ϳԹ Electronics
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Shoes fall into the “do not skimp” category when it comes to gear.
My girlfriend is looking for a new phone, and she’ll be using it outdoors a lot this summer. Which one has the most protective case available?
Anson Fogel, founder of Forge Motion Pictures and winner of more than 60 awards at outdoor film festivals, on how to get the most out of your action cam.
GoPro shrunk the latest Hero to the size of a dental-floss dispenser and still managed to pack a lot of power.
The Solarmonkey ϳԹr and Solargorilla-eXtreme are both specifically designed for use in the outdoors
I want to get a small portable solar panel to charge my phone. Do any of the ones on the market work, or are they more trouble than they're worth?
ϳԹ reviews the best gear from Outdoor Retailer's 2013 Winter Show, including the Backcountry Access BC Link.
Are Terminator-style heads-up displays a gimmick—or an adventure-sports breakthrough?
Photo: 350.org Your aunt, the environmental lawyer who sued British Petroleum. Your Fulbright scholar cousin who recently returned from India, where he's developed a highly efficient solar cookstove. Your old roommate, the vegan who went undercover to expose cruelty on a chicken farm. What, in…
Last week, on a safari in South Africa’s Kgalagadi (Kalahari) Transfrontier Park, I picked up my SLR with the long lens to photograph a lioness and her kill at a watering hole, and the strap simply fell off the camera. I got lucky—my $2,000-worth of electronics…
When it comes to holiday giving, you should never have to choose. This year, our editors have pulled together 68 perfect ideas—priced from $4 to $50,000—guaranteed to make anyone on your list feel like a million bucks.
Finally put an end to searching for wall outlets, or carrying a bouquet of charging cables and converters for all the electronics in your bag. World travelers, itinerant wanderers, and absent-minded electronics users: with Timbuk2’s Power Q Laptop Backpack…
Ski more powder, score cheap lift tickets, and avoid avalanches
Great gear will only get you so far. Be kind to what you put in it. Here are some tips for taking care of your feet on the slopes.
First things first: your pack will be heavier. You’ll be packing more food, fuel, and layers. As for shelter, if you’re not expecting high winds or heavy snowfall, you probably don’t need to upgrade to a four-season tent; a sturdy (read: not ultralight or mostly mesh) three-season model should see you through.
Six rugged timepieces that are up for any adventure, be it on snow, water, or dirt.
Sharing powder shots, filming your friend's huck, and keeping in touch have never been easier with gadgets like Fujifilm's XP170 and the DeLorme InReach communicator.
It makes no difference to Mother Nature whether you’re a few hundred feet outside the resort boundary or deep in the backcountry. At a minimum, if you plan to ski any uncontrolled slope, you need four things: a buddy, a beacon (worn over your midlayer, not stuffed in your pack), a shovel, and a probe.
Filmmaker Taylor Steele's last movie, Here and Now, took the viewer through a single day in the life of more than a dozen surfers from around the world. His latest project, This Time Tomorrow, follows surfers Dave Rastovich and Craig Anderson as…
The heart of the Solar JOOS Orange is a quick-charging, high-efficiency, mono-crystalline solar panel meant for people who see more sunlight than fluorescent light
Russ Ricketts' money shot. Watch more river snorkeling videos here. We all want to capture a money shot, whether that is literally a photograph, or a video, or a perfectly baked apple pie or a novel or a painting. Sometimes everything just comes…
After nearly two years of planning, meetings and refining the Riverview Project, the team at Below the Surface is ready for its most epic road trip yet—the Exploring with a Purpose East Coast tour. Over six weeks, your Readers of the Year will be driving from San…
Grizzly print, and a notebook. Photo: ϳԹrs and Scientists for Conservation Rachel Carson earned a master's degree in zoology from John Hopkins University and spent most of her career working as a marine biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife…
Most of us have ditched our point-and-shoot cameras and we're taking photos with our phones. iPhone cameras are pretty darn good, and by using a phone as your camera, you carry one device and you can…
We’ve already published a couple of reviews from Andrew Forsthoefel, our gear tester who is walking all the way from his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, to the West Coast. Andrew has now made it past Santa Fe—a full 2,400 miles from his starting point. He’s walked the equivalent of…
There are more iPhone accessories on the market than we can count, but we've weeded through some of the newest ones and found three that you'll want to add to your quiver. KOGETO DOT Do you wish you had seen the backside view on your last sky dive? The…
Bug spray seems messy and outdated. Do the apps for Android phones and iPhones really work? What about bug-repellent clothing?
