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The 13-inch MacBook Pro is the most affordable of Apple’s high-end laptops. With the admittedly supercharged 15-inch version starting at a princely $1,799, the 13-inch model’s starting price of $1,199 is the one many consumers will likely consider first. Its size is also ideal and in fact, we’ve long considered 13 inches to be the sweet spot in laptops for usability and performance. The question is: does the smaller Pro deliver the processing punch that last year’s lacked?

In short: unequivocally yes. This year’s 13-inch Pro gets a cutting-edge processor upgrade that many were waiting for–including us. That upgrade comes in the form of next-generation Intel Core i-series CPUs. The 2011 MacBook Pros are the first laptops we’ve reviewed at CNET with these processors; the entry-level 13-inch model features a second-generation 2.3GHz Core i5 processor, whereas the $1,499 configuration has a 2.7GHz dual-core Core i7.

Though both configurations use differently branded CPUs, the Core i5/Core i7 difference turns out to be pretty insignificant between these two 13-inch Pros. In our benchmark tests, the Core i5 13-inch model performed so closely to the Core i7 version (and, in single-task tests, not that far off from the quad-core 15-inch Pro) that, for the $300 savings, it’s arguably the better buy. The entry-level version has an identical screen, graphics, RAM, and ports to the $1,499 model, with the exception of a 320GB hard drive instead of 500GB.

One small drawback: the integrated (and nonupgradable) Intel HD 3000 graphics in both 13-inch models are a step backward from the integrated Nvidia graphics found in the 2010 13-inch Pro. Though it’s a bit of a backslide, however, it still amounts to better graphics than low-end Nvidia GeForce GPUs, and it’s leaps and bounds above Intel integrated graphics in 2010 Windows laptops.

The entry-level 13-inch Pro also still comes with the much-talked-about high-speed data/video port, Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is envisioned as a sort of future unified successor to USB, FireWire, and DisplayPort, allowing peripherals to carry data and video at 10Gbps. We don’t know when Thunderbolt-compatible peripherals will be available (although Apple says the first ones should show up in the spring of 2011), how much they’ll cost, or if Apple will be adding the technology to future displays or iOS devices. For now, it’s a wait-and-see gamble on a future technology, but at least the port is backward-compatible with Mini DisplayPort, and a FireWire 800 port remains for legacy hardware.

In the end, the 2011 13-inch Pro is a big step up in processing performance for the same price as its predecessor. To put it in perspective, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is about as powerful CPU-wise as last year’s $2,199 15-inch Core i7 model. And though its integrated Intel graphics are a bit less capable than the previous model’s Nvidia 320M GPU, the payoff comes with a sizeable jump in battery life. To be honest, we’d rather have a longer-lasting battery.

There’s nothing different design-wise about the new MacBook Pro. Walk up to the 2011 version and you’d have no idea that you were looking at a “new” Mac. The iconic design and unibody construction has remained intact, even identical, to last year’s 2010 model, even down to the port layout. Ports line the left side, and the side-connecting MagSafe charging cable plugs toward the rear, staying out of the way. The slot-loading drive lines the right side. A wide expanse of aluminum and Apple’s simple but excellently constructed keyboard feel like tech minimalism in a world of overwrought and overdesigned laptops, and the large multitouch clickpad is still–even nearly three years later–one of the largest we’ve seen. Construction quality is, as always, rock-solid: compared with other flexy laptops, the seamless metal body of the Pro feels like modern art.

That being said, we wouldn’t mind some design improvements in the future, especially when it comes to thickness and weight. The 13-inch Pro is compact and thin, but compared to wafer-thin Apple products like the iPad and MacBook Air, it ends up feeling heavier. Then again, if thickness matters that much, you can always buy an Air.

A backlit keyboard still comes standard, even on the entry-level $1,199 MacBook Pro. It’s useful for typing in low-light conditions, and the ambient light sensors control screen brightness and keyboard lighting in perfect balance. The ergonomics work excellently, and the MacBook Pro also has some of the largest, deepest palm-rest zones in a 13-incher.

