Comments on: Dave’s Travel Tech

By: Travel

Travel — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:52:06 +0000

Thanks, bookmarked the post, will be useful

By: Scott Lewis

Scott Lewis — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:55:08 +0000

Hey Dave – Audio Technica’s ATH-ANC3 are my headset of choice. In ear, pretty comfortable, decent sounding and noise canceling which helps tremendously while flying. About $120 in the Apple Store and just about half mail order from respected etailers. The noise cancellation is not as good as over the ear brands, but they are barely bulkier to carry then the Shure’s you’re replacing them with. Comes with a decent semi-hard case, various size tips, a battery, an extension cable, and airline adapter. I’ve had two generations of Sony in-ear noise canceling, these are both comfier (the Sony tips are too soft and the plastic too hard underneath) and more effective (better cancellation of background noise).

Another option if it’s for your iPhone is the Plantronics Voyager 855, less than $40 at Amazon. It’s a bluetooth headset with an attachable ear piece for full stereo A2DP sound. Quality is pretty good… for Bluetooth stereo. It’s completely in ear as a headset, although the second ear piece attaches via an ear loop for the first ear. I hate ear loops, but this one is low profile, not ear irritating, and does NOT interfere with any glasses I’ve worn.

Careful with the Mophie… mine got stuck on pretty bad, took a lot of pressure to remove, and ended up scratching the back of my iPhone upon removal. I’ve also tried the inCase Power Slider, which as a non-hard plastic is more scratch resistant itself and also seemed to fit better. Problem is, both interfere horribly with iPhone reception. I’ve gone back to carrying a battery from monoprice.com – “iPhone Backup Battery Pack (2200mAh)” which plugs into the iPhone via dock port providing about 125% of a charge. At $14.50 a piece I picked up three (one for the wife, two for my laptop bag) and can pretty much go 24 hours of video playing without plugging into AC. It’s a bit quirky… every now and then (maybe 1 out of every 5 times I use it) it will charge for a few minutes then the iPhone complains about compatibility and stop charging, but unplugging and replugging does the trick.

By: jon frederick

jon frederick — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:48:04 +0000

Dublin is good times. We are headed to the northern coast, in county donegal. its quite rural up there (sheep, fields, more sheep, did i mention sheep?) but we are spending time with family. should be good times. Very jealous of your trip to Germany, its number one on my list right now.

i scored a free eee 1000 (linux with SSD) but the original SSD is soooo slow and i haven’t had time to find a suitable replacement that’s actually in stock anywhere…

By: J4yDubs

J4yDubs — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:33:26 +0000

You can add that Broadcom Card to the HP Mini yourself. Just get it for around $25 from eBay. Just make sure you get the Mini with the HD (1366×768) display.

I really like my HP Mini, but I haven’t gotten used to the trackpad button placement.

John

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:31:30 +0000

jon, I did Dublin last Thanksgiving. This year, we’re doing Munich. Leaving the laptop at home and I know I sacrifice photo quality using pocket-able cameras but I’m not willing to carry anything larger (plus extra lenses). In Dublin, it looked like one of the phone carriers offered WiFi all over the place and you could buy a day pass or something. Maybe worth checking out? We mostly used our hotel lobby to periodically upload camera pics and check email though. We’ll see what the situation in Munich is. (Melissa’s also bringing her new iPhone, which replaces the WiFi Blackberry she used last year.)

By: jon frederick

jon frederick — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:15:29 +0000

where are you headed dave? i am making a trans-atlantic flight as well, making way to Ireland this evening…

i dont travel as lightly though.

-Canon Rebel XSi (two lenses)
-Flip UltraHD
-MacBook Pro
-Storm2
-iPod nano

Hoping to get away with wifi only, even though i could hook up the sim card for vodafone access

By: Mari Silbey

Mari Silbey — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:06:07 +0000

That’s the plan.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:22:46 +0000

As you can see from the pic, I’m again traveling with a pair of foam earplugs. Priceless on most flights and in noisy hotels (which I hope we don’t have).

The blog will be quiet the next few days, but maybe Mari will get a post or two up while I’m away. Happy Thanksgiving, all.