Variety is the spice of life, this applies to anything in your life. This is especially true in the phone market. Most people think of Android and iOS phones when thinking of modern smart phones but the third largest in popularity are Windows phones. Not only are they third, but their popularity has continued to grow. It’s about time that we get one in and see what all of the buzz is about. The latest and greatest Windows phone is the Nokia Icon, I have been living with it for a few weeks now and I am excited to tell you guys/girls about the phone and my experience with it.

For what seemed like months we have seen commercials for the LG G2 on television. Recently Verizon Wireless sent one over for us to check out and I have been putting it through daily use. For the most part the G2 is a lot like other phones but it does have a very unique placement of its volume and power buttons. Where most phones have the buttons on the sides or top, the G2’s buttons are on the back of the phone. So today I’m going to talk a little about my experience with the G2 and Verizon Wireless’s network.

This past year at CES Nvidia introduced a new mobile product called the Shield. At the time, even after having a little time to play with it on the show floor, you could say I wasn’t exactly excited about it. The idea of gaming on a tablet was starting to win me over but I just couldn’t imagine trying to carry around something so bulky. This past spring and summer I spent even more time gaming on my tablets, especially the Nexus 7. Emulators and an ever growing collection of games started to win me over. Add in Nvidia’s changes to their drivers and the possibility of being able to stream PC gaming to the Shield and by the time it launched I had been converted into a full on fan of the device. Now nearly a year after its introduction I can finally sit down and talk about my experience with the Shield. Did it live up to my expectations? Read on time find out.

The rebound phone from my love of the Motorola MAXX had to be something that shared a lot of its features but helped me get over the amazing battery life. Verizon Wireless sent over the Moto X, a phone that shares the same hardware other than a smaller screen and the battery of the MAXX. I have been toying with the Moto X for some time now and I wanted to talk a little today about how it performed. Will it just be a rebound phone, or will things work out between the Moto X and I. Stay tuned for more after the break, these are the Days Phones Of Our Lives.

Here in just a few months it will have been two years from when Motorola introduced their Razr MAXX. That length of time is significant for a few reasons. First, most of you know that a lot of people run on two year contracts for their phones so a lot of the original Razr MAXX owners will be on the market for replacements here at the start of the year. Two years is also important because it wasn’t long before the original MAXX was introduced that Google purchased the company for a whopping 13 Billion dollars. In that time as well things have changed in the phone market. Sure the iPhone is still around but who would have thought that Blackberry would still be around and that the phones that were once so powerful and huge are now considered slow and normal in size. What a perfect time for Motorola to introduce its third MAXX phone. This time the they dropped the Razr name all together and just went with the Droid MAXX and its smaller battered brother is called the Droid Ultra. I’ve been using the MAXX for a while now and today I’m going to tell you a little about my experience.

It’s amazing how far technology has gone when you look at the mobile phone market. It really wasn’t that long ago when the RAZR flip phone was the hip thing to have. Now most people have large screens, fast internet, and more processing power than you would ever have imagined. With that in mind, it does seem a little crazy that we still have to plug our phones in all of the time to charge them. When I picked up my Nexus 4, the wireless charging feature was one of the most interesting to me. Today I will finally be able to show off what it’s all about with the new TYLT VÜ wireless charging pad.

With the sheer amount of media we consume on a daily basis, the mobile market is constantly evolving with newer and newer ways for us to store and transfer all this data. A while back I reviewed Carry Technology’s Wi-Reader Pro and was impressed by the functionality and usefulness of a portable, wireless cloud device and today I am back again with another similar device. Join me as I take a look at Kingston’s MobileLite Wireless Reader and put it to the test to see if it can bring anything new to this budding market.

We just can’t seem to charge our gadget batteries enough these days. Whether on the go or simply during our day to day routines we are always on the lookout for ways to keep our phones and tablets from dying on us. Recently, I reviewed a portable, high capacity battery that offered the ability to charge our devices on the go and today I am back again with another. This time I take a look at the Neptor NP056K portable battery pack from Eagle Tech to see if this emerging market for pocket USB chargers is a competitive one or merely the latest fad.

The biggest problem with mobile devices today is their limited battery life and the inevitability that they will eventually run out on us. We charge them at home in the wall, on the computer, and even in the car while in transit but it still never feels like enough power for all the functionality we enjoy. The Luxa2 branded line of products from Thermaltake has set out solve some our power problems with a mobile power solution.  The P1 7000mAh High Capacity Battery & Charger is meant to provide power to just about anything with a USB charging port at anytime and anywhere it may be needed.

Smartphones have become a way of life in this day and age and with them, a mountain of accessories to choose from. The market for cell phone stands, however, has always been quite bare in the way of quality offerings with only a few of the more popular phones getting stands specifically designed for them. Thermaltake aims to change that with a single stand capable of supporting any device you may have now or in the future. Today I take a look at the Luxa2 H1 Premium Mobile Holder to see if the quality Thermaltake is known for in their coolers and cases has transferred over into the mobile market.

