SodaStream Fizz Home Drinks Maker

The lovely people at SodaStream gave me one of their new SodaStream Fizz home drinks makers to review...

I have wanted one of these for ages, but lack of spare money held me back, so you can imagine how delighted I was when I was offered the review.

This new model of the SodaStream includes a Fizz Chip which lets you see just how much fizz you are adding to your drink. This is a very hand feature, as it lets you vary just how fizzy you make your drink and means you don't end up using more gas than you need to in order to make your drink as fizzy as you want it.

Setting it up was really easy. I was expecting it to be more difficult. Putting the gas canister in takes less than 30 seconds and simply involves removing the back cover and screwing it into place. Then once it's screwed in tightly (this is done by hand - you don't need tools), you just replace the back and you're ready to go.

For some reason, I was expecting it to plug into the electric, but this is not the case which makes it very cost effective.

Making the drink is really easy - you fill up the drinks bottle to the fill level with tap water (though I used bottled still water as our tap water tastes of bleach!) and then press the button on the top to flip out the front and then you screw the bottle into place. Again, this is a quick and easy process that takes less than 30 seconds to do.

You then press the lever on the front until you hear the buzzing - this is how you carbonate or "fizz" your drink. You use the Fizz Chip indicator to see how fizzy you are making your drink. It has three levels of fizz - I found the lower amount worked best if you are likely to drink it there and then, whereas if you're making some to put in the fridge and drink over a couple of days, the second or third level of fizz work better and keep it fizzy for longer. Once you've fizzed up your water, you just unscrew the bottle the same as how you screwed it in to start with.

Once you've fizzed your water, you add a cap full of the flavour you want slowly to the water whilst tilting the bottle. You have to pour it into the fizzy water really slowly. The first time I made some, I went for pouring it straight in and ended up with a big mess when it fizzed up really quickly and overflowed out of the bottle!

The setting up and making my first drink took less than 5 minutes - I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was. I'd always pictured the whole process being more complex and time consuming, so I was very pleasantly surprised.

Making a drink is so easy, my 8 year old son gave it a go and found it fun and easy!

I received two flavours to use with the SodaStream, and this is what I thought:
Cherry
I liked the cherry - it was a lot nicer than the cherryade you buy in the shop. It had a very intense cherry taste too - it wasn't weak. My son liked this a lot, but the hubby said it was OK, but nothing special. My 9 year old sister liked it a lot, but my Mum had some and she said it was too sour - but she's not much of a fizzy drinks person, so that could be the reason.
Mango & Apple
I didn't much like this flavour - of course, it's down to personal preference, but I found the drink just ended up tasting like fizzy flavoured water and I didn't enjoy it in the slightest. My hubby and our son didn't like it either.

The new 21st Century SodaStream is available in a variety of colours - white, blue, titan, bold green or red and will look great in any kitchen.

There are over 30 great-tasting flavoured SodaStream concentrates available - from fruit flavours to cola, sugar-free, energy, mixers and isotonic variants.

The new Fizz Chip Soda Stream is available from John Lewis and costs around £119. For more information, visit www.SodaStream.co.uk or look them up on Twitter @SodaStreamUK.

Jabra CRUISER2 Bluetooth Speaker

I was pleased to have the opportunity to review the Jabra CRUISER2 Bluetooth Speaker...

The Bluetooth device is lightweight and easily transportable. It has a clip which made it really easy to attach to sun visor.

Connecting your phone to the speaker with Bluetooth is extremely easy to do - as easy as connecting to any other Bluetooth device. It takes just a couple of seconds.

Receiving a phone call through it is very simple - you just tell it to answer the call (it has voice guidance) - it even tells you who is calling! This is quick and easy and does not take your attention away from driving in the slightest. It is also very easy to adjust the volume of the call and saves your attention for driving. Talking on it is just like talking to a passenger in your car.

You can also play the songs from your phone through it which was really good too. It is a very innovative product in my opinion - it definitely makes taking calls whilst driving a lot easier. It's the ultimate handsfree kit really!

The Jabra CRUISER2 Bluetooth Speaker retails at RRP £69.99 - you can find out more information at http://www.jabra.com/uk-cp/pages/default.aspx.

Sony Ericsson F100i Jalou

I bought this phone in about February/March 2010, and on the whole, I have been very pleased with it.


It has a very compact design (flip-phone / clamshell) - it is very easy to carry around and because it is so small, it easily fits in your pocket without protruding out, meaning you are less likely to lose it or drop it.


It has a very fashionable, girly style. And it has a reflective screen so when you switch the screen off, you can use it as a carry-around compact mirror.


It has a 3MP camera which is fabulous, but about the only negative thing I have to say about this phone, is that the lack of flash is very disappointing and means you can't always take the photo's you want.


Features, well it has GPRS, bluetooth, 3MP camera, video record/playback function, mp3 playback, java games, radio and apps - basically all you would expect from a mid-range phone (i.e. it's not bog standard like the ones you can buy for £10, but it's also not a smartphone like the ones you spend £200+ on).


