By Troy Saxton-Getty

Those of us at dropSKIP that have a special place in our heart for Android love the Note II. Although truth be told, my daily drivers are iPhone 5′s, one from Verizon and the other from AT&T. We do however clearly agree on one thing, right now, this minute, the Samsung Galaxy Note II is by far the best Android phone on the market.

We are very cozy with HTC’s Sense UI on top of Android, fans since day one, we still feel Samsung has nailed it with the Galaxy Note II and the latest round of TouchWiz interface add-ons.

In the shop we have both a Verizon version and a few folks with AT&T versions. These are their daily phones and you couldn’t pry them away with anything else on the current market, even if you offered some incentive cash.

The Samsung Galaxy SIII is a close second and since we think the Blackberry Z10 is actually a Galaxy SIII with a different case, we suspect Blackberry might have a strong showing this year (thanks Samsung!!)

Take a hard look at the Note II, sure, it’s big but it does still fit in most front pockets or small fancy purses and you can ditch the additional tablet you most likely carry close by most of the time.

The included touch Pen and S-Pen apps are real contenders for daily work.

The phone comes with some carrier specific pre-loaded software but most of it is useful sans the $10 dollar a month Navigation, I still don’t know how that app ends up pre-loaded.

The phone also earns a 56/100 dropSKIP score for durability as long as you don’t put it in your back pocket and sit on it, it is one tough phone.

Our test phone took the 10 foot drop to standard office carpet without losing its battery or even its back shell.

If you have accessories left over from the Note I, the units are slightly different sizes so most won’t work, including the car mount kit.

Thanks to our readers for voting it was very clear the Note II then the Galaxy III ran neck and neck with Phone 5.
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If you are thinking Android, you can’t go wrong with the new Note II.

Share your thoughts current and prospective owners!

By Troy Saxton-Getty

Ok, I am usually the first to admit when I am dead wrong when I call technology stupid and find out I am wrong.

This is clearly the case with the Philips Hue internet lighting system. I have been making fun of it for some time now since seeing it in just about every Apple Store on the west coast.

I can usually justify buying anything tech but for nearly 5 months I couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to plunk down 199.00 USD for the 3 light starter kit.(plus 59.00 USD for each additional light bulb).

I was dead wrong… this thing is the coolest useless fun gadget I have played with in a long time.

You can set just about any combination of light color, use your own photos and match a color for each bulb or group them together to make it a single color for each.

You can set turn-on timers, fade out count-down to off modes and even alarms.

Imagine waking up to artificial sunrise based on a sunrise photo you took at the beach.

These little guys have plenty of presets and some quick pick modes too, or make just about any combination of bright or dim color, even a simple bathroom nightlight.

Setup was simple, plug into my wired switch, the wall for power, screw in the lights, turn on the normal light switch, download the app, press the button on the little puck controller and you are up and running.

If you turn off the wall switch manually and back on, each light defaults to a regular fluorescent light equivalent.

Load the app and take the light back over with a simple button press.

The price is a bit steep, but you can amazingly enough, instantly change the rooms mode. Including a study bright light blue hue and a mode optimized for reading.

Gorgeous color reproduction, I feel stupid making fun of this,  I absolutely love it.

For a few bucks in the app store you can pick up a few 3rd party disco light controllers that time the lights to music automatically for a fun disco effect, including black and white fast firing strobes.

I added 9 additional lights in about 10 minutes and edited some of the presets to include the new lights.

Create a web account and you can sync your handy light presets across devices.

Ok, it’s stupid to drop about 500 USD on the kit plus extra bulbs but I still cant stop playing with it…….what is it, after 3am, sweet!!!

The Nike Plus Fuel Band unlike most of the other competing products does not track sleep specific information like the FitBit, Jawbone UP or Zeo.

So far in our long term daily use and comparison, the Jawbone UP wins hands down with the detail of sleep analysis it provides.

You do have to remember to click the end button to put it into sleep mode. A task easily forgotten for the first few times you want details on your quality of sleep.

