Last week I tried to pinch & zoom on a smoked salmon hors d’oeuvre–so yeah, touchscreen fever has fully taken over. To make the transition to Windows 8 easier, the Logitech Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad ($80) lets you pinch, tap, and skadoogle (made that one up) on your PC wirelessly, so you don’t have to suffer through tablet/smartphone withdrawal. Windows 8 users will have up to 13 unique gestures to perform on the large, smooth glass surface, and one charge gives you juice for a full month.
Despite years of computer keyboards being subjected to coffee, soda, and porn-related spillage, it is only now… today… that we finally get a washable keyboard . Thank you, Logitech. The K310 ($39.99) can be cleaned with a wet cloth or soaked in water up to 11 inches deep. The laser printed and UV-coated characters mean they won’t fade with washing, and drainage holes in the back let the water – or uh, other liquids – drain through.
Celebrate springtime and Easter with the inexplicable act of shoving candy and gifts into a basket. The Logitech UE Air Speaker ($400) is the first weaponized sound wave launcher (minus the weaponized part), and the perfect basket stuffer. Plug-and-play is a standard for the Air Speaker, but its true talents lie in the “Air” part of its name. Using a compatible phone, Mac, or PC, you can control what solemn church hymns you wish to blast via a downloadable app. Multiple users can access the app, so struggle with your friends over which remix of “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” to play. Logitech is to sound as Romans are to Jesus: mainly, they nailed it.
Pity poor buttons. Once a symbol of cutting edge technology – see the excitement over push button phones in the 70s, or any Star Trek episode – these days it’s all about touchscreens. The latest slap in buttons’ face comes courtesy of Logitech, which has unveiled a touch mouse. The Logitech M600 ($70) provides full surface touch sensitivity, so you can have that smartphone feel when using your PC. We’ll have to get our mitts on one before we can say if it’s an improvement, but please excuse me while I go fondle my pants button before that disappears too.
If you’re thinking of buying the Logitech Mini Boombox, you may want to check out the Jambox specs first, more for piece of mind than the actual comparison. You need only to quickly compare to see that the main difference between the two is the price. Priced at $199, the Jambox does come in more colors (black, blue, silver, and red) than the Logitech, which will cost you $99.99. But both deliver incredible sound on the go for up to ten hours with speakers that pair with smartphones, tablets or other Bluetooth®-enabled devices. Both contain 2 speaker drives and 3.5mm stereo analog audio input. The Jambox is slightly larger and heavier than the Logitech. So, I guess you just need to decide if size matters to you…or not.