There is one issue that we have encountered, loading the AA batteries is somewhat of a hassle. Reason being is that the springs are extremely flimsy and bend a lot making it hard to load batteries into the Fidelio DS3000 speaker/dock station.

Other then that issue it’s still my favorite and best sounding compact iPod speaker/dock!

After listening to several different iPod/MP3 docking speakers I actually had very low expectations for the Fidelio DS3000. The other speakers were tinny, lacked any sort of mid bass, and were just plain awful. However that is definitely not the case with this baby!

Setup was dirt simple (much simpler then the folding “easy to store” speakers that are out there). I just pulled it out of the box, plugged in the AC adaptor (it also runs on batteries), set the 5th gen iPod Nano on it’s base, hit play, and away I was! No spacers or other plastic bits to insert into/over the iPod connection to make the different iPods or iPhone to fit!

The built in lit volume control on the unit is a nice touch since several other units lack an external volume control.

A USB connection allows for connectivity to your computer so you can sync your iPod with your computer. While a separate input jack allows the use of any other MP3 or CD player.

The quality of audio that this beauty reproduces is actually quite amazing. It’s not the least bit hollow or tinny. Mid bass and the lower frequencies are present. And the shape of the “system” does a great job at filling a moderately large room with clear audio.

A docking and charging station for your iPod or iPhone and a speaker system for your MP3 or other audio playing device. Sleek, stylish, and extremely functional!

Pros:

• Small.
• Amazing sound quality, very impressed.
• Charged the iPod.
• Fits practically all iPods and iPhones.
• External volume control.
• Stylish.
• Accepts other audio devices through a stereo jack.
• Priced very well, would actually expect to pay upwards of $200 of this quality.
• Is practically idiot proof and easy to use.

Cons:

• None thus far!

Click here to research the product on Amazon!

The first and most important thing that should be said about the Kindle Fire is that this is not an “iPad-killer.” It is not designed to be. I have seen so many articles and comments comparing this to the iPad, and surveys where people are asked if they will be buying a Kindle Fire over an iPad this Christmas. If you are expecting an iPad, or even a tablet, you will be disappointed. The main purpose of this device is to deliver Amazon content to you more effectively. It is designed for consumption, not creation. That is the reason it is so cheap and why Amazon is taking a loss on it. They are hoping to make up for that loss through sales of videos, music, books, and apps through Amazon’s Web Services. You can also use it to view your own movies and media, but will find that it is more limited in that way than a regular tablet. Personally, as someone who has ordered several rentals from Amazon Video, and had to contact customer support for every single one of them due to problems with Amazon’s Unbox player or purchases not appearing in my downloads, I can really appreciate this. But if you don’t plan on using Amazon at all to obtain your media, you may want to take this into consideration before purchasing the Fire. Additionally, the reason this product is so hyped, and one of the reasons I like it so much, is due to the ridiculously low price. Amazon reviews shouldn’t focus on price, but it is hard not to with this device. On price alone, this is a five star device. However when looked at the Fire overall, and when compared with other touch devices (what little there is to compare it to), I have to give it four stars, since there are a few areas I feel could use definite improvement.

FORM FACTOR – The Kindle Fire feels almost the same in my hand as my 3rd generation Kindle but it is a bit heavier. It might be difficult to hold it one handed and read a book for an hour or watch a movie. You’re going to need to rest it on something. The display is made of Gorilla Glass, which is a highly damage-resistant. You can still crack it, but I have used a phone with Gorilla Glass for two years on it and it has zero scratches on it despite being kept daily in my pocket with my keys. The back of the tablet is rubberized, so it won’t slide around and won’t get scratched easily. It also feels good in my hand. Despite all the companies that will be selling them, I do not think you need a screen protector. I have scratched Gorilla Glass before, but it is very difficult to do.

CONNECTIONS/STORAGE – On the bottom are a headphone port (which will accept external speakers), micro-USB (for charging and file transfer), and power button. The Fire doesn’t come with an SD card slot, with good reason. As mentioned, Amazon wants you to get content directly from them. It also reduces the production costs. You can transfer your own content to the device through the USB connection from your home computer. The Fire comes with 8Gb of storage, which is enough to hold about 8 downloaded movies, 80 apps, 800 songs, or 6,000 books. I filled mine up right away so I never checked it out of the box, but apparently it is closer to 6.5Gb as the OS is going to take up some of this. You have to really become adept at managing your content through the Cloud. Books won’t take up much room, but magazines are around 250Mb and movies are a little under 1 Gb. Free videos available through Amazon Prime cannot be downloaded, only streamed. So unless you buy a movie from Amazon or transfer one of your own, you must be connected through a wi-fi connection in order to watch your movie.