Edge-to-edge glass still frames the Pro’s 13.3-inch screen, and, yes, there still isn’t a matte screen option–although on the larger 15-inch line, antiglare is offered. The display has excellent brightness, color, and contrast, and the screen’s viewing angles are generous, but the 1,280×800 native pixel resolution is identical to the 2010 model’s. Oddly, the MacBook Pro might be the last laptop that hasn’t switched to a 16:9 1,366×768-pixel display. Even more oddly, the 13-inch MacBook Air actually has a higher resolution than the current 13-inch Pros, at 1,400×900 pixels.

Speaker volume is adequate, and both music and movies sound good on the integrated stereo speakers. The MacBook Pro doesn’t have audio that reaches out and grabs you, unless you’re wearing headphones; then again, on a 13-incher this slim, it does better than equivalent competition.

A new HD Webcam offers 720p wide-screen Web chats via the new FaceTime app, which comes preinstalled. FaceTime, which has been available as a beta release for a while, allows calls to both Mac users and iPhone 4 owners. iPhone 4 calls come in at a fuzzier resolution, but Mac-to-Mac calls looked relatively crisp over Wi-Fi. Swapping between portrait and landscape mode can be triggered with a single button-click.

While most ports on the 13-inch MacBook Pro remain carbon-copy identical to those on last year’s model, there are a few notable additions. The SD card slot now accepts SDXC cards. More importantly, the Mini-DisplayPort has subtly been transformed into the aforementioned Thunderbolt port. The Intel-developed data and audio/video port has extremely fast throughput at a maximum of 10Gbps, and compatible hard drives will be able to send files with blazing speeds. The tiny Thunderbolt port is powered, and will be able to daisy chain up to six connected devices, be they hard drives or even monitors. It’s backward-compatible with old Mini DisplayPort monitors or cables, and like with last year’s Pros, it can output audio and video over HDMI with a Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter.

Thunderbolt may be a rival to USB 3.0, but devices that can use the port won’t even be available until spring. Most people will simply use the USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 ports on the 2011 MacBook Pro and be completely satisfied. Still, it’s comforting to know that future port support is there. Is it necessary right now? No. In two years, however, it could be indispensable. Consider it future tech on your MacBook Pro–a perk, rather than a necessity.

Apple’s laptops have always had limited upgrade and configuration options; the new Pros are no different. The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes in $1,199 and $1,499 configurations, with 2.3GHz Core i5 and 2.7GHz Core i7 dual-core CPUs, respectively. The only real differences between the two models are their CPUs and included hard drives (320GB in our $1,199 configuration, 500GB in the $1,499 model). If you’re dying for more hard-drive space, consider a custom order on Apple’s Web site: that hard drive can be expanded up to a 500GB hard drive for just $50, or 750GB for $150. Either way, that comes to less than the high-end model’s sticker price. Solid-state drives can also be added: 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB. Those aren’t cheap: the 128GB upgrade costs $250, whereas the 512GB costs a whopping $1,250.

That’s it as far as configurations go. The 1,280×800-pixel glossy screen can’t be upgraded, unlike on the 15-inch Pro. There’s no option to add discrete graphics, either. It’s an odd disconnect: even the 13-inch MacBook Air has a higher-resolution screen, and the lack of higher-end graphics feels cheap for such an expensive laptop.

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Ask any PC gamer about Razer accessories and the response will almost always be praise for the company’s high-quality performance products. While Razer has previously remained strictly a manufacturer of PC components, 2011 is looking like a different story. With the introduction of items like the Xbox 360/PC headset Chimaera and now the Onza controller, it’s clear Razer has ambitions outside of the PC gaming world.

The Razer Onza is a wired Xbox 360 controller that goes above and beyond Microsoft’s standard offering. Why not make it wireless? Unfortunately this is something that Microsoft has a firm grip on, preventing third-party manufacturers from licensing such technology. This gripe aside–and it is certainly not the fault of Razer–the Onza performs solidly.

