The Big Blue Media Tower is made to be impressive looking right out of the package – and due to its release date, right after the holiday wrapping paper is torn off. It acts as a single vertical sound bar that’s able to be positioned in your media room or living room, wherever you’ve got the most entertainment potential. It connects with basically any system you’ve got, forward-thinking with bluetooth and ready to connect with optical decoding jacks as well.

You get a six-foot optical cable right out of the box as well as RCA inputs and Aux-out connectivity to broaden your sound to other Big Blue accessories. Of course with the standard for each cable connection you’ll be able to integrate instantly with the sound system you’ve already got, here adding a massive full-range 20 watt set of stereo speakers to your room (that’s 2 20-watt speakers, to be clear).

Inside the sound system is set at multiple offset angles that do indeed fill your whole room with massive amounts of sound from your HDTV, stereo, or even something as small as your smartphone. This machine works with a 30 watt powered subwoofer ported for “omnidirectional” bass, as they say – from the depths of who-knows-where, as it were. This machine delivers sound in the low spectrum that’s very, very deep and very hearty.

You’ll have to judge for yourself if you’re willing to toss down $299.99 for a speaker system, but if you’ve got the need, you do get your money’s worth. Beware: this beast is not child-proof, so if you’re like myself and have a toddler running around with an insatiable need to turn everything on its side, you might want to either skip this purchase, place it up high, or strap it to the wall – it’s shiny enough to attract any child!

The folks at Spigen SGP have come correct time after time after time this year with accessories that several SlashGear editors are still currently using on the regular. We saw winners everywhere from the Crumena leather pouch for the HTC One X to the double-dose of Galaxy S III cases that just started the flood. What Spigen SGP really brings the fire with – and something we basically guarantee will make your gift-opener say “oh this is weird and awesome” is the glass cover collection. It’s literally a pane of glass that protects the glass that’s already protecting your smartphone’s display – have a peek at our experience with the GLASt for iPad as well as the GLASt and Ultimate Class for iPhone 4S, not to mention the brand new GLAS.tR for iPhone 5 – they make a beastly collection of Galaxy S III screen protectors as well – thick and curved, even!

Also for the iPhone 5 as well as the 4 and 4S you’ll want to peek at the super odd and undeniably cute LOOP Mummy case – out for iPhone 5 immediately if not soon, mind you. For the pop-top bottle lovers out there – root beer, of course – there’s intoxicase with built-in cap opener. The most unique back-plate protection we saw this year has to have been the SkinIt etched metal plate for the back of the iPhone 4S – weird and wild! Both the Acradie and the Element Case Vapor Dock are iPhone accessories you’ll not know how you lived without, and the lovely Brookstone HDMI Pocket Projector for your iOS devices will bring you hours of giant projected light joy.

As for the iPad and its accessory collection that simply does not stop, you’ll want to start with the most hardcore carrying case that exists for the beast – the G-Form Extreme Portfolio Case complete with massive drop-tests from many stories up above the surface of the earth. The folks at Griffin have been working with the designers at Threadless to create some lovely iPad cases too – though not exactly outer-space ready, if you’re in to that sort of thing. Both the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover and the Brookstone Bluetooth Keyboard Pro for iPad have been treating us well throughout the year. If you’re just in the market for a unique sort of stand for your tablet (and it doesn’t just have to be the iPad), you’ll want to check out the Octa iPad Whale Tail kit.

Another special mention goes out to Moshi, a brand we first laid eyes on earlier this year at CTIA 2012. The folks at Moshi create both accessories and stand-alone products that enhance your mobile experience as well as your notebook action, with everything from clear cases for your MacBook Air and iPad to a versatile collection of iPhone 5 cases of all shapes and sizes. They’re responsible for what was easily the most unique case/cover combo with the iGlaze Versacover for iPad – complete with magnets – and they’ve even got under-MacBook cooling fans, too – and they work well!

The Big Blue Media Power can be had with integrated Bluetooth allowing for wirelessly streamed music and audio from any Bluetooth enabled smart phone, computer, or tablet. The device can also be connected to TVs or stereos that don’t have integrated Bluetooth using RCA inputs. The RCA cables needed for connecting to your TV are included.

The speaker measures 38 1/8 x 8 x 8-inches and has an auxiliary output. Inside the tall black and silver case are a pair of 20-watt full-range stereo speakers featuring 1.5-inch tweeters and 3-inch mid-range drivers. The speakers are offset to provide room filling sound. The speaker also has a 30-watt powered subwoofer that is ported for omnidirectional bass.

The Big Blue Media Tower will ship on December 5 at price $399.99. It will be available both online and in Brookstone stores. The speaker weighs approximately 22 pounds.

