Product review: Polaroid ZIP Mobile Printer w/ZINK Zero Ink Printing Technology

The quality of the prints is decent. The color is not rendered perfectly but acceptable for the type of usage I see for this little printer. At the end of my video I show the wall print I photographed and the print generated by Polaroid printer side by side. Even though you see slight different in colors the results are acceptable. The printer comes with 10 sheets of paper, each one 2" x 3". Zink paper refills are available on Amazon at about 50 cents per sheet.

This printer does not need ink. The images appears by heating special Zink paper in different ways. No ink makes the printer small plus when the photo comes out it is totally dry, you cannot smudge it. The print feels thick and very glossy. Unlike regular glossy photo printer Zink paper does not show finger prints.

The printer's size is 4.5" x 2 3/4" x 7/8" and its weight 6.7 oz.

The printer easily paired with my phone. I loaded Polaroid Zip app which allows me to print pictures from the gallery or create name cards from my photos. There is also and option to do some primitive editing (brightness, contrast, crop, a few filters). This little camera can be a lot of fun at the party. I can see it also being useful to generate name cards/business cards when you need to give someone contact info.

The printer takes 10 paper sheets at a time, and you need to put the paper with the shiny print side of the paper up. Make sure that the printer is on as it turns off automatically.

The printer run on a rechargeable battery and it takes 2.5h for me to recharge it. The printer can be used while it is being charged.

Bottom line: nice prints on the go even though not as good as my Epson photo printer.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: Fire HD 8 Tablet with Alexa, 8" , 32G - Prime day disappointment

My old 7.8" Samsung tablet just died and I was attracted to to Fire HD tablet because I like the 8" size and the Prime day price was attractive.  Well, some bargains are no bargains. I am very disappointed with this tablet. I  have been an Android user for many years. In addition to my Android phones, I always owned a 7-8" tablet (Nexus 7 tablet and Samsung 7.8 tablet) for reading and playing around at home.  By comparison to these two old devices the Fire HD tablet does not measure up.

1. The screen resolution is not crisp and not bright. I expected it to less bright and clear then Samsung Amoled display but not by such a large margin. By default the screen is set to be half as bright as it can be. You can fix that my swiping down and dragging the brightness to the right.  But even on a full brightness setting it is not even close to an old Samsung screen brightness and clarity.

2. The tablet is very slugging, there is a noticeable delay every time I try to do something.

3. Not all apps (purchased (i.e. not free!) from Amazon app store) that I had on my old tablet appeared in the list of available apps.

4. The interface presented on Fire is very restrictive as I am used to having full control over what I see (and don't see) on my desktop.  Fire HD does not allow me to remove some apps that I know I will never use.   I cannot control where the icons are placed on the screen, how large they, and what sceen page they appear on.  The best I can do is drag built-in apps I will never use to a folder I called "Useless" and give up just one spot on my screen. 

When I open an app, say a Washing Post article, it puts a large icon (larger than a regular icon) first on my home screen taking up half of the screen, moving the apps I use all the time down (leaving just one row of app icons visible) as shown on attached photo. Yes, I can remove the large icon by clicking and selecting "remove from desktop" but it requires extra clicks.

Unlike an Android device with a standard Google interface I have no control over where icons appear.  I like organizing screens by theme: a page for games, a page for photo/video apps, a page for text related apps and so forth. I also like to control where on each icon appears on the screen (top/bottom/left/right) so it is easy for me to instantly locate it. I find the look and feel of Fire HD interface very frustrating as it has a set of behavior that cannot be customized.

5. I purchased half of my apps from Amazon app store and half from Android Playstore. Fire HD tablet does not support Playstore out of the box.

I found instructions on the web of how to install Playstore to make more apps available, but there is no guarantee that all of them will work because Amazon forked the Android OS and potential for incompatible behavior is there for every app.  I was successful in installing Android API (which is part of the instructions) which gave me back the three buttons at the bottom of the page (back button, home page, active apps) which were missing from Amazon interface, but I was not able to run the App Store app itself.