Of course, there wasn’t a whole lot wrong with Microsoft’s original Xbox 360 controller save for the awful directional-pad disc that was eventually addressed in last year’s Xbox 360 controller with transforming D-pad.

The Razer Onza comes in two varieties, the standard ($40) and Tournament Edition ($50), the latter of which is reviewed here. The Tournament Edition gives you adjustable tension analog sticks, light-up face buttons, a braided cord, and a rubberized finish as opposed to a textured one. We’ll discuss those features more in just a bit–but, needless to say, we think it’s worth the extra $10 to upgrade.

The Onza Tournament Edition has a slick black rubberized coating that feels great in the hand. It’s marginally bigger than the standard wireless Xbox 360 controller, but it’s nothing jarring. The button layout resembles what Xbox 360 owners are used to, save for the back and start buttons getting moved to the bottom of the controller.

The Onza’s D-pad is certainly a departure from what we’re used to; but while we like it better than Microsoft’s, it still has its faults. The Onza’s D-pad consists of four separate directional buttons that require more effort to press than a conventional D-pad demands.

For example, when we used the Onza during our trials of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, we found the D-pad didn’t allow for the quick, swift multidirectional gestures that fighting games require. Instead, we were left with clunky performance that really soured the experience. That said, we found the D-pad to work well in games where the pad is used as a weapon-selection tool.

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We expect more out of a $100 all-in-one printer than the Kodak ESP C310 delivers. We were disappointed with the build quality of the Kodak ESP 5, and Kodak seems to struggle with the same issues with this model. The entry-level C310 may register decent print speeds and wireless setup is easy, but we recommend spending your $100 on the Canon Pixma MX410 instead–you’ll get a more versatile and attractive imaging device that even has an auto-document feeder and more shortcut buttons on the control panel.

Design
The ESP C310 has a compact footprint relative to other multifunction printers. It can print, scan, and copy, but you don’t get an auto-document feeder, so you have to endure scanning large stacks of documents or snapshot photos on a sheet-by-sheet basis. Unlike on the ESP 5, the input and output trays sit on opposite sides of the device, and the 100-sheet input tray in the back bows down on top of the scanner lid when not in use–we prefer the Canon Pixma MX410′s folding auto-document feeder, which lends a more streamlined look to the machine.

The paper output tray sits flush with the unit and folds down with an extendable plastic arm that pulls out of the edge to corral sheets of paper as it completes each job. On the whole, the printer is made of a light plastic that reminds us of a Playskool toy and gives the device a flimsy and delicate feel.

When you raise the cover to reveal the ink bay, a thin plastic arm pops up and braces the cover, similar to the hood of a car. The mechanism requires two hands to close and is an overall poor design choice; it’s almost guaranteed to break over time, and we’re not sure why Kodak didn’t just use a standard spring-mounted lid. Also, the cover on top of the scanner bed folds on a fixed hinge that doesn’t reach over thicker items like large books.

The ESP C310 retains the standard-size ink cartridge bay: one slot for black and one for five different colors, which is common for printers in the low-end price range. The Kodak Web site reports 10 cents per color photo, a price on par with the average inkjet printer. In addition, Kodak sells three different printing bundles that include black and color ink cartridges as well as several types of paper.

The top of the device has a small (1.5-inch) LCD that walks you through installing the printer on your wireless network at home, and a glowing light on the front shows your network status in relation to the host computer network. Kodak keeps the rest of the buttons on the control panel to a minimum, with simple shortcuts for power, cancel, navigation, and start. Just below the buttons you’ll find a multimedia card reader for Memory Stick, xD-Picture Card, SD, and Compact Flash cards, but the printer is lacking a USB port for printing directly from a digital camera.

By contrast, the Canon Pixma MX410 offers the additional benefit of a fax machine and a host of buttons on the front including auto-dial buttons and a full set of numerical buttons for dialing. And while the Canon’s two-line dot matrix display isn’t quite as fancy as the Kodak’s color LCD, we see no added benefit to a full-color LCD on a printer that isn’t designed to print a large volume of photos.

