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Amazon Kindle Fire

chasity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:01:47 +0000

The good: The Kindle Fire is a 7-inch tablet that links seamlessly with Amazon’s impressive collection of digital music, video, magazine, and book services in one easy-to-use package. It boasts a great Web browser, and its curated Android app store includes most of the big must-have apps (such as Netflix, Pandora, and Hulu). The Fire has an ultra-affordable price tag, and the screen quality is exceptional for the price.

The bad: The budget price means no premium features (3G wireless, cameras, microphone, GPS, and location services are absent), but the biggest issues are its paltry storage (only 8GB of storage–with no expansion slot), lack of Bluetooth, and limited parental controls. Screen brightness could be better, and the app selection doesn’t match Apple’s or Google’s (at least for now). Also, you’ll need an Amazon Prime subscription to take advantage of some of the more-unique features.

The bottom line: Though it lacks the tech specs found on more-expensive Apple and Android tablets, the $199 Kindle Fire is an outstanding entertainment value that prizes simplicity over techno-wizardry.

Since the publication of this review, Amazon has released several free over-the-air software updates for the Kindle Fire, including OS version 6.2.2, released January 18, 2012. These updates provide some general enhancements, allow a degree of parental control, improve the rendering speed, display width and navigation performance of its Web browser, and allow you to selectively hide items in the home screen carousel. We recommend installing these updates.

In the world of tablets, there are great products and there are cheap products, but very few great, cheap products. Fortunately, for those of you unwilling to shell out $500 for an Apple iPad 2, and wary of buying a piece of junk, Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire tablet should be at the top of your wish list.

The Kindle Fire is not the best tablet I’ve seen this year, but I have to give credit to Amazon for seeing something that no other manufacturer–not even Apple–was able to grasp. When you look at the gap between what tablets are capable of doing, and what people actually use them for, you’ll find that most people just want to be entertained.

The Kindle Fire is here to entertain us, and at $199, I suspect many will take Amazon up on the offer. If you need a tablet that can keep up with your jet-setting, spreadsheet-editing, video-chatting lifestyle, I can point you to a few dozen better options. For the rest of you, read on.

With it, you can read e-books using Amazon’s popular Kindle software, download Android apps and games using Amazon’s Appstore, purchase music using Amazon’s MP3 store, and watch videos using Amazon’s video on-demand and download services. The common thread here is that Amazon’s digital stores and services are all loaded and ready to go out of the box. In fact, there’s no getting around them since they’re baked into the home screen navigation.

Many basic features are covered, as well. You can browse the Web (more on that below), e-mail your friends, read common document files (including PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and others), view photos, and listen to locally stored music files, without any hiccups. A common Micro-USB connection on the bottom of the Kindle Fire allows you to easily connect to any Mac or PC to transfer any content you want to take along. While you’re down there, you’ll find a headphone jack and the Kindle’s power button. Flip it over and you’ll find two adequately powered speakers sitting on the top edge. You’ll have a tough time not covering up the speakers with your hand while watching videos in landscape view, but it’s not impossible.

Software and services
For software, you’re really limited to the Amazon way of doing things. You can download third-party apps, but they come by way of Amazon’s app store. The underlying software may be Google’s, but key Android features, such as Maps, Gmail, Calendar Navigation, and the Google App Market, are all absent.

The unspoken deal you’re making with Amazon here is that in exchange for an inexpensive tablet, you’re agreeing to get your apps, your games, your books, your music, and your videos through its services.

It’s a benevolent dictatorship, though, and to be fair Apple runs its tablet the same way. Just like the iPad, Amazon seems open to the idea that offering competing services, such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Rhapsody, Pandora, comiXology, and others. To see what apps are available, just head over to Amazon’s online app store and poke around.

The other good news is that Amazon’s services don’t suck. Their music store is absolutely on par with iTunes in terms of selection, and their prices are cheaper in most cases. Amazon’s e-book store is arguably the most popular in the industry and put the Kindle brand on the map. Their freshly unveiled Newsstand offers over 400 full-color magazines and newspapers at launch, which can be purchased as single issues or subscriptions. An overview of their selection can be seen on Amazon’s site.

And then there’s video. In my view, this is where Amazon’s tablet really shines. If you’re just looking for an e-reader, a low-cost e-ink reader is arguably a better value than the Kindle Fire. If you just want apps and games on a $199 device, an iPod Touch will deliver more content. But when it comes to watching video, the Kindle Fire’s combination of 7-inch IPS screen and a one-click library of TV shows and movies (not to mention Flash-based Web content) is an unmatched proposition.

