portable

The Philips Shoqbox SB7200 portable wireless speaker doesn't fill a room with sound quite as well as the pricier Shoqbox SB7300 model, but a tough shell helps it stand out among all the portable Bluetooth speakers currently flooding the category.

The hard-mesh speaker and rubber casing amplify bass tones as well as protect the unit from dirt and dust, making it a logical companion on outdoor adventures like hikes and trips to the beach. Pro tip: its light waterproofing also does equally well in your bathroom if you prefer bathing to a soundtrack. The Smart Sensor does a so-so … Read more

Most external hard drives are on the big, bulky side, and they require their own power supply, which is a hassle to say the least.

Portable external drives run off USB power, which is convenient -- but it usually means a lower-capacity drive and higher price.

Not today. Newegg has the Seagate Backup Plus 1TB portable USB 3.0 hard drive for $79.99 shipped. That's after applying coupon code EMCXWVV26 at checkout.

Now, anyone who follows hard drives like I do needs to get a hobby knows that 80 bucks for a 1TB drive isn't all that … Read more

When we're away from our computers and need to make a note of something, notebooks and sticky notes are two of the most obvious places we might do this. On the computer, however, the answer isn't so simple. A word processing program is too cumbersome, a text editor may be too bare-bones, and neither of these options does anything to keep your ideas organized. Fortunately, Efficient Notes Free Portable Edition provides a way to easily record and organize notes. If you have a lot of bright ideas and nowhere to put them, it might be just what you'… Read more

We tend to be suspicious of anything that claims to be designed specifically for ladies -- not just women, but ladies -- particularly if it's something as seemingly gender-neutral as productivity software. This isn't 1950, and on the whole, women's organizational needs don't tend to differ significantly from men's. Any attempt at making an organizer especially "for ladies" has a high probability of being both ridiculous and insulting. Efficient Lady's Organizer Free Portable Edition confirmed our worst fears. Although it's a perfectly serviceable personal organizer, its feminine touches made us kind … Read more

Creating strong passwords is easy, but remembering them is something else entirely; the very characteristics that make passwords hard to crack also make them hard to remember. That's where password managers come in. Efficient Password Manager Free Portable promises to store your passwords and even help you create new, stronger ones. Best of all, it lives on your USB drive or other portable device, ensuring that your passwords are always handy.

Efficient Password Manager has a plain and attractive interface that reminded us a bit of Microsoft Office. The program comes with a built-in Help file, but we didn'… Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you can't decide whether to buy a portable or desktop speaker for your smartphone, here's a solution that may give you the best of both worlds.

The Zagg Origin, spotted at the Digital Experience event here at CES, is a 2-in-1 speaker system. It consists of a portable Bluetooth speaker that can be used on the go for more than 10 hours with its onboard rechargeable battery.

When this portable unit is docked into the desktop component, sound output is seamlessly transferred to the larger speaker, enabling it to fill a bigger room. Meanwhile, the portable … Read more

LAS VEGAS--At CES Unveiled today, the Canadian audio company, Matrix Audio, demoed its newest (and smallest) member of its family of portable speakers.

Known as Qube, the $49.99 speaker measures 1.5 by 1.5 inches and is about the size of a golf ball. It connects to devices through an auxiliary cord that plugs into any 3.5mm headphone jack.

With its aluminum finish and polished colors, Qube sports an attractively compact design. Currently, it comes in black, silver, and red, but will come in three more pastel colors at the end of February.

The speaker will be … Read more

Coffee has become an indispensable part of modern culture. And while there happen to be many locations dispensing the beverage in all its incarnations, when the need for a refill hits, time is of the essence. Sure, there are coffee locations that feature drive-through caffeinating, but when it comes down to it, the nearest coffee purveyor could be too far away. While that may be hard to believe in this day and age, there is an even quicker way to fuel up.

The Trisa Electronics Coffee To Go is a battery-operated espresso machine that even includes a carrying case. Designed … Read more

Did one or two of your childhood crushes ever make you a treacly mix tape? Chances are good you listened to it -- over and over and over again -- on your Sony portable cassette player.

If so, it's time to get sentimental. Last week, a nondescript announcement out of Sony's Japanese division sounded a death knell for the portable cassette recorder/player -- a product category that helped the company rise to prominence decades ago.

The consumer electronics giant detailed how its current line of portable cassette recorders -- including the TCM-400, TCM-410, and TCM-450 -- stand as the company's last and will be discontinued by January. In a side announcement, a Sony representative noted that the company plans to continue selling blank cassette tapes, tape decks, and boomboxes with cassette support -- for now. … Read more