14 ingear TECH & NET

timesonline.co.uk/ingear 20.07.08 15

Ican get a deep-fried Twinkiedelivered to my front door in 20minutes. I can start aclass-action lawsuit againsttrans-fat makers from thecomfort of my sofa, then get my

tummy tucked before lunch. In aland where instant gratification ispractically part of the constitution,the transition to digital televisionwas never going to be a drawn-outprocess, which is why the entirecountry is hurtling towards an

all-or-nothing switchover onFebruary 17 next year. Overnight,traditional TV signals will be turnedoff, leaving any American without adigital receiver staring at a blankscreen.Just to remind you, the point of

digital switchover is to improvebroadcast quality and to free upbandwidth, which can be used fornew services. The federalgovernment is approaching the daywith all the subtlety of a militarycampaign. There are big ads andflashy websites, of course, and asensible law has ensured that everynew TV sold since March 2007 isdigital-ready. Perhaps mostremarkably, viewers are being paidto watch TV. Every household canapply for up to two $40 (£20)vouchers towards the cost of digitalset-top boxes.Compare that with the British

digital switchover, which is happeningat the pace of a cricket Test match —including breaks for tea. There hasn’tbeen as much as a penny from theTreasury to help people buy new

equipment, while the publicly fundedBBC has blown £200m on an adcampaign so incomprehensible thathalf the TV sets sold in the UK lastyear weren’t digital-ready.It makes you wonder how the

Americans, with a disparate andfragmented broadcasting system, canget their act together while in Britain,with a public broadcasting behemoth,things move at a glacial place.

seattle@sunday-times.co.uk

BEST ALL-ROUNDER

INOVA 24/7 £29.95

Our tests: All our torches claimed to be atleast water resistant, so we gave them a30-second shower to simulate a heavydownpour — the sort of conditions in whichyou'll inevitably have to change a flat tyre.In addition, we dropped them from a height

of 3ft onto a hard floor to see how they stoodup to some typical rough and tumble. Allshone through, which meant we could thenevaluate their beam performance, build qualityand availability of accessories, such as a pouchand belt clip.Other features to look for are:

Batteries: Some run on conventional alkalinebatteries (or rechargeables), but the best arethose that use lithium batteries — smaller butmore powerful, particularly when cold.

Beams: “Flood” gives a wide-angle beam,which is bright close to the user but fadesrapidly over distance; “spot” narrows the beambut travels further — choose which best suitsyour needs. Some torches have the facility toturn from one beam to the other.

Bulbs: Old-fashioned glass bulbs have beenlargely superseded by LEDs — they’re almostimpossible to break and produce lots more purewhite light for a lot less power, which meansbatteries last much longer.

Prices shown are the best found online

TORCH TESTS

Ferrari FFX pedal kart£1,239 www.bergtoys.co.uk

WHAT IS IT? A pedal-powered go-kart modelled on Ferrari’s limited-edition FFX race car, thankfullywithout the latter’s £1.3m price tag. This is no string and soapbox affair; instead, watch as youroffspring strap into the race-style bucket seat, grip the leather-look steering wheel, change smoothly

through the seven gears and monitor top speedand lap times on the dashboard computer. Discbrakes, semi-slick 12in racing tyres andaerodynamic side skirts complete the

package.

SHOULD I BUY ONE?Go-karting is the trainingground for futureFormula Onechampions, so ifyou want to giveyour children thebest possible startbefore theygraduate topowered karts, lookno further.

This model of LED Lenser is a favourite with police forces,and we can see why. At just over 5in in length, it sits wellin the hand, and it doesn’t lack for power. Despite havingjust one LED, it produced a wide and solid white floodbeam; turning the head of the torch converted this to along-reaching spot, just about matching the muchbigger and heavier Mag-lite. The aluminium casingwas stylish and tough, with a good grip. Theend-mounted on/off switch is a matter of tastebut the pouch was a nice touch.

VERDICT: Hello, hello, hello — there’s nohiding place from this torchwww.ledlenser.co.ukHHHHH

BEST FOR BRIGHTNESS

LED LENSER POLICETECH FOCUS £36.95

The aluminium body of the Genesis was so light, wehad to check the specification to make sure it reallywas made from metal and not some new ultra-lightmaterial. The design was good, with a comfortablerubberised centre section for grip. It included threecoloured lenses — red and green for night-time useand blue (for “following a blood trail”). Despite twinlithium batteries, we found the lightperformance a bit anaemic compared with,say, the Lenser, and it only had a simpleflood beam with no spot option.