The Kodak ESP C310 ships with a helpful driver CD that walks you through the installation process and includes the Kodak Home Center software. The Home Center acts as a hub for the copy, print, and scan functions. The copy feature is easy to navigate and offers a unique collage copy setting that duplicates several pictures in the same orientation as the originals. The scanning center is a little too simplified and lacks an option to scan directly to a PDF or an e-mail; both are almost an industry standard and we’re disappointed to see that Kodak skip these two crucial features.

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Weird news stories, bizarre news, strange but stories. You’ve come to the right place: Bizarre Florida, where weird is the norm. Exploding pythons. Armless, one-legged drivers. Yep. We certainly have unusual news stories. Offbeat news. Strange, interesting stories. Weird, unusual, true news stories. Get the picture? Have a story suggestion?

E-mail Bizarre Florida: bizarre@tampabay.com

Weird news stories, bizarre news, strange but stories. You’ve come to the right place: Bizarre Florida, where weird is the norm. Exploding pythons. Armless, one-legged drivers. Yep. We certainly have unusual news stories. Offbeat news. Strange, interesting stories. Weird, unusual, true news stories. Get the picture? Have a story suggestion?

E-mail Bizarre Florida: bizarre@tampabay.com

Road trip news, rants, and ruminations by the Editors of RoadsideAmerica.com

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Vegas Mob Experience Targets Tourists

March 2, 2011

It’s showtime for the first of 2011′s two Sin City organized crime museums: The Las Vegas Mob Experience at the Tropicana Hotel. Built at a reported cost of $25 million, it beat out the better-publicized Mob Museum, which is slated to open in the old downtown Las Vegas federal courthouse later this year.

At The Las Vegas Mob Experience, visitors pay $40 to become mobsters, walking through series of full-room dioramas that take them through the history of U.S. organized crime. Each visitor wears a custom-encoded RFID badge and chooses their own life-size hologram guide, played by some of Hollywood’s better-known gangster actors — James Caan, Mickey Rourke, Frank Vincent — who address them by name, and speak in their native language. Each stop on the tour requires a decision: should you deliver the cash or steal it; whack or be whacked? Live, un-famous actors, sprinkled throughout, help with the dirty work and add the appropriate level of fear and chaos that you’d find in other funhouse-style attractions.

(Like the free cheese samples and roller-skating-employees at supermarket grand openings, the bells and whistles of The Las Vegas Mob Experience may disappear or break over time, so it’s best to visit soon, while everything still works and they’re still paying the actors.)

Unlike the Mob Museum, The Las Vegas Mob Experience reached out to the families of former gangsters (their real families, not mob families) and received hundreds of personal items to display. These include baby shoes, love letters, gangster Meyer Lansky’s Medal of Freedom, an ashtray stolen by a mobster from Elvis Presley’s Las Vegas hotel suite, and the ignition keys of a car blown up in a mob hit.

The multiple options available at The Las Vegas Mob Experience ensures that each trip through is different (and encourages return visits). For the price of admission, however, you’ll want to go for the gore: tell the actor-enforcer to beat the casino cheat with the baseball bat, and get yourself caught in a the gun battle at the end.

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Road trip news, rants, and ruminations by the Editors of RoadsideAmerica.com

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Quan Am Smiles Upon Tulsa

March 3, 2011

After years of delay, Tulsa, Oklahoma, is now the unlikely home of America’s tallest Buddhist deity.

Quan Am Bodhisattva, embodiment of compassion and kindness, could easily peer into the window of a fifth-floor building if there were any nearby, which there aren’t, and if the deity indulged in such nonsense, which she doesn’t. Tulsa’s Tam Bao Buddhist Temple built the statue, and now wants to illuminate Quan Am and bond her cracks. That isn’t metaphysical Buddhist language; the Temple needs $100k for lighting and sealant to finish the job.

