Magazine
Sync Magazine
Published By: Ziff Davis Media
Reviewed by Justine Manzano
I, Justine Manzano, am not your everyday
woman. I may love a good romance, but I’m not souly into chick-flicks. My
favorite movie genres are action, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. I get bored
playing video games, but I love to watch my husband and our friends blow through
level after level, and I have not read a cheesy romance novel in years. I can’t
watch soap operas because the glaring plot holes make me as a writer want to
jump out of a window and I am a gadget goddess. Given the money to do so, I
would buy everything in SIGHT. That’s why, regardless of the Men’s Magazine
style of Sync Magazine, I find that when I receive it, I read it cover to cover.
Sync Magazine prides itself on being for men and sometimes seems like it’s trying too hard, plastering pictures of gadgets on the bathing suits of sexy female models. It’s a little silly, but does it matter? I have always been one to try my best not to judge a book by it’s cover and in that, I picked up Sync and read it, despite the fact that it had been mailed to my husband and had huge boobs in swimsuits and cars all over the front cover. I wanted to roll my eyes, but instead I found that the inside of this magazine is worth ignoring (or enjoying, if you like this sort of thing) the outer look of the magazine. It’s got much more brains than it’s given credit for.
Sarcastically written and almost always tongue-in-cheek, this magazine finds a way to include interviews with famous people on their top ten most prized gadgets, alternate joke covers spoofing world events and the magazine’s own outwardly sexual nature, advertisements for all kinds of electronics, and interesting and unique articles into one bi-monthly magazine. From movie, music, and game reviews to comparison shopping for you, i.e. comparing the mp3 players available complete with pros and cons so you can make your own decisions, Sync has a lot of fun articles despite those I choose to ignore, i.e. an eye-roll worthy article essentially using science and heart monitors to tell readers what gadgets will attract and repel girls.
Sync also includes Special Interest stories from what could be hidden on your hard drive to a high school Robotics team who got booted from a contest for suspicious reasons. There is Sports coverage, and interviews with everyone from musicians and actors to technical wizards and guys who invented things we never really thought about like the very first cellular phone. The magazine has an interesting approach to a great deal of the old stand-by’s. The letter’s section is made more interesting by the “Reader Upgrade” Section where readers send in their sob stories about old and busted merchandise and Sync replaces it with the most high-tech version they can find! The Before and After pictures are usually quite priceless. There are also articles in which Sync invents it’s own tech, like gadgets that should be available for rappers and football players and the next movie that should be turned into a game.
My all time favorite two monthly features includes real professionals taking gadgets for test spins and then rating them for all of their pros and cons, and the real time installation where a regular joe tries to put together one of Sync’s gizmos and let’s the reader in on how long these things really take to install.
All in all, the magazine is a blast and takes a new and inventive take on a regular gadget magazine. If you love gadgets and you love the female body, you’re in for a special treat with all the T&A Sync Magazine throws around at the ready and if you’re not into female sexuality, the magazine does more than enough in the gadget realm to get your mind off the fact that a half-naked blonde is showing it to you. Needless to say, feminists and people who can’t even set their VCR need not apply for this one, but then, I’m sure Sync didn’t expect those readers anyway.
For feedback, visit our message board or e-mail the author at justine@g-pop.net.
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