Under the browser’s settings, Amazon includes the ability to force Web pages to either a mobile view or desktop view, which is handy if you abhor mobile-optimized sites, or if you’re willing to sacrifice beauty for faster page loads. You’ll also find a setting for disabling Amazon’s accelerated page-loading technology, if you’re creeped out by the idea of Amazon’s computers predicting your browsing habits (they promise the collected data isn’t linked to your account, but you can never be too safe, I suppose). On that same note, there’s no private browsing mode on the Kindle Fire like the one found on both the iPad 2 and Google’s Honeycomb browser.

I’m also a little surprised to see that Amazon hasn’t included much in the way of parental controls on the Kindle Fire. Users are given a password option for the screen lock, and a password lockout option for the Wi-Fi connection, but there are no detailed controls for limiting playback of locally stored age-restricted material, or mature game content. Apple has done an exceptional job implementing these sorts of controls on its iOS products, and it’s the sort of thing that would make the Kindle Fire much easier to recommend for children and teens.

To seal the deal, Amazon includes one free month of all-you-can-stream Instant Videos, including popular TV series such as “Lost” and “24,” as well as popular movies, like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Last of the Mohicans.” If you’re already enrolled in Amazon’s $79/year Amazon Prime program, this free instant video content sticks around and you can enjoy other perks such as free two-day shipping and Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library. Nonmembers can still pay for content a la carte. TV shows are priced at $1.99 per episode. Movies can be rented for between $2.99 and $3.99, or purchased typically for around $14.99. Free apps for Netflix and Hulu Plus are also available if you want to venture beyond Amazon’s offerings.

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

chasity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:47:40 +0000

The good: The Asus Transformer Prime sports an iPad 2-inspired design that’s even thinner and nearly as light, while also managing to include microSD and Micro-HDMI support. The Prime delivers smooth and clear 1080p video, and the 8-megapixel camera captures detail and color more accurately than any other tablet we’ve reviewed. Ice Cream Sandwich makes small, but significant improvements to Honeycomb.

The bad: Not every game takes advantage of the quad-core CPU, and frame rates can suffer as a result. When connected to the dock keyboard, the tablet is top-heavy and can easily slide off a lap or table if you’re not careful.

The bottom line: The Asus Transformer Prime is the best full-featured Android tablet yet, with a sexy design, thoughtful features, and an impressive camera.

Since the launch of the iPad 2, we’ve been kind of waiting for the Asus Transformer Prime. While we didn’t know it existed until a few months ago, the thought of a powerful, robust, and sexy Android tablet has been invading our tablet dreams for months.

Is the Transformer Prime that tablet? With its quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, it definitely has the potential.

Design
The Prime comes in two colors, amethyst gray (gray and purple) and champagne gold (silver and gold). We got the amethyst gray version for review, and although a purple tablet admittedly wasn’t the highest item on our holiday wish list, the gray and purple are blended in a sleek, sexy, and appealing way. Although the aluminum back does a good job of resisting fingerprints, the glossy screen and bezel succumb to them easily.

The Prime takes some design cues from the iPad 2, with a sloped back and rounded corners that don’t dig into our palms as the previous Transformer did. For connections, the Prime includes a microSD slot and a Micro-HDMI port on the left side. On the same side are a volume rocker and a microphone pinhole. On the top is a smallish power/lock button, which, though functional, could have protruded more from the chassis so as to feel more tactile. Next to that is a second microphone pinhole and on the right side is a headphone jack. A 40-pin connector port for data/power is located on the bottom.

On the front bezel sits a 1.2-megapixel camera, and almost directly opposite it on the back is an 8-megapixel camera, which is capable of recording 1080p video.

Like the previous Transformer, the Prime connects to an optional keyboard/dock ($150), transforming it (heh) into what is essentially an Android laptop. With the previous Transformer, that connection wasn’t the easiest to achieve, but the process has improved dramatically on the Prime, as it now easily slides into the awaiting slot.

he dock includes a touch pad, a 40-pin data/power connection port on the left, and a full-size SD slot and USB port on the right.Once connected, the tablet feels a bit top-heavy, though, and could easily slip off a lap or table if enough care isn’t taken. Also, the dock is compatible only with the Prime and vice versa. Switching between the older Transformer and this newer one is not supported.Hardware features
The Prime is the first tablet to house Nvidia’s new quad-core processor, the Tegra 3. The Prime also includes 1GB of RAM and comes in either 32GB or 64GB varieties. It has 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi support, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a gyroscope, and GPS.

The Mobile dock includes an extra battery that–while connected–”feeds” the Prime its power, meaning that the dock’s battery will deplete its reserves before the tablet’s.

