Not a great device…

PROS:

1. Pops popcorn quickly

2. Hot air popping doesn’t add calories to the popcorn

3. Easy to set up and get started

CONS:

1. Many unpopped kernels

2. Inefficient popping leads to poor yields when compared to other machines

3. Popcorn rains all over the room

4. The melting tray takes too long to melt butter and only marginally melts the margarine

THE LONG REVIEW:

I received this device as a gift. It truly looks nice and is easy to put together. The red measuring tray atop the device doubles as a melting tray for butter or margarine.

It functions as your basic air popper. You measure the kernels and put them in the ‘popping chamber’ and then hit the ‘on’ button. The machine heats and starts to whir as the kernels are rotated in the chamber and warmed by the hot air.

Unfortunately, a couple of minutes after you hit the on button the chaos begins. The first few kernels pop and come out of the machine without incident. But after that, they are accompanied by hot unpopped kernels. Some of these come out with such force that they miss even a large bowl. As if an experiment in Newtonian physics, some of these unpopped ‘renegade’ kernels act ballistically, transferring their energy to the popped corn and causing the already-fluffed corn to burst forth from the bowl with renewed energy. If that were not enough, another subset of the unpopped kernels explode inside the bowl leading to a further popcorn rain.

The whole experience was very amusing to my kindergartner, but led to a clean up that rivaled popping the corn in the old fashioned way–heating it with oil in a large, covered saucepan. In the case of the BlinQ, you have to sweep up the floor. With the old way, you have to wash a pan.

It is important to realize that there is such a preponderance of unpopped corn that 1/3 to 1/2 of the corn placed in the machine does not pop completely. This leads to a second step in popcorn making–transferring the popped kernels to another bowl so as to prevent one’s children from chewing on the unpopped kernels.

I tried tipping the device back to about 30 degrees to see if it would more efficiently pop the popcorn. It did. There were fewer unpopped ‘renegade’ kernels and overall the popcorn popped far more efficiently. Unfortunately, this requires tilting of the bowl (a two person operation) to prevent the popped corn from being directed over the edge of the bowl and onto the floor. A simple tilt improved popping efficiency. It is unclear why the people at BlinQ couldn’t engineer this into the device.

The melting tray might have been handy if it worked efficiently. You put margarine or butter in the red measuring device and it melts the oleo while you wait. Unfortunately, this does not occur quickly and full melting of even a light margarine requires extra time and stirring to melt completely. Butter only marginally melted.

On the whole, this one goes to the return pile. Sadly, I will be searching for another popcorn popper…

Rating: 2 / 5

There are other great features like gestures, but you can read about those at their web site. BTW, there is a great tutorial that comes with the software. I’ve found that products that have great tutorials are often the kind of products that I really enjoy using.

Overall, it’s worth my money considering the cost of health care for my hand if I get carpal tunnel.
Rating: 4 / 5

PROS: Beyond the basics of bringing basic multitouch to the desktop, the programmable buttons are handy, pinch/zoom, and 2-finger scrolling.

CONS: Swiping left and right for back and forward can be tricky — you have to do it just right, pointer sometimes “sticks”, lately it has been reversing controls at random for apparently no reason, still not as precise as a mouse.

I find that the tablet is easiest to use when at a slight angle sitting in my lap. While convenient, the four “ExpressKeys” are a bit awkward. A standard mouse still allows for a greater amount of control and precision for many tasks, but this tablet makes a great compliment to a mouse and keyboard.

Overall, this product is a good investment. Just don’t expect to replace your mouse. There are better devices for that.
Rating: 3 / 5

I looked at a lot of machines when I was shopping and I picked this one for a couple of reasons. First, it has both a heating unit below the floor and a heat lamp above. Most small units I looked at only had the heat lamp. Second, this machine has glass walls. The doors are hard plastic, but the walls are glass. I was worried that the smaller machines with plastic walls would scratch easily as I scooped the popped corn. I bought a metal popcorn scoop that’s tapered to feed a popcorn box and has holes to allow unpopped kernals to fall through. If I had a plastic walled machine, I’d have to be careful how I used the scoop for fear of scratching the walls. But, as another reviewer pointed out, this thing is built like a tank!

One pre-packaged pack of popcorn makes about as much as two typical microwave bags. But it tastes much better! My wife and I love this popper. I’ve never regretted my purchase!

Rating: 5 / 5

The accuracy of this tablet is below acceptable levels. Even with tweaking on the control panel the input was still jittery. The tablet is ONLY useful with all sensitivity settings at low, and even then it jumps too much on the screen.

The options for left/right click with second touch on the left/right when turned on make it a lucky guess if you’re going to be scrolling or right-clicking.

Near proximity of finger that DOESN’T touch the tablet interferes with the primary input, making it a frustrating experience to use this tablet.

You can’t use a stylus on this tablet, at least not an older Bamboo or Intuos 4 stylus, even though the description of the tablet says 512 levels of pressure sensitivity with pen – it’s a plain lie by Wacom to state that, since pen doesn’t even work with the tablet (more so it’s a touch-pad)

There are no settings for mode of input on the tablet or its software, meaning it always interprets your input as ‘mouse’, making it useless for drawing. There is no setting to make it ’stylus’ input (1:1 with the display) so that you could at least draw with your finger.

I’m giving it two stars instead of one only because it does recoginze and enable pinching, rotating and scrolling on a Windows machine (when the settings are tweaked)

Rating: 2 / 5