Quan Am stands two feet taller than the Jolly Green Giant (patron saint of frozen vegetables) and eight feet taller than Mother Mago, an American-based deity whose statue suffered an unhappy fate. Although technically within city limits, Quan Am is at the far eastern edge of Tulsa, on flat, rural land, visible for miles.

Quan Am is built of 200 tons of granite, as solid as the Path of Moderation, and designed to smile placidly in the face of karmic dissonance such as Oklahoma twisters.

Tulsa city councilor Dennis Troyer tried to block the erection of Quan Am, saying the statue was too tall. When it was pointed out that downtown Tulsa has a pair of Giant Praying Hands that are three feet taller, Troyer argued that hands are just hands; Quan Am is a non-Christian god. The zoning board, finding no code that prohibited idolatry, approved the statue by a vote of 4 to 1.

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Digging into the dashboard tech, our Outlander was equipped with the standard Fuse Hands-Free Link System with USB input. Mitsubishi’s answer to Ford’s Sync, Fuse rolls in voice commands for Bluetooth hands-free calling and the selection of USB-connected digital media players. The system recognizes commands such as “Play artist Weezer” or “Call Optimus Prime.” The system did a fairly good job of recognizing our spoken commands. Even when it didn’t, Fuse would present us with a list of possible options, for example, “Did you mean King Geedorah?” to which we’d answer yes or no.

Unlike Sync, Fuse doesn’t offer any sort of onscreen feedback that we could find–for example, a list of available commands would be nice. Additionally, the spoken feedback’s volume was fairly low relative to the volume of the audio or navigation commands and seemed to only be coming from the speaker in the passenger foot well. There may have been a way, but we couldn’t find an obvious place to increase Fuse’s volume.

You’ve no doubt noticed that we’ve made no fewer than two allusions to being unable to find controls for what should be basic functions. This is as good a place as any to bring up our beefs with the touch-screen interface of the Outlander’s optional 40GB HDD Navigation System. Our issue being that nearly nothing is where you’d expect it to be. Of course, there are the obvious buttons for Audio and Navi that take you to the currently playing audio source and navigation system, respectively, but there are also separate buttons for Menu and Set, which take users to two very different menus. We spent about 5 minutes digging through these menus looking for Bluetooth controls before we found them hidden beneath a button labeled Info. That’s just the physical buttons; we haven’t even mentioned the array of soft keys found on the touch screen. It seemed that every time we went looking for an option, a frustrating 5-to-6-minute hunt would ensue.

Beyond the interface that was obviously designed by an engineer or committee, the Mitsubishi Multi Communication System–as it is called–is a modestly good cabin technology package. It checks a lot of the boxes we like to see filled with its HDD-based navigation with traffic service. iPod and USB integration is standard, while satellite radio is optionally rolled into the same premium package that gets you the panoramic glass roof. Of course, there’s plenty of space on the 40GB HDD for the storage of ripped audio. Speccing the navigation package also nets a rearview camera, which takes advantage of the in-dash display when reversing.

We liked that the navigation system didn’t lock out passenger inputs when the vehicle was in motion, but found ourselves continuously frustrated by the point-of-interest (POI) search process. When searching for a POI, such as “Target,” we were presented with a list of locations for the entire state with no obvious way to know which was closest without knowing the city. In an area like San Francisco, where the nearest location is in a suburb of a different name, we found it nigh impossible to actually lock in the nearest store without a good deal of trial and error. Perhaps there was some hidden menu option for adjusting the display method for the POI search, but after nearly 20 minutes invested in searching the labyrinth of menus, we doubt it. Eventually, we deferred to searching for a location on a smartphone and entering the address into the Mitsubishi’s nav. The process of entering an address was fine, thanks to the touch screen’s lightning-fast registration of our inputs. For all of our complaints about the interface, we were never disappointed or left waiting for the system to catch up with our inputs or process a route.