Through its Micro-HDMI port, you can connect the tablet to an HDTV or monitor and play full-screen Android games using both wired Xbox 360 and PS3 game pads, as well as supported wireless game pads through the use of an USB dongle.

Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet

chasity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:37:51 +0000

The good: The Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet is a full-featured tablet with a vibrant 7-inch touch screen, built-in Wi-Fi, 16GB of built-in storage, and a microSD expansion slot. In addition to a full slate of books and magazines, it offers more than a thousand apps through its integrated (and growing) Nook Store and is optimized for Netflix and Hulu Plus video playback. The built-in Web browser works well and offers Flash support.

The bad: No access to full Android Market; no Bluetooth, GPS, or camera; no video rental (or purchase) option; sideloaded content beyond 1GB needs to be housed on microSD.

The bottom line: With more storage and a growing app store, the Nook Tablet is a worthy–albeit slightly more expensive–competitor to the Kindle Fire.

When I reviewed 2010′s Barnes & Noble Nook Color, one of my biggest complaints was that it felt a little underpowered for a tablet. Sure, it was fine for reading e-books, running games like Angry Birds, and surfing the Web, but it just didn’t run as smoothly as an iPad.

Despite that drawback, the Nook Color was arguably the best 7-inch tablet out there for the money, and a lot of folks who “rooted” the device to turn it into a fully open Android tablet seemed to agree with that assessment.

Now we get the Nook Tablet. It costs the same $249 as the original Nook Color, which remains on the market for $199, but adds more storage (16GB, plus a microSD expansion slot), a faster dual-core 1GHz processor, a beefy 1GB of RAM, and an integrated microphone. In short, except for leaving out Bluetooth, Barnes & Noble has addressed many, if not most, of the Nook Color’s weak points and put out a strong product that’s easily recommendable at its price point.

Fire extinguisher?
People are asking two questions about the Nook Tablet: Is it better than the Kindle Fire? And is it worth $50 more? They’re tough questions to answer, if only because it depends on how much of an Amazon or Barnes & Noble person you are and whether you prefer a simple black slate to the more refined, stylized look of the Nook Tablet (some people don’t like the little loop in the bottom left corner that covers the memory card slot, for instance, whereas others think it’s a nice distinguishing factor).

Personally, I give the nod to the Nook Tablet in both the design and specs department. But I must say that I like the Fire’s interface and, as an Amazon Prime member and frequent Amazon shopper, when I got my Fire review sample I was able to log into my Amazon account and jump right into the services integrated into that device, including the instant video streaming. (A Prime membership costs $79 per year.) I’d also previously downloaded a number of apps from Amazon’s Appstore for Android, and they were sitting there waiting to be re-installed as soon as I turned the Fire on and logged into my Amazon account.

Like the Fire, the Nook Tablet is running a highly “skinned” version of Android, but the device on a whole feels a little more open. True, unless you “root” the Tablet, you’re still dealing with Barnes & Noble’s customized, walled-garden interface, but having the expansion memory slot (and more internal memory–16GB vs. the Fire’s 8GB) to add and store content instead of moving it on and off the cloud, is appealing–at least to me. And though the Tablet measures slightly bigger than the Fire (they weigh about the same), the Nook Tablet does feel a little better in your hand, largely because the border around the screen has a textured finish whereas the Fire has a glossy, translucent plastic border.

Despite their design and interface differences, the two devices share a lot in common. They both are multimedia tablets that allow you to read e-books, magazines, and newspapers (as well as comics and children’s books), watch movies, listen to music, surf the Web, run apps, and check your e-mail. And both do what they’re advertised to do and do it well–in some cases, very well.

As I write this review, I have both the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire sitting next to my keyboard alongside the original Nook Color (I also have an iPad 2 nearby), so hopefully you’ll get a strong sense of how the Nook Tablet stands on its own as a product as well as how it fairs against its closest competitors.

Nook Tablet key specs:
In many respects, the Nook Tablet is very much the Nook Color 2.0. It’s got the same chassis but weighs 14.1 ounces or 1.7 ounces less than the Nook Color, and the 7-inch screen is the same resolution as its predecessor. But–as you’d expect a year later–it gets the aforementioned faster CPU, more memory and storage, and an operating system upgrade.

