Deep picture for shallow pockets
Prices for quality projectors have dropped faster than Facebook’s IPO over the last few years, making the dream of mancave movie theaters much more realistic. The trouble is sorting out the deals from the doozies. For a street price of often less than $2,000, BenQ’s first full-HD 3D W7000 Projection System is a particularly good [...]
Bella bicicletta
Bring some sprezzatura (that’s essentially Italian for inner-swagger) to the peloton in the next Gran Fondo astride Bianchi’s Impulso Ultegra road bike. This cool Italian entry-level racer matches less expensive Shimano 105 and Tiagra components with Shimano’s second-tier Ultegra where it really counts — the shifters and a 10-speed rear derailleur. Its elegant aluminum frame [...]
Back with a splash
Nowadays, you can hardly throw a dead fish without hitting another new dive watch brand. The availability of Far East shops that will stamp out a few hundred watch cases based on a napkin sketch means that almost anyone with a little ambition and a small loan can start their own watch company. And there [...]
New soul? Or a ghost of laptops past?
We’re not ones to embrace hyperbole, but the new HP Envy Spectre XT ($1,000+) may actually live up to its category — and humility-bending title of Ultrabook. Weighing a fairly svelte 3.07 pounds with 14.5mm-thick profile, HP’s newest offering features an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU, a four-speaker Beats Audio sound system, a 13” high-definition LED [...]
Pick up your shift
When you want to hammer a sprint like a Norse god (think Hushovd, not some mythical comic book hero), whether for the finish line, a money prime or the next road sign, the last thing you need is a slow or missed shift. Shimano Ultegra Di2 electronic shifting brings faster, effortless shifts at the touch [...]
More bang for less buck
Building on an already full line of home theater receivers, Onkyo has fleshed out their mid-range offerings with the TX-NR818 and TX-NR717. As you’d expect, both beef up the wattage to 135W and 110W for the TX-NR818 and TX-NR717, respectively — making you even more popular with your neighbors (best to just invite them over). [...]
All in, for the win
Computer workstations are typically regarded as PC powerhouses for the professional. Boasting top tier internals and reliability, they’re only limiting factors tend to be size or an inability to upgrade components. That’s now a problem of the past. Designed and fast tracked in secret, literally in a lab within a lab, the HP Z1 Workstation [...]
Braveheart’s watch
There are some things for which Scotland is known: single malt whisky, Sean Connery and bagpipes, to name a few. You may soon be able to add wristwatches to that list. Young Scottish product designer, Gordon Fraser, is a watch enthusiast who wanted to create a watch that would be accessible to other guys like [...]
Don't leave for the Poles without it
Two questions. First: have you ever run a marathon at the North Pole? Second: have you ever spent nearly $2,000 on a running jacket? If you answered “yes” to either question, then read on. Taking extreme technical wear to, well, the extreme the UVU Cold Race Jacket 01 (£1,200) is built from the ground-up for [...]
Good Jeans
It’s only fitting that the founder of Paper Denim & Cloth, Scott Morrison, is the mind behind 3×1. The jeans demigod created the SoHo-based store/workshop/gallery as a shrine to all things denim that includes over 130 bolts of selvage to choose from, and a glass-enclosed “atelier” where each hand-stitched individually numbered pair is made for [...]
Mad lavatory
Walk into any fraternity house bathroom and you may begin to understand the accidental genius behind Restoration Hardware’s 1930s Stainless Steel Laboratory Collection. Obviously made with more refined guys in mind, the bathroom collection of vanities and storage cabinets boasts zinc hardware and rounded finishes throughout, as well as customizable Italian marble tops and beveled [...]
Heaven sent
Even the most seasoned photographer knows the frustrations of delving into the world of astrophotography. Ultra long exposures, hyper-subtle colorations and bringing out the detail of such distant objects usually results in blurry, indistinguishable images that are more akin to a close-up of your garage floor instead of the majestic night sky. Canon has addressed [...]
Definitely not smoke and mirrors
Good BBQ is a thing of legend and separates the “great neighbors” from “those people down the block”. Be the hero of your street this season with the Yoder Smokers Pellet Series YS640 ($1,299). Yoder makes competition grade grills in a hotbed of BBQ excellence, Kansas. The YS640 Pellet Smoker is Yoder’s solution for the [...]
Loud and Studious
Ask any studio engineer worth his ponytail about Adam speakers, and they will tell you their monitors have populated some of the best recording facilities in the world for years. The reason for this is a passion for forward thinking design and revolutionary use of materials, such as carbon fiber diaphragms and ribbon transducers. While [...]
Sittin Pretty
You’ve been meticulous about the furniture inside your home, having amassed quite the collection since the end of those IKEA years. Unfortunately, all of that accumulated taste means squat the moment your Lowe’s patio set becomes the center of attention again as a summer retreat for meals and cocktails. Mercifully for your social life, Herman [...]
