The Best Health Gadgets At Your Drugstore (Dr. Oz)

As Dr. Oz says, “You don’t need to be tech savvy to get the best health gadgets!” This week I talked to Dr. Oz to show off a variety of health gadgets that you can find at your drugstore! The best part? All of these are Dr. Oz-approved, so you know they’re gonna work as advertised!

Here’s the products I showed off.

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Tech Gift Guide: 10 Great Gifts Under $50

When it comes to tech, less expensive gifts may be less obvious than the big-ticket items like laptops and tablets. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of great gifts out there! Here are a few of my favorite gifts that won’t break the bank:

 

iphone cable trigger for hands-free iphone photos
iPhone Cable Trigger – $23.00

iPhone Cable Trigger

Here’s why this is cool: you don’t have to touch your phone to take a photo. That means if you’re taking a picture in low light, the extra stability will make the the photo less blurry. And if you’re taking a video, you won’t have the initial shakiness when you start or stop recording. And it’s only $23 from PhotoJoJo, a great price for a fun gift. Plus you can use it with the fam over the holidays!

 

 

ihome rechargable mini speaker from staples
iHome Mini Speaker

iHome Rechargable Mini Speaker

This speaker is small, but surprisingly loud for its size! It’s rechargeable from USB, and can be used with anything that has a headphone jack, like your laptop or smartphone. It’s not going to power your home theater setup, but it’s great for both portability and price: it’s on sale right now for only $14.99 from Staples.

 

 

 

Blurb Book of Instagram Photos
Custom Blurb Book of Instagram Photos

Custom-Printed Book from Blurb.com

Blurb specializes in helping you bring anything and everything you can imagine to life as a book. But what’s cool is that you don’t have to get 10,000 copies: you can get 1 printed as a special gift, or print up a cookbook for everybody in the family. Books are hardbound with as many pages as you like, and there’s even a feature for Instagram or Facebook photos. PERFECT for newlyweds, the grandparents, dedicated bloggers or aspiring photographers. There are tons of configurations, so the price will vary depending on what you choose, but you can make a hardcover 8×10 book starting at only $19.95.

outlet with usb chargers
Outlet with USB Chargers

Dual USB Outlet

So it can be hard to buy something for a gadget geek who has everything. Or seems to. That’s why this gift is great: everybody’s got devices that can charge with a USB port, but almost nobody has one built into the wall. With the right cable (that a gadget lover will already have) you can charge almost anything with this wall outlet, without a special adapter. Installation isn’t rocket science, and it’s only $24.95.

 

 

made in maine front-pocket rfid blocking wallet
RFID-Blocking Front Pocket Wallet from Rogue Industries

Rogue RFID-Blocking Wallet

Many credit and debit cards now come with RFID chips that let you touch to pay instead of swiping. Problem is, RFID tech is vulnerable to scammers who use special scanners to steal your credit card info from inside your wallet. So the hot new accessory is a wallet that will block those scanners, like this made in Maine Front Pocket Rogue Wallet for $40. Yes, you could just wrap everything in tin foil, but a roll of Reynolds is probably not the best holiday gift choice!

 

gloves for the iphone
Agloves

Agloves Touch Gloves

These gloves are special: they have silver in them. Thanks to the magic of physics, that means these gloves will work on any touchscreen. Plus they have small textured rubber grips to help you hold on that fancy touchscreen device so you’re not DROPPING expensive tech. The gloves are $29.99, but that’s way cheaper than replacing an iPad Mini with a busted screen!

 

 

 

Moleskine style iphone case
Little Black Book for iPhone Case

Little Black Book iPhone Case

It’s kind of amazing that the big selling point of iPhones is how well designed they are, but then we cover them up with these cases that are anything but aesthetically pleasing. That’s why I love the Little Black Book iPhone case: it’s got the right level of design-savvy and quality to match the iPhone, and I love the Moleskine look. Plus there’s the convenient interior pocket option, plus customizable colors. It’s just NICE! $39.99 from Pad & Quill.

 

 

Roku Box

Roku HD
Roku HD – $49.99 (on sale!)

Streaming media in HD for under $50? Yeah, obviously a great gift, right?! The Roku Box hooks up to your TV to let you stream Hulu, Netflix, Amazon instant video, Pandora and more right to your TV. Normally the HD model is $60, but right now Roku is offering the HD box for $49.99. Unless you know somebody already has a Roku, or doesn’t have a TV, this is a great gift that can work for anybody, and doesn’t require them to pay extra fees once they have the box!

 

Near Field Portable Speaker
iFrogz Near Field Portable Speaker

iFrogz Near Field Speaker

This speaker is another portable and affordable option that runs off either AAA batteries or USB. But what’s really cool about this particular speaker is that it uses Near Field to work wirelessly with your speakers, so all you have to do is set your phone or tablet on the speaker to play music. It’s faster and easier than bluetooth, because you don’t have to pair the device to the speaker. It’s only $24.04 on Amazon, and eligible for Amazon Prime, so no worries about this one getting here on time!

 

lightning to 30 pin adapter for iphone 5
Lightning Adapter for the new iPhone 5 and iPad

Lightning Port Adapter

Know someone that was NOT HAPPY when Apple updated their dock connector? Given how angry people were, you probably do. A great gift for that person is a Lightning to 30 Pin Adapter to make new iDevices compatible with old accessories. Think of like the tech equivalent of buying someone socks and underwear: it’s practical, it’s useful, and you can never have too many. And some people LIKE getting socks and underwear for  Christmas! It’s $29 from Apple.

