Rough Cuts Ltd Blog

I guess most people now have a convergence device, something that they use for a multitude of tasks. A smartphone that takes care of email, sat nav, music, dashmount cam, video etc etc. In which case, I also assume most people have, or need, a decent quality car mount. For most manufacturers, and I really do mean the majority, this means low production costs, medium to high RRP and margins, shoddy quality and high fail rate. If you recognise these traits and you're a bit sick of them. Then you could go straight to the best solution. Ram have been making mounts for a long time now, and the majority are based around ball and socket joints, with clamps. These units are modular, so you can customise your mount depending on your needs. The most effective, is the screw in base with a ball joint. This creates a really solid base for your device, but, if the idea of screwing into the dashboard of your car doesn't delight you, the traditional suction cup mount is also available. then

As a keen photographer I was excited when this arrived in store. The handset is baffling, from one side a normal looking Android handset (Let's be honest, there are many that are starting to look pretty similar now aren't they... It's hard to find an android handset that's unique) and on the other side there's stonking camera. The first thing we tested was the zoom. The camera boasts a 21x optical zoom, and it's pretty damn impressive. Furthermore, it has Manual mode, Shutter Priority, Aperture priority etc and also an ISO of 3200. We took a pic outside and on manual in pretty dark street light conditions, it chose 800 and took a fairly clear picture. Close inspection showed mild graininess, but considering we overrode the flash settings and took it handheld, it was very very impressive. Of course having wifi, 3G and a full android interface and a fabulously competent camera strapped to the back makes photo management a new game to play. The device can upload

In a training session this week, we did a little experiment.  I reset my data counter and browsed the new 3d maps in iOS 6 on an iPhone.  In 1 single minute, of looking at just a handful of streets in London (some which didn't even download), I had used 22mb of cellular data. Obviously this is something of an eye opener and something most customers are unlikely to be aware of. Circa 100Mb every 4 minutes is really quite horrendous and could see many customers data usage totally wiped out in well under an hour.  The 3d maps on the iPhone is clearly quite revolutionary as well and something of significant curious interest. If people can't wait til they get home to try it, they'll be out of data within their first week. 

The Crayola Colorstudio HD+ is a big chunky pen designed to work with the ColorStudio HD app available for free from the app store. A number of users complain that the pen isn't responsive enough, and to be honest, from my first attempt, I found that was true as well. The pen takes a single AA battery and has a button at the end. I also thought the switch was faulty as it doesn't 'click' like it looks like it should, (like the click on the pen) however, when it's turned on, the light on the side illuminates, and if you hold it to your ears, you can hear it making a strange electrical sound. To prove you haven't just downloaded the free crayola app to use with your finger, you have to unlock it, using the magic pen. However, this is where you find out how to use the pen. Despite having a lovely round end. It only really registers if it's pretty much perpendicular with the surface of the iPad. You also have to press quite hard for it to register. After loadi

We got these in a couple of weeks ago and I completely overlooked it. Then a customer bought one and promptly returned it. There seems to be a flurry of reviews on other websites complaining of basic functionality and incompatibility, especially in the UK and with Sky+ boxes. With that in mind, and because we're selling them. I thought I ought to investigate. So I have. To get it working, you need to download the free Digit app from the Appstore and pair the beacon with your iPhone. I'll be honest, initially, I had a couple of problems getting the app to recognise the fact that I'd linked the device via bluetooth. I didn't read the instructions, but eventually the app saw it and I was ready to continue. I added a couple of devices and familiarised myself with the app layout before bringing the item home to test. At home, I'd got the Panasonic TV right, it worked straight away, but sure enough, the Sky choice I'd made didn't work. I clicked the help me choo

At home, I occasionally use google chrome. I don't find it as good as Safari, so to be honest, I've only dabbled. Perhaps this is where the problem came from. I've signed in using 2 accounts. A team account that I created to let my team  view  work documents and an administrator one that I use to edit and create documents. The passwords are different. I have logged in and out on both accounts, but it would appear that, at some point, I signed into Chrome (not simply google) using the team account. At some point, Chrome has decided it will collect, group and remember all of the passwords that it sees. Including my (different) personal account. Today, my team have set up a new computer at work and signed into chrome using the team account. Unbeknown to me, on a computer that I've never sat at, that I've never entered my password on, by default, my email address AND password both auto populate the sign in fields! Now as if this wasn't bad enough, trying to d