It has a great balance of good features, useful features, looks & style, battery life and easy of carrying.


The battery, even when you leave bluetooth on, is exceptionally good. It is quick to charge on the wall charger.


The buttons are fairly small, as you would expect due to the size of the phone, but I have not had any problems with them. They press easily and they're not so close together that you end up pressing the wrong ones. It's a pretty fantastic layout fitted in well to fit with the same of the phone without impairing useability.


It has 90Mb of built-in space but you can expand with MicroSD memory card, of which I personally use 8Gb, but I very rarely use a lot of space.


It has some nifty built-in features too such as a calendar app and a built in step-o-meter which is very accurate and flawless and I find very useful.


My overall opinion, is that minus the fact that it doesn't have flash and therefore if you take a lot of photo's on your phone, that may be a problem, on the whole this is an excellent phone which I would highly recommend.


It comes with it's own little suede/velvet carry pouch as well which prevents scratches - mine still look like new!

Toshiba Satellite L300-20D Notebook Laptop

OK, so I got this laptop in February 2009 as part of a mobile broadband deal.

The basic specifications of it are that is came with a Intel Celeron Dual-Core Inside 1.66GHz CPU, 160Gb HDD, 1Gb RAM and running Windows Vista Home Basic.

Upon first running of the laptop it was fairly quick to start up, but considering it was a new laptop with a fresh install of Windows, and nothing yet installed on it (other than what it came with), it was as fast a start up as I had expected. After installing a couple of browsers and programs and other stuff that I need for my computer usage to be sufficient, I found the laptop became very slow, very quickly. Start up (or coming back from hibernation) were always slow, having a lot of tabs open in my browser, having more than one browser open at a time or running a browser with several tabs open at the same time as running another program was tediously slow and severely hindered useability. I added 2Gb of RAM which I purchased seperately off eBay, and it improved it a lot.

The design of the laptop is nothing eye-catching or spectacular, but if you don't buy a laptop for it's looks, then considering the price, this would appeal as a good buy.

The first day of having my laptop, the left mouse button broke. This wasn't through bashing or heavily using, it was obviously not very good to start with.

A couple of weeks later, the power adaptor was damaged, as was the power socket. From having it plugged in, it was knocked slightly which damaged the wire so much it didn't work anymore and it also knocked the socket out of place (so it is now permanently loose and it makes it difficult to plug in the power adaptor). Needless to say, I was not best pleased. I purchased a new, cheaper equivalent power adaptor (as Toshiba ones were expensive) on eBay and it has worked flawlessly and without being damaged ever since (still going strong almost 2 years later).

Once the earlier problems were resolved, a few months later, the mousepad starting playing up - jumping around a lot, clicking by itself and so on. Eventually, not long after, it stopped working entirely, leaving me having to use an external mouse permanently.

I also noticed from soon after getting the laptop, there were numerous times that the laptop was overheating. So much so, that it cut out several times. I found that this was due to bad placement of the fan and air vents on the bottom, that are so badly situated, that it results in it overheating regularly. Thus, I was forced to buy a laptop cooling rest, which still did not help that much. The fan was also prone to regularly getting clogged up and I found that hoovering the fan regularly was a slight fix.

A few months ago, I noticed my external mouse started playing up too. The first thought was that I had damaged the wire, or it had just got damaged with time and use. It had started acting in a strange way or suddenly stopping working. I have an external hard disk plugged in for extra storage, but I had unplugged it, and as soon as I plugged it back in, suddenly the mouse started working again. I thought it was just a coincidence, but it happened again, a couple of times, and I realised it was not. Now, I have to have my external hard disk constantly plugged in, or my mouse won't work! It only works with the external hard disk as well - it does not work alongside any other USB product plugged in.

I have noticed other problems with the USB ports as well. Such as , they are very temperemental - I plug in my printer and the very slightest movement makes it stop working (not just the printer - any USB item does the same).

The battery has always been less than impressive too. Starting off lasting for about 1-1½ hours, but this quickly reduced to 30-40 minutes and now it lasts 15-20 minutes (if you're lucky) when on battery power.

On the plus side, I would say that when the mousepad worked for the first couple of months, it was easy to use. The screen is a nice size and gives a nice crisp, clean view. The built-in sound quality is quite good. It has built in wi-fi, 3 USB ports and it is easy to open up to add more memory or get to your hard disk. It also has a DVD multi-recorder which is good.

Basically, seriously understating it, would be to say that this has been a very disappointing experience. I have had nothing but problems with it since I got it and I am not at all happy. I accept that this is maybe among the cheaper range of laptops, but that does not excuse such poor quality, craftmanship and parts.

I look after my laptop more than the average person I would say, as I now how easily the parts can become damaged as I make, repair and upgrade PCs and laptops as an hobbyist and now more about what causes damage. The only reason I state this, is just to confirm that my laptop has never been treated badly, mis-used, dropped often or anything like that.