T3 got to grips with Nintendo’s DSi recently, the Mario-and-Zelda-factory’s latest iteration of its stupidly popular DS handheld - out now in Japan and ‘tbc’ for the rest of us. And while it is nowhere close to the revolution in handheld gaming inspired by the old brick that was the original, hulking, gunmetal grey DS (unveiled to widespread confusion and jeers of derision way back at E3 2004) the DSi still rocks. Hard.
- Launch the Nintendo DSi unboxing gallery
- Check out our hands-on video with the new DSi
It was hard to imagine how our much-loved DS Lite (launched to near-universal acclaim at E3 2006) could be improved upon. What is clear is that Ninty’s product designers have taken a ‘baby-steps’ approach to developing the console’s winning form factor. Aside from rocking a rather fetching, fingerprint-free matte finish, the DSi is ever-so-slightly thinner with a quarter-inch larger, brighter screen than its older sibling. Great news for quick blasts on our beloved Wario on the ski lifts this season. Not so great news for marathon sessions on Zelda on those long and otherwise boring train journeys to the wilds of Swansea and beyond, as the battery life takes the hit if you use the screen on the brightest setting. Still, when compared with the new PSP 3000, the DSi still wins out in the mobile-fun-longevity stakes…
In terms of the hardware, the DSi also features a couple of low-res 0.3- megapixel cameras – inside and out – and some quirky audio and music playback features. Just like Pictochat hinted at the possibilities of the stylus, this time around we were quite taken with the charming/ gimmicky built-in software that lets you stretch and squiggle over your mates’ mugshots or teach a cheeky little budgerigar to say rude words in funny ways. Though after extended testing, T3 found that this was fun for approximately eight to ten minutes, after which our friends seem to tire of us shoving the DSi into their faces, as we tried to convince them that a tiny, pixelated bird that could just about pronounce their name was ‘the future of gaming’. It’s not. But it’s still hilarious.
Personalised, shared and downloadable content
Nintendo wants the DSi to become more ‘personalised’ (i.e. it wants to let you keep, swop and muck about with music and photos) while marking the gradual transition from physical media (DS carts) to free or paid-for downloads of demos, entire games and other content, which can be stored on the 256 MB onboard memory or an SD card. And if you think that 0.3 megapixel cameras and the apparently miniscule amount of memory seem a tad ‘technologically backward’ that’s because they are. Nintendo doesn’t work at the cutting edge of technology, yet the company remains unbeaten at taking what is cheaply and widely available and squeezing as much fun out of it as it possibly can.
Sure, we could throw in some more minor gripes, if we really forced ourselves. The PSP still beats the DS if you want hi-res, visceral racing fun (WipEout, Ridge Racer, OutRun et al); if you have very fat fingers you *might* be better advised to stick with your DS Lite. You cannot play your illegally copied games from your R4DS… More of a major gripe though is you cannot play your old Game Boy Advance games on the DSi as the gaping GBA cart slot has been dropped.
Bottom line. If you want to play GBA, you’ll have to fork out on a Game Boy Micro. If you’re fingers are too fat or you are a filthy game-industry destroying pirate, then its tough luck unfortunately.
The DSi is an exemplary refresh of an already superb handheld. The real deal-breaker will arrive later next year in the shape of the games that make use of the console’s new cameras, in addition to the ease-of-use and gamers’ willingness to access downloadable content. A few DSi-specific games have already been announced, including Wario: Photograph (imagine Sony’s EyeToy, but on a handheld, and way more fun) which pretty much secures the fanboy vote.
If you can’t wait till some as-yet-unspecified time in 2009 to enjoy the fun gimmicky of Nintendo’s photo manipulation and bizarre audio playback features, then you can get one of these matte black (or white) wonder-toys on import from Japan right now for a sheckel or two just over £200. Though be warned, downloads and DSi-specific games will be region-locked, so you will only have to buy another one when Nintendo eventually releases them over here.
