Parrot Learning Digital Audio Pen Reader (Reviewed: Oct 2012) Who would have thought a talking pen could help make learning a language easier! Introducing the “Chinese Talking Travel Guidebook” from Parrot Learning. We have taken a number of trips to either Hong Kong or mainland China and in advance of another trip to the mainland – we’ve been using this guidebook in anticipation of our trip. Chinese, like other Asian languages is a tonal language and it really helps to actually hear the tones as they are said.

Three bilingual books are included with the kit as well as a dictionary, the pen and headphones (can listen with or without the headphones). Simply point the pen at either the Chinese or English (using the included books) and it will speak the word or phrases. Repeat as many “ming bai’s” or “bu ming bai’s” (understand, don’t understand) as you want until you get the tones right! With all the books, this kit does has some weight to it – but the nice thing is over lunch or dinner in China you can actually have one of the books with you, the pen and practice with the locals! For more details and to purchase, visit – www.parrotlearning.com/audio-pen

Power Bar 4200 (Reviewed: Sep 2012) is the latest product by by FatCatGear – this tiny battery pack uses the latest in ultra-thin lithium polymer technology. It is small but it packs a punch as far as battery life – advertised as typically more than twice the charge of a normal smart phone battery. This we had to test out – the battery life on our iPhone is less than desirable.

We drained our iPhone to below the 10% warning – charged and still showed 3 out of 4 bars on the battery pack. Again we drained the iPhone down and recharged about 75% before the back was fully drained.

The pack comes with a USB connector as well as a number of other connector tips. It is already pre-charged when you purchase and to recharge it, just plug it into the USB connector on your computer and watch for the four lights to shine when it is fully charged (usually takes between 4-7 hours). This pack weighs only 4 oz – ideal size and weight to slip into a backpack when on the road or a back pocket for heavy day users. To purchase visit: www.fatcatgear.com/fatcat-4200
 

Olympus Tough TG1 Camera – A Dave’s Featured Travel Product for 2012 (Reviewed: July 2012) We recently purchased the Olympus Tough TG-1 iHS to take on an upcoming International trip; we played around with it a day prior to leaving. It’s images makes the mundane look magical. With twelve creative settings ranging from “miniature” to “dramatic” we were quickly able to turn our garden into an ethereal “world”, akin to something out of Lord of the Rings.

The camera is durable and waterproof. We watched a video of some guy dropping it on a hard surface from more than two meters. That was inspiring! Never having used a waterproof camera before we were hesitant to submerge it. The Bay of Bengal (not necessarily the clearest of waters) was a good testing ground. No leakage! The small island of Managaha in Saipan had much better testing waters! The image stabilizer feature works well for both still photos as well as shooting video. One downside we found is that there is no external battery charger – so the camera is out of action as you must plug the charger directly into the camera while the battery is still inside. Purchase on Amazon