AMAZON CLOUD – If you have not tried out the Amazon Cloud Drive, you will be pleasantly surprised. You get 5Gb (which they will probably increase in the near future) of free online storage to store anything you want, and you can access it from anywhere. This combines very nicely with the Fire. 5Gb isn’t much for my collection, so I upgraded to a higher plan (rates are $1 per extra gigabyte per year). I can upload a playlist to it and listen to it on my home computer, then when I get to work the Fire can access it and pick it up where I left off. Any songs you get from Amazon Mp3 are automatically stored on the Cloud and don’t contribute to the 5Gb storage space.

E-READER – This was going to be the big determination in whether I should get a Fire or the new Kindle Touch. Ultimately I ended up getting both since I prefer the E-Ink technology to the backlit display of the Fire. If you are the type of person who reads a lot and expect to spend at least 50% of your use on reading books, I don’t think you will be satisfied with the Fire over your Kindle 3 or the Kindle Touch, Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display – includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers. It just isn’t the same, and after hours of reading, the display would make my eyes hurt a bit (just like with any tablet). However it is nice not to have to use a lighted cover to see my books in the dark. The Kindle Fire is difficult to read in bright sunlight or on the beach. The touch navigation is very nice, but it doesn’t function as nicely or quickly as it does on the iPad or even the Kindle Touch. This can be a problem for me, and the main reason I am using the Kindle Touch for reading books. Additionally, the Fire doesn’t support real page numbers, even though the Touch does. So you have to use that ridiculous “location 121 of 16077 – 2%” format. A year of that with my last Kindle and I still don’t understand what that means. They need to fix this in an update. Being able to touch a word and have it bring up the dictionary is incredibly convenient and takes less than 2 seconds. But still, the Kindle Touch handily beats the Fire for reading.

MAGAZINES – The Kindle Fire can also handle magazines, however the display is just too small to be an enjoyable reading experience. I tried out several different magazines, and the main problem I had was with the formatting. I tried to read an issue of Bon Appetit and my eyes were straining after three pages. There is no way to read a single article without zooming. The Fire handles magazines two ways: with Page View, which shows the original magazine display, and with Text View, which attempts to just provide the text of the article. A lot of magazines these days have several things going on in one page, with multiple columns, little sidebars and boxes everywhere, etc. I couldn’t view a lot of this without zooming, the text is just too small. So Page View did not work very well for magazines like this. It is especially tough with magazines like Entertainment Weekly, Men’s Health, GQ, etc. I found magazines like that unreadable on the 7″ display. Magazines that focused mostly on the article, like Nature, Wired, etc, were handled much better. Some magazines even come integrated with embedded video and audio, which is a very nice feature, and one I can see being very useful for things like Men’s Health, but I haven’t had as much of a chance to use it yet. Text View is a very nice feature that works mostly well, but seems to get a bit confused with magazines that have complicated formatting, so it pretty much defeats the purpose since those are the ones I need it for the most.

COMIC READER – This is one of the main reasons I purchased the Fire. Amazon has a fairly extensive collection of comic books available for the Fire, including an exclusive deal with DC to publish many of their books. In addition to a proprietary comic reader that comes on the Fire, Amazon also has a Comics by ComiXology app available to purchase issues and subscriptions through. Although I initially thought the 7″ display would be too small, it is actually decent enough to serve as a comic reader. I would definitely prefer a 10″ version if they came out with one in the future. A 10″ tablet is still the way to go for comics, but if you’re looking for a cheaper option and portability, the Fire isn’t too bad, and definitely beats a smart phone. It has a “panel by panel” feature that lets you scroll through the issue by different panels, which it will then zoom in on. You tap the panel when done, and it moves to the next panel. This is great for getting a larger view and working around the size restriction, especially since some of the text in the comics is just too small to read. Although it is fairly decent, if you are considering the Fire just for comic books, and you are a Marvel fan, you may want to hold off and look at another retailer’s device which I think has a few more options. You can load your own .cbr comic files on the Kindle, but you’ll need to use a third party app, like Comicat to do it.