However, the low point (literally, again) is the audio quality of the optional 710-watt Rockford Fosgate premium audio option. This nine-speaker system includes a 10-inch subwoofer prominently displayed in the rear cargo area and replaces the standard six-speaker rig in the SE trim level as part of the premium package that includes the glass roof. We wouldn’t go so far as to call it a bad audio system. Rather, it’s just a very specific one. Carrying the signature Rockford Fosgate sound, the premium audio option only really sounds good when listening to the sort of distortion-heavy, electro-pop bounce that’s currently en vogue with the kids. While highs and mids aren’t downright steamrolled by the bass, they are de-emphasized by this system, which does no favors to music requiring delicate acoustic sounds or vocals. If you’re a fan of the songs that rely heavily on bass (for example, “Like a G6″ by the Far East Movement), then you’ll probably love this system. However, if you’re looking for a more balanced sound from your music, then you’ll find the thumpy Rockford Fosgate system to be an earful.

The Rockford Fosgate system does offer a number of options for adjusting the audio quality, including a four-band EQ with a dedicated Punch band (further emphasizing the brand’s obsession with bass), a few virtual sound stages that are probably best left alone, and tone presets for a few different types of music, such as Flat, Hip Hop, Rock, Country, and Electronic. Curiously, we found that hip-hop music sounded best when using the Country preset, while our favorite country tracks were done no favors by any of the presets. Your tastes may vary.

Conclusion
Depending on your expectations going in, the 2011 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport is either a fairly good value or a slight disappointment. We’re leaning toward the former.

At its most basic and least expensive configuration, the $19,275 Outlander features a five-speed manual transmission that’s sure to provide more driving thrills than we experienced with our CVT and better fuel economy than the competing Honda CR-V and Kia Sportage. Stepping up to the CVT nets you even more efficiency if you can learn to live with the rubbery acceleration–and, to be honest, we think that most drivers can.

With or without the optional AWC all-wheel drive system, our SE trim-level tester comes bundled with a respectable set of standard features for its $22,475 entry point, including the handy Fuse Hands-Free Link System, paddle shifters, and the Fast keyless entry and start transponder system that allows you to enter and start the vehicle without removing the key fob from your pocket or bag.

As tested, our 2011 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport SE AWC rolls off of the line at $22,995. Navigation and rearview camera systems are bundled into a $2,000 package. However, before you can even spec nav, you’ll have to have already added the $1,800 premium package, which adds the very cool panoramic roof with LED illumination, but also adds the iffy Rockford Fosgate premium audio system. We’d recommend you get used to the tooth-rattling bass and make the plunge. All in and with a $780 destination charge, our 2011 Outlander Sport tips the scales at $27,575–not a bad price when you consider that a similarly equipped Honda CR-V costs $30,675 (and is in need of a serious tech update). On the other hand, the slightly larger and more powerful Kia Sportage LX slips in at about $2,000 less than the Outlander’s MSRP.

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The Lenovo H320 is a worthy entrant in the higher-end slim-tower PC category. It boasts a fast, previous-generation Intel Core i5 CPU, a discrete graphics card, and a Blu-ray drive, all for $749. We have the same reservations about this system as with the Gateway SX2851-41 regarding the impending obsolescence of its CPU and the less-than-inspired design, but at least in the current PC environment, the H320 is competitive. We recommend it to anyone interested in an upper-tier slim tower for general home computing or for bringing content into your living room.

The H320′s design is similar to that of most other Windows-based slim towers. Its trim chassis measures 11.5 inches high, 4 inches wide, and 15.5 inches deep, putting it in between HP’s larger Pavilion Slimline and Gateway’s smaller SX-Series case in terms of overall volume.

Like the SX-Series chassis, the design of the H320 is suitable for living room display, but Lenovo got carried away in applying external decals. Not only does it come with Windows, Intel, and Lenovo logos on the front, but Lenovo has also plastered the top and right side of the H320 with labels highlighting the machine’s various features. Of course, the glut of stickers is not new to PCs. It’s also comparatively easy to take them off. For slim towers such as these with serious living room aspirations, though, it’s time for vendors to lay off the visual bloatware and put more thought into compelling system design and no-hassle setup.