Screen: 1,024×600-pixel “laminated, no-air” 7-inch IPS LCD (169 dpi, 16 million+ colors)
Weight: 14.1 ounces
Processor: 1GHz dual-core TI Omap 4
Platform: Customized version of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)
Internal memory: 16GB
MicroSD card expansion slot: up to 32GB cards
Integrated microphone: yes
Battery life: Up to 11.5 hours reading, 9 hours video (with wireless off and PowerSave mode on)
Price: $249

The full skinny:
I’m not going to delve into every last detail about the device, but here are my thoughts on some key areas and how they relate to the Kindle Fire and, to a lesser degree, the iPad 2.

The screen: Though the Nook Tablet has the same 1,024×600-pixel resolution as the Nook Color (and the Kindle Fire), B&N has says the new processor and software tweaks have improved the screen-rendering performance so that everything looks a tad better.

I took a look at the Nook Color and Nook Tablet side by side, and while I didn’t notice a huge difference, the letters on book covers appeared crisper and images slightly more defined. I also compared two identical screensavers on both screens and found the screensaver on the Nook Tablet looked slightly richer.

Motorola Droid Xyboard

chasity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:02:40 +0000

The good: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 feels like an amalgamation of all our favorite Android tablets of 2011 and is endowed with 4G LTE compatibility from Verizon.

The bad: The on-contract price will make you cry, the off-contract price will make you laugh.

The bottom line: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 is a premium Android tablet from the company that defined the category, held back by a high price and uninspired design.

Motorola kicked off 2011 with the world’s first Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablet, the Motorola Xoom. In its wake we witnessed a flood of imitators, and eventually a handful of thinner, brighter, more innovative tablets.

With the Xyboard 10.1 and its smaller sibling, the Xyboard 8.2, Motorola is revisiting the same formula it used for the original Motorola Xoom. By combining high-end hardware with Google’s latest tablet-optimized Honeycomb software and Verizon’s high-speed mobile network, Motorola could have another hit on its hands.

But will Motorola’s recipe for success still work in a time when $199 tablets dominate the headlines and the market is flush withcontract-free Honeycomb options? Let’s take a look.

Pricing and models
The Motorola Xyboard is an expensive tablet. Purchased through Verizon, the Xyboard is available for $529 (16GB), $629 (32GB), and $729 (64GB), with a two-year commitment to a 4G data plan. These plans start at $30 for 2GB of monthly data. Over the course of two years, the cost of the data plan adds up to $720 plus applicable fees (such as a $35 activation charge). If you try to bail before your contract is up, the early termination fee is up to $350.

If you go with a pay-as-you-go plan, like the iPad’s, you’ll pay an extra $170 for the device, making it $699 for the lowest-cost 16GB model.

To save some money, you could go with Motorola’s smaller Xyboard 8.2, which starts at $430 with a two-year contract. Unfortunately, Verizon’s terms and fees are no less onerous.

And what do you get for the money? Well, the Xyboard isn’t the fastest tablet we’ve seen, nor the thinnest, the lightest, the brightest, or the longest-lasting. Arguably, the best thing the Droid Xyboard has going for it (aside from its catchy name) is Verizon’s 4G network compatibility. If you feel the need for mobile speed, and you have the money to support your habit, then by all means indulge yourself.

Design
The first thing you’re bound to notice about the Xyboard is its clipped-off corners, which give it a more octagonal look. It’s a subtle thing, but it does help to distinguish it from the sea of rectangles floating out there.

Like most tablets running Android 3.0 and up, the Xyboard keeps all of its navigation on its 10.1-inch screen, leaving the bezel free from any buttons. Above the screen you’ll find a Motorola logo off to one side and a 1.3-megapixel camera in the center.

Flip the Xyboard over on its belly and you’ll find a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash. Both of the Xyboard’s cameras are capable of recording 720p video. Two integrated speakers are also on the back, along with power and volume buttons and a door concealing the tablet’s SIM card and microSD memory slot.

The top edge of the Xyboard holds a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Tic Tac-sized window for the built-in IR blaster, which enables the tablet to act as a remote control. On the opposite end you’ll find a Micro-USB port for charging and syncing, as well as a Micro-HDMI port for mirroring content on your TV. A charging adapter is included with the Xyboard, but the device is capable of charging (very slowly) over a USB connection to your computer.

Overall, the Xyboard 10.1′s design feels solid and thoughtful, with echoes of the Motorola Xoom. Hopefully this time around Motorola will have more than a month of sales under its belt before another tablet steps in with a radical new trendsetting design. Then again, with the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 coming less than a month after the release of the Xyboard, it could be that the Xyboard is cursed to repeat the Xoom’s fate. At least this time around, the 4G comes baked in.

