October 2006

So the 1980’s gave us lift & cut. The 90’s gave us Norelco’s Reflex and Quadra systems. Now finally, for the first time in its 70+ years as the leading maker of rotary shavers, Norelco gives us a system that covers more area, with more speed and comfort than ever before. It doesn’t just promise a faster, closer shave, it delivers.

I can’t speak for all guys, but let me try to break-down the electric / blade dilemma. Blades are closer, but cause irritation. So most blade users tend to skip a day to avoid that. Furthermore, you get a closer shave with a blade if you let the stubble grow a bit, so skipping a day is a common practice. But blade shaving gives guys far more options in terms of products to choose from, both for shavers and shaving conditioners and gels. Simply put, if you want a close shave and the ability to control all aspects of shaving, and see what you’re cutting, the blade is the best way to go.

Then there’s electric. An idea hatched from the 1930’s, and later re-marketed in the late 1950’s space age / cold war era that told us that blade shaving was a thing of the past. Electric shaving promised to be as close as a blade for decades, but never delivered. But over the years it has delivered its promise of a safer, faster, and less irritating shave. For guys who don’t like shaving around the sensitive lips and nose areas, electric has its advantages.

All electric shavers fail to cut the longer neck hairs effectively, including the new Norelco XL series. But the XL is still a major breakthrough. Simply put, it has switched me back to electric after 6 years of using blades. The new rotors have three rows of blades, and an innovative mix of slots and holes for stubble, making-use of dead space that was Norelco’s weakness since their beginning. The XL has the inward tilt mechanism introduced with the Reflex system. And it has the late 80’s lift-and-cut technology, which doesn’t work exactly as advertised, but it does shave flat areas of the face as close as a blade (the cheek and upper lip areas do get the closest cut).

The XL series is easy to clean under hot water, another development from the Quadra series, which is even better and more effective here.

The XL gives me the closest electric shave I’ve ever had. And I can use it daily for a consistent smooth look without irritation. Add the recent development of products like Anthony for Men’s alcohol-based pre-shave solution, and electric shaving suddenly has advantages worth making the switch. I liked the XL so much, I got the 9160XL for home, and the less-expensive 8140XL for my office. The 2 shavers are the same, except for the smart touch pivoting feature, which is not a big bonus in my opinion. The pivoting feature makes it possible to shave the neck and chin faster, but the results for both shavers is exactly the same, meaning that some neck hairs are going to be missed, making it necessary to use a blade to do some quick cleanup. Electric is far from perfect, but this is the closest and most comfortable electric yet. I’m sticking with it.

And since the XL is Norelco’s top of the line model, it is still made in Holland. All other Norelco’s are made in China. it won’t be long before the XL is made in China as Norelco develops it’s next breakthrough. But the XL is the big breakthrough as far as I’m concerned. I’m hooked. And I’m a total shaving geek now.

Buy the Norelco 8140XL

Check out the review on the Star Wars DELUXE TRANSFORMER MILLENIUM FALCON:
It’s the best toy concept ever. It’s a geek’s dream. It’s Han Solo and Chewbacca which transform and combine to form the Millennium Falcon. It’s got lights. It’s got sound. It’s got firing missiles. It’s got working landing gear. It’s got all kinds of things.

If you’ll forgive a little boasting I thought of the Star Wars Transformers idea when I was like 8. So I was excited to see that come into being. If only I could have been the one to sell them the idea… Anyway, when they announced the line I got to thinking about which figures they should make. The very first thing I thought of was Han and Chewie forming the Falcon. Hey, I’m good at this, maybe I can get a job with Hasbro. So I had already decided this would be the best toy ever conceived when they announced it was coming.

I have not been disappointed! First of all the packaging is a little better than the others in the line. There’s not so much empty, useless space in the box, the silly little discs are absent as is the poorly written action paragraphs on the back. The package just looks refined a little. Yeah, yeah, who really cares right?

I’m usually not impressed with the electronics on toys like this. I’m not getting them for playability, though, so I can’t speak for everyone. This one is a different story. You get some comments from Han, growls from Chewie, and a few other sounds, plus a light-up thrusters and some lights around the upper gun. The sounds are good recordings, better than what I’ve heard on most toys like this. The activation buttons and battery compartments are well disguised so they don’t spoil the look.

I don’t care anything about having pilot figures, but this one includes two. The cockpit opens and has 2 seats for them (though front and back rather than side by side). There is an extra seat on Han’s chest for the Han pilot in mech mode.

The figures look good. In fact, Chewie is the best of the line. He is very broad-shouldered (more so than the regular character, but the look fits) with a chest that slides forward like protruding pecs, a minor detail that adds a great deal of heft to his upper body. The brown accents help give him a Wookiee look though mostly he is light gray. His head sculpt looks great with a lot of detail given to his fur, but it’s mechanized fur which is interesting. Something else of note is that his feet are different than the picture on the box and internet. He actually has brown paws that flip out. The feet were one of the biggest nitpicks I noticed in the promotional images so seeing that they actually look better on the figure was exciting. His hands are by far the best sculpt of any so far. They are so far beyond the early figures like OB1, I wouldn’t think they would be from the same line. Some others have had better hands, but Chewie’s are the only ones that are anywhere near impressive. The only real ship part he has hanging around is the thrusters (unless you count the cockpit on the shoulder, but that’s optional). Other than that he really doesn’t look like he would turn into anything like a ship. His articulation is great with several joints along his arms, rotating wrists, rotating head, posable hips and knees, etc. I’ve had no problems balancing him and have been able to get him into a variety of active-looking poses.

