Remember the Oldsmobile commercials from years ago that said the models current then were "Not your father's Oldsmobile?" Well I've found a car that is: the Toyota Avalon.
Toyota's flagship sedan is a big, family-friendly sedan that offers lots to like as long as you don't care about the drive itself. It's comfortable, well-appointed, and features stuff like reclining rear seats and most of the technological treats you could want these days. It also rides like a boat, so if you've always wanted to go on a cruise but were afraid of getting wet, this may be your opportunity. more...
Digital cameras continue to make great strides, and the Olympus SP-800UZ is a good example of the species today.
I've been using one for a couple of months and like it a lot. It not only would make a great replacement for my older digital camera, it ups the technology ante substantially, with excellent features such as an 30 times optical zoom and the capability to shoot 720p high definition video. more...
Anyone who remembers the Honda CRX fondly will probably find a soft spot in his or her heart for the new CR-Z sport hybrid.
Honda bills the CR-Z as "the world’s first sport hybrid" but, first or not, what really matters is that this is a nifty little car, cute as a bug's ear, fun and efficient – and priced reasonably to boot.
For what more could anyone ask? more...
Creating a gadget that's easy to use is almost like the search for the Holy Grail, as electronics manufacturers strive continuously to find ways to make sophisticated stuff that makes non-tech folk's lives easier.
I've been messing around with a couple of home theater-related pieces that aspire to just that ease of use, and both of them succeed pretty well. One is Western Digital's Live HD Media Player; while the other is Logitech's Harmony 650 "nearly universal" remote control for your audio and video equipment. more...
If you're looking for a small, economical car that's also a real blast to drive, you can't go far wrong with the Volkswagen Golf GTI.
When the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada named the GTI as its 2010 Canadian Car of the year, I didn't agree. But I can see why the GTI copped the Canuck challenge: it's a delightful car, fast and wonderful to drive and with all the great things – such as a first class interior – that I've come to expect from Volkswagen. more...
Avid bicyclists, environmentalists, or weenies who don't want to work hard may want to check out OHM bicycles, power-assisted units that certainly made the ordeal of bicycling easier for this sedentary writer/weenie.
OHM bills itself as the premium brand of power-assisted bicycles and claims to offer the only power-assisted bikes equipped with the patented "BionX" torque sensor. It's a technology they say responds automatically to the way the rider pedals, providing a smooth, natural sensation – even, supposedly compensating if one of your legs is pedaling more strongly than the other. more...
Acura's new "crossover utility vehicle with the design of a personal sports coupe" turns out to be a heckuva vehicle. Once you get used to it, anyway.
Going into my review, I just knew I was going to hate the ZDX. I'd seen it around and thought it was the ugliest thing to come out of the Honda/Acura company yet. But given my overall respect for Honda, I buried my feelings and tried to give the ZDX a fair assessment.
Good thing, too. After my week with this "SUV-compatible", it had not only grown on me, but I came away liking the ZDX – a lot. This is a vehicle I would own, especially if I did a lot of highway driving. more...
Artists, layout people and graphic designers have new power, flexibility and ease of use at their mousetips with CorelDRAW X5.
Corel switched from straight number to the "X" factor with version X3, which followed v. 12, possibly for the same reason there aren't many 13th floors in buildings. Version X5 not only moves the product forward, it also takes an interesting and welcome step backward, because it comes with a hardcover manual the likes of which we're seeing less and less of these days as companies offer either online or PDF manuals. more...
Creating Porsche's first four door sports car was a gutsy move that risked alienating customers, millions of development dollars, and the company's reputation.
It isn't the first time Porsche has done this, of course. The Cayenne SUV may have sparked even more spittle when the company first announced it – and it's now a respected vehicle that sells well – and with good reason.
Trust Porsche, then, to have made the Panamera yet another fabulous vehicle. more...
Keep your "ion" this column if you want to blur the ugly reality of cleaning things with the fantasy of competition driving in which you can zap the competition right off the track.
Huh, you say? Well, this column is about two very different products that are aimed at very different markets: the Ionic Clean system and "Blur" the video game, and I had to tie them together somehow. The connection: the word Blur itself. As defined by Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, blur can mean both "to obscure or sully (something) by smearing or with a smeary substance" and "to become indistinct: Everything blurred as she ran".