ϳԹ reviews the the best gear of Outdoor Retailer, including the Pieps Global Finder.
Want to look at maps on your tablet instead of your phone so that they're bigger and easier to comprehend? Trimble Outdoors just released its MyTopo Maps app for the Kindle Fire and other Android-powered tablets. Now you can plot your next outdoor adventure on the big…
You are, no doubt, already familiar with the mini power plants known as camp stoves. The ReadySet is a different kind of mobile energy source that generates and stores electrical power generated by the sun or pedal power. While it wasn't originally designed for outdoor recreation, it…
I'm in the market for a new cell phone that will stand up to some rugged adventuring. Is it possible to find a device that will replace my GPS unit?
I’ve already sung the praises of digital distractions—in moderation—when traveling with young children. But even the best kids’ apps are useless if your toddler keeps pushing the home button and navigating away. Not only is it annoying, but it’s also dangerous for your data. The last thing…
Last fall, when pro riders Eric Porter and Kelly McGarry needed a vacation, they decided to do a raft trip down Utah's Green River to look for unridden, Red Bull-style lines. Because they're pros, they brought along a videographer, a photographer, and hired…
Of the dozens of poles, stoves, multitools, and other essentials we tested this year, we kept reaching for these six, from the Brunton Get-Back GPS, which stores up to three waypoints and steers you to the trailhead, to MSR SureLock TR-3s, which, at 20 ounces a pair, aren't ultralight, but they are quite sturdy and strong.
These six gadgets, from the AT&T Pantech Element, a waterproof, Android-based 8.3-inch tablet, to the Mophie Juice Pack Outdoor Edition, which doubles the battery life of your iPhone 4 or 4S, to the Steripen Freedom, a tiny water purifier, won't revolutionize your life on the road. But we promise they'll make it a lot easier.
The stout chromoly tubing on Jamis’s Aurora Elite (27 lbs) gave us confidence, even on circuitous descents with full loads.
Electric bikes are for wussies, right? They're alright for commuting but they're not for sport. That might have been true in the past, but if Audi's Wörthersee e-bike and the Parlee-Toyota Prius X concept bike are any indication, things are changing. Audi introduced the Wörthersee e-bike just…
Are you looking for the ultimate in-between camera, more than you get with your iPhone but without the weight and bulk of a manual shooting SLR? Sony's new ultra-slim, credit-card-sized, AA-battery-thick shooter may be just the ticket. The Cyber-Shot DSC-TX66, while not a model name that is…
Some might say this is the perfect telescope for the star-searching newbie. If you can't hone in on the galaxy you're looking for on your own power, Celestron's Prodigy 6 robotic self-aligning telescope will find it for you. Using electronic motors, an intelligent on-board computer, a…
Photo: Flickr/Harlequeen I can't kick the print habit; I love diving into the fat stack of New York Times on Sunday mornings. But I've just been reminded of the joys and sometimes superiority of electronic media. I read with interest Kim Tingley's “Whisper…
Photo: Fraunhofer IZM There was a time when the ski resort experience was not punctuated by the sound of ringtones and “hey, is my GoPro on?” But those days are gone forever. You may or may not lament this. But our desire to take technology with us…
Kate Kernerman on her way to a campground. Photo: Ryan Branciforte It was a brisk and sunny morning, typical for the dry winter we're having in San Francisco. As I locked my bike up to a sturdy fence and started down the escalator to the 24th…
The beginnings of Jeffrey Smith's EV for the Baja 1000 Photo: Strategic Recovery Institute In its 44-year history, the Baja 1000 off-road race has been about speed, sand and full throttle. This coming November, the legendary race will also be about instant torque and low or zero…
Two-way radios might seem absurdly retro, but having an open channel of communication can be priceless on a multipitch climb or when trekking through rainforest in Costa Rica.
