fawned over Vizio’s entry into the 21:9 fray last year, only to be bitterly disappointed when the set never made it to retail shelves. This year Vizio promises to actually deliver the ultrawidescreen goods to living rooms around the country with their updated 2012 line of 2560 x 1080 passive 3D HD displays. Besides [...]

Give and take

Mobile devices have progressively borrowed features from cameras to boost their curb appeal — so why shouldn’t cameras reciprocate? That seems to be the logic behind Polaroid’s surprising SC1630 Smart Camera. From the rear, it’s easy to mistake the device as just another 3.2-inch Android handset, until you spy the 16-megapixel 36-108mm lens with 3x [...]

The whole Bondchilada

MGM has announced the mother of all boxed sets in celebration of 50 years of James Bond wooing women, breaking gadgets, and thwarting global disaster on the silver screen. Never before have all 22 films been available in high definition Blu-ray and compiled into one epic collectors item that’s truly a must have for any [...]

Higher Def

4k resolution is still a long way off from replacing lowly 1080p as the new standard for high-definition, but Sony’s latest BDP-S790 Blu-ray player doesn’t mind standing on the cutting edge. Among the slew of players announced, this lone model packs the ability to up convert 1080p content to 4k resolution — which is great [...]

Nimble Networker

D-Link’s All-In-One Mobile Companion is a new travel accessory designed to take the headaches out of setting up a wireless network on the road. Packed inside the mouse-sized cube is a Wireless-N router, USB recharger, and an ethernet port for those in search of faster wired speeds. The small cube can just as easily be [...]

Officially drool worthy

Fujifilm’s X-Pro 1 may be the worst kept secret we’ve ever come across in the photography world — with a veritable Wikileaks worth of details flooding the web long before today’s official announcement. We’re still pleased as punch, however, to finally shell out the official details surrounding the magnesium-alloy wrapped retro beauty. In many ways, [...]

The new fixed lens king?

Canon’s PowerShot G-series has always strived to meld the smaller form factor of a point and shoot with the photo quality of a larger-sensor DSLR, and with the new Canon G1 X ($799), Canon continues to aim to do just that. Building on its predecessor’s, the G12, precedents the G1 X boasts a substantial 1.5-inch [...]