The Basics

When you sign up for Audiobooks.com, you’ll need to visit the website every time you want to listen to an audio book. Audiobooks.com supports Firefox 9, IE9, Safari 5.0 and Chrome 16.0 on desktops, and is also optimized for iOS and Android. One downside I noticed is there is no standalone application for Audiobooks.com. Instead, you’re taken to a HTML 5 mobile version of the site that has individual tabs for Home, Browse, Search and Account. The mobile site works well enough, but it would be so much faster and more convenient to access audio books from a dedicated application. A mobile app could also contain features that aren’t present on the mobile site such as a section containing books you intend to listen to, or a wishlist that could inform you when certain audio books become available.

One of the biggest advantages Audiobooks.com has is streaming from the cloud. There’s no need to download any audio books. You can also stop listening to an audio book on one device and resume listening on another. Audiobooks.com does a good job at remembering where you left off. Usually, I never had to re-listen to more than a few seconds of dialogue whenever I switched platforms. Speaking of platforms, let’s go over how Audiobooks.com performs on PC, iOS and Android.

The Desktop Experience

Listening to audio books from the desktop is the easiest way to experience Audiobooks.com. You’re immediately presented with a list of new arrivals and staff picks when you sign in. Once you’ve listened to a few books, a recommended section and a list of the books you’re currently listening to will also populate the home page. Much like Netflix, you can give each book a star rating from one to five. Your ratings help dictate which books are presented to you in the future.

There’s also another section of the site labeled “My Books.” In this section, you select which genres you are interested in, and Audiobooks.com will factor that into which books are recommended to you.

Once you pick an audio book to listen to, a separate window will open that contains the media player. The media player has four functions – play, pause, rewind 30 seconds and fast forward 30 seconds. It would be nice to be able to select certain chapters instead of fast forwarding to an unknown section of the book, but such a feature doesn’t exist at the moment.

I was pleased with the audio quality in every audio book I tested. The only issues I see anyone having with audio deals with how well the narrator articulates him or herself.

The Android Experience

My first experience with Audiobooks.com was on an Android device. Specifically, the device I used was the HTC Sensation. It was admittedly a bad first experience. Make sure you allow your Android device to access mobile web pages or you may have problems. I could never get an audio book to play in the default HTC browser from the desktop site. The media player was also very ugly with the timeline stretching well outside its intended boundaries.

Once I enabled the browser to view mobile web pages, the difference was astounding. The media player fit within its borders, and I was free to open other applications on my phone while the audio book played.

That’s not to say I didn’t have any problems. There were occasions across all platforms when audio books would not play. I had to reload the page and start another audio book in order to get everything to work again. This didn’t happen most of the time, but it happened enough to concern me each time I wanted to listen to an audio book.

The iOS Experience

Surprise, surprise there were little issues when I listened to audio books on iOS. My iPod Touch played well with the Audiobooks.com mobile website. The same intermittent audio issues I experienced on PC and Android remained. Also, much like on Android, audio books can be listened to while using other apps outside of the browser.

The Verdict

Audiobooks.com has a lot of room for growth. The HTML5 mobile website is a good start, but an official mobile app is desperately needed to make Audiobooks.com the best it can be. It can also benefit from additional features I previously mentioned such as wish lists, and a way to add books to your collection without needing to listen to them first. All things considered, I still recommend Audiobooks.com for those who dozens of hours listening to audio books on a regular basis. This service probably isn’t for those who occasionally partake in audio books. If you’re unsure, you can sign up for a seven-day free trial.

Site [Audiobooks.com]

Victorinox announced their 1TB SSD flash drive with built-in LCD display and being the Swiss Army geeks that we are, we had intended to get over to the booth and check out the drives in real life. And well, sometimes even the best intentions fail to work out as planned. Yup, sadly we missed out on seeing these drives but we do have to point out that it was not due to any fault of our own. You see, we made the trip over to the booth only to find an empty rack. Certainly makes us wonder…

We told you how we sometimes find cool gadgets such as the Octa Whale Tail while walking around the show floor at CES. And well, sometimes those walks give us something else. Now we are not going to say that this thing is bad, but it did leave us scratching our head. Honestly, we are not entirely sure why someone would want a large blow up square box that you can put an iPad in. But that being said, just in case this is something that you have been wishing for — rest assured in knowing that it does exist.

