Sanimaid Boston Silicone Toilet Brush

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Good, not perfect

I like this toilet brush, but I'm slightly reserving judgement.  It's well made and hygienic but it is harder work on the arms than a normal brush and I'm not certain that it cleans quite as well.

It's good in many ways.  It is solidly made and looks very robust.  The silicone cleaning head is certainly far more hygienic than a brush-head and it's neat and compact.  It does get under the rim well and reaches further round the bend than my existing brush.

I'm less keen on the storage: you have to stick or screw a bracket for the plastic holster to the skirting board (not something I really want to do), and it's not a very elegant addition to the bathroom.  You can, however, unclip the holder from its bracket to clean it, which is important.  The cleaning itself seems OK, but it's a lot harder to move this over the surface than it is a conventional brush.  I'll be interested to see how clean it keeps the loo long-term and I'll edit this if I'm unhappy after using it for a while.

This is a decent idea which may be a very useful development.  To me it seems expensive for what it is, but it's a good, well-made product and may well be worth a try.

Geekria media player case

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A good case but a bit big

I bought this as a case for my HifiMan Super-Mini mp3 player.  It does the job, although it is a bit bigger than I expected.  It is well made and smart; it's covered on a tough-looking blue woven fabric, the zip seems very solid and it has a durable feel.

The case is 11cm x 6.5 cm x 5 cm deep.  This fits the player well and has plenty of room for a set of earphones and a charging cable, plus a storage card in which I keep microSD cards loaded with my music.  It's not big enough for a charger with a UK-style plug, but is made pretty deep so the player rattles around in it a bit.  This isn't serious enough to be a real worry, but a tighter-fitting band to keep it in place would help.

Overall, though, this is a very decent case which I am pretty happy with.

Amazon page HERE

Cookset stainless steel vegetable steamer

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A good steamer

This is a good quality steamer.  I've used steamers of this design for many years and this is as good as any I've had. 

The steamer is made of what looks to be good stainless steel which is still looking pristine after several uses.  It's a sensible size and will fit into most pans from the smallish to the pretty large.  It's solidly made with firmly attached legs and a central column for lifting it out.  This is a little short but it's adequate; the shortness does make it easier to store, though, and the column can be unscrewed and removed if you prefer.

In short, if you're looking for a vegetable steamer, this will do you well.  Recommended.

Amazon page HERE

Nokia Thermo - Smart Temporal Thermometer

Rating: 1/5

Review:
Requires phone app and account set-up to work at all

This thermometer will not work at all without a phone app and an account, set up with Nokia, which records, "analyses" and keeps all your data.  This is not what I was expecting, nor is it what I wanted; I thought I was getting a simple device for taking a person's temperature easily, quickly and reliably.

Once unpacked it is impossible to activate the thermometer until you have downloaded and installed the app.  Even this isn't simple because the instructions are incorrect.  They direct you to a website which doesn't exist, but I eventually found the app myself by searching the Play Store for Nokia Thermo.  Once installed, it insists that you register and set up an account, and at this point I rebelled.  It's just a blooming thermometer, for heavens' sake!  I don't want yet another account which I have to log into to use the thing and – worse – I don’t want some anonymous company to have access to my own or my family's personal and medical information, thank you very much.

So…I'm afraid I can't comment on how the device is in use, because I won’t use it on those terms.  I can see the point for something complex like a heart trace (I use the Kardia device in this way and it has been invaluable) but for a single, simple number like a temperature it strikes me as simply absurd.  I recognise that other people may feel differently and be happy to use the app and its features, but you may wish to be forewarned.  For me, this is very overpriced, ridiculously over-complex and very intrusive.

Amazon page HERE

Seagate Expansion 2TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive

Rating: 5/5

Review:
An excellent EHD

So far this portable EHD has been excellent.  I bought it so that I could have my music and so on in an easily portable form and it is doing the job very well.

The drive is compact and surprisingly light.  To me it has a slightly flimsy feel, but seems to be standing up well to being moved around pretty constantly.  It's a neat little thing with just a short USB3.0 lead (about 40cm) to plug in and a discreet blue LED which is lit when plugged in and flashes to indicate data transfer.