By Troy Saxton-Getty

Whether you are wanting to track very light workouts, even informally or you are hard core athletically, Nike+ Fuel Band is a fantastic tool that just works. iPhone, iPad, web interfaces. They all work together to show you just about everything you want to know. The energy expending algorithm is very accurate. It turns the whole process into a fun and competitive game against yourself or others in your social graph. I am recovering from a significant back injury and subsequent surgery and use the Fuel Band with my rehab and physical therapy.

Tracking Calories expended, steps taken (distance traveled) and a combo Nike generated “Fuel” burn value make it a fun challenge to reach your goals and to continue to increase them.

You need to have one of these, even if you don’t workout at all, you will find yourself trying to take more steps and burn more calories day after day regardless, almost magically. Not only is it sporty looking, it just works! Press the single button, you cycle through Fuel, Cals, Steps and an accurate clock in a comfy little wrist band. Press the button longer and it starts auto-sync over Bluetooth with your idevice. In a few seconds it transfers over all the data collected since the last update and your app and web account are automatically updated.

Open the band with a simple button press and you can plug it into a regular USB port. Even without the included cable. It will charge from completely dead in about 45 minutes, but my full weekly use takes about 15-20 minutes to top off the battery, soon as you plug it in It also transfers all data so Bluetooth isn’t needed unless you are like me and can’t wait to see the days activity level but don’t want to take it off to plug it in to charge.

I recommend buying it from the Apple store. Each Apple person carries a sizing band and it makes it really easy to pick the correct size before you buy it and get home and it doesn’t fit. Do this step! It comes in 3 colors; clear / white and smoke / black (these two are cool if you like to see the internal electronic components or you can get the black rubber one which isn’t transparent at all. They all included a small spacer link to expand or shrink it in size slightly and a little simple tool to add/remove the included spacer.

I’ve personally used mine for well over two months and I’ve helped 10 plus friends get started with their own.

First, it’s very accurate, second, you will be surprised how many miles you walk and calories you burn in an average day, next thing you know, you are trying to beat the day before and so it begins, you even start thinking about drinking water and eating healthier.

Get one of these little magical devices, it really makes a difference!!

Thank you Nike!

Official Samsung Note upgrade info

Verizon and HTC promised Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) for the Thunderbolt in a joint statement and said to expect it no later than mid August 2012. This is flat bullshit (that’s a technical term) guys, someone who wrote the memo to spread this around (And I suspect the subsequent cover up memo’s back to the CS reps taking all the front line phone call flack needs to get taken out and flogged)

Since when is it ok for such large companies to put out pure BS? This is why Apple will always win….I was told a date for iOS6 and the minute the little hand hit the top of the hour I was downloading it to every iOS device we have in the lab, including original iPhone 4′s, iPads and everything iOS based without a hitch, the entire time looking at my Thunderbolt phone sitting on its cool little kick stand just mocking me.

HTC and Verizon cant make this simple effort of upgrading a HTC Thunderbolt to ICS? Jelly Bean (the Next gen Android OS is already shipping on some phones) The ROM guys have these builds in days of he OS releases and they don’t have the benefit of working at HTC or Verizon, cheap bastards(another technical term), Hire 4 of these guys and dump the 469 engineers you have working on upgrade ports and you might just be competitive.

Holy OS crap shoot Batman, this is nuts….. Stop allowing the reps in the reseller stores to lie to potential customers telling them Android phones are upgradable. While a few are, the majority are not.

This is now one of the largest flat out lies in the mobile handset industry.

Reps at all of the large carriers are telling potential customers that updates are just around the corner and it’s just not true.

You are actually just flat out lying to us….. seriously….. we have 18 android handsets in the lab, but I must say, Apple you win because you make it transparent, real you do what you say you will.

It was confirmed by HTC recently that Verizon is very close to releasing the Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) update for the Thunderbolt.

