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Another big brand wearable – If you are a techno nerd or geek then this wearable is what you may be looking for. If you are looking for a wearable for an active lifestyle, then this one is a no go. Where…

to start. Well for the nerds, this thing is feature packed and you can add apps and tiles to it through the Microsft app, which is great. Secondly, it looks great with the full faced display and high contrast which makes it easy to read and operate, throw in the customisable colours and backgrounds and the geek in you will start to salivate. Unfortuantely a lot of the "tiles apps" can be written by the every day Joe and not really work as well as the default apps. The touchscreen is very responsive and feels refined. The unit can feel a little bulky and is designed to be worn the reverse way of a normal watch which means you have to be extra vigilant and remember that it is upside down as every day activities can potentially scratch and damage this wearable. Also the size of the unit makes wearing long sleeve business shirts difficult as the cuffs don't easily slide over the device.

As it is packed full of features and has a lovely screen to look at means that battery life is very poor, turn on the Bluetooth to connect to your smart phone and you will find yourself putting the unit onto charge at the end of every day. Of course the Microsoft app works best and has more features available if you are using it with a Windows phone or device. If not then you will have a few issues here and there.

The pedometer feature is great and accurate and you can set your step goals and when they are reached a nice colorful message is displayed.

As with most tech these days, the band 2 has fallen victim to the vanity and fashion conscious design as Microsoft has decided to put more effort into how this thing looks, than how it performs and how it feels when worn. To be honest I find myself wearing it less and less every day and reaching for my trusty old watch as it doesn't need charging constantly and feels a lot more comfortable. In this being said, its still cheaper than an Apple Watch or Samsung Gear wearable.

It seems after a bit of reading that Microsoft have stopped makin the Band 2, so what does that tell you?

Brilliant little unit that makes spot cleaning a breeze – When you have children, you quickly realise that the amount of cleaning you are going to be undertaking will increase beyond what you could ever imagine. Most noticeable will be…

"spot cleans" where something gets spilled or dropped and needs to be cleaned up straight away and can't be left to be part of your weekly clean.

In the beginning my wife decided to buy a simple broom and dust pan to assist with these little accidents or spills. In addition to these spills, we also noticed that we were forever cleaning up food scraps that my children (at the age of 1 and 2) were spawning around the kitchen table. We soon found out that the dust pan and broom did not cut it and using a regular vacuum cleaner was too cumbersome and time consuming to use. We needed something that was as quick to deploy as a dust pan and broom and as effective as a regular vacuum cleaner. Enter the Dyson V6.

We chose to go with the V6 Absolute because of the addition of the hard floor tool. Friends had told us that the standard floor tool scratches wood floors unless you modify it with the addition of felt squares or some other form of padding, but the inbuilt brush isn't as good as the roller in the hard floor tool at picking up stuff from hard floors. Also there were a few other floor tools that we got that we found to be useful pretty much upon first use. The performance of this unit is fantastic considering its size and power. Don't expect to get as good a clean as you would from mains powered vacuum, still, its impressive. A Godfrey's salesperson tried to convince us that as the motor is all the way at the rear of the machine, the suction would not be as powerful as an upright stick vac where the motor is closer to the floor. As suspected we didn't find this to be a problem as Dyson have created this beast with a lot of suction power. Manoeuvrability wise it is easy to twist and turn and it can lay flat enough to be shoved under tables and chairs to retrieve dirt and dust. The trigger activates the vacuum and doesn't require a lot of pressure or finger strength to keep it depressed. I was very impressed on the job this unit does when vacuuming carpeted areas. It is a powerful and effective as some of the bigger AC powered vacuums that I have used.

Battery time is about 20 minutes or 6 minutes if you decide to use the extra powerful MAX mode for those harder areas to clean. 20 minutes may not sound a lot but you need to remember that this is not a conventional vacuum, nor is it meant to replace a conventional vacuum. if you remember that, then battery life won't be an issue to whinge about. Clipping and unclipping pipes, brush heads and accessories is easy to do and requires little effort.

Now for the not so good. The unit is noisy and high pitched and can hurt your ears after extended periods of non-stop use, especially in smaller areas where the noise can bounce off walls, so if you have sensitive ears or hearing then I recommend some sort of hearing protection. The hard floor brush head seems to struggle more on tiled surfaces where there is uneven surfaces like etched or patterned tiles and you may find yourself going back over the same area a couple of times. Wood floors without any small recesses are not a problem. Of course price is a concern as well as these units aren't cheap.

The last thing that may cause some people a bit of trouble is the emptying of the canister and the cleaning of the canister where all the dirt and dust goes. The release switch for the canister sits opposite and below the trigger that activates the vacuum. Sometimes if you have bigger hands or fingers it becomes a little fiddly and you can find yourself accidentally activating the unit. The dirt empties easily enough IF it is all at the bottom of the canister, if there is any dirt or at the top which can get jammed in there or held in place by hair (if your wife has long hair) is not easily removed as you cannot (as far as I can tell) remove the top of the unit to get access. I find myself using a set of tweezers to try and remove any of the dirt stuck in the top or wrapped around the central column of the canister.

