Tag: accessories

Sometimes the less impactful the product you’re reviewing, the bigger you have to go to get people to watch it.

I remember this ShaveTech USB-rechargeable razer being decent if unspectacular. Back in 2012, when this video was shot, I suppose a razor that could be charged via a built-in USB connection was a bit of a novelty, and I’ve always had a soft spot for novelty items.

But the demographic for an item such as this is… small. You need to shave your face, so that cuts out huge swaths of the market. You need to be looking for an electric razor. You need to like gadgets that charge via USB. And you’re probably cheap: this thing still exists today and only costs $20.

So what we’re left with, as far as the video goes, is a sight gag wherein I get buried under a mess of cables for a weekend and resort to eating Chapstick to survive. Mmmm… waxy.

ShaveTech USB Razor [Amazon]

Nothing – and I mean nothing – beats reviewing gadgets in the dead of a Boston summer from the inside of a brick building with no air conditioning.

I’m actually pleasantly surprised that despite how hot it was (I remember how hot it was when making this video even though it was 11+ years ago), I don’t seem to be totally melting on-screen.

I also remember how much I loved having a second screen that could travel. Back in the day, tech blogging from a laptop was basically having a web browser open on one side of your screen and your blogging software open on the other. But – BUT! – screens were still so low-res that it was exceedingly difficult to fit everything well. High-res screens were insanely expensive, so little monitors like this one were a godsend.

Of course, these USB monitors have come a long way. Today, you can get this 15.6-inch version for $100 or a full-HD version for $150. Of course, lugging around a 15.6-inch screen kind of defeats the purpose, but I believe I reviewed something similar to the $100 version at some point in time and came away impressed.

Review of the above review: 6 out of 10. Points for general nonsense. Negative points for length and sloppy audio-visual quality.

When you’re alone in an empty apartment all day blogging about $50 mice shaped like cars, you simply must do whatever it takes to entertain and amuse yourself.

Granted, this video was shot 11+ years ago and I now have three kids and we’re in the middle of a pandemic, so I haven’t been alone anywhere since… well, probably since this video. My energy levels are also *trails off incoherently*.

These Road Mice are still available today, but they’ve dipped in price slightly – although probably not as low as they should.

I’ll now review my review: I give this one a solid 8 out of 10 for punchiness, fun, and appropriate length. I didn’t know it at the time, but all these videos I did back in the day should have been two minutes long and not a second longer. I could have become known as the gadget reviewer who reviews everything in two minutes. Instead, I believe this may have been the one and only CrunchGear Two-Minute Review. My follow through was (and still is) not very good.

It’s hard to review a gadget and find almost nothing redeemable about it, but here we have the Vestalife Butterfly Speaker Dock for iPod.

When I first reviewed it in March of 2009, it carried an outrageous $80 price tag. It’s somehow still available – I see a used one for $10 and some new ones starting at $50.

Just in case you’re in the market for an 11-year-old iPod dock, this isn’t the one for you. Not even at $10.

As videos go, this one was pretty poor on a technical level. I think I remember shooting it later in the afternoon and the light was all weird: too much backlight, not enough key or fill light. Round it out with some echo-y audio, me aimlessly ranting for four whole minutes, and let’s give this video a 3 out of 10.