Affordable

A Tesla Model S is a very hard car for reviewers to get significant time with. The company has exactly two press cars for the globe, prioritizing all other production to deliver to patient buyers. So it was with no small pleasure when Tesla's Shanna Hendriks let me know she had an S ready for me to play with for a full day (which turned out to be more like a day and a half). I hope you'll find my take a little refreshing as this car has been talked about and bloviated over like nothing this side … Read more

When it comes to picking out a smartphone that'll cost you less than $100, there's plenty of good news to go around. Constant sales on older-model phones mean that carriers are giving away great handsets in exchange for your two-year contract commitment.

Thanks to pitched smartphone and carrier competition, more excellent handsets launch at less than $100, too, and I'm not talking about phones labeled $99.99, even though many of those, like the Nokia Lumia 900, offer great value in their own right.

Here's my current crop of favorites, in no particular order.… Read more

Verizon Wireless is making its 4G LTE service a bit more affordable for the masses.

Starting Thursday, the carrier will sell the Pantech Breakout for $99.99 after a $50 rebate and a two-year contract.

The Breakout marks the first reasonably priced 4G LTE phone in Verizon's lineup. Previously, the carrier had marketed 4G LTE smartphones as high-end devices. The Droid Bionic from Motorola and the Droid Charge from Samsung, for instance, cost $299.99 with a contract. Even the older HTC Thunderbolt costs $249.99.

The emergence of a more affordable smartphone underscores the rapid expansion of the … Read more

I listen to a lot of products, trying to find above-average sounding ones to write about in this blog. So that means I hear a lot of awful-sounding gear, and as my readers know, the best stuff tends to be expensive. So when I find great-sounding, affordable products, like the Jolida JD301RC integrated amplifier and the Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 speakers I featured last weekend, I'm happy to give them enthusiastic reviews. The new Deos headphones go for just $40, and for that kind of money I think they sound pretty darn good.

I have to admit the Deos … Read more

BenQ has started shipping two new HD DLP "cinema" projectors, the W1100 and W1200, that it says are ideal for "high-rise" dwellers. We're not exactly sure what makes them ideal for multidwelling (MDU) media rooms, but the projectors, which cost $1,199 and $1,499 respectively, do offer 1,080p resolution, a 12-lens optical system, and built-in dual 10-W speakers with SRS Wow HD sound technology.

The W1100 is a 2,000-lumens (brightness) projector with a 4,500:1 contrast ratio and a full 10-bit color processor. Meanwhile, the step-up W1200 is a 1,800-lumens … Read more

I've reviewed a number of entry-level tube amplifiers--the Miniwatt N3, Jolida FX 10, and the Decware Zen Triode SE84C+--but the Neuhaus Labs T-1 is a very different take on the category.

The vacuum tube was invented more than a century ago, but tube amps are still favored by a significant number of audiophiles. I'm in that group; there's something about tube amplifiers' musicality that's rarely equaled by solid-state electronics. The Neuhaus T-1 ($495) is a "hybrid" tube/solid-state design, and uses a pair of tubes (type 6N2) in its preamplifier section and transistors … Read more

Via e-mails and discussions with people, I've recently discovered that a lot of folks out there still have the impression that 300Mbps Wireless-N routers are not as affordable as the old 54Mbps Wireless-G routers are.

Granted, you may be able to get a Wireless-G router for free from your service provider, but those tend to be very basic and limited in networking features. If you are willing to pay anything more than nothing, Wireless-N routers can be really affordable.

The D-Link DIR-615, for example, can be found online for about $40, and the Tp-Link TL-WR941ND for just $50.

Check … Read more

Advanced Batch PDF Combiner is a simple program that allows users to combine two PDF files in a variety of ways. The program doesn't have a lot of features, but it works well, with an intuitive interface that makes it very quick and easy to use.

The program's interface manages to be both intuitive and cumbersome; all of the steps are fairly obvious, but the way some options are organized makes it a little overwhelming. Users first choose the two PDFs they want to work with, which is easy enough, but then they must choose from seven options … Read more

Want a PlayStation but don't have the cash for it, nor a credit card to charge it on? You can get the device delivered to you nonetheless at the low, low price of just $120 down, plus $13 a week for 24 weeks, from a new business called AffordIt.

Now, if you do the math, you'll discover that buying something through AffordIt is a staggeringly bad deal. That PlayStation (a refurb, mind you), will cost you $432 if you pay it off, compared to the $299 price on Amazon.com for a new unit with the same specs. … Read more