AMAZON MP3/VIDEO – Amazon hopes that you will get the majority of your content from them. That is why the Fire is so reasonably-priced. Amazon music is DRM-free. DRM is copy protection. That means that the record labels haven’t locked down the music you buy from Amazon to restrict how you use it. Amazon MP3 music is playable anywhere, even on your Apple devices. It also has a very high bitrate so you are getting great quality. You don’t have to worry about not being able to listen to your music 15 years from now if Amazon goes under. It’s yours forever. As far as video, I have always disliked Amazon’s Video services. The prices are very reasonable and they now have a huge selection, but obtaining the videos is a huge pain due to Amazon’s terrible Unbox player. That changes with the Fire, as everything is native and streams/downloads beautifully. If you make a lot of purchases with Amazon, or if you have several Amazon customers in your household, you should take advantage of their Prime program. In addition to the large selection of free videos now available to Prime members, the shipping advantages are amazing. I once had a 200 lb exercise bike overnighted to my house for only $3.99. Everything I order I get within 2 days. The Prime program seems expensive but it has certainly paid for itself over the years for me, and now is even better that it is integrated more with the Fire. The only problem I have with video playback is that everything I watched did not fully expand to the screen, and was letterboxed. Considering the small 7″ display size, this was an annoyance for me. I know shows have different aspect ratios, but some should fit the display, and I think many users will be annoyed that they can’t zoom or stretch the display to fit.

WEB BROWSING – This is another feature I was initially excited about. I like the idea of being able to use the Fire as a netbook. Amazon advertises “ultra fast web browsing” using Amazon’s Silk browser. It is based off of technology that is designed to increase page loading times by pre-fetching part of the content. Sounds like a great idea, but doesn’t work as well in practice. I tried out the Fire on several different connections and compared page loading times with other devices (all connected wirelessly). The Fire was one of the slowest. Amazon’s own web page, which has actually recently been optimized to work with the Fire, takes an average of 7 seconds to load. Other major portals took a similar amount of time or slower. My iPad and my Xoom both load pages much faster. It is not slow enough to be a problem, but not fast enough to impress me or be worthy of Amazon’s marketing regarding it. This needs to be improved.

BATTERY LIFE – Amazon advertises 8 hours of reading or 7.5 hours of video playback. As an average, that’s probably fairly accurate. During testing I got an average of 7.4 hours of continuous reading, and 7 hours of video playback over five tests for each. This is a big change over the roughly 30 days of continuous reading with the traditional kindle, so it may hamper you a bit if you’re a voracious reader. I just got into the habit of charging it every night with my cell phone. You can shut down the Kindle or put it in sleep mode. I keep mine in sleep mode all the time because it is so efficient that it uses almost no battery. I can leave it in sleep mode for 2 days and come back and not notice any change in battery life, and since I don’t have to reboot, it starts up immediately.

VS IPAD – As said, this isn’t designed to be an iPad. I have an iPad and there is so much more I can do with it compared to the Kindle. The Fire serves a different (but sometimes similar) function. I just don’t ever see Amazon building up the type of app store that Apple has, and that’s where you’re going to find the major differences. Additionally, the 10″ display on the iPad makes a huge difference to me over the Fire’s 7″ display when it comes to watching movies and TV, and reading magazines and comic books. However, I think there is definitely room for the Fire to steal some of iPad’s market share, as many people (I am one of them), will find the functions they want in a tablet can be covered by the Fire.

USER INTERFACE – The Fire uses a heavily modified version of Android. I really liked the interface, however I don’t think it works as well on the Fire as it does on a full tablet device like the Motorola Xoom. Occasionally I would try to make a page turn and have it not register on the Fire, or have it register more slowly than I am used to. If you have a lot of experience with the iPad, you are going to notice that the software doesn’t respond as quickly on the Fire as it does with other tablets. Although this is an inconvenience and something I definitely feel needs to be addressed, I can accept it given the lower price point. I will have a problem though if this is not resolved through a firmware upgrade in the future. The Fire’s custom version of Android is very nice. The most recent applications or files accessed will display in a carousel format that you can rotate through. You can also set up commonly-used applications as favorites.

NEGATIVES:
- No bluetooth and no HDMI. I could really use bluetooth for integration with bluetooth-capable speakers and so I can use bluetooth audio in my car. As a media player, I feel this really should have been included, and I imagine it will with future versions. This is especially important since the audio from the speakers is a bit tinny and weak. I have been using headphones with all my media-playing, which significantly improves the sound. There is also no physical volume button, which is a pain when you need to silence the device quickly. I also would like HDMI output so I can take my Amazon video purchases and watch them on my big screen TV. Another big disadvantage in a device that is made for media. This will also likely be included in a future edition, so at $200, I don’t feel bad about possibly having to upgrade a year from now to get it.
- Only 8Gb storage space. As mentioned, this device is mainly designed to integrate with Amazon’s Cloud, so 8 should be enough, but it would be nice to have at least 16. I imagine Amazon did this on purpose to force people to use their Cloud service.
- Touch capability can sometimes be sluggish. iPad and other tablet owners may be disappointed with the touch reaction time and some aspects of the software.
- Video doesn’t include option to zoom or stretch the display to fit the screen.
- Web “Accelerator” is not as fast as other tablets.
- No Micro-USB transfer cable included with it. Another way for Amazon to discourage you from transferring your own files to the device. If you want to do that, you will need to purchase one separately, like the AmazonBasics USB Cable – 2.0 A Male to Micro B (6 Feet / 1.8 Meters).

