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Published on December 13th, 2011 | by Rita

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Great Gifts: LifeProof, Camelbak, Earjax

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From time to time I en­counter things that re­quire lit­tle by the way of dis­cus­sion, in light of ac­tu­al per­for­mance. Re­cent­ly a cou­ple of these things crossed my path, and I’ve found that the fastest way to con­vince an­oth­er per­son of their worth is hands on. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, much like our lack of smell-o-vi­sion and fly­ing cars, I can’t hand you an ob­ject to con­vince you of it’s worth. So, I will do my best to talk about these things; but please be­lieve me when I tell you that ev­ery­thing I’ve got in store for you to­day my words aren’t go­ing to do jus­tice.

Near­ly ev­ery­one I know has a smart phone of some sort, and near­ly ev­ery­one I know scram­bles to pro­tect that pre­cious lit­tle com­put­er in their pock­et ev­ery time it starts to rain. I al­so have my fair share of friends who are car­ry­ing around phones with spec­tac­u­lar cracks across the glass dis­play. If I were a bet­ting kind of per­son I’d guess you know one or two of those peo­ple as well. Learn­ing the dif­fer­ent ways friends have killed their phones has ac­tu­al­ly be­come an en­ter­tain­ing pas­time, my cur­rent fa­vorite is the friend who dropped spilled red wine on his phone, and then dropped it in choco­late fon­due. What if I told you that there’s a way to pro­tect your beloved iPhone from salt wa­ter, sand, dirt, snow, red wine, choco­late fon­due, be­ing dropped from heights, or near­ly any­thing else you can dream up?

I give you Life­Proof. This case, which adds mere mil­lime­ters to the length and width of your phone, ef­fec­tive­ly pro­tects your phone from any “nor­mal” sit­u­a­tion that would pose a threat to it’s well-be­ing. I say nor­mal, be­cause if you’re that per­son who needs to run your phone over with a truck to prove that a case is de­struc­tible, this case may not be right for you. All the rest of you, how­ev­er, are in for a treat. Life­Proof cas­es, which are avail­able for both the iPhone 4 and 4S, are wa­ter­proof and shock­proof up to 2 me­ters (6.6 feet). Be­ing wa­ter­proof means it’s sealed against snow, dirt, snow- in oth­er words, life.

iPhone screens work by mon­i­tor­ing changes in elec­tri­cal cur­rent; be­cause wa­ter is a con­duc­tor that elec­tri­cal cur­rent gets dis­persed be­fore the phone can reg­is­ter it, so us­ing the touch screen while un­der­wa­ter is not an op­tion. Turn­ing the video cam­era on, though, def­i­nite­ly is an op­tion, and the world of un­der­wa­ter movies is your oys­ter, so to speak- see our ex­am­ple! Since my iPhone has donned it’s Life­Proof case I have stopped car­ing if it rains, if there’s mud and if sand gets on my phone. The best tes­ta­ment though, is how many peo­ple I know bought their own af­ter see­ing mine in ac­tion.

I wouldn’t rec­om­mend us­ing Ear­jax Lyrics Ear­buds un­der­wa­ter, but cer­tain­ly they’re worth hav­ing around for al­most all oth­er sit­u­a­tions. They’re about as close to cus­tom made stu­dio ear­buds as you can get. Ev­ery­thing about the way these are con­struct­ed are de­signed to let you for­get that you have ear­buds in at all. The sound qual­i­ty is well bal­anced, and the com­fort is up there among the most com­fort­able ear­buds I’ve ev­er worn. The qual­i­ty def­i­nite­ly speaks for it­self, once you’ve giv­en these a try. Bonus for be­ing on se­ri­ous sale for the hol­i­days!

The last thing I want to talk about is my Camel­bak Groove wa­ter bot­tle. This bot­tle, while not ide­al for tak­ing hik­ing or trekking, is per­fect­ly amaz­ing for dai­ly life. The rea­son I say it’s not ide­al for hik­ing is be­cause while it holds 600mL of wa­ter, there is al­so a car­bon fil­ter that adds a fair amount of weight. I say go with your reg­u­lar An­ti­dote reser­voir for hik­ing. The Groove is per­fect for hav­ing with you at work, even if you’re around com­put­ers, due to the flip top bite straw that pre­vents spills and leaks. The fil­ter is ef­fec­tive in re­mov­ing chem­i­cals, heavy met­als and oth­er par­tic­u­late from tap wa­ter, which means your wa­ter is go­ing to taste great. Best of all there is no plas­tic taste that any­body who has used a hy­dra­tion sys­tem or reusable wa­ter bot­tle is fa­mil­iar with. The car­bon fil­ter is good for 3 months, and as easy to re­place as un­screw­ing the lid.

I give a hearty thumbs up to any of these items for the hard-to-shop for per­son on your gift list. All of these are fun as well as prac­ti­cal, and there may be some good prices to be had as well!

Tags: accessories, audio, headphones, hydration, iphone, review

About the Author

Rita Professionally in healthcare, and semi-professionally a photographer, former student at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, and full-time student of human nature, Rita has been writing for Truly Net for many years. Born and raised in the Midwest, she spent years on Oahu, and has formed some very strong opinions about all things knitting, pie, and the best places to climb. She really enjoys good food, music and friends, and is perfectly willing to write about, and photograph any or all of those things.

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