From a value standpoint, the Lenovo H320 competes very well with HP’s Pavilion Slimline S5660f. The S5660f is an older model at this point, but even the more recent S5670T will require you to spend $50 more for the same configuration as the H320. We can’t think of anything else we’d expect to find for this price, although in a quarter or two we expect Intel’s new Sandy Bridge Core i3 2100-series CPUs will emerge at this price point. Even without those new CPUs, though, this system will play HD movies from the Web or the included Blu-ray drive, and most PC games, with little difficulty.

Cinebench
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Rendering Multiple CPUs  

Rendering Single CPU  

Among other small PCs, the Lenovo H320 40411FU is a very strong performer. Its Core i5 650 CPU is a dual-core chip that comes with Intel’s HyperThreading technology to help it simulate two extra processing threads as necessary. That can’t help the H320 compete on applications that use true quad-core chips like the Phenom II X4 in HP’s s5660f, but with its fast 3.2GHz core clock speed, the Core i5 CPU in the H320 posted some impressive scores. On Photoshop CS 5 image processing, iTunes audio encoding, and even when playing a QuickTime movie while encoding audio files in iTunes, the Lenovo H320 posted the fastest scores in its category.

As mentioned earlier, the H320 is also a more competent gaming PC than we’re used to at this price. It won’t let you play every game at maximum image quality, but it played the Dragon Age II demo at 1,920×1,080-pixel resolution smoothly. The Crysis 2 demo was, perhaps unsurprisingly, more challenging for this PC. We had to drop the resolution down to 1,280×720 pixels, and even then the frame rate was only passable. As long as you keep your expectations reasonable, gamers should get some enjoyment out of this system, at least with current titles.

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LG is no stranger to stereo Bluetooth headsets. From the compact HBS-200 to the more gym-friendly HBS-250, LG has usually stuck to the same behind-the-neck philosophy with its headset design. That continues with its more recent offering, the LG HBS-700. However, the HBS-700 features a number of innovative improvements that set it apart from its predecessors–it’s much more comfortable, for example–and because of that, it has earned its spot as one of the better-designed headsets we’ve ever tried. The LG HBS-700 retails for $69.99.

Design
The HBS-700 certainly looks unusual. It consists of two cylindrical pods connected via an 8.5-inch flexible neckband, with a wired earbud coming out of each pod. Each wired earbud is threaded through two plastic loops that you can slide along the neckband to the spot you find most comfortable. The overall effect is kind of messy-looking, with wires flapping about when you first pick the headset up. However, LG cleverly incorporated magnetic pockets at the end of each cylindrical pod. These pockets are made to house the earbuds so that they don’t fly around wildly when not in use.

To wear the HBS-700, simply place the neckband around your neck with the two pods hanging around your shoulders like two ends of a scarf. The neckband is made out of an ultralight shape memory alloy so that it conforms to the shape of your neck. Indeed, it felt very comfortable and lightweight when we tried it on. When you want to use the earbuds, just pop them out of the aforementioned pockets and place them in your ear. The earbuds, clad in soft rubber covers, sit snugly inside the ear. LG has included a couple more earbud covers in case you want different size options.

Because of this configuration, we had no difficulty wearing glasses while using the headset. This is unlike most behind-the-neck headsets, and we were grateful.

As you might expect, the two pods are where the controls are housed. The right pod is home to the play/pause button plus the track shuttle keys, while the left pod houses the call button, the volume rocker, the on/off switch, and the Micro-USB charging jack. On the whole, we found the controls easy to use. The buttons are raised above the surface and easy to find by feel.

Features
The LG HBS-700 provides the usual capability to answer, reject, and end calls. It also has last number redial, call waiting support, and auto reconnect. There’s also a Bluetooth ringtone answering function that will play your phone’s ringtone for incoming calls through the headset. If you’re listening to music when a call comes in, the headset will vibrate on one side. The headset also has multipoint support, meaning you can connect to two devices at once. However, when you’re in multipoint mode, you won’t be able to use the music streaming function.

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