Sure, we cover alot of the more popular items, however that is only a part of CES. If you dive deeper into the halls you will come to some smaller booths and *some* interesting gadgets. That being said, one of those that we spied on the show floor (and found interesting) was the Octa Tablet Tail. This is a gadget that can be used with a tablet or ereader (or something else of similar shape and size) and allows you to hold the device or prop it up on the table. The Octa stand features a suction cup Vacuum Dock that you pump to secure to the device. The Whale Tail portion can be used or removed depending on whether you are planning to hold or stand the device. The Whale Tail portion is flexible and can bend around to sit in different positions on the table or to fit a little tighter around your hand when holding. Anyway, while we only had a minute or two to sit and play, it seems like a system that works rather well. The Octa Whale Tail + Vacuum Dock is priced at $59.99 and is currently available for pre-order from Octa.com.

Samsung was showing off the Series 3 Chromebox here at CES and given it was sitting just to the side of the shiny new Series 5 Chromebook, we figured we would take some time and check it out. The Chromebox is nice enough to look at and as you can see from the images, it ships with a rather nice looking wireless keyboard and mouse. Similar to the Chromebook, the Chromebox is running Chrome OS. Except, unlike our enthusiasm for the Chromebook we are not really feeling the same for the Chromebox. Somehow, running Chrome OS feels right on a notebook, but not so right on a small mini desktop computer. Oh well, that is just our opinion and we have to imagine that there is a market for this somewhere. With that, hit the gallery below to check out the left, right, front, back and top sides of the computer along with a few shots of the peripherals.

We mentioned the Yurbuds Inspire Pro Ironman Series sport headphones the other day and while we still need to spend some quality time with them before offering up a full review, we did take a few minutes to take some pictures and build a gallery. That being said, if you were interested in the earbuds after the previous post, here is a bit of a better look…

We mentioned earlier how Samsung unveiled the Series 5 Chromebook and given how much we like Chrome OS, we had to stop by the Samsung booth to check this one out. And of course, by stop by we mean taking a few pictures that we can share with you, the dear reader. Anyway, the Series 5 Chromebook is a 12.1 inch notebook that runs Chrome OS. Aside from the hardware specs though, the notebook actually looks rather nice. It is small and light. Of course given it is mostly made of plastic the light part is not all that surprising. Otherwise, the display and trackpad seem to look and work well enough for the price. Bottom line, this is not your high end notebook, but it should be more than enough to get the job done — especially if you are already sucked into the world of Google.

Coming as a little bit of, hey look at us shameless self promotion — GadgeTell had a booth to call home here at CES. Or more specifically, a booth set up for the newly branded Technology Tell sites which surround AppleTell, GadgeTell, GamerTell, HomeTechTell, TeleRead, Demystifying Digital and Your Digital Life. The booth was sitting right in the center hallway just outside the central hall and had some comfy places to sit and work. Plus, it had the paper editions of the Technology Tell magazine available for those who wanted something to read. And for those curious, you can head on over to TechnologyTell.com to check it all out for yourself and even subscribe to the magazine — either in print or digital. Bottom line, GadgeTell (and the entire Tell network of sites) has a strong backing and you can look for lots of exciting things to come in 2012 and beyond.

Now sure, this is probably not the CES post that you were expecting to see — but please, just indulge us for a moment. The story goes like this, we have been overwhelmed with gadgets and technology over the past week and well, seeing this sitting on the show floor at CES was a really nice change of pace so we stopped to admire it. Anyway, we do have to admit that we are not really car guys, however there was something about this. The sign told us that it was a 1939 Crosley Convertible Coupe and aside from that, there was just something simple looking about it. If nothing else, it did give us a few moments to unwind from the tech and just relax. We hope that it does the same for you. Thanks for your time on this non-tech post and moving forward, it is back to the tech and gadgets.

The Sony Xperia SmartWatch always sort of sounded like a really cool device. Well, a cool device assuming you want to be able to get some information from your smartphone on your wrist anyway. But that being said, after spending a few minutes playing with the SmartWatch here at CES – this sort of makes us want to get one. Just to begin with, the SmartWatch looks rather nice. Not to mention, as you can see from the images below, it is available in a few color options. And looks aside, the watch is feature rich with the ability to show the date and time as well as text messages. In addition, some of the other goodies that the SmartWatch features include the ability to handle/control your calls and music as well as email, Twitter, Facebook and more. Also worth noting, the Xperia SmartWatch is both scratch-proof and splash-proof.