In our hands-on demo here you’ll find that we’ve got an Apple Digital AV Adapter working with the HDMI input on the device – this adapter is sold separately, and you should note that you’ll need it to work with the iPhone and the iPad. This is a similar situation to most other smart devices as it’s rare that you’ll find one that outputs directly to full-sized HDMI. Of course there’s always the Motorola lineup of Android smartphones, for the most part – ease in conversions via built-in HDMI right out of the box! You get a 3 foot HDMI cable, a micro-HDMI adapter, and a mini-HDMI adapter included in the package.

The Brookstone HDMI Pocket Projector contains a 3800mAh battery that’s both rechargeable and is able to act as an output battery for your mobile devices through the projector’s full-sized USB port. This means that if you’ve got a smartphone that you’re using to output to HDMI and you’re in need of some extra power for the phone itself, you’ve only to plug into the projector with your standard USB cord to the phone. Of course that means a much quicker drain on the battery that’s already working quite hard if you’re projecting at the same time, but there’s always the chance of emergency – and you won’t find this feature on one whole heck of a lot of similar devices either, I can tell you that.

You’ve got dual built-in speakers that are quite generous, made for a small space and loud enough for a crowd of just a few people. You’ve got an audio out port though for extra speaker action if the standard inbuilt speakers are not enough for you. The focus of your picture is done with a simple adjuster up near the front lens, the projection shining bright and up to 1080p resolution in a 60-inch image on your wall.

And it is indeed quite bright and sharp – amongst the best we’ve seen. The mega-bright LED lamp projects at what Brookstone notes is 85 lumens “for up to 2 hours on a single charge.” We’ve also found this claim to be quite accurate – with a full charge, we’ve been able to watch full-length movies unplugged without a problem.

The whole device measures in at 3.9 w x 3.8 d x 0.89 inch h, and weighs in at half a pound – it’s small enough to fit in your pocket and light enough to forget about. The cords will be the only hassle you’ll have to consider when thinking on your next anywhere-use projector experience. And even those aren’t going to be a big deal if you’ve got a simple converter for HDMI – minimalize!

This device will cost you $299.99 USD straight from Brookstone right this minute, and they’ve got their free shipping online deal going now for all devices over $99 – or you can grab it from your local Brookstone store too, right in hand. With enhanced DLP technology from Texas Instruments bringing the brightness and sharpness to this beast up front, you’ll have the whole big-time light-blasting world at your fingertips right out of the box.

This device is not extremely portable, though Brookstone does suggest that you slide it into your messenger bag for some coffee-shop scanning if you feel so inclined. Your controls include a single physical power button on the iConvert unit, a couple of guides for your paper as it moves into the unit, and some on-screen controls on your iPad. The one control you get inside the application you need to make the iConvert work is a “Scan” button which, after the machine pulls in just the edge of your document, will commence with the feeding of the document through the scanner with the results being an image on your iPad.

The app also allows you to “clean” the iConvert unit as well as calibrate it, both of these a necessity if you’re going to be using the scanner quite often. The calibration button will be helpful if your iConvert starts pulling paper in at oblong angles, while the cleaning option will help with paper jams. You can try to scan all manner of documents here, from just a bit smaller than a standard business card up to a bit larger than an 8.5 x 11-inch piece of paper.

Once you get smaller than the card we scanned here, the iConvert Scanner’s feed wheels can’t really catch correctly and you’ve got the danger of a crumpled up piece of media. Above you’ll see two examples that we scanned in the hands-on video you see above as well. In the gallery below is an example of a messed-up scan as well, this the result of holding on to the paper instead of allowing it to feed through correctly.

This device will cost you $149.99 at Brookstone’s online shop as well as at Brookstone stores across the country. While I wouldn’t recommend you pick this piece of hardware up for scanning your fine art, it’s certainly decent enough to scan in your children’s drawings and everyday oddities while you’re out and about.

A company called Lilliputian Systems has an interesting new fuel cell that will be sold via a retailer called Brookstone this year. The smallish fuel cell charger will be able to recharge your smartphone about a dozen times before it out of power. The fuel cell has a USB port and will be sold under Brookstone’s own brand. The fuel cell is said to be about the size of a thicker smartphone and is powered by cartridges filled with lighter fluid about the same size as a cigarette lighter.

Presumably, if you need more than a dozen charges, you would be able to pop in a new cartridge and keep going. The charger will work with any device that has a USB cable. This particular fuel cell uses some unique technology to allow for longer charges than earlier devices, which typically lasted about a day. The technology includes a solid oxide fuel cell membrane on a silicon wafer. The fuel cell would be able to charge an iPhone 4 somewhere between 10 and 14 times on one fuel cartridge and the cartridges will be allowed to be carried on airplanes. Pricing for the fuel cell is unknown at this time.

