Hawke84's Tech Reviews

Thursday 13 November 2014

Inateck BK1002 Bluetooth Keyboard

Overview

Hi all. So i’ve got my hands on another product from Inateck, one of the new up and coming tech firms that seem to do a little bit of everything. Im quite excited about this product, its something i’ve been in the market for a little while as im getting more USB3.0 gadgets and I couldnt wait to open it! My Review today is on one of the new products which is a 4 port USB3.0 hub with an additional 2A charging port for phones / tablets etc.

Unboxing

The keyboard arrived in a nondescript brown box with Inateck’s logo on. On the back there is a small bit of info, mainly the RoHS and other compliance labels. The model number is BK1002. Opening up the box there is a well protected keyboard in a white soft bag, making it feel very nice and premium.

Taking it out the box there is a small instruction manual walking you through the steps of putting batteries in and getting the keyboard connected and up and running. The manual is well written and steps you through the process nicely.

One line in the manual does read “Select Bluetooth 3.0 Keyboard” so suggesting that the chip uses bluetooth 3.0.

Its worth noting that batteries aren’t included in the box so make sure you have two AAA batteries ready. My previous experience with bluetooth keyboards is that they are pretty easy on batteries, ive had one for a while and its not run out yet including being left on by accident for days at an end. Also this uses bluetooth 3 which is lower energy so battery life generally isnt something to get worried about...

Hands on

Ok so removing the keyboard from its protective wrapper reveals a nice looking keyboard with white buttons and a silver chassis which is slightly reflective but has a matt quality so its not blinding. It looks nice and compared to my black keyboard it seems like this is a good colour as it wont be an obvious fingerprint magnet. The white buttons have grey lettering apart from the function keys which are a dark blue. The grey of the letter keys complements nicely the gray of the chassis.

The keyboard I received for review is a US model as the @ key is above the 2, which isnt standard on UK keyboards, after years of pressing shift and ‘ I can see myself keep hitting the wrong key to get the @ symbol… The key sizing seems to be fairly normal, this isnt a compact key version so thats a very big plus (i dont like very compact keys) the keys are as you would expect on a laptop, with good key spacing (about 3.2mm between each key) so plenty of space for fat fingers :)

There is a function key (blue) which on this keyboard is used to get the F1-12 & Del keys. There are smart features (including media controls) along the top which share the F keys but you dont need to use a Fn press to get to the. I like this, im more likely to user a media control or brightness key than i am an F key, so feels like a logical step forward.

There is an indicator for battery just above the F11 key which glows a nice deep blue for a few seconds when the keyboard is turned on to indicate everything is ok in the battery department!

On the back is a square block which houses the batteries and also serves to life the keyboard to a slight angle. The block is about 1.5cm high so gives the keyboard a nice bit of lift to angle it for comfortable typing. There are 4 round rubber feet, one in each corner. Also on the bottom is an on/ off switch and a connect button to perform the bluetooth pairing. One thought I did have was that it would be nice to have the on/off switch with a splash of colour that shows when the switch is moved e.g green when on and red when off just make it more visible when its on or off as its not always easy to ready the words “on / off” unless you really look, so this is something I plan on fixing with a dab of paint. Its a small thing but it makes life a little easier.

Testing

For testing ive tried it with 3 different bits of kit. My PC- a custom built Windows 7 Asus motherboard, my Samsung Galaxy S4 running stock touchwiz Android 4.4.2 and my Nexus 7 (2013 edition) running stock android 4.4.4.

Samsung Galaxy S4.

My Samsung found the keyboard fine, it called it QH-ZY-US-01 in the device menu but it paired with it fine and there is an option to rename the device to something more friendly.

Playing with some of the function keys, some work on the phone, some dont. the brightness keys dont have an effect but the media keys, play, pause, vol up and down and the screen lock key all work as expected as does the ‘Home’ key which takes my phone back to the home screen! You can actually navigate touchwiz using the arrow keys but its not fun!

Typing away in my email app was great fun. The keyboard makes a satisfying small clack when typing which I really like, there is enough resistance there to know when you have made a keypress and when you haven't. Typing didnt show any input lag at all, all words appeared instantly on the screen. When using a keyboard on android, the onscreen keyboard does pop up but using the back button minimised this for me easily to give me more screen real estate.

Turning the keyboard off and on again to check it reconnects showed no problems, it was reconnected instantly when it was switched on so I didnt have to go through the setup or anything like that every time the keyboard is switched off.

Nexus 7 (2013)

Testing on the nexus didnt really seem to be any different to testing on my Galaxy S4, both are android and both reacted the same so says to me that this should work fine with any android device.

