Opinion: Why a uni-port MacBook makes sense in a wire-free world

If you're one of the people who threw their arms up in protest when Apple removed the optical drive from the MacBook Pro, guess what: a Retina MacBook Air with a single USB is incoming, and it's going to blow your tiny, progress-fearing mind.

Confused? To recap: Apple is reportedly taking the seemingly drastic step of replacing all of the MacBook Air's current ports with a single reversible USB Type C connection in order to make the machine as slim as possible. And just like banishing the long-unless optical drive from its laptop range, Apple's latest stroke of genius is going to see it once again launch one of the most portable and desirable laptops in the world.

But will it be practical? Until recently, I wasn't so sure. I take my 11-inch MacBook Air everywhere and connect it to multiple DisplayPort and DVI-equipped monitors. If I'm near a power outlet I'll clip in the MagSafe 2 connector to save battery cycles, and for any serious work I can't be without a wired USB mouse.

Moving to a single USB Type C port would require an adapter to connect all of those at once, which would prove a compromise too far -- right?

Wireless is more

For a portically-challenged MacBook to work, wireless technology must come into play. It's just as well, then, that Intel -- which is proving the driving force behind the no-wire computing movement -- has begun to take it seriously.

Intel unveiled its fifth-generation vPro Broadwell CPU earlier this week, which natively supports two technologies key to wire-free computing: WiDi (for connecting devices wirelessly to displays) and WiGig (for connecting peripherals such as monitors, mice and printers). WiDi has been finicky in the past, but Intel has refined the tech to the point where connecting a WiDi-enabled laptop wirelessly to a display or dock is as simple as walking up to it. Simply put: it's awesome.

Historically, WiDi has only been compatible with Windows (Apple TV provides similar screen mirroring functionality for Apple users), but it is highly likely that the Retina MacBook Air will use Intel's Core M Broadwell CPU, which can stream wirelessly to displays and docks using WiDi v.5.1 and WiGig.

Power play

Integrating WiDi into the upcoming machine would open up the opportunity for Apple to bake WiDi functionality into a new range of Cinema Displays (WiDi can stream video wirelessly in 4K) -- or even extend functionality to non-Apple displays through an adapter.

With the ability to dock wireless displays and peripherals, charging and power management becomes the final challenge in banishing wires for good --- and Intel is already working on it. According to a blog post by Intel Project Manager Colleen Cuthbertson, Intel has successfully demonstrated charging a laptop sitting on a two-inch thick table using a magnetic resonance pad underneath -- a method she writes could be deployed in coffee shops and other commonly used mobile locations.

If any company is going to take a calculated risk by scrapping ports -- including its much-championed Thunderbolt 2 specification -- it's Apple. Should it drop a few ports and succesfully integrate wireless tech into the Retina MacBook Air to make it give it industry-leading, catwalk-thin dimensions picking up a new adapter or monitor will be a small price to pay.

• Intel WiDi: what it means for business

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Week in Gaming: The 8 most bonkers things to happen in gaming this week

Fighting Talk: Straight-laced Netflix has a lot to learn from the Pirate Bay

As you read this, the Pirate Bay could be back online, providing you can find it through the barrier of ISP blocks that try to stop UK residents from accessing it. Or at least, stop UK consumers accessing it with one click.

The site's history of enabling global piracy isn't anything to be particularly proud of, but the excitement surrounding its return tells us one thing – whatever you think of what it does, it does it well and has the fans to prove it.

It has been a slight inconvenience not having the Pirate Bay around. Using advert-plastered alternative torrent sites that outright lie about what they contain is a nightmare. Unfortunately it's the only option, as trying to find legitimate ways to watch the weekend's US telly or ripped VHS content from the 1980s can be nigh-on impossible – even in the streaming, globalised world of 2015.

Those who are into piracy, or have a keen interest in acquiring legal back-up copies of physical media they already own, know the Pirate Bay's still the model media portal.

It's no great looker and there's no revolving HTML5 carousel, but that's part of its appeal as well.

A search box and an unstyled list of everything that's available is vastly more usable than all these dynamic interfaces modern media businesses are pushing out to aid the "discovery" of their content.

The BBC's spent millions redesigning the iPlayer portal, with the end result being that it's now slightly harder to find the mundane BBC4 documentary about the history of gnomes I'm looking for than it was before. The Pirate Bay, with its functional, coded-by-amateurs layout, works better, and is quicker. So I'll still look there first every time.