VERDICT: Tough and lightweight, butlacking a little in luminescencewww.princetontec.comHHHIITHE LIGHT

FANTASTICDave Pollard drowns, drops and dissects six of the toughesttorches on the market and still they keep shining

Sony Bravia E4000seriesFrom £650 www.sony.co.uk

WHAT IS IT? Hanging a flatscreenTV on the wall means dispensingwith a bulky stand and freeingvaluable lounge space, but thedisadvantage is that when it’s not inuse you’re left with a black hole onthe wall that often seems to suckup the light. Sony’s E4000 series ofLCD TVs, out this month, earn theirkeep even after you’ve finishedwatching by acting as giant digitalpicture frames. Available in achoice of four living-room friendlyfinishes and in 26in, 32in and 40inscreen sizes, they will display eitheryour own images from a USBmemory stick or one of sixpre-programmed works of art, such as this Van Gogh, in high-definition glory — in the case of thetwo largest screen sizes, top-of-the-range 1080p resolution. Like the rest of Sony’s Bravia range,the build quality and specs are top-notch, including three HDMI inputs and both analogue anddigital tuners built in.

SHOULD I BUY ONE? Not if you’re a tree-hugger. Sony claims its “picture frame mode”consumes only 35% of the energy of normal TV use, but that’s still 35% more than turning it off.

Matthew Bingham

GADGETS OF THE WEEK

BEST FOR WEIGHT

PRINCETON TECGENESIS £72.45

The rechargeable Cyba-lite includes anickel-cadmium battery pack, giving plenty of powerbut making it fairly weighty at 10oz. Although notquite Mag-lite quality, the aluminium case shruggedoff our rain shower and was well designed,providing plenty of grip. Six LEDs producedimpressive solid flood beams but, uniquely here,for even longer distances it switched to aconventional xenon bulb. Very impressiveperformance and not expensive either.

VERDICT: A smart mix of LED andbulb technology, and no need to buybatteries

www.ringautomotive.co.ukHHHHI

Mag-lite’s flashlights are legendary and seen inalmost every American cop show. Made fromaircraft-grade aluminium alloy, this model usestwo D-cell batteries (not supplied). It’s asubstantial piece of kit (10in long and weighing1.5lb), and the LED module can be swapped with

a bulb. Although spot performance wasexcellent, the flood was marred bystrange patterns and shadows,suggesting the opposition hasleapfrogged it in development.

VERDICT: A magical name and buildquality, but needs to come up to date

www.maglite.comHHHII

At 4.5in this is one of the smaller torches fromGerber. It stood up to our water and drop tests,but the smooth body proved slippery to holdwhen wet. Its best feature is its ability to take arange of batteries: AA (supplied), AAA or CR123lithium — the last giving much betterperformance. Although just 0.7W in power,the single LED spot beam (no flood option)was reasonable in the 60-90ft range, butthe reflector produced curious concentricrings around its edges.

VERDICT: The versatility with batteriesis smart, but it’s best as an indoor torchwww.gerbertools.comHHHII

BEST FOR BATTERY USE

GERBEROMNIVORE £29.99

E-MAILFROMAMERICAMark HarrisIN SEATTLE — NEW TECH CITY

BESTBUY

Getty

BEST FOR FLEXIBILITY

RING CYBA-LITEN16 XENON £29.39

Billed as the flashlight equivalent of a Swiss Army knife, themultitasking Inova cuts a distinctive shape: a 3in x 2in rectangle with ahexagonal beam selector and no shortage of beam choice. There’slow-power and high-power white, plus a red beam (to prevent spots infront of the eyes), then four emergency flashing patterns, including athree-colour distress strobe that wouldn’t look out of place in a disco.For the smallest and lightest torch here (it weighs just 2.9oz),performance was very good — it easily extended to 70ft on full beam —but it’s the Inova’s versatility that really impresses: it can be clippedonto a coat for hands-free usage on the move, fitted to a permanentbracket (for use in a garage or shed), onto a magnetic bracket or onto aheadband for close-up work.

VERDICT: Not the most attractive of the torches here but it adaptsto many situations and masters most of themwww.inovalight.comHHHHH

BEST FOR TOUGH USE

MAG-LITE 2D 3WLED £35.99