It is genuinely plug-and-play on Windows 10; it was recognised and ready to use within a very few seconds on all three devices I've tried it with.  Transfer speeds are good; I only have USB2.0 but I get around 15-20MB/s write speed for normal music files, which is very similar to the powered desktop EHDs (also Seagate) which I have been using for getting on for 5 years now.  I'm impressed; so far it's just quietly and efficiently doing the job I wanted.  It is too early to comment on durability and reliability but my existing Seagate drives have been trouble-free and I will be surprised if this is any different.  I will update this review if I have any problems.

In short, this is a good drive which just does the job without any fuss.  Recommended.

Amazon page HERE

Sony SRS-XB30 Speaker

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very good but a little expensive
 

This is a good speaker.  Sony have a reputation for quality and this is a very well-made, well-performing speaker.  I think it's a bit expensive compared to some in its class, but it does have features which you may find useful.

It comes well packaged and the speaker itself is splash-proof and very well made. I'm not that keen on the styling, but that's just personal taste.  There are good push-panel controls on the top and a well sealed input/output panel at the back.  Here you can connect an AUX jack (supplied) to non-Bluetooth devices, a power lead (also supplied) to charge the speaker, and there's also a USB port which acts as a power bank to charge a phone or similar.

It all works very well.  Bluetooth pairing is simple both conventionally and via NFC and the signal is very solid up to at least 8 metres.  Battery life is good; I haven't run it to exhaustion so I can't vouch for the advertised 24 hours' life, but it will certainly last a good long time between charges.  If you have two (or more) of these you can connect them up in a cascade to give a multi-speaker output, which may be handy – although at 150 quid a go, I'm not sure how many you'd want to buy.  It also has a light display which (thank heavens!) is easy to turn off.  It seems to be a pretty randomly changing colour display with the occasional strobe flash, which isn't something I'll ever use, but it may be an addition to a party.

The sound quality is impressive.  The top and middles are very crisp and well-articulated, and the bass is powerful from such a small unit, with a bass-boost feature which really blasts it out.    Classical music sounds rich and full, with cellos ringing beautifully and orchestral music articulated with real crispness. Rock is great, and even the deep sub-bass in London Grammar's Hey Now comes through beautifully.  I've played a lot of music through this speaker, from 16th century choral music to modern, high-production rocky stuff, and everything sounds great: Nigel North's lute, Eric Clapton's guitar, Rachel Podger's violin, Danny Thompson's bass, full orchestras, Wolf Alice, a string quartet and the voices of Emma Kirkby, Roger Daltrey, Leonard Cohen, Thea Gilmore, The Tallis Scholars…and so on.  I have given this a thorough workout and I haven't really found a weakness.

It's a very impressive speaker.  For sound and build quality, both the ADX Pulse V4 the Vava Voom 20 are as good, I think, and only cost around half the price so they would be a preferred option for me, and the August WS300 is also excellent and has wi-fi connectivity, too.  However, if you want the cascade feature or lights, or just trust the Sony name, this is a very good-sounding, durable speaker which I can recommend.

(Amazon page HERE )

Leef iBridge 3 32GB memory stick

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Good but expensive

This is a good, neatly designed flash drive which will work with Apple devices using Lightning connector and with anything else via USB3.0.

It's dead simple to use on an iPhone or iPad, where it plugs in and sits snugly against the back of the phone, so it's very neat and convenient.  The app works fine.  With a Windows 10 PC it's just plug and play: after just a few seconds it was ready to go.   Transfer speeds are what I'd expect from such a device; it's just a good, well made drive and an excellent way of transferring data from a PC to an iPhone or iPad.  You also get a little neoprene cover to protect it.

I have to say that at a cost of sixty quid at the time of writing, this is a very expensive 32GB flash drive, Lightning connector or no.  It is very elegantly designed and smartly packaged (in my view it's over-packaged), but with perfectly decent USB drives available for around a tenner, this is an awful lot to pay for a fairly modest amount of storage.

So, you pays your money and you takes your choice, I guess.  This is costly, but it's good quality, nicely designed and works very well so if you do decide it's worth it, you won't be disappointed with it. 

Amazon page HERE