Likewise, Spotify's great and very clever, but the desktop app's clunky and the web player is overly complex. Why go through that when you can stream everything straight to a folder, for free and without adverts between Girls Aloud's greatest hits?

This must be the place

If I want to watch, say, Total Recall again tonight, where should I go? If I could remember the name of the distributor or studio, perhaps I'd try looking at the particular streaming site they're aligned with. But I know it'll be on a torrent site, in the resolution of my choosing, and it'll fly down at maximum bandwidth.

How is it that a hacked-together torrent site run by unpaid admins and populated with content by the general public can beat the official big media resources hands-down when it comes to accessibility and content choice?

The Bay is also properly international – not offering a curated selection of content designed to adhere to the media giants' demands in each territory, as Netflix does. Not split so one half can serve ads to the US while another can be free to the UK, all the while arbitrarily expiring the availability of everlasting digital content seemingly on a whim, as happens on BBC iPlayer.

The Pirate Bay has one list of everything you can get. Now. And it's always there. Imagine a world in which legitimate media was like that.

Take the Pirate Bay legit by having Universal, Sony and the rest clone it and populate it, and you've got the answer to all piracy problems.

Add a £4.99 compulsory license fee to the cost of a broadband connection and stick everything that's ever been recorded or filmed on one massive, bulletproof, utilitarian server, that works all the time, even if we're on holiday in somewhere exotic like France, and we'll be happy.

Piracy won't be crushed until the official options do a better job of competing with the speed, ease of access and global reach of the underground.

Good on Netflix for not (yet) annihilating VPN connections, but why make people go there in the first place? Adding these pretend international boundaries is only making thieving the new films and telly off the old torrent sites even more appealing.

• In depth: why we still can't rip our CDs legally

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Review: Viewsonic VX2363Smhl review

We've seen some outstanding monitors appear recently. From the massive-o-monitor that is the Philips BDM4065UC to the wide-screen awesomeness of the LG 34UM95, we've had some great new screens hit our test benches.

What we haven't seen recently though are any budget-oriented screens, just high-spec panels.

So what do you do if you don't have the ready reddies to spend on a massive panel?

Thankfully Viewsonic has been creating good-value monitors, with our favourite IPS panel technology inside, for years. We've been recommending the 23-inch VX2370Smh as our pick of the budget screens for a good long while now, but such things don't last forever and that monitor is now getting harder and harder to find.

Thankfully it's getting replaced by this slightly smaller, but still happily IPS-laden, VX2363Smhl.

This vision in white plastic is reminiscent of some of the budget AOC IPS screens we've seen in the past, using a recessed bezel to make it seem like the panel stretches out to the very edge of the monitor's face.

That gives the screen a nicely classy look on your desktop and the actual panel doesn't disappoint either.

At this price you'd maybe expect to have TN tech forced upon you, but even these 6-bit IPS panels have much better visuals than an old budget TN screen.

The viewing angles aren't up there with the finest panels we've seen recently, but the colours are still vibrant and the contrast levels are good, as well. The black levels and white saturation of this screen, even straight out of the box, are also really impressive.

Not so pro

We're not going to pretend this panel is totally perfect, or will work for photo professionals, but for a seriously budget IPS screen the VX2363Smhl is really impressive for the money.

The surrounds, however, are a little less impressive.

The stand is a very basic tilt affair, while the sheer mass of plastic on show speaks to its budget heritage, too. But when you're plugging Kyrat's endangered species in glorious Technicolor, you're not going to give a pair of fetid Sky Tiger kidneys what's surrounding your screen.

All you want are the visuals being piped directly into your eyeballs with decent panel tech.

We would also argue there's little point in spending more money on a 1080p panel. If you're going to be splashing any more cash we'd recommend pointing it at a larger, higher-resolution monitor.

The way things are going you're likely to want to upgrade to a higher resolution monitor fairly soon anyways – hardware performance has nailed 1080p even in the lower echelons of GPU tech, so we're moving forwards to 1440p and 4K next.

Spending £110 on this screen will keep you happy with your current rig, offering pleasing IPS visuals without shredding your wallet.

It should also keep you going until your next hardware upgrade, at which point you may well be looking to pick up a better screen to show off your nice new hardware, too.