A U.S. Army sergeant launches a UAV. Photo: The U.S. Army Ecologists and conservationists have long and frustrating lists of hurdles that keep them from doing field work. Aside from the wild, dangerous miles between them and the remote regions of the world they need to…
Badenoch, training. Photo: Joe Bell This spring, Andrew Badenoch plans to launch a 7,000-mile trip from Bellingham, Wash., up to the southern coast of the Arctic Ocean, before looping back. His locomotion will…
Snow is finally falling in the Rockies and on the West Coast, and snow-starved skiers and snowboarder are chasing untracked lines like hunters searching for deer. Now, a new free app makes the hunt easier. Freshy Map, in beta, tells you which resorts and backcountry areas…
Ever since I got an iPad for Christmas, job one has been figuring out how to keep it out of my daughters’ clawing, desperate hands. (There should be an app for that.) But no sooner had I read The New York Times’ top travel apps for kids…
Do you ever get tired of fiddling with your headlamp in an attempt to get just the right amount of light? You need more, but not so much that you drain your battery before your adventure is over? Now your headlamp can do that for you. Petzl,…
While staying in touch is mandatory and part of an expedition for me, some people want to get away from it all and escape the modern noise that comes with 24 by 7 communications. If that is your case, then take a sat phone for safety but don’t use it…
ϳԹ picks the essential tech tools, including the OtterBox Defenders Series case.
Velocomp, creator of the iBike Dash CC Cycling Computer, has just announced the first “smart” cycling computer—iBike POWERHOUSE. iBike POWERHOUSE works with your iPhone or iPod touch to help you reach specific fitness goals in the least amount of time possible. The computer comes with one exercise…
You could take off your gloves, unfold the resort map, and figure out where you're going—or where you want to go. Or you could peel back your jacket cuff and peek at your altimeter. Or you could get all that info without even taking your eyes off the fall line.
Not everyone needs a GPS with infinite maps, geocaches, and barometric altimeters. When all you really want to do is find your tucked away Bangkok boutique hotel after an afternoon mopeding through the city, use Brunton's Get Back GPS. It's a small, no-frills navigator that is perfectly…
ϳԹ reviews the best gear in the 2012 Winter Buyer's Guide, including the Contour+ POV camera.
Lots of online gear shop websites scale to fit your iPad or phone screen, and some shops have special smartphone apps. Until now, none that we've seen have made buying skis, packs or socks from a mobile device more pleasurable or easier than on a home computer. Backcountry.com's…
There are bazillion iPad cases out there. Some are great, some are crappy, and many are in the middle: they look cool but offer little in the way of actual protection. That's where these three cases come in. If you're looking to take your iPad along on your next serious…
Earlier this summer in Deer Valley, Utah, 30-some bike industry manufacturers rolled out their 2012 product lines for a select group of journalists. We showed you some of the new bikes in Episode 1. But there were plenty of…
Every week, Kickstarter.com puts up a load of cool new projects. Creators of films, gadgets, and even restaurants throw their ideas up on the site in hopes of getting enough funding for completion. Donations of a certain size are rewarded with gifts. By going to Kickstarter,…
The Outdoor Retailer Show just wrapped, and as per usual, it was epic. Over the next week or so, we'll continue to highlight some of the favorite new products we saw, starting with these three. 1. Columbia Baselayer Light Shortsleeve Top: Columbia’s new Omni-Freeze ICE…
I'm looking for an easy-to-use app that will help me track my exercise mileage and food intake. Got any suggestions?
A lens that can be used to create images with selective focus.
ϳԹ reviews the best gear in the 2011 Summer Buyers Guide, including the Brunton Solaris 4 USB solar charger.
Last month, our SAR team responded to lost hikers in Warren Creek, a steep, thickly-wooded, snow-covered canyon that terminates in a cliff. In the past, Warren Creek rescues were all-nighters, sometimes spilling into the next day. But for this mission, smart phones helped us rapidly find the lost. We…
BD athlete Kyle Dempster makes first ascent of Mount Edgar's east face—PART TWO from Black Diamond Equipment on Vimeo. –Joe Spring@joespring…
What satellite phone should I take on a kayaking trip around Fiji? The Editors Santa Fe, NM
What's the ultimate Christmas gift for a survival nut? The Editors Santa Fe, NM
Now more than ever, the world could use some bright ideas. Like these.
Though smaller than an Etch A Sketch and weighing only two pounds, this highly portable, iPod-charging speaker system—with dual two-inch drivers, auxiliary input, and seven hours of playback per charge—sounds huge in the room or at the beach. alteclansing.com …