This is fantastic news as the update was scraped for the HTC Desire (basically the same phone sharing almost the exact DNA of the Thunderbolt)

It was confirmed by HTC directly on their Facebook page that Verizon Thunderbolt users can expect it by the end of the month (August 2012).

Earlier this summer Verizon released Gingerbread 2.3.4 which was a significant bug fix for the aging smartphone, although this update dramatically improved the stability of the handset, most of the Android smartphones released in the previous 12 months already had ICS updates by mid summer.

For those of you who have used ICS, this really is a completely different phone once upgraded.

In the lab we’ve been running some ICS hacked ROM’s for a while, but this update is the official HTC / Verizon update and you should expect the update OTA (Over the Air) vs. the crappy Samsung method of having to upgrade via Kies Software and a Mac or PC. (Thanks Samsung, the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy SII required manual intervention and a few tries to get either to update to ICS).

So keep checking SETTINGS/SOFTWARE UPDATE a few times a day, report back here when you have received your update!

Regardless of whether you choose iPhone or Android as your optimal mobile device one thing is certain, your battery life will almost always not be enough for your day to day activity.

We have tested countless battery extenders for mobile phones and many for months on end.

Although there are many options, nothing has been quite a sweet as the new ibattz power case for iPhone 4/4s.

It’s the one unit that has a removable battery, better yet, it’s a very common battery, a Nokia BP-4L. A base battery that adds 1500Mah to the back of your iPhone and when it runs low, simply slide the light weight back cover off and replace the battery with the additional second BP-4L which is included.

At first I was impressed with the box stating 3000Mah, but the reality is, thats both additional batteries, disappointing? actually initially yes, but after thinking about it and using it for several weeks to date, it is pretty darn cool that I can quickly swap a second (or third and so on if you purchase a few additional Nokia BP-4L Batteries)

The unit comes with a 4 blue LED charge/level indicator, a micro USB plug and the iPhone slips onto the case like a standard docking effort.  Additionally the case includes a silver and a red anodized sleeve, giving you two color choices.

The size is also one of the smallest and least thick of all of the extended battery cases. Unlike the Mophie Juice case which has a flimsy Micro USB, (we’ve broken 2 so far) the ibattz connector is well protected and solid.

That is 3000Mah of additional power in two small industry standard batteries.

The case is also rather small since they designed around the Nokia BP-4L which is ultra-slim.

If you look on the internet, you can find Nokia BP-4L replacements in higher capacity, such as 1800Mah.

Last, you can swap batteries without the phone needed a reboot or any special consideration. the battery pack keeps the iPhone topped off first, so there is zero issue with adding in your second or third battery.

By Troy Saxton-Getty

Those who know me understand I have a bag & backpack fetish, it’s not some weird OCD thing, and it is based on purpose. (Ok, most of the time!)

Most friends know me as the always equipped geek that travels fairly regularly, including a long weekly run up and down the west coast as well as some longer multi-week out of the country trips every few months.

I get asked a few times a day “What is in that bag, you always seem to have everything with you…what should I take in my gadget bag?”

I have 3 configurations, regular day to day, Domestic trips and longer international trips. (We will just cover electronics, not the huge set of keys, wallet, passport and other non-tech crap that adds another 10 lbs to my bag)

Let’s start with the favorite bag at the moment, it’s the Tumi black ballistic nylon backpack, their higher end model. It offers a mid-sized backpack format, very strong zippers and plenty of pockets. The bag is laid out nicely with a solid TSA approved back area for the laptop in it’s own quick unzip compartment so you lay the bag open and TSA (and most other countries) accept putting it through the scanner without actually taking it out.

