Crosley Revolution Portable TurntableFor the modern traveller, packing your own sounds for the journey is probably more essential than the proverbial toothbrush. That, you can pick up anywhere, but who'll ever have the finely tuned Radiohead meets Abba playlist that's on your MP3 player? Now there's a whole new discotastic portable music option. Pack your vinyl too by taking Crosley's Revolution Turntable with you.
With a nice bit of reverse engineering they’ve stripped the record-playing mechanism back to its basics, and added-on a bunch of other useful technology, like a strap.
The CR6002, to address it formally, can play 45s and albums, and boasts a diamond stylus at the end of its manual tone arm. You hinge open the Revolution, pop your record on the belt-driven platter and you’re rocking. There’s a built-in stereo speaker but you’ve also the alternatives of using headphones or the integrated FM transmitter to stream your sounds to say a hi-fi tuner (kids, ask your parents what those are.) There’s even a USB port to hook it up to your computer for simple analogue-digital transfers. So that old Bowie LP can be dusted off and easily MP3ed.
The 680gm Revolution is made to be properly portable, taking AA batteries, but you can’t use it on the move unless you want to do a lot more scratching than grooving.
Cost: $149.95 (€108) from crosleyradio.com
North Face E-Tip GlovesHere's a bit of gear that'll bring an extra note of sophistication to your outdoors life. Of course, if you're a hardy, no-nonsense type who regards discomfort and inconvenience as the real pleasures of the wild, look away now because these E-Tip gloves from North Face have been designed to work with touch-screen technology like a hand-held sat nav or phone, for example.
They’re made with a four-way stretch-knit shell that offers excellent dexterity and have a silicon pattern on the palm to give a tacky grip. Wouldn’t want that Glühwein to slip out of your hands après ski now, would we?
And the index finger and thumb have special tips for traction and control on most common touch-screens. These are proper three season gloves, with X-Static silver-bonded fabric in the fingers for warmth and moisture management.
Cost:€30 from Great Outdoors and North Face stores, Dublin
M1 Micro ProjectorThere are a quite a few "pico" projectors out there, effectively pocket-sized, portable models, including ones from Aaxa, which also make the M1. They call this a micro rather than a pico and, though bigger, it's still very packable, sitting comfortably in your hand and weighing in at just 450g (an old pound).
What’s special is that the M1 is the brightest projector in its class, beaming out a brilliant 66 lumens (of light). That’s enough to throw up a 100cm image in a lit room and a high-res 250cm picture in the dark. The smaller projectors vaguely hold a candle to that. And since it’s probably on your mind, the M1’s LEDs use a smart light engine to give decent colour quality and crispness, and it delivers native SVGA 800x600 resolution. You can load video as AVIs or play off a DVD, iPod or other devices. It’s got its own 1GB internal memory and takes up to 8GB SD cards (there’s plenty more geek chat on the Aaxa website). The sound is only so-so from the internal speakers but you can audio-out through a standard jack. And it can all be remotely controlled. So now you really can have a portable projector that’ll slip into your hand luggage (it measures 112x105x46mm) for that impromptu mini-cine paradiso moment.
Cost: €299 from amazon.com