I am a big fan of keyboards for android devices, especially tablets. Android tablets tend to me media output devices rather than media input i.e. you watch stuff but dont ever really create much. Typing on screen for long periods is a pain but using something as simple as a bluetooth keyboard suddenly means you can use your tablet more as a work laptop, you can comfortably pen a nice long email to people. I would urge anyone who isnt sure about getting a bluetooth keyboard to get one, you will use it more than you think. Most modern TVs now work with bluetooth (check the specs) meaning you can use the one keyboard on multiple devices. I find myself just grabbing the keyboard to write a text message or an email as its easier to grab that and type than to write anything long on the screen.

The pairing with Windows 7 was again fairly simple, soon as i made my PC discoverable and pressing connect on the keyboard it paired up fine. Typing on the keyboard was just the same as using it on android. No input lag, no disconnects or issues. Turning the keyboard on and off again and it reconnected to my PC fine and actually is nice and comfortable to use as a daily driver.

Pricing

Ths is on Amazon for £12.99 at the moment which honestly you cant get one of these for less than that. I paid £15 for my other one and its no where near as nice as this one, I havent seen them anywhere for anything less than £15 mark so this seems like quite a very good price. Currys / PC World these are generally £30. For £12.99 to get a good solid, name brand product I feel is a good investment!

Positive points

+I love this thing, Bluetooth keyboards are so so handy with android devices!

+Good keyspacing

+Responsive keys

+No input lag

+Easy bluetooth pairing

+Good looking, looks stylish on the desk and being wireless adds to the appeal

+Bluetooth 3.0, low energy so kind on batteries

+Not a fingerprint magnet :)

+Battery status / pairing status LED.

+Rubber non-slip feet (4)

+Simple to pair and pick up and use.

+Doesnt forget pairing details when switched off (i’ve actually had keyboard that do this and its so annoying!)

Negative points

- Small power switch underneath, not always easy to use or see if its on / off.

- No adjustable feet, would be nice to be able to choose to lie flat.

Conclusions

Overall a very nice little unit, classy looking. This is really a joy to use.

One final note, ive written this whole review on the keyboard, i’ve enjoyed it and not had any disconnects or issues with using it!

Score

My Score out of 5:

5 out of 5 - Really solid, useful little device, pick up and go type thing. Love it, love the looks and love the functionality.

Bottom Line

Very impressive little device, stylish, responsive and easy to use.

Links

Inateck Website

http://www.inateck.com/inateck-bk1002e-bluetooth-keyboard-english/

In hunting out the link ive also noticed that they have released an Apple style keyboard similar to this one.

http://www.inateck.com/inateck-bk1001e-bluetooth-keyboard-english/

So nice bit of choice there.

Monday 27 October 2014

Inateck 4 Port USB Hub HB5001

Overview

Unboxing

The hub arrived in a small black, fairly solid feeling box with a brief description and small picture of the product on the front. On the back there are a lot of features and specs listed.

The features listed on the back are:

Superspeed (5Gbps)/high speed(480Mbps)/full speed (12Mbps)
Status led indicates the operation mode of each USB port
The 5V/2A port is equipped with intelligent charging chip to support battery charging for Samsung tablets, iPad and smart phones.
Compliant with USB2.0 and lower version
Compliant with large capacity hard disk
Plug&Play, Hot Swappable.

The Specifications listed are:

Product Model: Inateck HB5001
Product Name: 4 Port USB3.0 HUB with 1 Port Charging
Product Interface: USB3.0x3 + 5V/2A Charging
Product Dimensions: 125x63x15mm
Product Weight: 80g
OS Support: Windows XP/ Vista / 7/8/8.1, Mac OS
Certificate: CE&FCC Approval

So a lot of info on the outer box. Without further waiting im going to open it up and its time to finally play with the device ive been looking forward to for the past week!

So opening up the box im greeted with a very well packed, plastic wrapped hub, sitting in a protective plastic tray, under which is an adaptor plug with a 1.5m lead and a USB3.0 which is 1.2m long.

Lead Length

I just want to highlight this fact, i really like the lead length, I know it sounds like a silly thing to highlight and people are probably wanting me to get on with reviewing the actual hub but lead length is important. Keep in mind that to keep USB3.0 speeds if you want to use an extension lead you it will need to be USB3.0 compliant and honestly thats a pain. My home PC case is almost up to my waist and I wanted a hub that would plug in down the depths of the back of the PC and I could put the hub on my desk to plug in devices. I know its very much personal preference but this has a nice lead length to reach down the back of a tower and sit on my desk without much messing around so im really please about this. The USB3.0 lead is a standard lead with the normal USB micro B plug to go into the hub so the lead is interchangeable if you do want something different.

