Home Improvement Tool and Toy Reviews

The Air Hogs Havoc Heli Laser Battle Set has now officially been released. You can purchase them directly from Amazon by clicking the link to the right.

What the laser battle set is are 2 of the Air Hogs Havoc Heli’s with infared lasers attached to the front that you can dog fight with. When one Havoc Heli shoots and “hits” the one the engine cuts and the heli spins out of control.

These babies are really fun. How do I know? I have a set! I just got them today and they are really fun. They fly as well if not better then the original Havoc Heli from Air Hogs but have a slightly different body.

Here are some pictures of the heli’s:

Here is the packaging the that Laser Tag Set comes in:

This Laser Tag set from Air Hogs are going to be all the rage this Christmas so you should get yours while they are still in stock.

You can buy them from Amazon.com and ships FREE with Super Saver Shipping.

Get your Air Hogs Havoc Heli Laser Battle set today!

Technorati: Air Hogs Havoc Heli, Air Hogs Havoc Heli Laser Battle, Dog Fight, Battle, Games, RC, RC Airplanes, RC Helicopters

Having been an avid Air Hogs Havoc Heli pilot I did crave a little more excitement in my life so I set my sites on the Air Hogs Reflex. Air Hogs advertised that it had the ability to go forward, backwards, left and right. This was accomplished with the two sets of vertical propellers that were near the main rotor.

I had noticed that the price had recently dropped for the Reflex about a month ago from $79 to $59 so it was now in a more realistic price range for me. While at Toys-R-Us this past weekend I picked one up.

Visual Differences

There are three major differences between the Air Hogs Havoc Heli and the Reflex. The first is that the Reflex is a little larger then the Havoc. The second is that the Reflex comes with a wall charger instead of being charged from the controller. The final major difference is on the controller. On the Reflex you have right/left and forward/back controls on the right joystick as opposed to just the right/left on the Havoc’s controller.

After discovering all of these differences I plugged in the charger and waited to fly my new toy.

Flight Differences

The first thing that I noticed about the Reflex was that it hovers in place instead of wanting to go forward and to the right (after trimming it of course). Right and left rudder movements on the Reflex are much more precise then the Havoc Heli and can be done while hovering also. The biggest difference is that the Reflex only goes forward when you want it to - the Havoc Heli is always going forward.

Pushing the stick forward gives you forward movement while releasing the stick will cause the Reflex to go back to hovering. Pushing back on the stick gives you reverse movement while again releasing it goes back to hover. The default is to hover straight as long as it has enough throttle applied.

With these types of controls it is much easier to get the Reflex to go where you want it to in comparison to the Havoc. With the Havoc it is always moving so any little mistake can send you into a wall or a light fixture. The Reflex stays put until you tell it to go somewhere.

Cost Differences

At time of writing the the going price for the Reflex is about $49 while the Havoc Heli has recently been dropped to around $24. While the Reflex costs more you the batteries in the controller are only used to control the Heli, with the Havoc they are used to charge the Heli as well as control it.

Conclusion

The Havoc Heli is a great beginning helicopter that is durable and inexpensive. The Reflex is a more advanced heli and gives you more control and longer battery life.

Which is better? They are both good and will provide hours of fun. Pick up one of each and make your own determination .

Technorati tags: Air Hogs, Havoc Heli, PiccoZ, PicooZ, PicoZ, Helicopter, RC Helicopter, Micro X Copter, Air Hogs Reflex

UPDATE: Amazon sells these direct for $29.99 but there are other vendors that cell the Air Hogs Havoc Heli for $24.95 on the Amazon site. Just click on the link to the right that says ‘Best Price $22.95″ and you will see the other vendors. Happy flying!

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I have been in the “toy” mood ever since Christmas and the Air Hogs Havoc Heli is the latest cool toy to be added to my collection.I stumbled upon it while walking through the toy department at Walmart (I was looking for the kids ). Anyway, there it was, sitting all buy itself on the shelf asking me take it home - and I did for a cool $29.95. Amazon has the same one under a different name for the same price. It is also know as the PiccoZ, PicooZ, or PicoZ (don’t ask).Out of the book the Havoc Heli felt solid. It seems to be made up of the same type of Styrofoam that my Super cub is and that thing is literally indestructible. The package came with the Helicopter, Controller, and some weights to add to the nose for forward propulsion, and an extra tail rotor.

I popped in the required 6 AA batteries and let my new toy charge up. As soon as the charge light went out I had the copter in the air for the next 10 minutes of pure fun.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Air Hogs Havoc Heli is so easy to fly that my 3 year old can do it!

I made the video below of both him and I flying it (he is at about the 3 minute mark).

The Havoc Heli can be pretty difficult to find but I found a few different people on Amazon.com that sell them. You can click their link to the right.

Enjoy the video!

Note: The music in the video is Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus and Never Let me Down Again mixes from their “Remixes 81-04″ album.