Hardware specs
Inside the Xyboard 10.1 Motorola is using a 1.2GHz dual core processor from Texas Instruments, backed with a full gigabyte of system RAM. On paper, this sounds like an improvement over the 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processors used in most Honeycomb tablets, but I really didn’t feel the difference in terms of navigation or overall system responsiveness. In fact, I encountered a handful of surprising application hang-ups, but these things typically get ironed out with software updates.

It’s also worth noting that the Xyboard’s hardware configuration will be eligible for an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update in the future. Considering Google’s stake in Motorola, one would hope that the software update will be fast-tracked.

Beyond processing, all of the expected premium capabilities are here, including assisted GPS, digital compass, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 802.11 a/b/g/n, and even digital pen support.

Software
Motorola also throws everything in when it comes to software. Business-minded users will appreciate the preinstalled apps for Citrix, Fuze Meeting, GoToMeeting, Polycom, and Quickoffice HD. The fun-loving will be happy to see Netflix, Blockbuster, Slingbox, and Madden NFL 12.

Fortunately, Motorola and Verizon have done little to obscure the pure Android 3.2 experience. The only branded software on the home screen is MotoCast, an app that enables you to stream or download media to your tablet over the air from your home computer. Verizon’s app store and navigation software also come included, but are easy enough to ignore.

Velocity Micro Cruz T410

chasity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:49:22 +0000

The good: The Velocity Micro Cruz T410 has capable tablet hardware at a great price.

The bad: The design is bulky, the dim screen has some bad viewing angles, and the T410 doesn’t have Google Mobile apps or Android Market.

The bottom line: The Velocity Micro Cruz T410 exists in an awkward space between full-fledged Android tablets and the walled garden of the Kindle Fire. What freedom it affords is spoiled by a poor screen and uninspired design.

The tablet wars of 2011 were waged on two fronts. You had the well-funded heavyweights assaulting the iPad with equally ambitious and expensive creations. At the same time, you had budget-minded manufacturers trying desperately to create a viable, cheap tablet alternative.

The Velocity Micro Cruz T410 is the result of the latter war front. In 2011, Velocity Micro launched no fewer than six low-priced tablets, running the gamut from $119 resistive-screen clunkers like the Cruz R100, all the way up to the $299, 10-inch Cruz T410.

Whether marketed as e-book reader or Android tablet, the recipe for any of these Velocity Micro Cruz tablets can be boiled down to inexpensive hardware matched with a heavily customized version of Android software devoid of the official Google niceties, such as the Android Market, Gmail, and Google Books, Maps, and Navigation.

To fill the software gap, Velocity Micro preinstalls an alternative application storefront (in this case Amazon Appstore for Android) and a handful of games and other apps, such as Angry Birds, Amazon Kindle, and Quickoffice. It’s a bit of a kludge, requiring multiple account configurations instead of the one-stop sign-in of a Kindle Fire, iPad, or full-fledged Android tablet. The end result, though, is a device with more customization options and hardware features than low-cost competitors, at a substantially lower price than a high-end tablet.

So what’s the catch? Well, I could point out the paltry 4GB of storage (2.5GB of it usable), the thick, heavy design, or the unimpressive battery life, but it’s the screen quality that makes this tablet difficult to recommend to any user. No software update or Android rooting can change the fact that the T410′s 800×600-pixel-resolution screen looks like a bad joke compared with the IPS screen of an iPad, or even a smaller device like the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet. Its viewing angles are poor, the pixel density is low to the point of appearing blurry, and the backlight’s maximum brightness is barely adequate.

Sony Tablet S

chasity — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:22:31 +0000

The good: The Sony Tablet S goes above and beyond the typical Honeycomb tablet experience by offering exclusive apps, ergonomic design, PlayStation certification for mobile gaming, DLNA video and music streaming, and an integrated IR universal remote control.

The bad: It’s on the pricey side, the charging adapter is proprietary, and screen brightness isn’t what it could be.

The bottom line: Sony took its time with the Tablet S, and it shows. The industrial design is smart, and the software refinements are both practical and restrained.

Sony’s track record in industrial design, hardware engineering, gaming, and media makes it the best possible candidate to challenge Apple’s iPad. A year and a half after Apple’s tablet debut, Sony is striking back with an Android 3.2 slate that is bound to turn heads and win some fans.

Priced at $499 (16GB) and $599 (32GB), and lacking cellular data compatibility (at least in the U.S.), the Sony Tablet S isn’t looking to be an inexpensive iPad alternative. It represents an elevation in the art of making Android tablets, and offers a genuinely fresh take on tablet design.