Hands on

Ok so the plastic wrap has been removed and its time to place with the device. Can I just pause to say though that its nice to hold a product that the manufacturer cares enough about to add plastic wrap on the top and bottom to protect the device. makes it feel very premium and new!

The hub is nice and light and feels fairly hollow as you would expect. On the top is black and silver plastic that is about half and half the device. The black is on the back end and houses the power button on the top in the middle. The power button doubles as a power LED which is only illuminated when the hub is turned on and is not always on when plugged in. There are green connection LEDs for each USB port which light up on connection.

On the bottom side are 4 small rubber feet to stop the hub from sliding about the place while its in use / in place. Moving round to the front of the device is the 4 USB3.0 ports with a good spacing between each to allow bigger devices such as USB memory sticks to be plugged in without taking up 2 slots. On the right hand side is the USB 5v / 2.0A charging port for charging phones / tablets etc. Finally round the back is the USB 3.0 micro B input and power input.

Overall the device feels fairly solid in my hands and not like its about to come apart.

Testing

Playing around with the hub on my HP Elitebook 9470m, the first thing I tried was to see if the hub can be used without plugging it into the mains. To you use hub you plug is in (obviously!) and you need to press the button on top to turn the hub on, good news is that it can be used for USB devices without plugging into the mains but with the caveat (as usual with hubs) that if you are plugging in multiple high power devices not all will work e.g. more than 1 portable hard drive. My PC detected the hub as a USB2.0 and USB3.0 hub, no information on the driver chip in use.

One thing I noted is that unplugging and re-plugging the hub means you have to turn it on again in order to use any connected devices. Its the same upon reboot, even if the hub is on when the PC powers off, it will need to be turned on to be used. I can see plus and minus points for this and it really depends on how you want to use if. Me for example, I have several USB3.0 drives that I dont use every day but its nice to have them all plugged into my PC ready to go if and want and when I can just hit the button to power the hub and allow me access to the devices. If you are planning on using this as a hub on your desktop do keep in mind that you have to plug in your device and perform a button press to access a device. Not sure how I feel about this, I think I would rather have a switch so I have the choice of hub on or off and my preference will save, im tempted to perform a teardown and change the button to a switch.

Plugging in my Western digital portable hard drive, the green light above the port comes on and its detected no problem without the power adaptor being used. I’ve performed several speed tests with my Jetflash USB stick and my USB3 western digital hard drives and performing speed tests side by side showed no slowdown suggesting that this hub used a good chip to manage data flow and not bottleneck at any point during transfer. My tests were transferring large data files to several devices at once, which is a worst case scenario, and even under this stress the hub performed admirably not showing any slow-downs or dips during transfer. Plugging another device in during the speed tests also had no effect.

So onto the phone charging feature that this hub offers. I tested this on my good trusty Samsung Galaxy S4 and measured the amperage going into the phone under various scenarios e.g when a new device is plugged into the hub to test the robustness under everyday use.

Pricing

Currently the hub is on offer on Amazon UK, and its a really good price, especially after playing with it im really pleased with the build quality and host of features for the very low / competitive price. It is currently on a 60% reduction so £20 for a charger and premium hub is a good deal in my eyes so im happy! :)

Positive points

+Good cable length, both the adaptor and USB3.0 cable

+Sleek looking design

+Connectivity LEDs for each USB port.

+Switch to turn on and off

+5v 2A USB phone / tablet charging port

+Can use as a USB hub without plugging into the mains

+High quality build

+very low competitive price

+Good performance, no slowdowns during stress testing

+USB2.0 compatible

+Rubber feed to stop it slipping (you wont believe how many hubs ive had that dont have this!)

Uses standard USB pinout, no proprietary cable.

Negative points

-Black plastic is a bit of a fingerprint magnet, not really a problem if its sitting on a desk.

-Have to turn it on at every PC boot to use

Conclusions

Overall a very nice little product at a reasonable price. Ticks all the boxes id be looking for with a hub.

Score

My Score out of 5:

5 out of 5 - it didn't feel like any points should be knocked of for my minor annoyance with the power button.

Bottom Line

Very impressive little device, long cables and easy to use.

Links

Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inateck®-Charging-Samsung-Computers-Smartphone/dp/B00GT7LDDG

Tuesday 14 October 2014

Lumsing 6000mAh Powerbank (PBJ-6200)

Hi all,

Continuing on my new found hobby of tech reviewing I wanted to share with you my thoughts on a new Lumsing product i've got my hands on.

Unboxing

The powerbank comes in a fairly well packed in a cardboard box with a little handle and minimal product information on the front of the box.

