Stellanova Floating Globe - 20cm diameter product reviews

I have always thought about getting a globe for my office, if for no other reason than you never know when youre going to need to know where some place is. Geography has never been a strong suit with me, which is why I am never on the road without some kind of serious batch of maps or software map package running on the laptop. Added to that my fascination with magnetic field dynamics, and this floating globe had some serious appeal for me.
Installation was dead easy. The power adapter into the wall socket, the little plug into the discrete socket at the back of the base, and an almost-heard hum signalled me that it was ready for the planet to float. This is where things got a tiny bit tricky. You see, the globe has to be positioned very carefully, otherwise it will get grabbed by one of the two powerful magnets, located at the top and bottom. Let go too soon, and it will drop and get stuck to the bas. Push it a little too high and it will jump out of your hands and attach to the top magent, hanging there wobbling limply.
The trick is practice. If you study the images on the box you will soon see roughly where the globe should float, in relation to the base, and you need only move it in tiny baby-steps around that area until you feel, for lack of a better phrase, a 'hollow click' as it settles into the levitation zone. With this unit I also found that when the globe was in the right position, it kinda hummed. I can only assume this is a side-effect of the magnetic field bumbling along at 16,000 cycles per second, and the globe vibrating in sympathy, the way a window rattles along when your neighbours have the boombox up too loud.
Though 'officially' this is NOT aimed at the educational market, there are those of us for whom it will prove to be very educational, and will present that kinda blank look while watching the news when they talk about overseas stuff. it's all well and good to hear about some tidal wave wiping out New Orleans, and it's good that I know OF the place, but now I finally know WHERE the place is, and how that relates to the dynamics of tidal waves, and how much worse it COULD have been.
The best bit is that these globes come in a range of sizes and 'skins', with glow-in-the-dark versions, simplified and more detailed versions, and a range of others. It would be well worth your time, if you are at all interested, to go check them out in more detail on the suppliers website so that you can see all about them and decide on the size and skin you need. The little ones would make great desk ornaments for executives.