Design
Sony’s tablet is easy to spot in a lineup. Its unique wedge shape gives it a futuristic look and provides improved balance in your hand compared with the flat competition. As seen when placed on a table, the screen’s forward slant minimizes glare and makes it more comfortable to type. The tradeoff is that the Tablet S doesn’t achieve the same thinness as an iPad 2, though the Tablet S is just as light at 1.3 pounds and feels more solid than the reigning Android slate, the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Around the sides you’ll find buttons for power and volume, speakers, a headphone jack, and a tethered cover protecting a Micro-USB sync connection and a full-size SD card reader. A built-in app handles moving files back and forth from your card. It’s worth noting that unlike other Honeycomb tablets, the SD card reader here functions just for media transfer and isn’t meant to act as a memory expansion port.

Sony also made an interesting choice by going with a 9.4-inch screen instead of the 10.1-inch panel used on nearly every other Honeycomb tablet out there. Sony also uses the TruBlack technology from its Bravia TV line to make the screen contrast really pop. Though the screen is slightly smaller than those found on most of its Honeycomb cousins, you really don’t feel the pinch while using it and it actually helps to bring the overall form factor closer to the iPad’s dimensions.

Features
Take as read that you get Google’s full Android 3.1 experience. Everything from Gmail to Google Talk (with video chat) comes ready to go right out of the box. On top of that you get access to Sony’s Video Unlimited service. Ironically, video selection is very limited at launch, but plans are in place to offer video download and rental options from all the major studios. You get a six-month free basic membership to Sony’s Music Unlimited service (a revamped version of Sony’s Qriocity). Sony’s own Reader software is included, alongside Google Books. And last but not least, both of Sony’s tablets are PlayStation-certified, and run emulator software allowing them to play select PS One and PSP game titles. The original PS One hit Crash Bandicoot comes preinstalled, along with a version of Pinball Heroes.

Sony has also included some interesting options for pushing media content from these tablets onto DLNA-compatible speakers, PCs, or TVs (and not just Sony’s). You can think of it as Sony’s answer to Apple’s AirPlay media streaming, only more broadly compatible with third-party technology.

Also playing into Sony’s focus on the tablet as a living-room entertainment device is the inclusion of an IR blaster and universal remote app on the Tablet S. Having tried a demo of this feature personally, we can safely say that it makes the remote functionality of the Vizio tablet look like amateur hour. Essentially, Sony cannibalized its own $250 HomeShare premium universal remote and slapped the same software inside the Tablet S. The result is a graphically rich remote that you might actually want to use.

n that same spirit of borrowing from its best technology to make a compelling tablet, Sony has borrowed the Exmor image technology from its digital cameras to make a tablet camera that’s actually worth a damn. The touch-screen panels on both tablets take advantage of the TruBlack technology used on Sony’s Bravia HDTV sets, as we mentioned, providing richer contrast and minimizing reflections between the LCD and the glass above it. Sony even threw in the Dash’s Chumby widgets, transforming the tablet into a high-tech photo frame/widget display when the device is placed in an optional dock ($39).

Fortune Street Wii

chasity — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:06:07 +0000

The Good

Wide variety of board designs
Robust single-player mode with fun opponents and dialogue
Plenty of extras to unlock.

The Bad

Can be slow-paced even on the highest speed settings
Easy mode is too dull
Doesn’t hold up well as a party game experience.

In the days of yore, before Pong and the Fairchild Channel F, people looking for competitive experiences in the comfort of their homes amused themselves primarily with tabletop board games. Nowadays, we live in an age of electronic games, but this hasn’t decreased the appeal of traditional board games. In fact, the advent of video games has given rise to some wholly original board-game-style experiences in digital form. Square-Enix’s Fortune Street series is among these original “video board games.” Despite being around for 20 years in its native Japan, Fortune Street on the Wii marks the franchise’s Western debut, complete with characters from the Mario and Dragon Quest series–and a glacial pace that muzzles your enjoyment.

The Mario themes might conjure up images of Nintendo’s long-running Mario Party series, but make no mistake: Fortune Street is a very different sort of board game experience. It’s actually a lot easier to compare Fortune Street to Monopoly. You are placed on one of several Mario- or Dragon Quest-themed board designs, and you take turns rolling a virtual die to move around. Scattered across the boards are empty lots you can purchase when you land on them for the first time. When you purchase a space, a shop is built, and players landing on that space from that point onward must pay money to the owner. As you build more shops, you have the option to improve your property, raising prices and bolstering your net worth. Traveling around the board also nets you “suits” (hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs), which earn you extra money and benefits when a full set is brought back to the Bank space. To win the game, you must be the first to make it back to the Bank space with a certain net worth.