Still, it’s always nice to be first in your circle of mates to get next years tech, but if you already have a DS Lite it may not be worth it. But if you need to repeatedly remind your mates of the fact you have the latest gizmo with a high-pitched sweary squawk from the cute little yellow Nintendo budgie, the DSi is for you.
Link: Nintendo DSi
Click HERE for source
It’s the finest film format on the planet, so we’ve rounded up six of the best Blu-ray boasting players out there and put them to the test.
Denon DVD-2500BT
£900
Star rating: 4
We love: Build quality. Stunning Blu-ray pictures
We hate: Only works with an up-to-date receiver. No ethernet updates possible. It’s nearing a grand
We say: The aim of the game here is to wring every last bit of information from each Blu-ray disc. Home cinema buffs will appreciate Denon’s efforts
|Read full review | Denon |
Panasonic DMP-BD55
£400
Star rating: 5
We love: Audio decoding. Bold colours and an ergonomic remote control
We hate: Uninspiring design
We say: This Panasonic player ticks all the correct boxes and puts in a fine, full HD performance to boot. And you’ve gotta love that price tag…
|Read full review | Panasonic |
Pioneer BDP-LX71
£600
Star rating: 5
We love: A classy design and accurate picture and sound quality. Plus 7.1 channel outputs
We hate: No ethernet port
We say: It was a brave decision to completely abandon interactivity, but, by jove, we think it may have worked. This is a fantastic all round performer
|Read full review | Pioneer |
Samsung BD-P1500
£180
Star rating: 4
We love: Very tempting price. Impressive visuals
We hate: Slow to load discs. Doesn’t play CD-R
We say: It’s rough around the edges, but the exceptionally good price is most certainly right as you lose out on loading speed rather than picture quality
|Read full review | Samsung |
Sony BDP-S350
£250
Star rating: 3
We love: Sleek looks, Rapid start-uo. Nifty interface
We hate: Audio format support is lacking
We say: Sony’s entry-level machine has the format credentials, but splash out a bit more and you can bag a heck of a lot more features
|Read full review | Sony |
Yamaha BD-S2900
£700
Star rating: 3
We love: Built to last
We hate: No ethernet port. Slow loading times
We say: Die-hard Yamaha fans will be drawn to this player, but it struggles to match the pace set by other, speedier models on test
|Read full review | Yamaha |
Click HERE for source
The BlackBerry Storm is RIM’s first touchscreen and arguably one of the best looking phones we’ve seen, with the same gorgeous revamped interface we first drooled over with the Bold.
- Check out our gallery for a closer look at the Storm.
- See our hands-on video with the BlackBerry Storm.
Pick it up and the Storm feels solid and durable, the front is dominated by the fantastic 3.25- inch, 480×360 high-res screen. The brightness, colour depth and detail makes it terrific for watching YouTube clips, although the orientation of 3:4 rather than widescreen 16:9 isn’t quite as satisfying for movie trailers.
The Storm is the first phone to implement RIM’s Sure-Touch interface. The entire touchscreen functions as a large button that responds to your touch like a proper keyboard. Unlike lesser touchscreens, there’s no danger of pressing the wrong key. A brief touch turns the required key electric blue; you then tap it again to activate the command.
The UI is unmistakably RIM, but it’s not as smooth as the iPhone’s to use. Under the main screen are call, call cancel, back and menu keys and call us greedy, but we wouldn’t have minded a trackball for browsing. During our testing the screen froze occasionally and we were jabbing to no avail, and the built-in accelerometer doesn’t always work.
The touchscreen may bring the Storm bang up to date, but heavy typers will miss a ‘proper’ keyboard. In landscape mode the QWERTY has individual keys, which are a cinch to use, in portrait mode however, each ‘key’ has two letters (like the Pearl). And if you’ve got large digits like us, the small key size means hitting the correct key can be tricky. It’s a shame, because with simple set-up and seamless mail forwarding, email is outstanding. You can even cut and paste. A magnifying glass feature to enlarge letters (like the iPhone) would have solved this, enabling you to see exactly what you’re pressing.