The first definition could describe dirt, a problem you undoubtedly want to correct – perhaps with the Ionic Clean system. The second definition could describe the experience of playing the video game of the same name. more...
Maybe you've seen the commercials, an invisible artist painting the lines of an attractive new sedan, the announcer extolling virtues such as "Forest Air" and silver flakes in the wood grain.
If you haven't, or even if you have and don't remember the car, they're talking about the new Infiniti M, the top-of-the-line sedan from Nissan's luxury division. It's a wonderful car, though not without its frustrations. more...
Finding the proper light for a particular task can be tough. If you're working at a desk, doing finely detailed work, for example, you might want something different than if you're trying to read in a darkened home theater. How does the Element LED Task Light stack up? more...
The Motormouse, meanwhile, is a road-going rodent that's clearly inspired by the lovely Porsche 911, looking just different enough, I daresay, to avoid unpleasant lawsuits. It's kind of "911 compatible" the way DOS computers used to be called "IBM compatible", in that the main difference between them was the brand name. more....
Call it an uber-Prius, if you like.
It's the Lexus HS 250h, the luxury car maker's first four cylinder model, and at heart it's a luxury hybrid. It's also a very nice car that would undoubtedly be easy to live with.
And it's so green, regardless of which color you order it in, that it could drive you nuts. Not only is it supposed to sip gas (Lexus claims a mileage rating of 41.3 mpg or 5.7L/100 km, though I never got that), but it's also supposedly equipped with an interior that's nearly one third populated by "sustainable ecological plastics" whatever the heck that's supposed to mean. more...
Apps for the iPhone are exploding exponentially, or so it seems, and run the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous.
It isn't often that one of them gets me excited, but I've been using a couple that I've found really handy, including Livio's Internet Radio app, a five dollar download that's billed as the first and only mobile internet radio solution optimized for use in a vehicle. It's a wonderful tool for either the iPhone or iPod Touch and it lets you listen to more than 42,000 AM/FM and Internet-only radio streams from around the world. I've been using it with my iPhone and I really like it. more...
Ford's Flex has a new heart this year, new motivation for both the vehicle and perhaps for those interested in buying it.
It's Ford's Ecoboost technology, which includes the company's new twin turbo 3.5 liter V6 that Ford says delivers V8 power with V6 fuel economy. It's a peach of a system and it produces 355 horsepower, which Ford says is 35 percent more than that of the base Flex's V6, and 350 ft.-lb. of torque, up 41 percent.
The engine is connected to a six speed "SelectShift" automatic transmission with a manual mode that includes paddle shifters that let you take control over the shifting, even to it providing rev-matching downshifts – which comes in handy. more...
Whether you have a small office or a home office, Brother has a line of printers it thinks will serve your needs well.
And it just might. The latest unit to cross my home office threshold is the $449 U.S. MFC-9120CN, a multi-function unit that, via LED technology, allows for a smaller footprint than the earlier, conventional color laser all-in-ones of theirs that I've tried. This, of course, is a good thing because the new model not only takes up less space in the office, it's easier – at a net weight of 50.5 lbs (compared with the 72.6 lbs of the last laser Brother MFC I tried) – to lift into that place in the first, er, place. more...
They've upgraded its looks and features a bit for 2010, but at heart the Mazda CX-9 is the same big SUV it has been since its introduction. And that's a good thing.
Not a lot needed to be changed. Heck, my chief complaint is that they still use red illumination on the instruments, and that is not only about as minor a beef as you can have, but whether or not it's even a beef at all is something clearly in the eye of the beholder.
So what we're left with is a 2010 CX-9 that's still big, still roomy, still comfy, and still fun to drive. Okay, it doesn't give the driving joy of a Porsche Cayenne, but it's definitely a Mazda and that means it has their famous "Zoom-Zoom" in its DNA, even if the vehicle is the size of a guest house. more...
Epson has been turning out excellent front projectors for the home theater market, products that not only offer consumers a wonderful home theater experience, but which do it for a reasonable price. The PowerLite Pro Cinema 9500UB continues this noble tradition.
I've been using Epson projectors as my reference units for a few years now, chiefly because of the aforementioned performance to value ratio. I try to use equipment that, while higher end than most of the products you find in the big box stores, is still within reach of the consumer who wants that extra quality without remortgaging the home. This latest Epson offers everything I've come to like about the company's projectors, while upping the ante from the last generation. more...
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