back to article Smartphone accessories

As Apple's advertising points out, when it comes to most activities, there's usually an app for them. But not every task can be performed with a handset alone. Sometimes hardware is required to utilise the brains of a smartphone and take functionality further. Whether you seek solution for better typing, improved battery life …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm surprised they still make those laser virtual keyboards, I didn't think they ever caught on - although they are far from futuristic, so far in fact that they're about 10 years old - give or take an iPaq generation or two.

    1. Thomas 4

      I still have my one

      It was a very impressive bit of kit for its time, although the projection needed to be clearer and the keypresses needed to be a little more distinct.

      If it were integrated into a phone, it would work well. From my perspective, having to lug around yet another bloody mains charger, the hassle with finding drivers and syncing the thing caused it to gather dust rather quickly.

  2. Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT)
    Unhappy

    Soooo much WANT....

    ....soooo little money :-(

  3. Bassey

    Bottle Opener

    That bottle opener case is so superb I momentarily considered getting an iPhone just so that I could get the case. The insanity passed...

  4. horsham_sparky

    The microvision project is based on laser projection (MEM's scanning mirrors)

    Sound like boring techy details? well think again! unlike most projectors, this little puppy won't go out of focus if you project it onto a curved surface.. benefit of projecting with coherent light from a laser instead of the normal LED/filament bulb. It means you can use any surface at a variety of different angles and the whole imaging will stay in focus

    Cool huh?

  5. heyrick Silver badge

    And the point of this article is?

    Sorry to be picky - but how well did the keyboard work? Can you sort-of touch type or does it need to be finger-down,finger-clear? Is there a quick gesture (hand swipe, say) for deleting etc?

    What's the projector like? Does it look good? Can you project an image onto a rough crepé wall and have it look okay? Shame the resolution is low. But it is an interesting gadget.

    The bottle opener. Well, you'll need a metal thing to stand up to any reasonable amount of beer-top cranking, which means a fairly thick metal object in real close proximity to the back of your phone. Okay, so how does THAT affect reception?

    See what I'm getting at here? Where's the review? Where's the "this is cool because..." and "well, it looked better on the back of the box"?

    1. Martin Huizing
      Megaphone

      The people buying these gadgest are the same people that...

      ... don't bother reading manuals.

      And they sure as hell won't bother with lengthy reviews. It looks cool? It's a gadget? Want! Now!

  6. Cliff

    Printer?

    I have an 11x1x2" (ish) 20-sheet overpriced battery powered A4 thermal printer arriving any day now - like an old fax without the guff - an actually portable printer for true road warriors (who prefer the train so travel light!). Also have a polaroid pogo/zink colour printer for photos - very clever bit of kit and cheap. Wish there were more options, but anyone wanting to print on the go, there are options.

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