We liked

The price is the big win for this new Viewsonic monitor as is the fact that it has managed to squeeze an IPS panel in there too.

It may only be a 6-bit screen, but we'd still take it over a TN-based monitor even with that 5ms response time.

We disliked

The plastic chassis is a bit clunky, though it doesn't crowd the screen with a hefty bezel. It's also not massively adjustable.

Verdict

For a 1080p gaming PC this bargain-priced monitor wouldn't be a bad fit. It's not going to last forever and the 23-inch panel isn't the biggest or most beautiful, but it's a decent IPS screen for the price.

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Opinion: Samsung promised us radical change – instead it's just doing the same old thing

Back in late 2014 it looked like Samsung was about to implode. The Tetris blocks that make up our understanding of the tech market were wobbling as the giant's profits tumbled by 60%.

Samsung said it would change its approach to phones entirely to bring things around. And we're just about to go through the same rigmarole with another earnings call.

Except that when you look at things closer, the situation isn't quite as it appears. Yes, Samsung's profits fell by 60%, but we are fundamentally talking about a company in profit, when so many other giants flit between red and black like a nervous roulette player.

But quarter-to-quarter performance is important in any giant corporation, and it seems to have taken hold of the way the Samsung makes phones.

Sadly.

Crazy from the heat

Samsung has shown an almost pathological need to make its expensive phones stand out from the rest, without ever stepping back to assess whether its hand.

Heart rate sensors and fingerprint scanners that barely work. Plastic textured backs that literally no-one out outside of a Samsung board room likes. These things defined Samsung's 2014 in mobile, part of its grand corporate plan to stay market leader.

That was just the beginning. Now Samsung is following those up in 2015 with screens that curve around the sides and, in a rare moment of honest self-improvement, metal edges instead of chromed plastic prone to chipping.

But for the most part, Samsung plugs more and more into its phones until overwhelming public opinion forces it to act against type. This is something we saw in its software: it became more and labyrinthine until this simply became the polar opposite of what people were looking for in 2014.

People-friendly - not

Here we come to the crux of the issue. Samsung's design process is not about what people want or even what they'll come to want when they get their hands on it.

It's more about very conspicuous supposed benefits that can be prodded and listed in bullet-point form, not to mention waved in the faces of shareholders by senior execs. And we've heard more than once about how Samsung's Korea-lead 'top-down' approach can lead to the whims and hunches of a few steering an entire division of thousands.

Now, sometimes this can work wonders, and has led to numerous Samsung innovations. But it is a myopic way to operate.

And, boy, have we seen that in action in Samsung.

Value King

Here's the stinger: Samsung hasn't made a good budget phone since 2012, maybe earlier depending on how picky we're feeling.

The company spent hundreds of millions of dollars marketing the Galaxy S5 and S4, yet its obsession with high margin phones has seen it almost completely ignore an important segment of the western market.

Phone makers may bang on about developing countries and the hundreds of million of untapped customers just waiting to be turned into smartphone drones. But what about people back home who just won't want to spend more than £200 on a SIM-free phone, or £20 on a monthly contract?

Samsung's efforts in this area over the past two years have been embarrassing. The Galaxy Young and Fame were truly dreadful, and its slightly more expensive models are so thin on the ground that Carphone Warehouse still sells the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini. That's a two-and-a-half year-old phone that wasn't much cop in the first place, there to cater for those who simply must have a Galaxy.

Its budget phones coast on the Galaxy name, which makes us wonder: does Samsung think budget phone buyers are plain idiots?

The space you made

Consumers aren't the only one's missing out though, Samsung is missing out too. As we've been shown a couple of times before, there's a massive potential audience for a good, simple, affordable phone.

The Nokia Lumia 520 remains the best-selling Windows mobile phone ever, and the Motorola Moto G is now by far the best-selling phone Motorola has produced. These products were only as successful as they are because Samsung left this particular field wide open.

After all the phones it has designed, the hundreds and hundreds of millions spent and billions earned, why can't Samsung give us anything remotely similar?

It has the supply chains in place, and with a flick of a proverbial switch could have the economies of scale to match these budget giants, but in 2015 style.

Is it scared? Does it know that for £150 it could make a 4G phone so good that we'd all give up our dreams of owning a fabled Samsung Galaxy S6?

We can imagine Samsung's execs' discomfort at such an idea. The truth is the market is naturally segmented because it relies so heavily on carrier subsidy (in the US/UK at least).