Browsing is fairly smooth, move your finger around to scroll through pages, double tap to zoom in and select a link to activate it, but again, falls short of the intuitive multi-touch gestures of the iPhone.
The biggest flaw in the Storm is the lack of WiFi, which for a phone geared up for browsing, is ludicrous and a huge mistake. OK, there’s HSDPA and 3G, but you’re dependent on Vodaphone’s network, which is generally quick and efficient, although we did struggle to get online a couple of times. The more pressing issue is cost. What happens when you go abroad? Are you hit with international browsing costs? On the £35 a month contract there’s a 500Mb fair usage policy for internet and downloads, which isn’t bad. But for someone sending a lot of emails with attachments, hammering Google Maps and downloading music, those megabytes can easily mount up. In contrast O2 don’t have a cap on the iPhone, running an excessive use policy for heavy users, with no set figure.
Until RIM’s app store launches in March 2009 you’ll have to wait to delve into app land, although you can install Facebook, Google Maps and YouTube from the BlackBerry Application Centre. Facebook feels very basic and stripped down, but Google Maps is fantastic, picking up our location indoors within seconds and you get six months of Vodaphone’s Find&Go navigation service.
The 3.2-megapixel camera isn’t bad, the large screen is excellent for composing shots; however it’s not as pin sharp as we’d have liked. If you take lots of shots you’ll also need to invest in a MicroSD card, rather miserly Vodaphone don’t supply one, and so you’re stuck with the 1GB internal memory.
RIM has built in a 3.5mm jack so you can use your own buds. The music player is average at best. We had the same problem as with the browsing, the screen is slow to flip to landscape and froze more than once. The sound quality compares to the likes of the Bold and the Pearl but nothing in comparison with the Dolby packed LG Renoir.
Battery life isn’t fantastic, with moderate call, internet and photo use, you’ll be charging it every evening, in common with rivals the iPhone, N96 and T-Mobile G1.
With the Storm, RIM has created a genuinely innovative phone, which looks and feels gorgeous and is terrific for emailing. Comparisons to the iPhone are inevitable and for heavy web use falls short, we can’t forgive the lack of WiFi on a phone of this standard. The two-year Vodaphone contract won’t appeal to everyone, but this is still one of the most exciting phones we’ve seen this year.
Link: BlackBerry
Click HERE for source
Although it’s the father of the netbook craze, ASUS’ ambitions haven’t stopped with teeny weeny laptops. Now it’s got its sights set on the desktop market as well. This time however, it’s not pushing a completely untested idea; HP has already been trialling the touchscreen home computer idea for a while now.
To make matters more interesting, they’re each packing a very different set of specs and prices. The TouchSmart IQ810 will set you back £1,500, while the Eee Top squirrels in at a measly £350. But will HP’s monster mop the floor with its diminutive, low budget competitor? Let’s find out…
Ease of Use
HP TouchSmart IQ810
It’s a cinch to set up and still packed with enough connectors to make a home cinema enthusiast quiver with excitement. The custom HP TouchSmart menu software is a real beauty too and feels right for the kind of actions you’ll be performing with your fingers.
ASUS Eee Top
Insert one power cable, one USB mouse, one USB keyboard and you’re away. That’s it. From the box to full working glory in under three minutes. Once up and running, ASUS’ touch-optimised software is the key to enjoying the aging XP operating system with snazzy modern touchscreen. It’s not anywhere near as flashy as the HP one though.
Winner: HP TouchSmart
Features
HP TouchSmart IQ810
Let’s see then: Vista, wireless keyboard and mouse, TV Tuner, 25.5-inch high definition screen, Blu-ray drive… we think the TouchSmart has this one in the bag.
