TECH PENTATHLON: Best Olympic Gadgets
We’re just days away now from the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, so it’s time for part 2 of our five part Tech Pentathlon series. Today we’re looking at Olympic themed gadgets. With seemingly every man and his dog an Olympic sponsor this year, there are plenty of official (and some not so official) gadgets available to help you celebrate the summer of sport.
Acer Iconia A510 Olympic Edition Android tablet
A key Olympic partner, pretty much all of Acer’s summer range of tablets and laptops has some form of Olympic branding attached. Our favourite is the Iconia A510 Olympic Edition tablet, which throws in a premium Eurosport streaming app for the duration of the games, letting you catch-up on any events that you may have missed on-the-go.
Other than that, it’s business as usual for the Iconia A510, which runs on Android Ice Cream Sandwich, has a 1.3GHz Quad-core processor, a 10.1-inch WXGA display and 32GB of storage.
Available now from Carphone Warehouse, it’ll set you back £349.
Samsung Galaxy Note Olympic Edition
Samsung are another major sponsor, and have pushed out an Olympic themed Galaxy Note to celebrate.
To be honest, there’s not a lot different here against the standard Galaxy Note with it’s 5.3 inch Super AMOLED display and stylus input, except for a distressed-look Union Jack back plate. On the positive side, Samsung will be donating £1 to charity for every Olympic Note sold. But even that seems a little stingy.
Samsung also have an Olympic-themed Galaxy S3 doing the rounds at the moment, but we’ve left it off the list as it’s only being offered to athletes at the games. Expect them to sell for a pretty penny on eBay a little down the line.
Scalextric Team GB Velodrome 2012: Track Cycling
Now this is more like it! A mini Velodrome by the Scalextric race track makers, two racers can test their lightning fast reflexes on the Olympic circuit, even if they need stabilisers when they get out on their real BMXs.
UK Themed Xbox 360 Kinect Bundle
It’s not an official Olympic product, but Microsoft are cashing in on the goodwill heading the UK’s way this summer with a Union Jack themed Xbox 360 bundle which includes a flag-bearing console with matching controller and Kinect sensor. It also includes two Kinect games and 3 months worth of Xbox Live, making it not a bad package if you’re new to the console.
Nikon Sportstar EX 10×25 DCF binoculars
If you’ve been lucky enough to get hold of some Olympic tickets, you’ll be wanting to get as close to the action as possible. That may not be physically possible, but these Nikon binoculars will let you get up close and personal to all the fun of the games. Just don’t bring these along to the Beach Volleyball event at Horse Guards Parade, unless you want to be branded a right old perv.
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