4 New 4G LTE AT&T Devices Just Announced: Including Galaxy Note II & Galaxy Express phones, as well as the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1″ Tablet

Four exciting new AT&T devices, all of which sport AT&T’s ultra-fast 4G LTE network, were literally just announced. We don’t have pricing or release dates on any of these devices quite yet, but we’ll be going hands-on with all three phones and the one tab next Thursday at an exclusive AT&T event in NYC. Hopefully we’ll be able to shed some more light on these devices next week, as well as be able to show you some hands on videos of all of them. The official word from the press release is that “[a]ll of these devices will be available from AT&T in the coming months” which sounds like they’ll be here by the end of the year!

Samsung Galaxy Express

Samsung Galaxy Express

While this seems to be placed as a “budget” version of the Samsung Galaxy S III (and will hopefully come in at a budget price) this seems to be a high-end smartphone that makes just a few compromises comapred to its big brother. Sure, you have to accept a 5-megapixel camera instead of the S3’s 8-megapixels, but you get a fast dual core processor, a huge 4.5″ screen (only slightly smaller than the 4.8 incher on the S3), a whopping 2000 mAh battery (the S3 boasts only 100 more mAh), and the same OS, Googl’e Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Smaller isn’t necessarily worse—the S3 is quite large, and this “baby brother” version may actually turn out to be the better smartphone. I can’t wait to try it out!

Samsung Galaxy Rugby Pro

Samsung Galaxy Rugby Pro

When we looked at the previous Rugby phone, I called it “the toughest 4G phone on the market.” While it was a little underpowered, it was really the only choice of any phone for those whose phones will take a lot of abuse on the job.

Now, this phone has been massively updated with the latest tech! The new Rugby Pro sports a 4″ AMOLED screen, the 5-megapixel camera (think iPhone 4 quality), and it shoots 720p HD video.

Another cool feature that makes it easy to deploy for business is that it has full EAS corporate email support. You can even encrypt the whole device to prevent data from leaking out if the phone is lost in the field.

This looks like a huge upgrade over the previous Rugby in every respect, and will certainly be “tough” to beat!

Samsung Galaxy Note II

Samsung Galaxy Note II

I had my apprehensions about the first Samsung Galaxy Note. Since then, S-Pen tech has improved quite a bit, at least on the larger 10.1″ Galaxy Note tablet. Will those same imrpovements come to the Note II? I certainly hope so.

This phone is unique in the lineup of new Galaxy devices in that it’s the first that’s shipping with the cutting edge latest version of Google’s Android operating system, Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). I still haven’t gotten that on my Galaxy S3, though reports are that it’s coming any day now.

Just like the previous version, this is a huge superphone with completely maxed out features. Like the dual core speed on the Galaxy S3? The Note II smashes that with quad core. Like the 4.8″ screen on the S3? The Note II bumps it up to a whopping 5.5″ display.

Yeah, it’s a huge phone, but it’s also like having a touch screen and stylus compatible mini laptop in your pocket.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1”

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1″ with 4G LTE on AT&T

Mario and I attended the NYC launch of the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1″. At the time, we didn’t get to do as much testing as we liked and came away with mixed feelings about the tablet. The software didn’t work as smoothly as we would’ve wanted. The S-Pen was improved, but not perfect. The multi-tasking was extremely limited in terms of the number of apps available.

You can read my first impressions on the blog here:

http://www.marioarmstrong.com/2012/08/15/samsung-galaxy-note-10-1-tablet-first-look/

The addition of 4G LTE on AT&T is a huge boon to the device, but that really only brings it up to where the iPad 3 was back when it launched this past Spring. While this is a great tab for Android fanatics (it’s hardware is powerful and it has a great screen), I’d say it’s probably the weakest of the devices that AT&T announced today. Unless the price point can come in at a point lower than the new iPad, I’d say that Apple’s tablet with 4G LTE on AT&T is probably still the way to go.

Back to the Office: 5 Gadgets to Make Work More Fun This Fall

Who says kids should get all the cool new stuff? We’ve found some great gadgets  for the office that will make fall a little more fun for adults too.

gadgets for the office: laser cube keyboardCube Laser Virtual Keyboard
It’s a keyboard, but it’s also a laser! The tiny cube projects your keyboard anywhere, anytime, so it’s mobile, space-saving and seems like it’s from the future.

The cube projects a full-size QWERTY keyboard on any flat surface for up to 150 minutes of typing. It’s easily recharged via USB. It work via Bluetooth and is compatible with Android 2.0+, iPhone 3Gs+, iPad, and basically any Mac or PC made in the last ten years.

$179.99 from ThinkGeek

 

 

Office Gadget: Portable Monitor GeChic On-Lap 1302GeChic 1302 Portable Monitor
More portability! The GeChic On-Lap 1302 (say that 10 times fast) is portable monitor you can plug right into your smartphone. It’s a good idea, even if it has a terrible name. It’s a 13.3 inch screen, powered either by your laptop or an external battery, that can be plugged into just about any smartphone, ultrabook, laptop or tablet. The only drag is the need for lots of extra cables: you will need the right adapters for your tech set-up, so do your reading before you buy.

$199.99 at NewEgg

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