ASUS Eee Top
With a 15.6-inch screen, the Eee Top is far smaller than pretty much any modern PC, let alone the TouchSmart. And it packs a wired *gasp* keyboard and mouse. That said, each are good quality – the keyboard in particular borrows just enough Mac design to be a very elegant little tool.
Winner: HP TouchSmart
Functionality
HP TouchSmart IQ810
Where the HP falls down is working out where on earth to put it. Because of its size, it’s too big to take the place of a normal PC, but also too small to replace your flat screen telly. However, if you can find a space, the entertainment functions, particularly the custom jukebox and photo viewer are an absolute blast to play with and a sure fire hit for parties.
ASUS Eee Top
On the other side of the coin, you’ll struggle somewhere that the Eee Top won’t fit. It has such a small footprint that you’ll slip it on to the mantelpiece without much bother, and the screen is still very useable even given its small size. It too comes packed with special media software that makes use of the touchscreen and lets you tuck away the keyboard and mouse for more casual browsing.
Winner: ASUS Eee Top
Screen quality
HP TouchSmart IQ810
It’s bright, glossy, gorgeous and 1080p. This truly is a stand in for a proper TV, and not a cheap one either. However, it does pick up smudgy finger prints with ease.
ASUS Eee Top
It’s small and it’s a little bit dim, unfortunately. The colours aren’t too hot either. It’s basically more comparable with a laptop screen than a proper PC monitor. It’s very much useable though and peculiarly resistant to finger prints – good show. Well suited to the more basic computing tasks that the Eee is designed for.
Winnner: HP TouchSmart
Performance
HP TouchSmart IQ810
Oof, we smell another whitewash - Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, NVIDIA 9600M GP… Hot shit, meet shovel.
ASUS Eee Top
Although it’s basically an upgraded Eee netbook, there’s a few pleasant surprises under the hood. Along with the mandatory 1.6GHz Atom processor, there’s 1GB of memory, a 160GB hard drive and a ATI Mobility Radeon HD3450 to give it a bit more oomph than its portable counterparts. It’s not a powerhouse by any stretch, but it’s easily up the task of running XP, and getting it done quickly too.
Winner: HP TouchSmart
Touchscreen
HP TouchSmart IQ810
Effective, but prone to being jumpy. Although HP has done a good job with the software, the rest of the time, it feels like an unending battle against Vista to get things working. There’s no screen-typing tool either, besides a pokey little on-screen keyboard.
ASUS Eee Top
Despite coming with a stylus (which hides neatly away in the keyboard), the touchscreen works fine with your fingers. It also comes packed with a handwriting recognition program, but it’s awful. You have to tweak the settings to get any kind of speed out of it and even then it’s hit and miss. Doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the effort though.
Winnner: ASUS Eee Top
The verdict
The HP TouchSmart has the ASUS beat in terms of power and scale. But for all that, you shouldn’t underestimate the little Eee. It’s a far more practical size than the HP if you’re just looking for a basic computer, not a TV replacement, this is the right choice. Despite its underpowered innards, it’s a nippy little feller too.
TouchSmart’s high-falutin’ high definition display and Blu-ray drive pack a punch but if you asked whether we wanted one touchscreen behemoth for £1,500, or four Eees and change… well, do we need to answer?
Links: ASUS, HP
Click HERE for source
Plot
Humankind has deserted Earth, leaving it a landfill site unable to sustain life. WALL-E is a robot charged with cleaning up the mess. His quirky routine is disrupted by an iPod-shiny robot named EVE who discovers a single plant that could allow humans to return home to earth. She and Wall-E journey through deep space and untold peril to ensure the shrub’s safe passage.
The Review
No, it’s not just for kids. It’s for everyone, but most of all it’s for big kids with humungo tellies and a Blu-ray player. Throughout WALL-E, you get a sense of Pixar’s master craftsmen raising the visual bar again and again.
