Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

A touch more advanced

Headphones are the new status symbol in a world where everyone owns the exact same phone. So it’s not surprising that Parrot, maker of a wide range of random accessories for mobile devices including a remote controlled helicopter drone and the Asteroid car audio receiver, decided to enter the fray. Like the $1,500 Zikmu iPod [...]

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 [...]

Data Decadence

Jetsetting is a nightmare for untethered internet junkies — particularly when papa corporation isn’t footing the tab. Sure, most U.S. wireless carriers can keep the data flowing, but at their rates, careless users will lose their shirts faster than a night of craps at the Bellagio by just checking email. Frugal types may go through [...]

Liberty City goes mobile

The game that changed the gaming industry and inflamed parents across the globe thanks to its unabashed encouragement of senseless violence recently turned 10. To celebrate, Rockstar has re-released the classic for newer iOS (iPhone & iPad) and Android devices for a shocking price of $5. Essentially it’s the same experience most will remember, just [...]

Thumb Beats

Now that Samsung and Motorola have shown their Android super phone hands for the holiday season, it was only a matter of time before HTC followed suit. After signing a $300 million deal to buy 51% of Beats Electronics back in August, HTC’s first Sense-skinned Gingerbread 2.3 phone with Beats audio is now here. Besides [...]

Goodbye roller ball, hello baller

There’s no denying that the folks at RIM have gotten more things wrong than a bro on Wheel of Fortune College week. The newly announced Porsche Design P’9981 BlackBerry has no chance of making a dent in the company’s sagging bottom line, but it does illustrate that RIM still understands the direct correspondance between exclusivity [...]

Scandinavian Champion

The Nokia Lumia 800 is the first overwhelmingly positive result born from two mobile underdogs. It’s essentially Nokia’s gorgeous N9 on the hardware side, packed finally with a mobile OS (Windows Phone 7) whose tombstone isn’t already chiseled. Its curved, 3.7-inch, 12.1mm-thick polycarbonate frame and ClearBlack AMOLED display looks and feels almost like the iPod [...]

Android's New Poster Child

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the latest showcase device developed under Google’s close supervision, built for one purpose: to make Android’s latest incarnation look like the belle of the smartphone ball. Its 4.65-inch, curved contour glass, HD Super AMOLED display boasting a legitimate 1,280 x 720 (720p) resolution is just the start of a stellar [...]

Nice Slice

The original RAZR kept Motorola’s Mobile Devices division in pay dirt throughout the late 90s, but surprisingly when the smartphone revolution came, the company pushed in a new branding direction with the Motorola Droid. For those reasons alone, the fact that the newly announced Droid RAZR bears both heavyweight titles is a pretty big indication [...]

Quietly Enormous

HTC’s Titan may be our dark horse favorite smartphone of the fall. It’s biggest claim to fame (literally) is a hipster-pants-tearing 4.7-inch, 480 x 800 Super LCD touchscreen slapped on a body that measures only .35-inches thick. A 1.5Ghz processor, 512MB of Ram, 16GB of on board storage, a MicroSD card slot, 14.4Mbps HSPA+ download [...]

Giddily Gutted

Oh the torture! Our Pavlovian anticipation for a new iPhone every 12 months has been pushed to the limits this go around, especially after being teased earlier this summer about what to expect from iOS 5 (which, FYI will be available to all current iPhone 4 owners October 12th). Now the news is out and [...]

King of the Android Hill (For Now)

After months of waiting, Samsung’s top-tier Android super phone is now available stateside, on Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile. The phone will apparently ship in slightly different variations to each network. At their core, all U.S. models will still feature Android 2.3, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of memory, an 8 MP rear camera and measure [...]

Torching the Storm

The new BlackBerry Torch 9850/9860 ($TBA) won’t cause Android and iPhone users to defect in droves. The new handset is a welcomed improvement, though, for RIM loyalists in search of an upgrade from the aging Storm I and II. Its 3.7-inch, 800 x 480 traditional touch screen is the biggest ever on a BlackBerry, making [...]

Pick Floyd

Don’t feel like shelling out 6 large for this but own an iPhone? Well, there’s a Kickstarter Project for that: the Air Guitar Move. Using a tethered pick equipped with a motion sensor, the Air Guitar Move allows you to unleash you inner Jimmy Page (sans the actual axe) by strumming in the air while [...]

1995 Never Looked so Good

Landline usage isn’t exactly growing by leaps and bounds, but Canadian designer Joel-Blair is at least helping the technology go out in style with the Detraform 500 Dect cordless telephone ($130). Its polished ploycarbonate and aluminum L-shaped shell is instant eye candy, as is the clean, white numbering and caller ID display. In terms of [...]