Need an energy boost? Give your room a splash of red. What’s that? Feeling a little overwhelmed? Skip the sedatives and remote control this LivingColors Gen 2 Table Lamp by Philips back to blue. With the touch of a button, this mod little number changes hue, making it easy to give yourself a little at-home dose of color therapy. Personally, we’re hoping it comes with a disco setting. Available at lumens.com for only $218
Touchscreen keyboards are a big pain in the butt on phones and tablets. Why would we want to pay a bunch of money for a touch screen keyboard to replace our traditional push-key peripheral? Probably because we’re sloppy, and have already gummed up the works on our laptop keyboards to the point where the letter “b” is no longer an option. (How did we type that? Character Map, baby.) With this Cool Leaf Keyboard, you’ll have plenty of room to hit touchscreen buttons easily and accurately. And when you eventually pour your Dr Pepper all over it, cleaning it up will be a breeze. Available at dynamism.com for only $250
Instead of seeking out a purse that fits your iPad, why not find an iPad case that fits the things you usually carry in your purse? The Clutch for iPad has a separate zippered compartment that features secure pockets and slots for cash, cards, a phone, pens, and any other small items you’d like to tote around with your iPad. Streamlining your tech-savvy life has never looked this good. Available at thinkgeek.com for only $90
As Barnes & Noble says, think origami, and you get the concept behind the Tasume. It’s a thin trifold case that’s relatively lightweight and protects the screen when folded shut–and stays shut thanks to an integrated magnet.
You then fold the flaps of the case back to form the stand (the flaps adhere nicely thanks to the magnet) and you can prop up your Nook Tablet or Color horizontally or vertically.
The case comes in carbon or red. The only drawback is that it’s pretty pricey at $49.95 and some users have faulted it for not being made of leather. But consider this to be the best choice if you plan to use the Tablet as a media player–at least until more cases with integrated stand options arrive. Available at Barnes and Noble
Dodocase, the maker of popular bookish cases for tablets and e-readers, has just released itsDodocase for Kindle Fire, and it’s a good one.
Dodocase says its one-piece bamboo tray, carved in San Francisco, “perfectly matches the curvature of your Kindle Fire while providing access to all buttons and ports.” And for those who are concerned about the Fire’s speakers being covered up, the company adds that the design includes “sound channels to direct audio from the speakers.” The sound came out fine.
Dodocases don’t come cheap and this one retails for $44.95. While it’s only available in black, you do get a choice of interior colors. Available at Dodocase.com
Music may live in your heart, but it also lives right on top of it when you wear the ThinkGeek Electronic Drum Machine Shirt. Pair it with the drum kit jeans, and you’ll become a walking rhythm section.
The wearable, fully playable shirt crams a whole lot of drum machine into a very portable format. There are nine different drum kits, including “bass invaderz” and “zapf dingbeats.” The rhythm is, indeed, going to get you.
The machine is triggered by a set of pads right on top of your chest. You can record loops up to three minutes long and then layer them for a fuller sound.
Available at ThinkGeek for only $29.99
We still have a couple of weeks to go before the November 8 release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, but while you can’t get the game yet, you can buy the official gaming keyboard in anticipation.
To get you in the right mood for the first-person shooter, the Logitech G105 comes with green LED backlighting in the same shade as night-vision goggles. The G105 allows users to record their own macros on the fly. There are 6 programmable keys with 3 different modes for up to 18 possible macro combinations.
The USB-compatible G105 can accept up to five simultaneous key inputs so you can mash the keyboard knowing your commands will be registered. It also has a gaming mode that disables the functionality of the Windows key, so you won’t accidentally drop out of your gaming session.
The Logitech G105 is available worldwide for $54
You can dock just about any of those old drives into this simple device. Stick a USB transfer cable into one end along with the power-cable, and in one of the other ends, you can connect a 3.5″ IDE hard drive, or a laptop 2.5″ IDE drive, or even a miniscule 1.8″ IDE hard drive! But, why stop there?
You can connect a SATA drive, too! How about an optical disk drive? We’ve got it covered. Blu-Ray, DVD, CD, writeable, rewriteable… it doesn’t matter! We’re drive agnostic with our USB to SATA/IDE Combo Kit. Now your old drives have a brand new life. Or, if you’re the handy type, you can keep this one device handy to recover data from a drive in a dead computer. You won’t have to haul several different devices – just this one! Available at Think Geek for only $29.99
Removing the specs and features sticker from the top bezel of the HP x2301 revealed quite a handsome monitor, with a glossy piano-black bezel and wide, stylish foot stand. The black bezel measures 0.75 inch wide, but shifts into metallic silver at the bezel’s base, where a cylindrical shaft connects the foot stand to the neck of the display. The stand measures 10.1 inches wide by 5.5 inches deep and provides ample stability when the monitor is knocked from the sides, delivering the most stationary LED-based monitor we’ve yet seen. The foot stand is covered by a cool-looking, green-tinted transparent plate.
The monitor’s panel is nearly as thin as the Dell S2330MX’s we recently reviewed, making it the third thinnest monitor we’ve seen, behind the aforementioned Dell and the thinnest of all, the LG Flatron E2290. The glossy motif established in the bezel carries over to the screen, which could double as a dark mirror when powered off.
The new Dell Vostro V131 picks up where the V130 left off, with a nearly identical design, clad in smooth metal and a choice of Silver or a race-carlike Lucerne Red for an extra $30. The V130 weighs 3.6 pounds and has a 13.3-inch screen. It still feels as sturdy and comfortable as the last time we used one. While the touch pad’s on the small side, the island-style keyboard is very well-built, and there’s plenty of hand and palm room.
But, there’s a big difference under the hood: the new Vostros feature full-voltage second-generation Intel processors, matching what’s available in most mainstream laptops.
The Vostro V131 has a starting price of $499 with a 1.1GHz Intel Celeron ULV 847 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive, but most people would choose the $599 model instead, which bumps up to a more reasonable second-gen Intel Core i3-2310M CPU. There’s also a Core i5-2410M version at $799. RAM can be expanded up to 6GB on most models, and hard-drive space up to 500GB, with no SSD option.
Bells and whistles include an HD Webcam, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, SRS Premium Voice Pro and chat-optimized digital array mics, and optional add-ons including keyboard backlighting and WiMax, LTE, and 3G broadband connectivity. Available at Dell.com