On your A-game

In 2015 Samsung is finally, finally going to re-energise its more affordable phones with the A-series. But it looks as though it'll be a case of too little, too late.

Take the Galaxy A3, for example. It costs around £240 SIM-free (available on contract from February) and yet offers lower display resolution than the £100-odd Moto G.

Yes it has metal sides and is skinny, but when you strip out all the extraneous bits you'll get used to in two and a half days, it's no better than some phones that cost half the price. Worse than some even.

Will it sell well regardless? When Samsung gets around to releasing it properly in February, then probably. But we wish Samsung would spend just five minutes considering its customers over its shareholders. Because we've been waiting for a good budget Samsung phone for an awful long time.

We're still waiting.

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Review: HP OfficeJet Pro 6830 e-All-in-One

Introduction

Introduction

On the face of it the OfficeJet Pro 6830 appears to offer just about everything the small business could want when it comes printing, scanning, copying and, should the need still arise, even faxing documents, and all for less than £100 inc taxes (around $156, AUS$190). It can also print and scan in colour, plus it's the first business inkjet that can be used with HP's pay-per-page Instant Ink service. But, and it's a fairly big but, the Officejet Pro 6830 does have its limitations and may not be the business bargain it appears to be.

Well put together

A very sturdy and compact device, the OfficeJet Pro 6830 is based around an HP thermal inkjet engine capable of printing up to 18ppm in black and white and 10ppm in colour, with an impressive duty cycle rating of 15,000 pages per month. Four separate ink cartridges are employed and maximum resolution is 600x1200dpi for both monochrome and colour output. An automatic duplexer is also built-in enabling documents to be printed double-sided, with a single 225-sheet A4 input tray incorporating a 60-sheet output tray in its cover.

The 1200dpi scanner sits just above the print engine with an automatic document feeder (ADF) on top which can be lifted up to allow originals to be scanned manually although on this model scanning is single-side only.

A 2.66-inch (6.75cm) colour touchscreen allows for walk-up scan/copy/fax operation and there's a front-mounted USB port for printing and scanning to and from a memory stick as well as options to scan remotely from a browser.

Specification and Performance

OfficeJet Pro in Action

Unpacking and putting the OfficeJet Pro to work was a very quick and easy task, all done from the built-in touchscreen over a WiFi connection and taking around 10 minutes. Drivers and software for Windows and Mac clients comes on a DVD but we opted to download from the HP website to get the latest implementations.

In terms of speed we got around 4-5 pages per minute for mixed text and graphics documents and up to 10ppm for pure text with the first page typically appearing in around 15 seconds. Quality was good enough for most business needs, but we did see striations when printing photos and other images, and the finished documents came out a little wet, turning wrinkled when dry. Another irritation was the single paper tray which soon ran out and was far from easy to refill, plus there was a pronounced pause between sides when using the duplexer and our finished documents often overflowed the catch tray onto the floor.

We mostly printed over a WiFi network although you can also print directly using a point-to-point wireless connection or via the HP Connected portal simply by emailing documents to the address assigned. Mobile printing is similarly well catered for on both iOS and Android platforms and hard to fault on a printer in this price bracket.

It's all about the ink

Other than paper handling our main concern was how quickly the ink was used up with the three colours (cyan, yellow and magenta) all but exhausted after just 80 pages. However, that was with low-capacity starter cartridges and we did print a lot of images. High capacity replacement cartridges are available and a big selling point on this OfficeJet Pro is support for HP's Instant Ink service, which can save both time and money as far as ink is concerned.







With Instant Ink you effectively pre-pay for ink via a monthly subscription based on the number of pages (colour or black and white) that you expect to produce. HP will remotely monitor usage and post replacement cartridges to you before they are needed as well as arranging for disposal of empty consumables. Plans start at £1.99-per-month for 50 pages ($2.99 in the US, sorry Australia it's not available yet), with automatic rollover of any unused page allowance. Should this not be enough you can buy extra pages at £1 for each 15 pages ($1 in the US) or switch to either the 100-page/£3.49 per month plan ($4,99) or 300-page/£7.99 per month high use service ($9.99 in the US).