It’s a bit more complicated than that, though. The game has two play settings–easy and standard–and the rules vary depending on which mode you pick. Easy mode grants growth, property value, and price bonuses for building shops next to each other on the board. Standard mode divides areas of the playfield into “districts.” Building sets of shops within districts grants bonuses similar to building things side-by-side in easy mode, but with another distinct advantage: stock price boosts. Landing on the Bank or other set spaces in standard mode lets you buy stocks in certain districts, and as stock prices rise, so do property values. Stock prices and property values have a direct correlation: as one rises, so does the other, and vice versa. Stocks also pay out small dividends whenever a transaction occurs within a certain district. Playing wise with stocks is a good way to increase your net worth.

It wouldn’t be a board game without a bit of chance thrown in, and Fortune Street provides simple, single-player minigames and random bonuses/penalties when you land on certain spaces of the board, keeping you constantly on your toes. There are also ways to mess with your opponents: if you have a lot of cash on hand, you can forcibly buy shops off of them for several times the asking price, or you can decrease the value of their properties by offloading a lot of stocks in a district they’ve invested heavily in.

Things might sound complicated, but the game provides a solid single-player tutorial for both play modes to help ease you into the rules. In fact, the single-player mode is surprisingly robust, featuring a bevy of boards to play on and Mario and Dragon Quest characters as rivals of varying skill levels. (If you’re expecting to play as these characters, however, you’ll be disappointed, because the only character you can use is your Mii.) By performing well in the single-player games, you earn stamps that can be used to purchase and customize clothes and animations for your Mii avatar. There are a lot of purchasable items, so if you want to get everything, you’ll be playing for a while. Fortunately, single-player game sessions can be saved midgame, and if you don’t feel like grinding, you can even set your player character to Out to Lunch mode and have the computer take over in your place.

Out to Lunch mode is likely to become tempting at times, because Fortune Street has a tendency to be a slow-paced game, even with the movement and text speed cranked up to max. Easy mode in particular begins to drag once all the property has been bought up; you find yourself circling the board waiting for someone, anyone, to get enough net worth to finally win. Standard mode can be infuriatingly slow in a different way as you wait for other parties to manage their stock portfolios and other assets. It’s not unlikely for a single game session to drag on for a few hours.

It’s this slowness and complexity that seriously hamper the appeal of Fortune Street as a multiplayer experience. The game offers far more careful strategy than a typical “party game,” but at the expense of pick-up-and-play appeal. There’s little in the way of direct player-to-player interaction except when money and property change hands–even the few minigames are strictly single-player. It’s not a “grab off the shelf and play for a half hour” sort of multiplayer game: you need a group of people willing to commit a good chunk of time and effort to playing a somewhat complex finance management game. It’s not a guaranteed crowd pleaser, and if you’re hoping to play with younger companions, you’re likely to have some very bored kids on your hands. At least if you can’t find flesh-and-blood buddies with whom to run your own local campaigns, you can hop online to try to find some folks for Wi-Fi play.

Fortune Street is a serviceable board-game-style experience, but it comes with plenty of caveats: a slow pace, some initial complexity that’s hard to ease new players into, lengthy single-session play times, and a lack of interaction with your opponents. It’s certainly fun to snatch property up and reap rewards from unlucky foes, but it requires a great deal of patience and time commitment. If you and some friends are willing to make the investment, you might find rewards on Fortune Street; otherwise, you’re better off sticking to something more immediately fulfilling.

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admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:42:51 +0000

Privacy

admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:42:35 +0000

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Bose QuietComfort 15

admin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:20:46 +0000

The good: Extracomfortable design; improved sound; highly effective noise-canceling circuitry; device folds for compact storage in included carrying case; 30-day home trial.

The bad: Expensive; when the battery dies, so does the music.

The bottom line: While they’re no bargain, the Bose QuietComfort 15s currently offer the best sound and silencing capabilities in a pair of noise-canceling headphones.

Review:In designing its fourth-generation consumer noise-canceling headphones, the QuietComfort 15s, Bose has done something interesting. Instead of coming up with a whole new look for its headphones as it did with the QuietComfort 3s, Bose has left the basic design of its popular QuietComfort 2s intact and simply redesigned them on the inside, adding even more effective noise-canceling circuitry and improving their sound quality.In designing its fourth-generation consumer noise-canceling headphones, the QuietComfort 15s, Bose has done something interesting. Instead of coming up with a whole new look for its headphones as it did with the QuietComfort 3s, Bose has left the basic design of its popular QuietComfort 2s intact and simply redesigned them on the inside, adding even more effective noise-canceling circuitry and improving their sound quality.