SUMMARY: Bottom line, you will not find a cheaper device out there for streaming music, video, and books than the Kindle Fire. The reason that this device is so amazing is not for what it can do, but for what it can do at such a cheap price. The price tag, not the technology, is the story here. Although I definitely feel there is room for improvement and will be interested in seeing Amazon’s second generation of this device (which I think will be significantly improved), the Kindle Fire is a solid start. If you can wait a year or more for Amazon to work out the kinks with the Fire (like it did with its 1st generation of the Kindle), you should definitely do that. The next version should fix a lot of the problems that keep the current Fire from being a “Five Star” product. Unfortunately, reviews shouldn’t focus on price, so due to some issues with the form factor and touch interface, I can only give it four stars. It is just not “perfect” enough for me to say it is a five star product without taking price into consideration. But aside for that, there is really only one device you can compare the Fire to – The Nook. So for what it is, I would have no problems recommending the Fire to consumers who can take advantage of it. This product more than lives up to what it is DESIGNED to do. If you plan on getting most of your content from Amazon AND you have a Prime membership, I think you will really find this is a pretty incredible device for the money.

UPDATE 28 Dec 2011: After getting a new case for the Fire that makes it easier to hold, I’m starting to use it more for reading (although I still prefer my Kindle Touch for anything over about 45 minutes). Some magazines are now better adapted to the Fire liked my subscription to Wired, and some are still terrible and just compressed PDFs. An update released last week adds more privacy features so you can delete recent history form the carousel, and does improve noticeably on the touch sensitivity, although it can still be frustrating at times and not as smooth as something like an iPad. Browser loading times are still disappointing, but not as bad as they were at first release, and I don’t notice them as much. I am continually impressed at battery usage for this device. Despite using it less than an hour a day, I never turn it off and only charge it a couple times a week. The rest of the time it sits in standby mode which is extremely efficient. If they could improve a couple more options I’d be closer to giving the Fire five stars.

To purchase the Amazon Kindle Fire, simply click here.

Airpush serves over 10,000 Android applications with push notification services and has recently announced Icon Ads, which will be an innovative way for app developers to monetize their applications through the Airpush platform.

Are push notification advertisements the future of advertising? The future will tell us soon enough. But until then, take action and get involved with Airpush early on.

Otherwise, you might be kicking yourself a few years from now.

Airpush is here to stay. Are you going to ride the wave of success with them?

Someone that is in the market for a new vehicle should scour the interwebs looking for the best deals they can find. You’d be surprised what’s out there today.

For example, for anyone looking to purchase a Ford vehicle, Jennings Ford Direct is an amazing online destination. To check out their selection, simply head on over to jenningsforddirect.co.uk and browse. You’ll immediately notice that they have everything you could possibly want from Ford. On top of that, you’ll see how competitive their prices are in relation to the current dealerships and lots that you might shop at otherwise.

Jennings Ford Direct, like most other online Ford car retailers, carry the following Ford models:

• Ka
• Fiesta
• Focus
• Mondeo
• Galaxy
• C-Max
• S-Max
• Kuga
• Transit

All models come with very low mileage and complete national delivery services. How cool is that? You don’t have to drive to pick up your perfect car. It will be dropped off in your driveway for you.

In conclusion, even if you’re not a Ford guy, take a look at Jennings to see how an online car dealership is supposed to operate. The website is clean, easy to understand, and again, they are able to compete heavily with those local guys that you have always been so in love with in the past.

The best way to expand wealth is spending a lot less money than you make every month. There’s not much more to it – Hook, line and sinker. With mortgages/rent, insurance, car payments, taxes, and all of the other financial responsibilities we are plagued with, cutting corners anywhere you can is the key to long-term financial success.

For a lot of families, cell phone bills play a large part of the monthly monetary burden. Most of the large cell phone conglomerates charge an arm and a leg for minutes, texts, and data plans. Before you know it, you’re paying over $100 a month per line with these large companies.

With a new mobile solution called Straight Talk, you get Everything you need without the lengthy contracts and large monthly bills. For only $45, you can get unlimited everything on your plan. Compare that to your current $130 plan and you have yourself a first step to your new wealth building formula.

