Gadgets & Gizmos of 2014

Our Top Picks

By Farah Amin

Mophie Space Pack

If you are a proud iPhone owner and always on the run, it is inevitable you face the following problem: battery life. While there are many iPhone battery cases out there, the Mophie Space pack does not only offer more life for you phone’s battery, but also extra storage space for your iPhone with extended battery life. It acts as a direct extension to your built-in IOS storage and has an app where you can access all your files, videos, and pictures and plug it in directly to your computer to load up the files. The Mphie Space Pack comes in 16GB and 32GB models.

Sony Handycam FDR-AX100

Although it has a price tag of $2000 this 4K camcorder, that far exceeds HD resolution, is new tech at its best and best price made more affordable by Sony because it’s half the price of last year’s massive FDR-AX1. It has a 1-inch-type Exmor R CMOS sensor found in the amazing RX100 and RX10 cameras, which improves the ability to capture noise-free images, especially in low light. It has a wide-angled 29 mm ZEISS Vario Sonnar lens and it can optically zoom at 12X. This Sony Handycam has built-in wifi and NFC capabilities that allows the user to transfer the footage wirelessly.

Vizio’s $1000 4K Television

Again with the 4K, but it is the next big and best thing after HD resolution. It’s the new ultra HD television starting at $1000 for a 50-inch set, which is not a bad price for value of the technology. This 4K has 4 times the resolution of a Full HD and features a scaling engine to transform 1080p content to Ultra HD with stunning accuracy. The VM50 Ultra HD engine delivers incredible detail and clarity. Also it has a game-changing colour spectrum that render vibrant colour close to the human eye than ever seen before on a television.

Intel Smart Earbuds

It’s all about wearable technology this year. While you might be more familiar with wristbands to monitor you activity levels, Intel took it to another level and created an interesting smart ear buds that has similar features. The set of body-monitoring ear buds has a tracker inside that syncs to either IOS and Android phones. It tracks and collects calories, pace, distance and time data a well as tracking your heart rate and offering a visible graph on the screen of your phone. There’s a cool feature to motivate you to bump up your performance, where the earbuds automatically plays a song to pump you up of cool you down to reach your target heart rate.

Golden SuperCinema 3D Array XL

This soundbar is as good if not better than a pair of great stereo speakers. GoldenEar has created a pretty amazing sound bar that looks as smooth as it sounds. Designed for HD TVs 70 inches or more, the SuperCinema Array has been stretched and enlarged. This new version comes with crosstalk elimination technology which is the strength of this soundbar and also has mid-bass drivers to the mis which gives the listener a full left, center and right configuration. This brilliant sounding sounbar runs for about $1,500.