Author: Joe

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Reviews

Reviews: Bowers & Wilkins P3 Series 2 On-Ear Headphones

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Product Breakdown

  • Presentation:                   4   out of     5
  • Innovation:                       3   out of     5
  • Usability:                           5   out of     5
  • Comfort:                            8   out of   10
  • Design:                             13   out of   15
  • Quality:                            13   out of   15
  • Value:                                18   out of   20
  • Performance:                18   out of   25
  • Total:                                 82   out of 100

Design and Comfort

The Bowers & Wilkins P3 Series 2 headphones arrived at my office neatly folded up in a plastic clamshell styled case. Made of aluminum and a durable rubber body, it feels extremely rugged for its small size. The headphones mimic the style of the popular P5 headphones, but at nearly half the size, making these headphones lighter and more portable. Although it might not be recommended, I have carried these headphones in my jacket pocket and bag without the case. The included plastic case added too much bulk and didn’t have the same high-end Bowers & Wilkins feel.

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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Use Parental Controls

Parental Control is a great way to keep your children supervised without having to watch their every move. Parental Control is located in System Preferences under System. To use Parental Control, you will first need to create or use an existing account that does not have administrative controls, and then use an Administrator’s account to control the other account. Parental Control is able to limit computer usage time, websites, and many other things parents may worry about. A feature that I feel many parents will appreciate is the Weekday and Weekend time limiter and bedtime controls. These allow you to choose how many hours your child will be allowed to use his or her computer during the weekend or weekday. Setting the time is easy enough, just click the Limit Computer Use box and drag the bar to how many hours you will allow. The bedtime setter can be used to make sure your children are not up all night playing on their computers. For setting Bedtimes, select the checkbox and then punch-in the bedtime to wakeup time. In the Web section you are able to choose from allowing all web sties or customizing which websites to allow access to. Customizing websites can be a long task because you will need to type the URL of every website into the system, yet is viable if there are specific websites you would like your child to refrain from using. To do this click Customize in the Web section of Parental Controls. A new window will be brought up, and after there will be two sections, with an “always allow” and a “never allow” option. To add a website, just click the plus sign and type the URL in, and to take out a website press the minus sign. These are just a few of the many features Parental Control offers, check it out in System Preferences.

Stay connected at my twitter handle to stay updated 24/7 @TRMGaveragejoes and @realmacgenius What do you think? Let us know in the comment section.

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Average Joe's Tips Reviews

For Those of You Who Have Trouble Sleeping

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Having trouble sleeping at night? One problem might be that you are using your computer before you goto bed. Instead of going into the complex science of eye stimulation (which I do not quite understand myself), I will give you the brief over view. On f.lux’s website they explain it to us that the blue lights that your computer emit can keep you up late at night, so the purpose of f.lux was to eliminate these blue lights. They have done this by making your computers screen adapt to the time of the day. For example, on there website they state: “When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.” Overall, f.lux has personally been a great help with my tendency to work late into the night. So for all of you people out there like me I would recommend downloading f.lux. For more information behind the science of f.lux click here.

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Opinion Reviews

Best Beginner Drones for Filming

Low Cost: Cheerson CX-20

Price: $300

A great drone for anyone starting out. When I first got my Cheerson CX-20 I beat, dropped, and slammed into walls. Eventually the drone broke after a few months, but this was a great way to learn how to fly. The Cheerson lacks a high end interface and auto pilot controls, but through this lack of technology I became a better pilot. Having moved on from my Cheerson onto more advanced drones (that basically fly themselves), I would have never gotten to my skill level had it not been for the Cheerson. The Cheerson is a basic quadcopter with similar resemblance to the older DJI Phantom. The UAV does not come equipped with a built in Camera so you will have to snap on a GoPro. Incase you would like a more advanced drone without the price, you can always upgrade your CX-20 with a POV monitor, gimbal, and other accessories at $50 to $100 at a time.

Note: Cheerson has updated to the CX-22 (but it costs twice as much)

Medium Cost: Xiro Xplorer

Price: $800

Probably one of the best valued drones on the market is the Xiro Xplorer. There are two models sold by Xiro including the Xplorer G equipped with a 3-Axis gimbal for your GoPro, or the Xplorer V equipped with an in-house camera created by Xiro delivering crisp 1080p video. The Xiro Xplorer is a very durable and well made device that looks like it should cost twice as much as it does. It also includes much of the technology expected from higher end drones like video streaming, a specially design app, orbit mode, follow mode, and many other features. This is a high end drone, without the high end price tag.

Note: Watch out for the Xiro’s new Xplorer2!

High Cost: 3DR Solo

Price (UAV): $1000

Price (Gimbal): $400

Deemed the smartest drone on the market, it is hard to disagree after my first flight. The 3DR Solo has a noticably sleek and clean look as compared to its ugly competitor the DJI Phantom. Compared to the DJI Phantom the 3DR Solo only lacks in its range, but can be fixed for $20 dollars by buying range extenders and ends up bettering the Phantom. 3DR put time in to developing one of the best applications for their drone, so that a beginner will have the ability to take professional quality shots. The Solo is able to keep itself very steady in the wind, launch itself, orbit, follow, cable follow, and much more (not to mention the updates). If you have the cash, the 3DR Solo is worth the investment as a beginner drone as it is not very difficult to fly.

Note: Don’t worry about model updates as the 3DR Solo has updates that change its dynamics and expansion bay allows for extra accessories to be attached.

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Reviews

Bowers & Wilkins | P5 Wireless

Over the past few years, Bluetooth headphones have entered the market. High-end brands such as Bowers & Wilkins decided to stay out of the market because the company claimed Bluetooth did not provide the ability to deliver high-quality audio. B&W has entered the market with the help of aptX which delivers higher quality audio – however devices such as the iPhone do not support aptX. The P5 Wireless headphones bear a resemblance in hardware to the P5 Series 2 headphones (Wired). The wireless headphones are in the luxury price range at $400, a $100 increase from the wired P5.

The design of the wireless headphones is basically the same as the P5 Series 2. It sports the aluminum design along with leather ear pads that provide an elegant design. It is evident that B&W carefully thought through the design challenges of a wireless headphone. For example, below the right ear pad, the MicroUSB charging port is cleverly hidden. In the event, the headphones run out of battery, one of the ear pads can be removed to insert an audio cable. The headphones come with a beautiful quilted case to store the headphones with a hidden compartment to store the charging cable and audio cable.

When testing the P5 wireless headphones on an aptX supported device, the audio quality was incredibly clear. Compared to the wired versions of the P5, it was hard to tell a difference in audio quality. On non-aptX devices (such as the iPhone), there was a marginal change in audio quality, but the difference was only noticeable to trained ear.

The P5 wireless headphones are not noise cancelling headphones, but it does a good job for the most part. The only time I notice a difference is on flights when noise cancelling headphones are necessary. One benefit of the P5 wireless headphones not being noise cancelling is the extended battery life, it is reported to play for 17 hours (compared to Beats Studio Wireless noise cancelling headphones at 9hrs). If noise cancelling is a must, these headphones are not for you. In my testing, I didn’t notice a huge difference except on airplanes. I preferred the 8-hour battery life gain since I rarely ran out of battery and it gave me one less thing to worry about charging.

The P5 wireless is a beautifully designed headphone that delivers a high-quality audio experience. These headphones require some compromise and this experience is not for everyone. But, if you are looking for high-quality headphones that block most noise and desire longer battery life, these are the headphones for you.