That would count for little if the story wasn’t so perfect, the humour so laugh-out-loud funny, and the characters so sweetly rendered. It would take a hard heart indeed not to be moved by the story of redoubtable little garbage collector WALL-E and beautiful-but-violent lady-robot EVE.
The near-silent first half of the film in particular is probably the best hour of celluloid this year – lyrical, heart-rending and daring. There’s a message about taking care of the planet in there as well, if that’s your bag, but it never feels preachy. Just lovely.
A Blu-ray buy?
With so little actual dialogue, the slightest wink and the deftest touch do so much to humanise these carefully crafted characters. A no brainer.
Extras
The 2-disc edition features a quirky featurette on WALL-E’s treasures and trinkets - one of the funniest segments of the film, various behind the scenes docs on the making of the character and an as-always-fascinating commentary from director Andrew Stanton.
WALL-E is available on Blu-ray disc from Play.com from Monday
Click HERE for source
With all the hoo-ha surrounding the Storm, RIM has sneaked another little gem through the back door. The RIM Blackberry Pearl 8220 flip smartphone is the latest in the line up of semi-precious smarties.
Snubbing the candybar design of its predecessors, the 8220 struts up sporting a first for RIM with the flip design. Sitting pretty in the hand it does conjure up images of a pimped Motorola RAZR, but when we say pimped, we’re talking Westwood. It’s slightly shorter than the likes of the Pearl 8130 but on the chunkier side, nothing compared to the likes of the Curves out there.
With the flip comes the buy one phone and get two screens offer. The first on its outer shell is a 12 8x 260 TFT LCD screen, which lets you preview messages and also check the caller’s ID. It’s not groundbreaking technology and most flip phones have the same feature, but it can prove useful to avoid unwanted 0800 numbers.
The inner screen is where the big money is. It’s a 240 x 320 3-inch screen which lets you view video in landscape or portrait mode. The quality is fantastic and sporting the new Blackberry UI (seen previously on the Bold), it’s a welcome update from the slightly poky 8130.
Other updates include a massive memory upgrade from the 64MB on previous Pearls to 128MB and the addition of the BlackBerry media synch that’ll let you whiz your tunes from your PC onto your ‘Berry.
For a full review check out our video conveniently available by clicking the play button to the right.
Link: BlackBerry
Click HERE for source
Having proved itself with Tomb Raider: Legend and appeased long running Lara fans with the Tomb Raider: Anniversary remake, Crystal Dynamics now takes the next step in Lara’s tale.
Underworld concludes the story begun in Legend, in which Lara discovered what happened to her mother all those years before and is now attempting to follow in her father’s footsteps to uncover a pathway to Avalon, where mother dearest is apparently trapped.
Naturally, along the way you’ll be visiting a range of exotic long-lost locations, ranging from the depths of the Mediterranean, to the heart of the Mexican jungle and the frigid waters beneath the Norwegian ice caps.
The gameplay is the familiar and welcome combination of three dimensional exploration, where you’ll be scaling walls and pulling off a range of death defying and improbable balancing acts as you solve your way through the riddles of these ancient tombs.
Crystal Dynamics has paid some attention to the obvious complaint that any elaborate working mechanism in said tombs would have succumbed to age well before Lara showed up. Instead of simply activating antique structures, most of the puzzles consist of trying to put the decaying apparatuses back in working order. This design approach is vaguely convincing at least and does yield some reasonably satisfying puzzles that avoid the dull old key-hunts of old.
Less plausible is Lara’s unique approach to archaeology which involves kicking the crap out of ancient pottery in the hunt for treasures and items; the same applies to the long sections of riding a motorbike through the lost historical sites, but this also highlights the new, considerably larger environments Lara has to explore.
To help you find the safe jumping points, Crystal Dynamics has made sure it’s quite obvious when you’re safe to proceed and that you can’t just dumbly walk off a ledge to your death. Lara will lean out when you’re holding the thumbstick in a direction of an accessible ledge or platform. That helps to ensure you aren’t making a complete leap of faith and that you’re not constantly wrestling with the camera to see where you are going.