6. Some people mentioned that the package included a rubberized skin for the back of the tablet, but my package did not include it. Perhaps it was excluded because it was the Prime day discount special.

7. The initial set up was quite lengthy, it took about 30 minutes of downloads and updates before I could start using the tablet.

Is there anything that I do like? Yes

1. Battery life (at least while it is so new) is excellent.  I left it unplugged overnight and it was still 100% in the morning.  After using it on and off all day the battery was still more than 50% full.

2. Alexa works well.  I have multiple Alexa devices and since you cannot give them individual "wake up" words that could get pretty frustrating.  However there is a setting (which is off by default) that allows the device closest to you to respond rather having all of them respond at the same time.

3. When the device started it already knew who I was and the registration process was just one click.  If the device was purchased as a gift for someone else there was a chance to say "No, this is not me".

4. For someone totally new to a device the tablet started with a nice tutorial (after all the updates were done).

Given the price (and thus the modest processor it is built on), I expected it to be a bit less responsive, but the sluggishness was more noticeable than I expected. I knew the display will not be as bright as Amoled display on my last tablet but the difference was bigger than I expected.  I also did not expect to be as frustrated as I am with the user interface.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★☆☆☆

Product review: Masterworks 20V Cordless Drill

Besides the drill this drill contains drill bit, screw driver heads, flexible shaft for hard to reach places, the charger, and the manual.  The package does NOT include a case.  For now I am keeping it in the box, but I am plan to buy a separate case tfor storage.  The drill has 3/8" (10 mm) chuck.  The drill has variable settings for torque: 0 to 15 settings.   Larger screws require more torque to drive than small ones.  More torque will set a screw deeper into material, less torque will prevent it stripping.

The drill runs on 18 volt lithium-ion rechargeable battery, it is shipped partially discharged and needs to be fully charged before first use.  The firs time it took me overnight to charge it.  Subsequent recharging requires 5 hours if it is almost fully discharged, less if it is partially discharged. The green light is the power indicator. When the charger is connected to AC the green light is on. The red light is the charging indicator. Both red and green light are on when the battery is charging.  The red light will turn off once charging is complete.

To remove the battery from the drill you need to depress the button on the front of the battery pack to release it and then it slides out. When you put it back in make sure it clicks to latch in.

The drill's weight is 2 pounds and 8.6 oz.  I find it easy to use.  The handle is comfortable and 3.5 pound is pretty easy to handle.
Instructions say to prolong the life of the tool, do not continually for work more than 20 minutes at a time.

You can find it on Amazon by following this link.


Ali Julia review ★★★★

Product review: AUSDOM ANC8 Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones, Wireless Over-Ear Headset

Ausdom ANC8 headphones work both as wired and wireless headphones. I thought the sound was equally good in both modes, and I could make the loudness as loud in both modes. I normally listen to the headphone with the sound down about half way, otherwise it is too loud for me.

The head set is extremely comfortable, it fits over my ears (not touching the ears) it can be adjusted in so many ways and it feels very comfortable for both me and my husband, even though our heads are shaped very differently.

Both the headphones and the head band are well padded.  The headphone cups have a lot of degrees of freedom: they both twist around and pivot up and down.  The headband can flexes easily to fit heads of different sizes. The pads are made out soft leather. While being super comfortable the sound isolation is not 100%. The comfort is comparable to my Bose headset, but not the sound isolation in Bose is better (but at a much higher price).

To test the sound I listened to several pieces of music I use to test headphone. Using the same piece of music allows me to compare different headphone in "apples to apples" comparison. As a stress test for the bass I use Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. There are several section in Toccata which some headphones cannot handle they crackle or sound muddy.  Ausdom headphones did very well. The sound was crisp and the sound can be made very loud.