Technorati tags: Air Hogs, Havoc Heli, PiccoZ, PicooZ, PicoZ, Helicopter, RC Helicopter, Micro X Copter, Video

I just saw in the Austin American Statesman this morning that Round Rock Texas has been named the 13th safest cities in the U.S. for the second year in a row. The list of safest cities was compiled by the FBI that measured 6 different types of crimes for cities with 75,000 people or more. The city of Round Rock accredits this ranking to it’s efforts in having a good relationship between the police and the community.

While I have never had person interaction with any of the police here in Round Rock (That’s a good thing ), as a resident I do see them around and there is a sense of safety. The police officers all have their own police cars with their names on them so you start to recognize names and that in return gives a sense of security.

While looking for a place to relocate to, Round Rock stood out because they appeared to strive to work for the community. They had a lot of information on their website and any information I found on the internet about Round Rock was positive. Their effort to reach out is very apparent.

It is news like this that makes me feel glad that my family and I moved to Round Rock.

Technorati: Central Texas, Round Rock TX, Safest Cities, Texas

As mentioned last week I was not going to camp out this year in front of Best Buy for their Black Friday specials. The main reason for this was that they did not have any deals like the Toshiba laptop deal they did last year.

Well that just changed - they have an even better deal then they did last year.

This year they have another Toshiba laptop WITH a Canon color print for $229 after all of their instant rebates. That makes camping out a whole lot more tempting.

The only issue that I face now is that it is supposed to be cold on Friday and possibly even rain here in the Austin area.

What to do now…

Yep, I am a Black Friday camper. I camped out at Best Buy last year and scored some really good deals. I sold the laptop I bought for almost $200.

In looking over the ads this year I have to say that I am really disappointed with the offerings. The laptop I bought last year for $250 was a Toshiba so I had no problem selling it. This year the cheapest laptop is a Compaq at Circuit City and is $299 AFTER a mail in rebate - Not worth it.

This year I will avoid the crowds and actually enjoy a good night’s sleep.

If you watch the news at all you know that the housing market is beginning to suffer around most of the country. The areas that seem hardest hit are those that are on the west and east coasts. Here is Central Texas we have yet to see a real slowdown in the market as new houses continue to go up all over the place.

Our neighborhood in Round Rock is in the close-out stage and I believe that there are less then 10 houses available for sale. These house have at the bare minimum had their foundations poured which a couple are already finished with grass in the front yard. It will nice when these final houses are sold and we do not have any more construction in our neighborhood.

But even as they finish our neighborhood there are model homes being built if a brand new neighborhood that is being built just to the north of us. This neighborhood is set to be priced even higher then ours.

The reason I think things are still going strong in the Austin/Round rock area is that they never really got out of control. In talking with the real estate agent that helped us get our house she said that the prices only increased about 4% a year for the last several years in our area. This is a far cry from how prices increased in California over the last 7 years.

In California the house that I paid $177,000 for in 2001 went up to $440,000 last year. It is now down to $360K. We walked way with a healthy profit from the house when we sold it in 2003 which was nice. I wish we would have been able to hold out until last year but we were hit by the dot com bust and had to sell. We learned our lesson about the economy back then which was one of the reasons we call to Central Texas.

Here we were able to get a really nice house for a reasonable price. If the economy goes bad again we will be able to hold up much better this time around and will be able to keep our house. Unfortunately even though a lot of people were affected by the dot com bust they did not learn and are setting themselves up to hurt by the next bust - the housing bubble. If the economy takes a turn for the worst and people start losing their jobs again all these people with these expensive mortgages are going to lose their houses.

I think if things do start to go bad that Central Texas will not be affected as bad as the majority of the rest of the country - that’s one of the things that makes this such a great place to live.

Technorati: Housing Market, Texas, Austin TX, Round Rock TX, Home Improvement

I came across this video that the City of Round Rock put up on YouTube. They go over all the great things about Round Rock and I have to say - they are right on. I do feel safe waking in my neighborhood at night. Also, the schools here are one of the reasons that we moved from California.

Anyway, take a look - Round Rock IS a great place to live.

Technorati: Round Rock TX, Austin TX, Texas, Moving from California, Moving to Texas

It has rained everyday for the last week here in Central Texas. Over the last few days that rain has quadrupled with flooding happening all over the Austin area. The areas that were hit the hardest are the Marble Falls and Georgetown areas. Here in Round Rock I have not seen any flooding but the few low water crossings that are here have been closed.

This is definitely the worst set of storms that I have experienced in the last year and a half that we have been here. Last night it seemed that there was a cloud that was just parked right over our house that was dumping inches of rain an hour on us. Thankfully our neighborhood is at the top of a hill so nobody around us had any issues.

I have to say that I am still glad that I moved here instead of living in California. I will take this kind of weather over an earthquake any day.

Technorati: Round Rock TX, Austin TX, Marble Falls TX, Georgetown TX, Rain, Weather, Storms, Central Texas, Texas