Cloud storage and wireless networking are pretty much staples in everyone’s day to day lives at this point. Being so used to the constant stream of data can leave you feeling disconnected at times where you don’t have access and even simple data transfers can become a hassle. Carry Technology seek to lessen this burden with their Apotop DW09 Wi-Reader and DW17 Wi-Reader Pro designed for use with Apple and Android/Apple mobile devices respectively. Join me as I take a look at this pair of wireless cloud servers you can fit in your pocket and see if they deliver as promised.

Eagletech may be one of best kept secrets at our LAN parties, generously providing many of their Zen headsets under the brand name Orion as prizes. As we saw at CES this past January, Eagletech has a wide variety of portable accessories, the majority utilizing Bluetooth, in store for 2013. We’ve received the first of many teased during a private showing in Vegas this winter, the Neptor Foldable Bluetooth Keyboard, just in time for an editor hungry to take productivity on the road.

Over the past 10 years there has quietly been a small change in the mobile computer market that I don’t think everything has noticed. The name laptop has slowly been dropped and everyone uses the term notebook now. This might seem like a small change but this was actually to help prevent issues for a lot of manufactures. You see, with the name laptop, a lot of people would actually use them on their laps sometimes causing overheating issues. Even now with the new name, heat is still a concern. That is exactly why we have products like Cooler Masters new Notepal Ergostand II.Today I am going to take a look and see what has changed from the original.

Blackberry has a special place in my heart; my first smartphone was the original BlackBerry Storm. The Storm was their first full touch screen phone and frankly it was also a very hard phone to love. Being my first smartphone I really wanted to love it, but dealing with lockups, limitations, battery pulls, and bad battery life was just life with the Storm. After experiencing Android I never went back to BlackBerry, until they introduced their Z10. For the first time it seemed like BlackBerry had listened, so I made sure to get one in and today finally I will tell you how it went.

I’m going to come clean to you guys/girls. I have had tablets for the past 2-3 years and for the first few years, I really never put them to use. I found them to be cumbersome, slow, and there just wasn’t enough reason to use them. Frankly I could do it all on my phone just as well, with a smaller screen of course. About a year ago I had a Transformer Prime come in. With Nvidia’s Tegra 3 quad core CPU I was intrigued and the optional keyboard was icing on the cake. I decided to REALLY give it a try and see what I thought. A year later I want to talk a little about my experience.

When it comes to protecting mobile devices, many people immediately start thinking about cases and how to protect their phone from bumps, bruises and drops. Something that a lot of people don’t think about is how to protect their phone from scrapes and scratches. There are many screen protectors out there that claim one size fits all, or that you can easily cut your own, but this is simply not the case. Each phone has its own unique elements that make using a generic screen protector difficult or plain impossible. Seidio has sent over some of their Ultimate Screen Guards for the Nexus 4 for us to take a look at so let’s get started!

Everyone has jumped into the tablet market hoping to get a small piece of the market share. But when it comes down to it, there are only a few companies that people really even think of or consider when shopping for a tablet. On that short list of android tablets you have Samsung, Asus and Google. Samsung specifically has been putting up a big fight with Apple on all fronts of the mobile market recently. Today we are going to take a look at their Galaxy Note 10.1 with 4G from Verizon. Not only am I interested in checking out the tablet itself, but I am also curious what it’s like not having to jump from hotspot to hotspot with my tablet.

When it comes to protecting our phones there are plenty of options. There are tons of different cases from tons of different manufacturers.  Cases ranging from extreme protection to very minimal, with a range of different bells and whistles to a case that is plain Jane.  This time around we are going to look at the Surface from Seidio. The Surface is a simple case with a metal kickstand on the back for angled viewing. Join me as I compare it to the Palette from Poetic as well as look at the new and different features it has.

I finally got with the times and bought a smart phone, being that I wanted to go with straight talk; the Google Nexus 4 seemed like the logical choice. The next decision I needed to make was what case I wanted. I took a look at the recent reviews Wes had written for different Poetic to see if they might have a case I would want. I expressed interest in their cases to Wes and he said he had another one lying around the office that needed to be looked at. So let’s take a look at the next case in the Poetic lineup, the Palette.

When it comes to the craziness that is CES, you see so many interesting devices, accessories, and gadgets that it sometimes takes a little while for it to sink in. We had a chance to take a look at a new adapter for the Nexus 4 while we were there, the Analogix SlimPort adapter SP1002. Their demo was a Bluetooth game controller tied to a Nexus 4 playing a game with the SlimPort cable pushing the signal to a TV. It wasn’t until later after they had given us a sample to check out that I realized that a SlimPort cable, controller, and a Nexus 4 could give me something to do while trapped in a hotel next time I am traveling.