Rough Cuts Ltd Blog

For a long time now I've been extolling the virtues of the military inspired Zagg mobile screen protectors, aka Invisishields. For those of you who may not know, the Army use the same material to protect the blade edges of helicopters in the desert so that the sand doesn't damage the rotors. They are very good. But, they are an absolute pain for the majority of mammals with opposing thumbs and forefingers to fit. Only a few unique individuals can easily fit them. This summer I took my iPhone to Cyprus, and found that in the heat, the adhesive failed more than once and whilst shoving it into a camera bag pocket, it rolled up and ended up a right mess. Having said this, fitted correctly, in the right temperature conditions, they feel quality and offer a rubberised finish to your screen, which doesn't affect the responsiveness of the device at all. They are however, prior to installation, floppy, and this makes the world of difference. The case mate screen protectors on...

This is the first Windows 7 phone I've managed to get my hands on, and having completed the training several weeks back, I must confess, I'm a little excited. Microsoft have certainly managed to capture some of the anticipation and hype that is usually reserved for technology that bears fruit for it's logo. Although I appreciate that I'm most likely a minority. The build up for windows 7 has had far less of an impact on joe public. We're a few weeks late with these products rolling in and we don't have people forming disorderly and frantic queues. It's a sombre launch at best. No matter, the proof is in the pudding as they say. Upon booting up the device, I'm greeted with an attractively scrolling windows 7 logo and I click the 'get started' button. I choose to set the phone up the 'recommended' way and have to set time date etc. First impressions are superb, even setting the time and date are an elegant process. I see my first glimpse ...

If you can get past the looks of this speaker dock, (I don't think my wife would approve of the design, anywhere in our house) then what you have here is a speaker dock for an ipod or iphone. Something that you may never have seen before. Ok, so the world is currently awash with iPod speaker docks. But as a species, we're sadly denied vast quantities of high quality sound at reasonable price speaker docks. This I guess fulfils the latter in terms of price as the RRP is below £50. Where it lets itself down is in the quality of the sound. It has two bass ports, two tweeters and two midrange. The potential to amaze is pretty high. But sadly, it just doesn't. The sound is messy and lacking punch. There is little detail and at times it comes across as shrill. It lacks involvement and coherence. As a machine for the kitchen, if you really don't have much time to look around, and you'll be listening from another room, then this may satisfy your needs. If you care more abou...

The K100 is a bit of an oddity. on the one hand its a simple sunvisor handsfree car kit. The likes of which we've seen time and time again. It has an inbuilt speaker, a rechargeable battery, a clip and a uniquely a ruddy great big volume dial in the middle. A great idea, especially when driving; the last thing you need to be doing is fumbling around trying to find the right button to increase or decrease the volume.  Unlike other car kits though, the Visor K100 has an inbuilt FM transmitter. The sticker on the outside states that it "Streams Audio to car speakers". Naively I assumed this was audio as in music, but after testing, I can confirm that the audio from telephone conversations is also transmitted through the car hifi. Initially I had some problems locking onto the radio station. The frequency auto selects and the unit transmits on that same frequency. With the absence of any display panel, the unit relies on voice. So you click the FM button and the device tells ...