On the back there is a good list of features:

Size 4.88 x 2.64 x 0.51 inches
capacity 6000mAh
Weight 6.49oz
Input Mirco USB 5V / 1.5A
Output 5V / AA & USB 5V / 2.1A
Service life 500 charge cycles
compatible with all 5volt input required devices.
Security protection design
protection for overcharge
protection for overvoltage
protection for overcurrent
protection for short-circuit

And one of the other product features I thought important to point out:

Made with grade A cells and premium microchips.

The fact that this device lists 4 different protection methods is really important to me. I know it basically just a battery but its a lithium product which im planning on plugging my expensive devices into and I dont plan on having it explode or overvolt and break my phone or tablet. Having all 4 listed puts my mind at rest somewhat. I also like the fact that they have pointed out that they are using premium productions and a first for any battery pack I’ve reviewed - they call out the service life! Finally a company that will state how long these things should last. 500 cycles feels like a good bit of usage, I dont tend to use these things a lot and seeing as it can recharge my phone 3 to 4 times I could actually get 2000 phone recharges out of it before it starts to give up. I do a fair amount of travelling and I think it will be a number of years before I use up this product service life.

Hands on

Anyway enough about the box and the outer packaging, lets open it up already and take a look inside. I have to say the box felt a little cheap, being printed basically on brown card so I wasnt holding out high hopes when I opened it up for the quality of the product. How wrong I was!! Inside the battery is really well packed in a solid foam insert and in a little bag. Included under the powerbank is a nice little coiled USB lead. Again not something I’ve seen from the other powerbanks I’ve reviewed, this to me, although a simple little thing makes all the difference, seeing the little coiled lead was a moment of “oh thats good” in my head. I tend to use these powerbanks on the go, usually on holiday or when im out and about on a long day out (shopping with the girlfriend!), so i tend to have the powerbank in my pocket and as my phone starts getting low I just plug it into my powerbank and have the whole thing charging in my pocket while im walking around. Some of the companies seem to think you need a 2m lead with these things! So this for me is a big plus! It is worth noting that no Apple leads are included but these can be purchased separately.

One thing that did let me down with the lead is that it is charge only, there are no pins for syncing so straight away meaning that if you are travelling you need this lead for the powerbank and another lead for syncing with a PC. Feels a little mean…

Ok continuing to unbox, there is also included a lovely feeling little bag for the powerbank with drawstrings and a Lumsing logo. This also impressed me as I havent had any others which included a bag to keep it in. Also included is a simple instruction manual with how to use the product.

The powerbank itself is covered in brushed aluminium and is pretty solid feeling and it looks lovely (it was a pain to take a picture of because its so shiny!!) On the top there is a USB input port for charging and 2 USB output ports labelled 2.1A and 1A. Having a parent who needs reading glasses for everything a potential improvement would be to colour code the ports to prevent you plugging a 1A device into the 2.1A port by mistake and damaging it.

Also looking at the device from top (or bottom) profile shows an apparent bulge in the middle of the device. Im assuming this is just the battery cells but having had a galaxy S4 with bulging battery problems this made me worry slightly about what was going on under the skin! It charged and discharged fine so I wont dwell on this.

The top, side and bottom are a black plastic with a blue trim. Another nice little touch to add to the premium feel of this product was the fact that all the black plastic parts of the device are covered with that peel-away protection which always feels nice to peel and and makes it feel like they really care that this is in beautiful condition when it reaches you.

On the side is a single bottom (left hand side) along with 4 blue lights each of which indicates 25% of the battery capacity. towards the bottom is a dotted design which looks kinda cool. The right hand side is all aluminium (single sheet used to cover front, back and 1 side.

Overall it charged my Galaxy S4 fine. The 2.1A rating slightly confused me as my phone is 2.0A input and most of my other devices are 1.0A. I plugged it in and nothing blew up so I assume 0.1A isnt anything to worry about.

Positive points

+Really really premium feel

+Felt bag

+Coiled charging cable included (USB)

+Premium aluminium body

+stylish looks

+Premium lithium cells and circuitry used

+Well packaged and protected

+Two different charge outputs

Negative points

-Charge only lead included, so cant be used for phone sync

-Slight bulge in unit, not sure if it was just mine or if this is normal

-The aluminium body seems to scratch fairly easily

-Input for charging is only 1.5A so no fastcharge from 2A phone chargers

Conclusions

Feels like the manufacturer really cares about their product and the end user experience. There were a few very minor annoyances but these are easily overcome with the premium feel to the device. Lumsing is my new top choice for power accessories.

Score

My Score out of 5: