So I bought the "new"* Jawbone Prime...
*Jawbone Prime, the third iteration of Aliph's Bluetooth headset with noise-canceling technology, was released seven months ago, while the second iteration was released last year, and the first a year prior to that, so at this point, Prime is likely to become the older version in five months, making its "new" status somewhat dubious.
There are several reasons why I decided to retire my Jawbone I.
- The ear loop kept on breaking. Now, because the original Jawbone I bought broke on the first day and Aliph sent me a replacement, I had twice as many sets of ear loops as one would normally have. But even those supplies are running low.
- The noise-canceling functions of the replacement doesn't seem to work as well as the original I bought. This was most likely a quality control issue, but based on my phone conversations with other people on both headsets, it seems most people still heard the noise in the background with the replacement unit, whereas with the original I bought, most background noise were not audible.
- The Bluetooth connection between JB1 and my phone has recently been dropping and reconnecting. Although infrequent, it has still happened enough times for me to take notice, and each time the phone was less than a quarter inch away from the headset.
- The price of the Jawbone Prime has been lowered enough online that it's within a range that I can accept. There's no way I would spend the full price of $130 (+possible shipping and/or tax) for a Bluetooth headset.
All of which contributed to my decision. As you can see, JB Prime is significantly smaller than JB1. That's not saying much, however, as JB1 was
massive. Aesthetically, it's also a slight improvement, though I'm still of the apparently minority opinion that it's an ugly piece of hardware.
More importantly, Aliph has added the function of reducing wind noise to the unit, something sorely missing in the first two versions (though I hear that foam windscreens work much better). One also hopes that they've improved upon their noise-canceling technology, and reviews I've read suggest that while it wasn't true of JB2, it is with Prime.
Having learned their lesson regarding the charger being too tight and causing damage to many Jawbone units, the new proprietary charger uses magnets, and retains the ability to connect to an USB port for charging purposes. Still, many people suggest that a standard USB to mini-USB cable would have been much better and more convenient.
Prime now gives you many more ear gel options than JB1 (don't know how it compares to JB2), and the new ear gels are much softer, and thus more capable to providing a more comfortable fit. My ears are somewhat sensitive, and still itches slightly after prolonged wear, so your mileage may vary on this particular front.
Aliph claims to have an 8-day standby time battery life, and since I only just received the new unit in the mail on Thursday afternoon, I'll have to wait a few more days to see if it lives up to that claim.
Edit: Well, that was quick. I just noticed at around 1:00PM today that the battery indicator was now blinking red, and that was the first time I checked it after waking up. Who knows how long it had been doing that? At any rate, that means the standby time is actually less than 3 days... and I'm a very light phone user. I guess I shouldn't have expected much from a smaller headset when the much larger Jawbone could only be on standby for less than 5 days...
Edit 2: I did a bit of searching regarding Jawbone Prime's typical battery life, and found Aliph's tech saying that if it's using multipoint (meaning if it's paired to multiple devices--Jawbone Prime can be paired with up to 8 to switch between, and active on 2 simultaneously), and you accidentally press the "talk" button, you may cause it to look for other paired devices, which would drain the battery. I did try to pair it with other things (my laptop, the PS3), just to test out that function, so as per their recommendation, I performed a reset on the Jawbone Prime, and this time the battery lasted about 5 days, with some very light usage. Much better.
Ordered and received a 32 gig MicroSD card and adapter. Expected a Class 2 (picture shown online was a Class 2, and the one that came with the Evo was also a Class 2) and got a Class 4, so good news for me.
Neither Radio Shack nor Best Buy had any in stock, so I had to order it online. Now it's just a waiting game.
I took this picture standing at the very edge of the corner of the room, not able to back up any further, and was barely able to squeeze everyone into the picture. This was with my 28mm camera. That means none of the standard 35mm cameras would have been able to get everyone in the shot, while it would have been much easier if my camera was 25mm.
So I bought the "new"* Jawbone Prime...
You may have noticed the recent Pepsi commercials where they're now selling the "Throwback" version, made with "natural sugar," and with the older (original?) Pepsi formula.
So, what's the big deal? Well, for years now, Pepsi (along with many other major soft drink brands) have been sweetening their drinks with high fructose corn syrup, instead of regular sugar. It is the belief of many that drinks made with sugar, instead of high fructose corn syrup, taste better.
Since it's been ages since I've had Pepsi that's not made with high fructose corn syrup, I don't remember what the "original" Pepsi tastes like, and I'm certainly curious to see if I'd like the "original" better.
So today the DVD (and Blu-Ray) for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Zack and Miri Make a Porno was released. It's somewhat interesting that both movies share a similar naming scheme, and are released on the same day...
Okay, so a while back, they were airing Men in Black II on cable, and I decided to watch it again. In one scene, as part of the punchline, they had aliens who had weaknesses that could be easily exploited, and one such alien was a "Ballchinian."
After nearly a week without [HD]TV (I still have a TV in my bedroom, but it's not HD, and I don't have DVR in there), my new TV finally arrived today. It's a lot lighter than the other one, and the menu system is better. I'll have to check the setup for my DVD player later.
The HDTV I bought about 22 months ago stopped working last night.
I couldn't find a larger version of this picture, so in case you find the writing on the signs difficult to read (besides the "Electricity Vs. Cat" part), here's what they say:
I'd been craving for lobster for a while, so when I passed by a nearby Long John Silver's and noticed that they were selling these "lobster bites" a while back, I wanted to give it a try.
A few days ago I saw a this music special on MHD, that's when I found out that Jewel had released a new CD... except it's a country album.
19 years ago, students in China led a series of protests, cumulating to a tragic end on June 4, 1989 at Tiananmen Square. This post is in memory of those who gave their lives.
I've circled the cell towers in this satellite map from Google Maps. You can see the long shadows each tower casts...
And for perspective, the same map, without satellite imagery. I've overlaid the same circles to mark the locations of these towers.
This was taken without using any zoom.
The zoom in this photo is around 3.4×, which is slightly higher than what most digital cameras are capable of.
At 10× zoom. Also note that these pictures were sized down for Blogger, so the original, 7.2 megapixel picture is almost twice the size of the 1600×1200 images you see here (and about 8 time larger than the thumbnail images in this post).