I had no problem pairing the headphones with my mobile devices for listening to music. To pair I needed to push down the on/off button until the light began flicking red/blue. Then the phone detected "Ausdom ANC8" and connected.


You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Video Sunglasses, OHO 16GB Ultra HD Video Recording Camera

A camera in the eyeglasses has one huge advantage over other spy or action cameras - you know exactly where the camera is aimed, all you have to do is look in the right direction.

This is a comparison review for two OHO video sunglasses.  This review contains video taken by OHO sunshine, 16GB ($44).   You can see the video from OHO video sunglasses, 32G ($90) here.

Both video sunglasses cameras generated good videos under different lightening conditions.  Attached video contains clips taken during a sunny day, indoors, and during night time. The videos are not as good as my SLR camera or but they are pretty good as you can see in attached videos.  The video is a little jerky because my head is not as still as a tripod or even hand-held camera. I did not realize how  much my head bobs when I walk but it is obviously is not the video camera fault.

Each camera records only for one hour, and it takes 2 hours to recharge the glasses.  I planned to record for two hours and got two glasses.  This gave me a chance to compare the two OHO sunglasses (OhO sunshine Video Sunglasses,32GB ($90) and OHO sunshine, 16GB ($44). I will refer the $90 pair as video glasses #1, and the $44 pair as video glasses #2.

Both glasses did a good job recording, but there were significant differences between them.

1. Video glasses #1 have non-changeable polarized lenses.  The lenses are excellent, I can see very well with them, as well as my nice sunglasses purchased as sunglasses. But because they not changeable they are limited for being used out-doors. Because they are quite dark they look odd if used in-doors, and attract attention if you actually trying to do stealth recording.  Video sunglasses #2 have interchangeable lenses and come with dark, clear and amber lenses.  I thought their lenses were not as good as video glasses #1, but since their main function is video that really does not matter to me.  Even though there are no instructions the lenses was easy to change.  Hint: pull down away from the nose.

2. Video glasses #1 give feedback via vibration when I turn them on and turn them off.  This is a very good interface that does not require me to check for the red blinking light that tells me that the camera is working.  Video sunglasses #2 provide feedback only via a blinking red light on the inside of the glasses.  I have to look at the light to know that the sunglasses are working, this is less convenient and more noticeable.

3. Video glasses #1 get slightly warm during use, but not too warm.  Video glasses #2 get hot during usage.  The skin on my head did not get burned after recording for 1 hour, but the glasses got so warm that I was worried about that.

4. The on/off button on video glasses #1 is on the bottom of the frame (good), the on/off button on the video glasses #2 is on the top of the frame (more noticeable).  Video glasses #2 in general appear more bulky and have thicker frames.

5. Both video glasses have built in storage.  I have no problems seeing the storage in the computer as a mounted disk when the glasses are connected to a computer.  Glasses #1 have a init.txt file where one can set the date and time.  Glasses #2 do not have a file that allows one to set time.

6. Both video glasses use USB 2.0 interface, so copying files from the glasses to the computer is fairly slow if you are used to USB 3.0 devices.  For example to copy one hour of recordings took over 20 minutes.

7.  Neither camera has any no controls other then on/off buttons.

8. Glasses #1 are waterproof, glasses #2 are not waterproof.

Overall, a very good combination of stealth and video.  I liked glasses #1 more, however glasses #2 with interchangeable lenses have an advantage for in-door video.  The quality of the video from both sunglasses is good and quite similar.

You can find glasses #2 on Amazon by following this link.

You can find glasses #1 on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★☆

Product review: OhO sunshine Video Sunglasses,32GB IP66 Waterproof Ultra HD Video Recording Camera

A camera in the eyeglasses has one huge advantage over other spy or action cameras - you know exactly where the camera is aimed, all you have to do is look in the right direction.