The best part of all of this is that Straight Talk offers refurbished phones for as low as $10 when you start service with them. They are all of the smartphones and PDAs like Android on Straight Talk or iPhone on Straight Talk. Straight Talk is available at all Wal-Mart locations.

You should Call a friend and tell them to sign up with you.

I’ll leave you with a funny Straight Talk commercial, embedded below.

EndagonTV is a video website with a mission to end cable television. While that mission may be absurdly far-fetched, we appreciate the passion and enthusiasm for improving Internet programming.

One way that EndagonTV improves what you can view online is by predicting and aggregating the potential best viral videos on the web at any given time. In other words, you might have been able to see Rebecca Black’s “Friday” on EndagonTV prior to her hitting the news. The same thing goes for the Double Rainbow guy.

The team at EndagonTV is not perfect, however. It’s tough for them to cycle through every video that’s ever released and then make the correct predictions on what will be successful or not. That said, there are often errors that are made on the site. Regardless, you can count on the fact that every video that EndagonTV posts on the site is genuinely entertaining and worth watching. Who cares if it’s not the next “Wedding Dance?”

Check out EndagonTV and their upcoming viral videos today. Feel free to subscribe via RSS to receive one new video post every single workday.

Hosting your website isn’t easy to come by these days. There are so many options out there, it often leaves newbies confused and frustrated.

“What are these technical terms? How much space do I need?” The questions never end.

For newbies, sometimes the best option is to outsource the management of a server to someone that understands how everything works. Besides, a lot of web design and development (and even marketing) firms typically handle a lot of the IT requirements for clients anyway. So, why should website owners that don’t care to know, need to know how web hosting and server structures work? The answer is – they don’t. Well, at least it is now.

EndaHost is a managed web hosting solution for website owners that don’t care to deal with the headaches of dealing with a control panel, a MySQL Admin area, and webmail. EndaHost takes all of your server requests and gets the job done for you quickly and effortlessly.

The best part is that you only have to pay for the hosting itself. EndaHost doesn’t even charge for the management of the server. How amazing is that?

We’ll be candid – just like we always are….

We get A LOT of traffic on this site. Most of our traffic is organic and finding us through SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). We rank for many product names coupled with the words “review” or “report.” It’s simply a byproduct of running a site that reviews products.

A large reason why we get a great deal of traffic to this site isn’t because of linkbuilding or what we’ve done outside of the site. In actuality, it’s mostly attributed to our on-site SEO. This means that we are constantly updating our site to tell Google what we’re about, what keywords we’re vying for, and how much authority we should have in any given vertical.

Because doing this can be a pain to manage, we outsource all of our on-site SEO tasks to SiteStagers. They provide the BEST monthly subscription on-site SEO services and for a very reasonable monthly price.

We strongly recommend you check out SiteStagers if you have a website that should be receiving more organic search traffic. You’ll be surprised just how important on-site SEO is and how much of a difference being proactive about your title tags and metadata can make.

Good luck to you in all of your future SEO efforts!

Even just writing a few sentences about the whole debacle leaves me confused. I can’t even imagine how a band might feel. Actually, artists are probably so bitter with frustration that they don’t even care anymore. That’s even worse. This means that they don’t even care about getting their music out there. That’s a real shame.

A few years ago, Jiggy Piggy quietly launched an online battle of the bands website called Songclash. Songclash prides itself on being an online battle of the bands. Allow me to explain what that means for artists.

- Bands sign up for an account on SongClash.com.
- Fans can get an account to in order to vote for music.
- Bands upload their songs into genre category battles that pit their music against other submitting artists.
- Bands promote their presence in these battles.
- Fans come on the site, listen to each song, and vote for each from 1 to 10.
- The system averages out total scores and issues a winner of each battle every month.
- The winning artists receive prizes, performance opportunities, and even cash.

After hearing that, can you think of a reason why bands wouldn’t want to participate on Songclash.com?

That’s what I thought…

EVO does actually use Google’s mobile interface, so technically the EVO does count as an Android phone. However, because it is its own entity, the EVO is in a class all its own.

I actually have about a half dozen friends that own and love the Sprint EVO phone. Being on the Droid marketplace, they have access to the second largest app store in the world, and since it is on a 4G network, users generally brag about how fast their connection and service is. I must admit that it does leave an iPhone user like me a little jealous.

The phone may have been out for over a year now, but Sprint is currently running some discounts on the phone. The funny thing is that even though time has passed, it’s still considered one of the best phones on the market. It’s a must-have for anybody that is still a Sprint customer (there’s not many out there anymore).

After all, what are your other options on Sprint? A Blackberry? No thanks.

Click below to learn more about the EVO.