Product Review: ReTrak Earbuds for iPhone and iPod

6 06 2009
Retrak iPod earbuds in package

Retrak iPod earbuds in package

It’s always nice when something exceeds your expectations. The box arrived from GadgetSister.com within a week and I opened to see an even more attractive looking product and package than the catalogue photo from the site. I had a pretty good idea what the real product would be like because I had already admired one from a fellow Gadget Sister (see post on the Gadget Sisterhood) and coveted it so much that I added it to the store and made it the first test product. The ReTrak by Emerge Technologies did not disappoint.

After extracting it from its package, it was a delight to discover that the ReTrak comes with 3 sets of squishy soft rubber ear buds in different sizes. We are not all pressed from the same mold, and those of us with little tiny ear canals suffer greatly with the standard (hard!) earphones that come with most iPods and MP3 players. Within thirty minutes the ears have become sore and uncomfortable and music, video, or whatever is now a painful chore. Not so here. I selected the tiniest set. Put them easily onto the ends of the earphones, and was ready to go.

ReTrak iPod earbuds in "recoiled" position

ReTrak iPod earbuds in "recoiled" position

The allure of this product is its clever ability to retract (hence the name ReTrak) much like those key leashes you’d see the school custodian sporting in elementary school. With the ReTrak earphones, you just gently pull on each end and the cord extends out in each direction.(Maximum 3.6  feet fully expanded.) The benefit of this is the cord stays neat and untangled in your purse or backpack and doesn’t become a big nest of knots for you to wrestle with every time you want to catch some tunes. Just “zoop, zoop” and there you go. Plug it into the player and listen.

ReTrak iPod earbuds extended

ReTrak iPod earbuds extended

For comfort, I give them high marks. The different size buds make it easy to tailor the fit. For audio quality, I would say they are not “audiophile enthusiast” grade but most certainly as good or better than whatever came with your player. (For those who really get into these things, the stats are 115 dB sensitivity, 0-20 kHz frequency range.) From a value standpoint, I would give it a high overall value rating. The ReTrak sells for $12.96 plus shipping , tax, etc. at GadgetSister.com. So, for less than $20 you’ve got a very practical and decent quality set that spares you the frustration and time of spaghetti knitting on a daily basis. I have spent $50 to $60 for buds at the Apple store that were no better in quality and don’t retract.

These make great gifts. So, I recommend you buy more than one. Once people see you using one, they always want one too. I had my second one spoken for before the shipment arrived, and now I wish I had 10 sitting around.

The ReTrak Noise Reduction Earbuds have the GadgetSister seal of approval and have been field tested for quality and satisfaction. Cool. But check them out for yourself!


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The Sisterhood

20 05 2009

I knew it. There really is a Sisterhood of The Way Cool Gadget.

Last night I met with a CEO from Wisconsin at a big conference where she was a keynote speaker. She had a 6:00 AM flight the next morning and was dressed for comfort as we sat down to drinks at 8:00 PM. Over her shoulder as she walked up to me in the lounge was a most excellent travel bag.

“Oh, my gosh.” says I, “That is such an awesome travel bag!”

Her eyes lit up as she recognized that we shared a common appreciation for the truly awesome things in life. She then filled me in on all its amazing features: the secret pockets for passports and extra cash, the no-cut cable through the shoulder strap, the little perfectly sized pocket for her iPhone. It was light, easy to clean, easy to stick through airport security, had major ergonomic and safety features, and even pretty good looking as travel bags go. I had to get the name and manufacturer, then told her about the immanent launch of GadgetSister.com.

She showed me some other cool gadgets like her earphones that retract into a little white plastic sphere so they don’t get tangled, and the travel pillow that makes a road warrior’s life bearable. We compared iPhone Apps for a few minutes. (I believe you can learn a lot about a person by their iPhone Apps.)

It’s like when the shoe women recognize each other’s Manilos or whatever they’re into. There is mutual respect, admiration, and a giddy joy that you have found another member of the long lost tribe. You feel understood, connected to something a little bigger, and it’s just plain fun.

So, there you have it. Gadget Sister is much more than a blog. Much more than a store. Gadget Sister is a movement, a way of life, a meme whose time has come. Join the movement. Stand up and be counted. Share your Apps.


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Categories : Gadgets, Women, technology, travel bags

Live by the Gadget; Die by the Gadget

16 05 2009

It’s true. As enthusiastic as I may be about technology and cool gadgetry, at times it is my undoing. Right now I am putting in place all the pieces to launch GadgetSister.com — a new online storefront featuring my own hand-picked assortment of cool gadgets.