This is a comparison review for two OHO video sunglasses.  The video is this review is taken by OhO sunshine Video Sunglasses,32GB ($90). The video from the second sunglasses is in this post dedicated to OhO, 16G video glasses.  Both video glasses cameras generated good videos under different lightening conditions.  Attached video contains clips taken during a sunny day, indoors, and during night time. The videos are not as good as my SLR camera or but they are pretty good as you can see in attached videos.  The video is a little jerky because my head is not as still as a tripod or even hand-held camera. I did not realize how  much my head bobs when I walk but it is obviously is not the video camera fault.

Each camera records for one hour, and it takes 2 hours to recharge the glasses.  I planned to record for two hours and got two glasses.  This gave me a chance to compare the two OHO sunglasses (OhO sunshine Video Sunglasses,32GB ($90) and OHO sunshine, 16GB ($44). I will refer the $90 pair as video glasses #1, and the $44 pair as video glasses #2.

Both glasses did a good job recording, but there were significant differences between them.

1. Video glasses #1 have non-changeable polarized lenses.  The lenses are excellent, I can see very well with them, as well as my nice sunglasses purchased as sunglasses. But because they not changeable they are limited for being used out-doors. Because they are quite dark they look odd if used in-doors, and attract attention if you actually trying to do stealth recording.  Video sunglasses #2 have interchangeable lenses and come with dark, clear and amber lenses.  I thought their lenses were not as good as video glasses #1, but since their main function is video that really does not matter to me.  Even though there are no instructions the lenses was easy to change. Hint: pull down away from the nose.

2. Video glasses #1 give feedback via vibration when I turn them on and turn them off.  This is a very good interface that does not require me to check for the red blinking light that tells me that the camera is working.  Video sunglasses #2 provide feedback only via a blinking red light on the inside of the glasses.  I have to look at the light to know that the sunglasses are working, this is less convenient and more noticeable.

3. Video glasses #1 get slightly warm during use, but not too warm.  Video glasses #2 get hot during usage.  The skin on my head did not get burned after recording for 1 hour, but the glasses got so warm that I was worried about that.

4. The on/off button on video glasses #1 is on the bottom of the frame (good), the on/off button on the video glasses #2 is on the top of the frame (more noticeable).  Video glasses #2 in general appear more bulky and have thicker frames.

5. Both video glasses have built in storage.  I have no problems seeing the storage in the computer as a mounted disk when the glasses are connected to a computer.  Glasses #1 have a init.txt file where one can set the date and time.  Glasses #2 do not have a file that allows one to set time.

6. Both video glasses use USB 2.0 interface, so copying files from the glasses to the computer is fairly slow if you are used to USB 3.0 devices.  For example to copy one hour of recordings took over 20 minutes.

7.  Neither camera has any no controls other then on/off buttons.

8. Glasses #1 are waterproof, glasses #2 are not waterproof.

Overall, a very good combination of stealth and video.  I liked glasses #1 more, however glasses #2 with interchangeable lenses have an advantage for in-door video.  The quality of the video from both sunglasses is good and quite similar.


You can find glasses #1 on Amazon by following this link.

You can find glasses #2 on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★★

Product review: Melody House 3-Tier Metal Mesh Storage Shelf Organization

This metal shelf is roomy and it has a nice set of wheels that make it roll very well.

The size of each shelf is 13.75" x 17.75".  It can be use with and without the top handle. I am using the handle and the cart's total height is 34.25".

The assembly was fairly easy and took about 30 minutes.  The only problem I had that the screws included with the cart were a bit too short to hold the sides as well as I wanted, and I used my own longer screws which gave me a better hold.  The directions have no words but show the pictures with the order in which the cart should be assembled.  Even though the instructions are sparse they were sufficient to assemble the cart without problems.

The shelves are metal and made out of attractive mesh pattern. The mesh is fine enough that it hold small bottles without problems.

Overall, I am pleased with the cart.
You can find it on Amazon by following this link.

Ali Julia review ★★★★☆