It is high school (and college) graduation time and that usually means some gift-giving.
I’ve got a few gift ideas for your graduates that will be welcomed whether they’re headed off to college or still trying to figure out what’s next.
Here are three gadgets, and oddly, two of them are named Flow.
Tribit Stormbox Flow
I think Bluetooth speakers are an underrated gift.
Everyone loves listening to music or podcasts, and if you’re not wearing earbuds, you’ll want to be listening through a nice wireless speaker like the Tribit StormBox Flow ($79.99 at Amazon, but it’s been on sale for a bit less).
The Tribit StormBox Flow. (Tribit/TNS)
The Flow measures 3.5 inches by 7.9 inches by 2.1 inches and it weighs 1.5 pounds. It is made of smooth plastic with rubber feet on the bottom and the back, so you can have the sound pointing toward you or straight up.
Once you pair the Flow to your phone, it’ll stream all the sound, including phone calls. The Flow has a microphone so it acts as a speakerphone. There are buttons on the top of the Flow to turn it on and to raise and lower the volume and to pickup and hang up phone calls.
There are also buttons to cycle through some equalizer presets and to pair two Flows together to form a stereo pair.
The Flow has one 25-watt speaker driver, and I think it sounds good, especially if you tweak the EQ settings in the free Tribit app.
The Flow has a battery that can keep the music going for up to 30 hours and it has a USB port to charge your phone. Note, it’ll only provide USB charging until its own battery drops to 50%.
The Flow is large enough to sound good but small enough to carry around in your bag. I wish it was a bit lighter, but I imagine you’d be sacrificing sound quality and battery life.
Lofree Flow 100
I type a lot for my work.
It takes me about 30 seconds to know if a keyboard is worth keeping, and I like a keyboard that isn’t too loud and doesn’t make my fingers tired after typing a few hundred words.
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I’ve been using a new keyboard from Lofree called the Flow, and it’s kept its spot on my desk for about two months now.
The Flow comes in two models, with 84 keys ($159) or 100 keys ($169). The 100 key model I tested includes a number keypad on the right side. Lofree calls the Flow the Smoothest Mechanical Keyboard, and the action on mine is very nice. Typing is almost effortless and as fast as my fingers can go.
You can get the keyboard in white with ghost switches, or black with phantom switches (mine).
The keys have Kailh Full POM switches. POM, or Polyoxymethylene is a type of plastic known for extreme resilience and low friction.
The ghost switches are described as “linear” with quiet sound and featherlight touch. The phantom switches are “tactile” with gentle sound and responsive touch. There are all kinds of specs and diagrams on Lofree’s website showing the tactile point, operating point and return point of each key type. I don’t quite understand all the specs, such as “actuation force” levels, but I believe the phantom switches take a bit more pressure to activate and they spring back a bit quicker.
The keys are hot swappable, so you can easily remove and change them.
The keyboard body is made of aluminum and it connects to your computer via USB or Bluetooth. There are white LED lights under the backlit keys and there are LED lights on either side of the keyboard at the bottom, which looks really cool (you can customize the color).
Baseus Blade 2 Smart Power Bank
I’m a big fan of external batteries. I love being prepared and I hate running out of power, especially on my mobile gadgets.
The Baseus Blade 2 ($99.99) is a 12,000-milliamp-hour external battery in a unique form factor. Instead of a bulky brick of a battery, the Blade 2 is shaped flat (7.3mm), more like a drink coaster.
The Baseus Blade 2 external battery. (Baseus/TNS)
The Blade 2 has some features that I haven’t seen on too many external batteries, like an app to monitor the battery activity and a color screen to show you the charge level and in/out power levels.
The battery can provide 65-watt fast charging from its two USB-C ports, which can also be used to charge the battery (60W max input). You can charge two devices at once and the screen will show you the current charge status of each device.
The battery is good for more than 20,000 charge cycles.
The combination of the battery’s capacity, charging speed and form factor make this a very easy battery to carry. I carry a small laptop bag, and the Blade 2 slips in with almost no added bulk.
Jim Rossman is a tech columnist for Tribune News Service. He may be reached at jrossmantechadviser@gmail.com.
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