This gives the standard gameplay a very nice flow and cleverly it does without taking away all the challenge and satisfaction. You’ll still be sending Lara tumbling to her death on numerous occasions; thankfully, it never proves to be too frustrating.
What’s not so hot is the combat. There’s a difficult balance to be met between keeping the gunplay arcadey and yet strategically satisfying. Sadly, Lara’s missed it this time. You can lob in a few grenades and flying kicks, or polish off enemies with a special headshot finisher, but this is just a thin coat of gloss over a combat system that hasn’t really evolved beyond the original’s ‘hold shoot button and run around a bit’ combat mechanic.
The plot too reveals itself to a pretty shallow affair. The return of one of Lara’s oldest nemeses should have surprised and excited, but was doled out in a fairly drab reveal. And by the time you reach the conclusion of Lara’s search, there’s no real feeling that you’ve got anything invested in the narrative – it’s just another video to watch before you get back to watching Lara’s shapely thighs bounding between ledges.
Sadly, Crystal Dynamics hasn’t continued to delight us with its reimaging of the series, falling all too quickly into a familiar pattern instead of shaking things up some more. The whole game feels like it has been made from user feedback: Legend’s boss fights were toss, so there’s actually not a single one of these (even the Kraken of the first level is really not an actual ‘fight’ in the end). Legend’s plot was not conclusive enough so wham, bam, here it is all neatly, if not convincingly, wrapped up for you. Legend had too many modern settings, so you’re now stuck entirely inside dusty old tomb’s instead of the more interesting locales of the predecessor – though, frankly, for the reason’s mentioned before, Lara is a bloody awful archaeologist.
That said, the fact that Underworld never tries to hard at originality means it can’t really go too far wrong. The meat of the experience is the exploring of long lost temples and that has been done really well. Lara’s new set of mo-capped animations breathes a lot of life into the game, often so realistic that you soon stop noticing all the neat little lifelike movements she uses in reaction to surroundings, and just feel immersed.
Long term Lara fans will probably both delighted and disappointed by this latest incarnation. For those with only a loose interest in Tomb Raider canon, there’s an enjoyable and engaging bit of gameplay to be had here that lives up to usual Lara standards. With so many top quality games either just launched or about to hit, it’s impossible to recommend Tomb Raider: Underworld as a must-buy purchase, but like Lara herself, it’s a refined and captivating specimen; worth taking for ride, even if you dump it after a few weeks.
Link: Tomb Raider
Fancy having your say in the top video game of 2008? Click here to take part in MSN’s vote.
Click HERE for source
With its devilish good looks it’s hard not to swoon over Samsung’s YP-Q1 Diamond (not the shoddy Q1 UMPC of old). If diamond’s are a girl’s best friend then this player is a sound slave’s German Sheppard.
We were impressed by the Samsung YP-P2 and the YP-TI0 but the Q1 takes the (dog) biscuit. Adorned in the Samsung’s school uniform of gloss black, it cuts a classy figure. Gone is the touch screen to be replaced by a touch sensitive four way control pad. However, it can be fiddly at times and we could have done with some haptic feedback. If your fingers are on the tubbier side of paunch it may take you a while to get used to it.
Sacrificing the touchscreen hasn’t led to Sammy losing out in the style stakes. Keeping up appearances with the dappa P2, the menu system looks even better on this 2.4-inch 320×240 resolution screen. Even though the screen may be a touch smaller the quality makes videos jump out; with the addition of an accelerometer, it may not make the iPod Touch cry, but we definitely heard a whimper.
The cherry on this slice of audio cake is its compatibility with BBC iPlayer. You’ll need to download the media player version from the site and then synch it up with Windows Media player but when that’s done you’re free to enjoy Auntie’s finest.