The QuietComfort 15s look identical to the QuietComfort 2s, with the same over-the-ear design, including earcups that swivel and fold flat to fit in a stylish case. (To be clear: the QC15s replace the QC2s, which will no longer be sold.) Bose has redesigned the case so that it’s easier to plop the headphones in it and close it up. The resulting package is slightly bigger than a CD wallet, which makes it easier to tote, though it’s still not terribly compact. As you’d expect from a set of headphones designed for frequent travelers, Bose throws in a two-prong airline adapter. The ‘phones also offer a “high/low” switch, which should prevent your ears getting blasted when the pilot or flight attendant comes over the PA system.

As we said about the QuietComfort 2s, even without the noise-canceling engaged, the earcups’ deliciously soft cushions effectively sealed off our ears from the noisy environment. While the QuietComfort 2s only had noise-canceling microphones (for detecting the ambient noise) on the inside of the earcups, the QC15s have them on the inside and outside, which is said to increase their effectiveness. Flipping on the noise cancellation–which pumps out “anti-noise” to proactively counteract the environmental sounds–damps down the noise even further.

Of course, there’s a catch. Like all other noise-canceling headsets we’ve reviewed, the QuietComfort 15s produce a sense of pressure on the eardrum. Listeners sensitive to this effect may find it anywhere from mildly annoying to distractingly uncomfortable. Most of the former group will tend to forget about it as soon they start playing music or movies. If your experience is more the latter, noise-canceling headphones aren’t for you–stick with noise-isolating in-ear headphones instead. (Luckily, Bose offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you don’t like the QuietComfort 15s, you can return them.)

This reviewer has a very loud air-conditioning system in his office that we use for testing noise-canceling headphones (it isn’t quite as loud as the inside of an airline cabin but it’s not that far off). The QuietComfort 15s were able to almost completely silence the sound of the rumbling fan. Oddly, the impact of engaging the circuitry may seem a bit weird–it almost feels as if you’re at the bottom of a pool, almost completely shut off from the sounds above.

As with all of Bose’s noise-canceling headphones, you have to engage the noise-canceling to listen to music, and when the battery dies, so does the music. Luckily, battery life is good. Bose rates it at 35 hours, and the single AAA battery, which resides in the right earcup, was still going strong after we left our tunes in a loop overnight. Those looking for a rechargeable option can either opt for the QuietComfort 3s, or invest in their own third-party battery and charger. On the plus side, sticking with standard alkalines means there’s no wall charger or AC cord to worry about when traveling.

While there may not be a huge difference between this model’s noise-canceling prowess and the QuietComfort 2′s, a distinction is definitely noticeable. According to Bose, these headphones are designed to defeat a wider range of frequencies, going up to over 90 decibels; the QuietComfort 2s peaked more in the 84-85db range. We also tried the QuietComfort 15s in the New York City subway system, and they did an impressive job of muffling noise.

Of course, the only problem is that because these are over-the-ear headphones that offer a tight seal, it can get a bit steamy inside the cups, especially on hot days, though they “breathe” fairly well for over-the-ear headphones. On long plane rides, your skin will also get a bit moist underneath the cushions, so expect to take them off for short periods to give your ears a little air. Also note that the 3.5 millimeter cord is detachable, so if you just want to block out the outside world and catch a nap, you can do so.

In terms of sound quality, the first thing we noticed about this model compared with the QuietComfort 2s was that the overall sound was smoother and more tonally balanced. In the QuietComfort 2s and QuietComfort 3s, Bose seemed to mess with the bass a bit, pumping it up (we found it a little thumpy), but the bass on the QuietComfort 15s is tighter and punchier (hip-hop fans may prefer the bass on the QuietComfort 2s, but that’s a matter of listening taste).

The QuietComfort 15s offer excellent detail. Our first reaction to the headphones was an urge to relisten to our entire library of music, a welcoming symptom of acquiring high-grade cans. That said, these are a closed-cup design, so the sound is a bit more “stuck inside your head” than you’d get from open-backed headphones. As such, they don’t quite measure up to some other high-end headphones that we’ve tested in this price range. Still, these are probably the best-sounding noise-canceling headphones we’ve heard to date.

As we’ve said about virtually all of Bose’s headphones, they aren’t exactly a bargain. And at $300, these aren’t either. But they are a nice step up from the QuietComfort 2s and offer improved sound and noise-canceling performance. Looking at it that way, we can at least say they they’re a better deal than their predecessors or the smaller and more expensive QuietComfort 3s, which still retail for $350.