This is a great way to compliment your existing vacuum and saves time on little jobs. Note, that it is NOT a replacement for a normal vacuum cleaner as the unit tends to overheat and shut down after 6 or so minutes of continual use and then you have to let the battery cool down in order to use it again.

I highly recommend this unit to anyone who is looking to clean up dirt and dust and food that will only take a few seconds to vacuum up and who, like me find it a real hassle to break out the big vacuum cleaner.

This is one awesome machine..........so far – We bought this machine after our existing Electrolux ELM5250S found its way to the garbage bin. We needed a machine that wasn't too space hungry as we do not have a lot of bench…

space. We were at the end of our love affair with Pod machines and wanted more choice with the coffee that we drank and wanted a machine that used beans. Set up of the machine is easy and straightforward. The set up once the machine is turned on is easy and you are ready to brew your first coffee in no time. The manual says that it takes between 10-20 cups for the machine to settle and learn how you like your coffee. Its sounds a bit silly at first but it actually happens, so my advice would be to buy some cheap coffee and battle through these first 20 cups, then pile in the quality beans. The unit is very quick to warm up. Be warned though, when you turn the machine on it performs a quick rinse cycle after the water has been heated so always have a cup or container sitting under the spout. You can adjust the coarseness of the grind as well as the strength (the amount of beans used) by the push of a button. The manual steam function is quick to get up to temp and pressure and froths milk very fast, but you have no control over the amount of froth created which can be annoying. The steam function is started by pushing the steam button but it is stopped by pushing the Espresso button and it doesn't stop instantly which can lead to an overflow of hot milk if you aren't watching. Again there is a rinse cycle performed when you turn the machine off so be ready for that. The instruction manual is disappointing and could be written a lot better and it leaves a few things out. It doesn't tell you that if you push the Espresso button twice, the machine will brew a double shot. The bean hopper is a decent size and lets you store a large quantity of beans which is great and means that you aren't forever refilling it. You will need to perform a regular weekly clean which isn't too tedious as well as a monthly descale. Saeco say that you must use their descaling liquid to keep the warranty valid, I haven't purchased any of their descaling liquid so I'm hoping it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I will submit an updated review in about a month and hopefully the machine is still going strong. So far its hats off the Saeco for this awesome little machine.

Great idea and concept. Unfortunately it doesn't live up to the hype – I came across this accessory in my local JB hifi store and I was really pumped about being able to play my PS4 on another tv in the house whilst my children commandeered the main…

tv. The unit itself is very small and takes up a very tiny amount of space. Connecting it is easy and the setup is straight forward. Connectivity via wife or Ethernet cable to your network is catered for. HDMI cable is supplied but no Ethernet cable.

All the positives and promises that this device makes and has are soon undone when you try and play an online game. The lag is absolutely terrible and renders any game unplayable. After searching the net and reading various articles the lag phenomenon is wide spread but only amongst PS4 users, the PS3 seems unaffected. Design flaw perhaps? There are 2 types of lag mentioned. 1. Input lag which is due in part to some tv settings and the age of a tv set and refresh rates an resolution etc. There are remedies to reduce this type of lag but it doesn't make a huge difference. 2. Controller lag. There seems to be a ridiculous amount of lag between when you do something on the controller and it translating on screen. Playing Advanced Warfare is woefully bad as you aim your gun at a player and half a second later the gun on the screen moves and aims. We all know that lag of this duration in Advanced Warfare means certain DEATH.

A phone call to Sony tech support will have them pointing the finger of blame at your ISP but the fact that there is no lag on the TV that the PS4 is directly connected to soon disproves that the ISP is to blame. Sony will send you a trouble shooting email that will ask you to change primary DNS settings and port forwarding etc but this makes no difference.

Perhaps when Sony redesigns this accessory to work better with their next gen consoles then it will be worth buying but until then it's not worth the money.

Excellent service and knowledge on everything they sell – I have purchased from B & H several times and I have been very happy every time. Living in Australia we get shafted a lot with prices on anything electronic and camera wise so…

sometimes it pays to look abroad when making purchases. The staff at B & H are very helpful no matter how you choose to contact the, and their advice is always spot on. I mainly use the when purchasing non electronic gear as the warranties associated with this kind of gear is only valid in the country of purchase which really sucks (this is to do with the manufacturer and not the seller). Their range of stuff is huge and they have most of it in Stock.

As always when purchasing from another country, check the exchange rate and the conversion costs to make sure you are getting it cheaper than from a local retailer and also check what the tax laws are for importing into your country as you may have to pay extra which could make your purchase no cheaper. These sort of charges are not the fault of B & H photo they are set by the country you live in.

I would recommend B & H as a place to buy photographic gear but as always do your research to determine if the price is cheaper after factoring in postage, currency conversion etc. Deliveries to Oz usually take about 4 days.