Available with 4GB, 8GB or 16GB worth of grey matter this player is compatible to almost every audio file out there, apart from WAV and AAC, but shunning the iTunes friendly format hasn’t meant a drop in sound quality. Even with the “I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing those” buds the sound is crisp and clear but does lack some bass compared to the likes of the Sonys and the Cowons of this world.
But, the best is yet to come from this little bundle of entertainment joy. It’s the price. Starting off from a mere £59 for the 4GB and working up to an economy driving £109 for the 16GB. That will make Gordon happy.
Link: Samsung
Click HERE for source
Unless you’ve just come staggering out into the daylight from a nuclear bunker, chances are you’ll have heard of Microsoft’s latest Xbox 360 update, the New Xbox Experience. Unlike Sony, Microsoft doesn’t like chucking out updates willy-nilly. Instead it savours them, storing up new software goodies and unleashing them in one giant surge.
This one, however, has blown all previous updates out of the water. It’s far bigger and more ambitious than ever. Turn on your Xbox now and you actually won’t recognise it. For at least a minute, you’ve going to think some crafty thief has nicked your Xbox 360’s innards and replaced them with a Wii.
Your first task on completing the update process (which was fast and painless for us; surprising given the volume of traffic now on the Xbox LIVE network) will be to create your new Avatar. Yes, Microsoft has gone all casual on us and introduced customisable family-friendly characters.
Imagine the fun you can have playing dress up with your own ker-azy little person. Yeah, that much.
The cutesy creations are about as appealing to the core gamer demographic as a dessert made of rabbit semen. If the background music shrieked ‘Wii-knockoff’ any louder, our ears would bleed. The only good thing about the whole experience is that you can flick the thumbstick back and forward to batter your avatar’s pointless head against the screen. Despite a good ten minutes of trying this, however, we didn’t seem to have achieved any permanent mental impairment.
The meat of the NXE is the radically altered layout of, well, everything. The blades are gone, utterly. Instead, pretty much every essential task can now be found using the Guide button. This bit actually resembles the old blade system the most, but it’s a lot easier to find your way around.
Meanwhile, the main menu, if you can really call it that any more, is much more geared towards Xbox LIVE content. Microsoft has been struggling with the fact its original menu layout wasn’t really designed to cope with the huge amount of content now available.
The result is that loading up the dashboard now takes a little bit longer than it used to, presumably because the system is now pulling info from the network before booting. It’s also going to be exacerbated by the sheer volume of traffic on Xbox LIVE now trying out the download.
More pleasingly, the general operation of standard menu functions feels a good deal quicker than it was before. The new option to install games to hard disc also speeds up game start times, however, when we tried it with Guitar Hero: World Tour and Gears of War 2, we didn’t notice any significant reduction in normal in-game load times. It’s a slight disappointment, but the blissful silence from the disc tray makes up for it a bit.
There’s been one casualty in the update: themes. Yeah, you can still use them. Sort of. Hey, you can see nearly half of them being drowned out in the background there! People who paid for themes are going to be miffed, but then they did pay money for a small set of graphics, so arguably they had it coming.
Link: New Xbox Experience
Click HERE for source
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This Philips HTS8140 isn’t just a speaker bar but an all-in-one home cinema system - tap a fingertip on the glass centrepiece and it glides across to reveal an upscaling DVD player.
DVD pictures are surprisingly sharp, with impressive audio accompaniment courtesy of Ambisound, Philips’ own virtual surround technology, designed to repliace 5.1. It succeeds in widening and extending movie audio to wrap around you while also delivering distinct dialogue and deep, rumbling bass; while not up the Yamaha YSP-40 D’s standards, it’s pretty effective.
The subwoofer handles power and most of the connection duties, and connects to the bar via a single (but pretty fat) cable.
The addition of an FM tuner, iPod dock and USB port (for playing digital movie and music files), all work to make this a capable and very impressive system.
More info and where to buy one:
- Philips | Dixons | Comet
Click HERE for source
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