[via CNET]

What we’ve got here are several simple elements, the first being the look and feel of the case. It looks like leather, feels like leather, and even has markings like leather – you know you’ve got a high quality product here right out of the box. There’s a hole for your camera (if you’re using iPad 2 or iPad 3) and the whole thing is rigid enough to hold your iPad up but bendable enough not to want to crease on you. This unit isn’t heavy, but is heavy-duty, and does indeed contain a keyboard worth using.

Compared to the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard we’ve got only a few differences when it comes down to it, one of them being protection. While the Logitech unit is made to be rather non-intrusive with the original design of the iPad 2/3, it does not offer protection for the back of the unit. It’s also not designed to absorb any impact if you drop it and the iPad together. The Brookstone unit here really is meant to act with some damage control. Not nearly as much as the G-Form Extreme Portfolio, but enough for your average day at least.

The keyboard itself has some really nice spring to it, connects via Bluetooth to your iPad with great ease, and does indeed feel natural to use. You’ve got several lights in the upper right of the pad that show if you’ve got caps-lock on and Bluetooth as well as power, and the whole pad is made of a high-quality solid plastic. You’ll find that this case with keyboard integrated in will make your iPad experience much more expansive than ever before.

You can pick this case up at Brookstone right now for $149.99 in Brookstone’s online shop in several fabulous colors. Matte Black, Shiny Black, Matte Brown, Distressed Brown, and Shiny Red are all available, each of them real genuine leather. Grab it!

This device is one of those high-quality devices you’ll find at Brookstone, a store that’s got no lack of awesome devices that you never knew you needed. The Big Blue line of speakers fits in perfectly with the rest of the “oh man that’s neat” line at Brookstone not just because it sounds good, not just because it connects in a matter of minutes like all good Bluetooth devices should, but because the whole unit just looks nice. I promise I’ll give you some drawbacks before this review is done – but for now, it’s time to enjoy.

As you can see in the video above, once I figured out that I literally had to take the wrappings off the device, it was only a matter of holding down the power button until the right lights flashed, heading to the smartphone (here an HTC One S) and paring up. From there on out, it’s just a matter of picking the right tunes to play. As it turned out today, that music was none other than the Beastie Boys. You’ll see Shake Your Rump and a couple of bits from other songs tossed out there as well.

The sound quality on this speaker is surprisingly good. I say surprisingly good because it’s not often that a speaker connected via Bluetooth sends out the sound quality that this device does. The bass is heavy, the high end is sharp as it needs to be, and the whole sound can get really REALLY loud. This little monster could easily be your primary speaker at a college house party.

You’re going to want to weigh the cost against the quality since this little blue-eyed beast will cost you a cool $99.99 from Brookstone’s online store, but given the quality you’re not going to find essentially any other speaker with as complete a package at that price as this. The device is light, fits in your backpack, and sounds like its a boombox about 10 times the size that it really is. Check out the rest of the Bluetooth speakers we’ve reviewed recently in the timeline below and see if you can find a higher quality speaker in this tiny a package – I challenge you!

The iConvert features a small footprint, but can scan documents ranging from 2- to 8.5-inches wide. Documents are scanned with 300 DPI resolution and saved to your iPad’s picture folder. The controls for the scanner show up on the iPad screen via the iConvert iOS app that you can download from the iTunes App Store.

The scanner dock is compatible with both the original iPad and the iPad 2. It’s priced at $150 and will go on sale in February, giving you enough time to scan and sort all your receipts in time for tax season. The iConvert will be available through Brookstone.

[via Cult of Mac]

Announced late last year many still haven’t seen or heard of such a device so we figured a few quick photos would give you a good idea of what to expect. This pocket projector is basically an iPhone 4/4S battery-equipped case featuring TI’s DLP Pico projector technology. It will extend the battery life almost double offering a 2,100 mAh battery, and also doubles as a case — just a bit fat and not very ergonomic.

The Brookstone projector case/sleeve only outputs around 15 lumens but being able to project an image up to 50″ in size is quite impressive for its size. 15 lumens might not be as bright as many pico projectors but they aren’t attached to a smartphone either. The projector isn’t anything professional but for the quick video playback or low-key presentation this would be perfect. In real world situations the built-in battery should give you more than double the battery life — but while projecting pictures and movies you’ll have around 3 hours to work with.

Just recently launched by Brookstone this can be yours for the low low price of $229 by clicking here.

In fact the letters are 1.3-inches high, and since the speakerdock also functions as a clock-radio you can be woken by bright blue numerals burning out your retinas.  Stereo speakers aren’t likely to be the pinnacle of musical quality, but there’s at least an audio input for plugging in another audio source and an audio output for hooking up to a separate amp.

The iDesign SongView works with the iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod 5th generation, and 1st, 2nd, 3rd generation iPod nano, together with the iPhone (in airplane mode, anyway), and will recharge them as it plays.  It’s available now, priced at $99.99.

[via Coolest Gadgets]