Within 48 hours I had blazed through what takes many business people weeks or months. I reserved the domain name, fleshed out the concept, set up the DBA, the bank account, the merchant service credit card service, obtained a supplier, and engaged a company that builds online stores that are totally compatible with my supplier. I got the logo designed and did the front page graphics myself. Sometimes it pays to be a Renaissance Woman as well as Gadget Sister.

And then I felt a familiar bite on the butt cheek.

The e-mail declared that my “site had been loaded”—and it was! To the wrong domain name, with the wrong graphics, without my logo, and it didn’t like my user name and password with the supplier.

Poo. Talk about a buzz kill.

Now, I know from experience that this will all sort itself out with a couple of phone calls to some very reasonable and talented people who just didn’t get the memo. I know that I will be over this little obstacle in less than a week. (And now I am grateful when stuff like this happens because it gives me great material for something to write about in a blog. )

The whole episode did bring up for me a great philosophical debate, however. (Almost anything can inspire a philosophical debate with Gadget Sister because she is by definition a very philosophical Renaissance woman who likes to think deep thoughts.)

“Why do I celebrate and adore technology and gadgets so much when they are just as often a source of pain, confusion and frustration as they are efficiency, simplicity, and fun?”

Well, that’s really just life in a nutshell, isn’t it? Everything in life has its good and bad, it’s light and dark, it’s sweet and sour and we just have to take one with the other. It’s “the whole catasrophe” as Zorba the Greek pointed out. The question is, where am I going to focus and what am I going to learn?

My Focus. Am I going to let this little glitch shut down a business before it starts or am I going to figure it out and keep moving forward? The reality is that even with this small set-back I have shaved months off bringing this concept to market because of the amazing technology that has been put in place that I didn’t have to spend a dime to develop. Talk about leverage! There are many thousands of people hours and huge development costs at my disposal that I get for about $25 a month! So, I am choosing to focus on the greater benefit of the technology rather than its inevitable frustrations.

My Lesson. I now have a huge pile of valuable knowledge to share with my design and web clients to help them market their own businesses better. I can add a new service and create more value for others. I tested the boundaries of my new arena, and emerged with very useful information. I suspect that I will have a more interesting store as a result.

So here’s the bottom line. While it can be frustrating at times, I remain strong in my conviction that “the right tool at the right time in the right hands can often save the day.”

And if it doesn’t? Sometimes the most useful “gadgets” are experience and wisdom.


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Categories : Gadgets, Women, online marketing, technology

Hello world!

13 05 2009

Go, Go Gadget Blog!

There’s a T-Shirt out there that says, “More People Have Read this T-Shirt than Read Your Blog!” And so it is with a certain amount of humility (cynicism?) I post my very first blog entry.

Girls Got Gadget is a forum for me to preach to the choir about one of my favorite fetishes — gadgets. Maybe it was too many James Bond movies with all of Q’s ingenious inventions, or Mission Impossible, or McGyver… But the hook for me has always been the fantasy of having just the right gadget at just the right moment and saving the day!

No, not preventing a nuclear war at the hands of a super-villain in a subterranean lair, but being able to produce a headlamp out of a backpack when you need to change a tire in the dark, or a first aid kit when your kid biffs on the bike trail, or you just happen to have the video excerpt of “Midnight Train to Georgia” from American Idol on your iPhone when everyone was talking about it at lunch and get to pull it out of your purse with a wry smile and try to look oh-so-casual, “Oh, I’ve got that one…”

It’s not just the Eagle Scout preparedness factor, though, that makes me and others seek out the gadgets of life. It’s the appreciation for the design, the usefulness, the anticipated need, the whole “better mousetrap” mythology. In purchasing and using my cool new gadget I am paying homage to a creative genius (or least brilliant marketer) that deserves a gold star and a little coin for making a unique contribution to the planet. As a graphic designer for the last 20 years, many of my clients have been inventors. It has been both inspiring and frustrating to watch them take their “children” to market — some with greater success than others.

To that end, I am currently developing an online store that will feature products that I think are amazing, awesome, noteworthy, and just plain cool. Keep an eye out for it in about a week. I really want feedback about the gadgets YOU think are all that, so I can make some wonderful new discoveries and share them with others.


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Categories : Gadgets, Women