Han isn’t quite as impressive as Chewie, but he still looks better than almost any other figure. The more organic head sculpt isn’t as sharp. Helmets just translate better I guess (with the exception of Chewie). Still, it has a lot of detail and looks as good if not better than the other human faces in the line. His hands are sculpted better than most but not even close to Chewie’s level of detail. Han’s blue accents aren’t as distinctive as Chewie’s brown but do give him some color. He has more visible ship parts hanging around, most notably two huge shoulder pads. The problem with these are that positioning them flat over the shoulders where they look the best interfere with shoulder movement. He has the same basic joints as Chewie, but his arms don’t move as freely, and he doesn’t balance as well which limits his poses more.

The ship looks good. There are some tell-tale cracks in the hull where the pieces don’t sit flush and some exposed joints, but it looks solid. The only things I really don’t like are Chewie’s exposed fists and the holes right in front of them. Being a combiner the joining of the two has to be taken into account. It holds together impressively well, better, in fact, than some of the regular ships.

Star Wars DELUXE TRANSFORMER MILLENIUM FALCON

There is a trade off for holding together so well which is difficulty in separating the parts for transformation. Splitting the ship apart for the 2 figures can be frustratingly difficult since no one wants to apply so much force the figure breaks. While not as bad as that, Han’s feet can be a problem, too. Unsnapping them can easily cause his leg joints to separate. It’s easy enough to fix but a little annoying. Other than the difficulties of force, the transformation is moderately challenging, nowhere near as hard as most Alternators, but difficult enough to be fun.

There are a few parts that have to come off for the transformation. The cockpit and side missile block Han’s feet and have to be removed regardless of what you do with them in mech mode. The cockpit is intended for Chewie’s shoulder. The dish has to come off and is most commonly placed on Han’s shoulder pad. The guns, of course, come off so they can be held, but it’s possible, if you want, to leave them on until the end and have the characters reach around and remove them by hand. While I prefer to not have parts that have to be removed for transformation, I’m glad there aren’t any more than the few there are on this one.

I think my biggest complaint visually is the side missile launcher. This is the biggest deviation from the look of the regular Falcon design. It spoils the look of the ship and doesn’t do anything for the Han mech. The firing trigger also sticks out in an unattractive way. With all the guns already there what’s the point of this extra launcher? It doesn’t look as bad on the real thing as it does in the picture, but I would have preferred not to have it.

I can’t think of too many improvements they could have made other than losing the extra side cannon and not removing the cockpit. It would have been great if they could have found a way to include Chewie’s trademark bandoleer, but not having it is not a major loss. The only other neat addition might have been a working landing ramp that we see them use in the movie.

This is a well-made Transformer. It’s considerably more pricey than the others in the line, but it’s exceptionally fun and great looking. If the cost isn’t daunting to you I highly recommend the Star Wars DELUXE TRANSFORMER MILLENIUM FALCON.

Check out this review of the Roboraptor Robotic Dinosaur:

This is a review of the Roboraptor in two parts. The first part (below) was written by the purchaser and owner, my 8-year-old son Robin. The second part (below that) was written by me, Jack. Since we used both the Amazon and Radio Shack reviews while we were researching this toy, we’re posting this review to both forums.

***

Robo Rocker
by Robin

I love my Robo Raptor. My favorite part about the Robo Raptor is the Roam mode, which means that it moves on its own. It’s cool because it’s kind of like a real cyborg animal. I like to do fights using the remote control with other toys, like my giant robot Mars Super Fighter. I would like to buy some army men for it to munch on.

I think the good reviews were completely right and the ones that say “this is just a piece of junk” were completely wrong.

***

OK, so that’s Robin’s take on it. I want to add a few details to what he said.

Robin first became aware of the Roboraptor when he saw it at Toys R Us, over a year ago. For one birthday, one Christmas, and another birthday, it was the first item on his want list. Given the expense and our family’s previous bad experiences with expensive remote control robots (they didn’t work as advertised, they were played with for an hour then forgotten until yard sale time), Robin’s mother and I weren’t inclined to go that way again. We explained this to Robin, but he kept asking for it. Finally we told him before his most recent birthday that if he saved all of the birthday money he’d be getting from extended family, he would almost certainly be able to afford it. So that’s what he did.

Once he had the money, we sat down with Robin and the computer and looked at the reviews of Roboraptor on Amazon and Radio Shack. Robin wasn’t dissuaded by the generally negative judgment of many of those reviews, and his mother and I decided not to stand in his way; if this turned out to be an expensive lesson for him, well, so be it. He bought it, I helped him get it out of its ridiculous packaging (you need a moderately-sized screwdriver to liberate the poor thing), and I helped him go through the controls once and figure out where to point the controller. From there it’s all been his ballgame, and he’s had a fantastic time with it.

My own sense is that the long wait, the careful research, and the fact that he did it with his own cash has enhanced Robin’s pleasure with this toy, but only somewhat; most of his enjoyment is much more in-the-moment, e.g. making it dine upon his action figures.

I want to emphasize that we never saw any advertising at all for this toy. I get the impression from other reviews that there has been a moderately exaggerated marketing campaign around it. We never saw it, so we never had unreasonable expectations; it looked like a remote control toy, and that’s pretty much what it is. I’m not a robot fan, so I’m moderately impressed by how well it navigates in Roam mode–but it’s still not what I’d call smart or graceful, and it can get stuck in corners. We have hardwood floors, so we haven’t seen the reported trouble with carpets, but it also wouldn’t surprise me, given how ungainly the thing is.

A couple of caveats for parents: 1) This thing uses a fistful of batteries, which aren’t included. Robin bought his own, but be warned if you’re buying it as a gift. 2) There’s no mute button, and it’s pretty noisy.

Overall we were more pleased than disappointed, but our expectations started out good and low.