Base configuration (Day to day):

Apple MacBook Air 13” (i7)

Charger for the Macbook with the long stock extended cord (best laptop I’ve ever owned, and yes, you can either boot it to Windows 7 natively or open up Windows while booted to Mac OS if you set it up for it, it’s the best Windows laptop I’ve ever owned as well. This thing is powerful, I use it as a regular gaming machine too, but it has to be the fully loaded i7 version)

Apple iPad3, leather case that can serve as a stand or protective cover and standard 2-amp charger module plus stock cable

Either Bose QC-15 or Dr. Dre Studio Beats over the ear noise cancelling headphones (the Bose are slightly better sounding and a bit better on base, but damn those Red Dre Beats look cool, they take a few years off ya, lol)

Brookstone USB Battery pack (this is the quick and easy pocket-able battery for your mobile should you start running low, plug it in via it’s USB plug and your mobile cable)

Sparq 6000Mah Battery pack (these have flip out power tongs, no cables required, just flip them out and plug them into the wall, OMG these are sweet!)

iPhone4 iBattz extended battery sleeve with two removable batteries (key is quick battery changing since the case used standard Nokia NB-4L 1500Mah batteries, I’ve purchased many of these, this is the best one I’ve used so far)

iPhone4S ATT plus 1-amp stock charger and cable

iPhone4S Verizon plus 1-amp stock charger and cable

Samsung Galaxy Note plus stock charger and cable (My favorite Android phone)

Samsung 4G Hotspot (Verizon) (this is just a great little hotspot for up to 5 devices and the battery works for a few hours without fail)

Western Digital 2TB USB Passport laptop hard disk (Time Machine backup and a second copy of everything, Mac runs the backup automatically, don’t even fool with anything else JUST DO IT!) (Older movie storage as well so you don’t clog the SSD)

Micron 256GB SSD USB (solid state) laptop hard disk (main content storage, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie etc) This thing is fast and it’s perfect for those with a lot of content, specifically photos and music

Spot Tracker II – Personal Sat locator stand alone device (get lost? 911? Or just sending messages to a list of your choosing letting them know you are “OK” with map coordinates

SpotConnect – Personal Sat locator that works with iPhone (same as above, but lets you send special “text” via satellite, regardless of where you are on the globe)

Small Tumi nylon accessory bag (holds all the cables and chargers for the mobiles and iPad)

Tumi International travel adapter and cable kit (this kit is the best I’ve found so far, multi country support is awesome and it works, includes an additional dual USB snap on head for charging two .5 amp USB devices)

Apple international plug adapter kit (this is super cool for Apple users as it snaps onto the various Apple power modules, laptop, iPad etc)

Pel Head light (you have no idea how handy a hands free LED headlamp can be!)

Spare AAA and AA lithum batteries (the sat locators require Litium, but they work well and last a long time if you need them for something else)

Handheld small flashlight (The headlamp is great, but you need a small and powerful handheld too)

Zippo Lighter (I don’t’ smoke but this can come in handy, even when it’s dry on fluid)

I used to always have a Leatherman Multi-tool but TSA thinks you might try to disassemble the aircraft since 9/11 so that is out, so put it in checked baggage, you have no idea how handy this is to have in a country you don’t live in… (I have given so many of them to the TSA for free due to forgetting it in my backpack, they must have a side business running on all the stuff like this they collect thanks to not wanting to try to check it in baggage last minute and wait in security line again)

Domestic trips:

Sparq 6000mah battery (Second one, yea, there is no substitute to having USB Power up to 2-Amps , these units include 2 ports, 1 and 2 amps so iPads charge nicely)

Kindle Fire (battery lasts a really long time and has a second copy of my eBooks and other content just in case)

Galaxy Note extended battery sleeve (It’s nice having an Android phone along, but the power dies quickly on the Note, so the sleeve extends it 1.5x in addition to the included battery)

International multi-week trips:

Mili King 18000 Battery pack (This is the mother of all external battery packs, you can run a small house on this thing, ample USB plug power and it will extend most non-Apple laptops for 2-3x)

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A routine update to our staff Samsung Galaxy S II this morning bricked the new phone, it’s useless…Apple stuff just doesn’t do this, that’s one big reason they own planet Earth

I knew going in this was a risky update, because with Android it always is…… Even us IT types are just flat unable to recover, imagine a basic user.

This upgrade was a general maintenance release….