Apple’s iPod is the reasonable standard by which all other media players are judged. Its design and style, as well as engineering, are topnotch.

iPods come in many sizes and a few colors. The regular iPods use tiny hard-drives, while the Shuffle and the Nano use solid-state flash for storage. Flash players hold less music, but they are also more durable and you can wear them while jogging, since they have no moving parts.

The 1GB Shuffle, which holds about 15 hours of music and has no display, is the cheapest and most reasonable player for the casual music listener. Larger capacities (up to 80GB on regular iPod) are useful for videos and an unreasonable amount of music (80GB = 15 DVDs or 1000 albums). I never used more than 5 of my iPod’s 20GB and most of that was the entire catalogs of Frederic Chopin, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and They Might Be Giants. Thank god for the skip button.

The only unreasonable thing about Apple’s iDevices has been the battery, which can’t be replaced, and eventually will have difficulty holding a charge (like all batteries). You have to send the device back to Apple and they will send you another one, for a fee of course. Their customer service is very reasonable, though, and the worst part is having to reload all of your music every two years.

The iPod does not receive ultrareasonable status because of the battery, and also because you pretty much have to use iTunes. Which is still very reasonable, just not ultrareasonable.

Saul :: Jun.29.2007 :: Music Player :: No Comments »

The TomTom ONE is a reasonable GPS navigation system, considering its price (under $300). It’s “ultraportable”, it has a touch screen, and it’s easily mounted in your car. You can save addresses, determine routes based on your preferences (scenic vs freeway), choose the voice you hear, and it has most other things you’d expect from a car GPS, including a suction cup. The screen is not huge, but a decent size, and has non-glare coating for high visibility. This guy laments that the US database doesn’t come with street numbers, though it will get you where you’re going most every time (nothing’s perfect).

Reviews by PC Magazine and CNet don’t have anything bad to say about the ONE, except that it doesn’t do text-to-speech (i.e. won’t read the directions to you). However, PocketGPSWorld notes that the power button and indicator are on top of the device, and that the device doesn’t charge with the car mains. This means you have to plug the device into the cigarette lighter, and remember to turn it off manually, or it’ll run out of battery within about 2 hours. For the price, these restrictions are pretty reasonable.

TomTom also has a decent customer service department, with people who answer the phones and are knowledgeable about their product. You can use the ONE either by itself or with TomTom’s PLUS service, where you can get more features like weather and traffic, with a subscription (price unknown) and a Bluetooth-enabled phone.

Beth :: Jun.27.2007 :: GPS Navigation :: 1 Comment »

The Glock 19 is an ultrareasonable 9mm handgun. Gun experts nearly unanimously describe the Glock 19 in very passionate and aesthetic terms, as a “beautiful machine”, “compact perfection”, and indestructible, and it’s also quite versatile and accurate. A gun owner I know says, “if I could only have one gun, it’d be a Glock [19], no question.” He’s fired over 8000 rounds with his Glock 17 (almost exactly the same gun; he has big hands, so he likes a bigger gun) without needing to clean it. The accolades for this gun seem almost too good to be true; but I am assured, time and time again, that they are dead on.

Always practice proper gun safety.

Buy a Glock 19 with fixed sights from Impact Guns
Note: Amazon doesn’t sell guns, so this link is to buy the gun from Impact Guns, an online site that seems reasonable. But I have not purchased a gun from them, so I don’t know for sure. If you do order from them, let us know how it works out.

Saul :: Jun.27.2007 :: Handgun :: 1 Comment »

ZDNet reviews the Sony NS50P as having “great features for the money”, and Consumer Search says the same thing about the NS55P. The Sony NS57P is the latest model of the same slimline single-disc progressive-scan DVD player. No karaoke, no HDTV, no HD-DVD (Consumer Reports recommends waiting until the dust settles on the format wars); just a basic and very reasonable DVD player for $60 (according to Sony’s website; Amazon won’t display the price because it’s “too low”). The NS57P/B is black; the NS57P/S is silver.

Saul :: Jun.26.2007 :: DVD player :: No Comments »

The Black & Decker Cordless Grasshog can be used as both a trimmer and an edger–the head section changes position to enable either technique. While the corded version is less expensive, it’s also rated much worse than the cordless one (compare the Amazon reviews if you’re tempted to save a few bucks; it’s like night and day). Dealing with a cord is largely unreasonable in practice, and the gas versions, while more powerful, obviously require access to gasoline which is not always convenient. The GrassHog has a lot going for it: it reviews well, the auto-feed string spool system is cool, and lastly, it’s relatively light (about 6 lbs) and not deafeningly loud. For usual jobs, this will perform nicely.

Beth :: Jun.26.2007 :: Weedeater :: 1 Comment »

The Bissell 3990 has enough suction to get all of the pet hair, random strings, crumbs, and other whatnot out of the carpet. It also includes attachments, a nice long cord, no more bags to buy, and an easy way to change the belt if you get into a fight with a shoelace. While vacuuming, particles stay in the container rather than flying back out. It’s not overly loud or heavy or weird-looking. Epinions users rate this vacuum very favorably, and if you’re already familiar with upright bagless vacuums, the only surprise is how well it cleans without costing a fortune. This is a robust bagless vacuum cleaner for less than $200, and that’s very reasonable.

Beth :: Jun.26.2007 :: Vacuum :: 3 Comments »

Consumer Search and Consumer Reports both pick the PowerShot A630 as one of the most reasonable consumer grade digital cameras. It has enough pixels to crop and enlarge photos when printing, takes very clear and sharp images, and is easy to operate. The LCD screen is large, adjustable, and simply manipulated. The controls are intuitively placed–a point and shoot photographer would have no trouble using this camera straight out of the box without reading the instructions. For the more advanced user, many adjustments can be made to achieve special effects or to accomplish imaging in challenging situations. You could pay a lot more for a different camera and get only a few extra features which are unlikely to benefit most users.

Beth :: Jun.26.2007 :: Camera :: 1 Comment »

The clear winner in the Toaster category is the Proctor Silex Cool Touch 22450. It’s a Consumer Reports Best Buy, it costs under $20, and it does everything a reasonable toaster should do: it makes toast, two pieces at a time, and pretty well, too.

UPDATE: In March 2008, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall of Proctor Silex Cool-Touch 22450 toasters sold from August 2007 through February 2008. This product turned out to be unreasonable, and I apologize to anyone who got “burned” by this toaster.

Saul :: Jun.24.2007 :: Toaster :: 1 Comment »