Compared to buying cartridges yourself HP reckons Instant Ink can save up to £516 (around $804, AU$983) per year for customers on the high use plan. That's not something we can confirm but we did find a full set of high-yield cartridges (rated to last for up to 825 pages) selling for £68 (around $106, AU$130) whereas a 3-month Instant Ink high use subscription (300 pages/month) is just £24 ($30 in the US) which is clearly a massive saving.

Verdict

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the OfficeJet Pro 6830. Indeed it delivers everything a small business needs to print, scan, copy and fax, does it with some aplomb and for a lot less than laser alternatives. However it has the look and feel of a consumer printer rather than a robust business solution, especially when it comes to paper handling which is a real Achilles heel.

That aside, if the budget is tight it's still worth considering and we'd definitely recommend signing up for Instant Ink. But if you're going to share the printer with lots of users and you can afford a bit extra you're probably better off with something that has more to offer in the paper handling department.

We liked

Despite its low price and lack of size, the OfficeJet Pro 6830 is bristling with connectivity options plus a full complement of mobile printing and scanning tools that we found easy to learn and highly effective. It's also a very easy device to operate, both via the colour front panel and remotely through either a browser or using custom apps.

Inkjets are notoriously expensive to run but HP reckons that the OfficeJet Pro 6830 can produce professional colour documents at up to 50% of the cost of a laser and by signing up to its Instant Ink service this seems more than plausible. In fact, by fixing the cost per page and delivering the necessary ink to your door in advance of it running out, Instant Ink is very much a no-brainer and something we'd strongly recommend to anyone buying this or any other supported HP inkjet.

We disliked

A single paper tray is a real limitation on a business printer, further exacerbated in this case by the lack of a bypass feeder. Not only do you have to keep a close eye on how much paper is available but, in order to print to envelopes, card, pre-printed paper and so on, you have to load the material into the sole paper tray and quickly complete the required print jobs before anyone else tries to use the printer. You then have to remove any unused media and top up with paper to make the printer/copier ready for normal operation.

The catch tray on top of the paper drawer is another annoyance, spilling documents onto the floor rather than keeping them safe. Some of ours also got caught on the plastic stop bar, ending up scrunched and smeared. Moreover, in a busy office the catch tray will nearly always be full of forgotten old documents making it even harder to refill the paper drawer beneath.

And lastly, it must be about time for HP and other vendors to drop the built-in fax modem. Very few businesses use fax these days and we're sure most would rather have better paper handling.

Final verdict

A good little all-in-one for sole traders and micro businesses, the OfficeJet Pro 6830 scores high on both the connectivity front and in its printing capabilities. Plus, if you sign up to the Instant Ink service, it can be very cheap to run. The single paper tray is, however, a real drawback when it comes to high print volumes and sharing, and businesses with more than a handful of users are better off with something a little more flexible in this respect.

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Review: UPDATED: iOS 8

Running man of tech: 10K a day: heart rate monitors for beginners

One of the hardest things about running long distances is deciding what comes with you: it needs to be no hindrance but still motivate you to push harder.

This week, I've been looking at two very different propositions, and both are aimed at the relative beginner with a bit of cash. Both packing heart rate sensors, they're designed to make you feel that you're doing it right when tramping the streets at speed. Or stumbling half-heartedly through a park, cursing every slight incline as a mountain into the very heart of Hades. Either attitude works.

Here's the key thing: a heart rate monitor will make you a better runner by letting you see what your body is really feeling.

If you're thinking that you're too tired to run, these little gadgets will help let you know if your engine is running too fast and you should ease back – and they also give you license to go faster when conditions are good).

Adidas FitSmart

The eagle-eyed among you will notice that this is very similar to the watch I reviewed last week: the Adidas SmartRun. The OCD sufferers will cringe at the name swap - surely SmartFit would have been better?

I quizzed Adidas on this, and was told the name was already taken, so this was the only way around. Fair enough.

The band/watch is something between a 'proper' GPS running tracker and a fitness band. The rubberised stylings mean it's comfortable to way day to day, and the LED lights are stylish and cool.

In fact the only irritation with the design is that the clock doesn't stay on, meaning you have to press the shallow main button (hard to hit on a run) to call up the clock.

On the back is the same optical heart rate monitor found on the SmartRun, allowing the band to work out just how hard you're running without having to resort to sky satellites.

However, the main difference between this and the larger watch is simple: this is aimed at the newer exerciser who wants some motivation to get out and run.

With that in mind, Adidas has created weekly targets, where you'll tell the app or website what you want to achieve (speed, endurance etc) and the fitness level that you're at.

