Cameras in Phones, Why not a radio in a Pen?
Written: Feb 12 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Coolness factor, makes work a little more pleasant
Cons: Poor reception, station control
The Bottom Line: Not exactly practical, but definitely fun.
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| dandino's Full Review: The FM Pen |
Isn’t Sharper Image amusing? If you’re not familiar with the store, it’s full of all sorts of weird and unique things. They have plenty of high-end stereos that lay flat on a wall. There are also plenty of grooming utensils and of course the robotic vacuum. Some of them are fantastically expensive, other’s are not. This is one of their cheaper gizmos. I think this was next to the goggles you wear when you sleep to give you more REM sleep.
It’s a heavy pen, no doubt about that, and I’m pretty sure it only comes with blue ink. As far as a writing utensil goes, this one is better than fair. It is retractable, just twist to bring out a ballpoint pen. If you twist it too far to expose the pen, you will unscrew the two halves. It is completely frosted silver in color, with a reflective band in the middle. The top half has its only two function buttons, a shirt clip, and then a standard headphone jack at the top of it. There is also the branding of “Sharper Image” on the barrel.
Who knew a pen would come in such a huge box? It was the size of a hardcover book. With all that room that was mostly taken up with foam, one would think they’d have plenty of room to package the batteries. You are supplied with 2 sets of hearing aid sized batteries, which was nice. However, they package the first set in the pen. Are bells and whistles going off in your head? What were they thinking? The pen didn’t work at all, the batteries exploded in the pen all over the chamber and contacts. It had to be returned. The second pen also had the batteries explode in the pen, but they only exploded on each other and not on the contacts, so I just threw in the replacement pair supplied and the pen worked.
To operate the radio, you need simply to insert the headphones into the jack. The pen turns on and you control the station by two buttons. One button scans and will go until it finds a station. When you get to the end of stations, hit the Reset button to start back at the beginning. The dial on the earphones keeps volume control. Speaking of which, these are the earphones that hang in your ear. Some people don’t like these, I don’t mind. They work fine.
Now as for finding your favorite station, good luck. You never have any idea of what station you are listening too until you recognize the DJ’s voice. Apparently, the best reception comes in on the opera station and anything Spanish. It takes a few passes for me to find my favorite stations. The reception quality is poor, did you expect anything else? There is also the problem of spontaneous changing of stations. This is annoying because it never does it during a commercial, but only when a good song is on. But when you actually do find a station and you like the song, it’s quite a fun little toy.
I think this pen would have been a better radio if there were a dial instead of a Scan button, but then it wouldn’t be as stylish. They went with form over function on that one. This is a great gift item for the person who has everything and is a gizmo lover. This will not replace a Discman or Mp3 player. For 15 bucks, it’s perfect for Secret Santa’s or something like that.
It looses 1 star for packaging the batteries in the pen. They were just asking for trouble on that one. They loose the second for the difficulty in getting a station clearly. If there were a coolness rating, this thing would get a 9/10.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
dandino
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Location: Long Island, NY
Reviews written: 49
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
I like tools and electronic gizmos.
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