I got really excited when I saw these, they work using Near Field Communication (NFC). The tech thats behind cardless payments systems. To look at, they look like key rings. So I jumped to the conclusion that perhaps your phone would keep an eye on your keys, your wallet etc? No, thats not it at all. These funny looking sticky tabs stick to your car dashboard and allow you  to personalise your phone for the different environments. So for example, in the car, you may want wifi off and bluetooth on, in the office, that could be opposite. In the toilet, you may want youtube to start, or a news app, depending on what you do in the toilet? So, perhaps of some use to someone, but not as handy as I'd thought it might be. Would you buy an Xperia, just so you could do this?

First up it should be noted that this is a telephoto lens and not a Zoom lens. So it won't allow a great deal of flexibility in terms of photography. For example you won't be able to compose a shot with 'a bit more sky' or 'zooming in a bit closer' on the subject. After breaking my way into the ghastly moulded packaging, I first took out the beautifully machined lens. This is very weighty and high quality. In terms of optics, it's good, for the price it is. It's clearly not intended to be in competition with high end lens manufacturers, but overall the clarity is perfectly acceptable. It has a twist to focus function that works well (although it does confuse the iphone auto focus a little). It comes with all of the attachments you would need. But with the exception of the lens caps, the rest of the contents really lets the package down. Firstly the tripod. It's a mini tripod, with a normal screw for attaching to the bottom of a camera. For any keen

Can't believe I didn't know that you can format your text on iOS devices. By double tapping the word and selecting biu. Doesn't work in all apps though.... Like blog press, (which I'm writing this on). But you can in emails...... See? - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Oh the irony. about 6 months ago I emailed our buying team and told them about the GoPano 360, a device we ought to consider selling. Then when the buying team found out the RRP they decided against it, calling it a niche product, they were probably right. This week though, we've had this product in which performs exactly the same function... it captures 360 degree video. The two products seem to achieve the result in slightly different ways though. The strangely named Kogeto Dot seems to use a fish eye lens, where as the GoPano uses a conical mirror. Now before I need to explain my results, if you have an iOS device, you probably don't need to read on. Simply download the free 'looker' app from the apple app store. From here if you navigate to 'featured' and you'll see the videos that other users have uploaded.  Actually you can make your mind without an iOS device by looking at the videos on the dot website. However you view the videos though you will no

Genuine Box, book and case on the left. I'm going to use this next post to help identify the difference between a set of genuine Monster Beats headphones, and a counterfeit set that we've obtained. Before we start, it's important that you know, in isolation, without a set to compare, and without this previous knowledge, you'll most likely be duped into thinking that the fake set, are genuine. We asked a couple of team members to examine the headphones and asked if they could find a reason why a customer would return them (we didn't let on that they were fake) and they couldn't. We made up a story about the logo being not quite straight (which it isn't) and, more worryingly, they said they'd exchange them, although they'd think the customer was being pretty picky. Then, to their surprise we told them they were fake, and they were pretty shocked. Until we showed them next to a real pair. What I intend to do now, is to highlight, just how close they

Motocast is Motorola's alternative to Slingbox. The difference is that Slingbox uses a signal from a TV or a broadcast. Motocast streams your media, music and video, from a computer connected to the internet and running the motocast software. In a nutshell, Motocast will allow you to browse through the content on an internet connected PC, then stream the content to your motorola device no matter where you are. Both sling box and Motocast allow you to view content whilst out on the move. Services such as tvcatchup have rendered services such as sling box pretty much redundant. Although if you MUST see a TV only event, only available through a subscribed channel. Slingbox is your only option. We tested Motocast earlier this afternoon and over a slow internet connection, with a weak signal, it worked pretty well. With a good signal, it had no problems at all. Obviously using a service like this over 3G is going to incur hefty data charges or use significant portions of your data allow