You'll need to complete a 12-minute assessment, but after that it will know you. Your heart rate at different speeds, the different speed 'zones' themselves, your hopes, your dreams, your darkest secrets.

Well, perhaps only the first two.

From there, you're on your own. Get out and run, and as long as you spend the allotted time each week in the correct coloured zone, such as 1 hour in blue (warm up), all the way to 8 mins in the red (sprint) zone, you'll get a hefty pat on the back from the app after 7 days before helping you decide what's next.

And I'll admit it: that's pretty motivating. I found myself strapping it on and pushing a little harder in some runs just to get my red and yellow zone time up, which shows the idea works.

But I'm already comfortable going faster and slower at the right times - what Adidas has done here is confuse things for the newer runner.

How do you know when to sprint hard or take it easy? What does a yellow zone feel like?

In fairness, there are coloured LEDs on the band to let you know, but keeping your pace consistent is hard at times, especially at speed.

What's most frustrating is Adidas is brilliant at giving structured plans through its MiCoach app.

It could easily make a week's plan for you that, if followed, would give you correct amount of time in the right zones with prompts while running (through a buzz and helpful up and down arrow) to speed up or slow down, and yet that's not on offer.

There's also the issue of price: at £130, it's more expensive than many fitness bands and doesn't even track your progress.

Verdict

If Adidas can provide a little more information and leverage its excellent arsenal of training plans, the FitSmart could be a winner. Right now, it's a cool idea that needs more tweaking to be worth the tag price. Sorry, price tag.

Best for: the committed newbie

SMS Audio BioSport In-Ear Headphones

I love a good pair of headphones. It's best not to use them in a race (unless you're plodding along at the back) as you can be deaf to other runners trying to get past. But for training, there's nothing better than settling into a long run with a podcast or two, or a decent Spotify playlist and drifting off into a sweaty trance.

So when I heard about these SMS Audio BioSport headphones, I was massively intrigued. While the price of £129 was high, they do come with good technology in the shape of a heart rate monitor built in.

The heart rate coming from the ears is apparently one of the most accurate you can get (so say the medical doctor people) and these little ear-dwellers don't even need to be charged, drawing power through the headphone jack instead.

The design is nice: nothing overly stylish but the little wings look cool and the cord is a flat design that doesn't tangle.

Add in the control panel connected to the right ear wire that can both control calls and music (using a little slider) and these seem like winners.

The problem I have is that, unlike normal people, I have really shallow ears that don't allow in ear products like this to sit well without some sort of extra guard.

By my own poor standards, these earphones weren't easy to hold in the ear, despite trying a range of bud sizes. However, I found that testing them on others produced a good and comfortable fit with minimal chance of them falling out.

You'll need to be sure they're in snugly though, as without it the heart rate monitor will flip around and not give as accurate a reading as a dedicated chest strap.

While the packaging on the BioSport headphones promises to work with multiple sports apps, it seems only RunKeeper is supported right now - although you do get one month's free Elite membership, even if most people won't get the benefit in the first 30 days of running.

That's not a problem, given that it's a decent app with a good community and excellent user interface, especially for the newer, slower runner. But that doesn't give a lot of wiggle room if you're already tempted by something like Strava, which does support a plethora of sensors, so the omission is annoying.

The sound quality of the Bio Sport headphones is pretty good when they stay in. However, adding to the fit problem is the control panel. It's heavy and yanks at the ear with the heart rate monitor in, which can't help the accuracy - although did seem OK in tests.

Having to switch the little heart rate monitor on with a slider is OK at the start of a run, but if you want to take a call mid-trot you have to fumble and turn it off.

And with no volume control, it's not a super helpful thing to have pulling at your ear. The ability to skip tracks and pause songs is good, but most headphones will have that trick.

The range of supported phones needs improving too: while most iPhones are A-OK, there are only a smattering of compatible Android handsets, and big hitters like the HTC One M8 aren't there.

Verdict

In short, while I love the idea of these headphones they need to be made a little more robust and work with a greater variety of phones. The control panel needs to be shrunk (or moved away from the ear) and the heart rate tracking needs to actually work during vigorous exercise.

There's a good idea here, but the SMS Audio BioSport headphones aren't quite the finished product, especially for the higher price.

Best for: The RunKeeper fanatic desperate to run with a heart rate monitor

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