Gadgets Review

Sony Ericsson P990

2007-01-26T14:46:00.000-08:00

Sony Ericsson P990 Introduction
The P990 has what you need to do business and communicate with friends and colleagues wherever you are. You have access to the internet everywhere, push email to get your email straight to your phone, and video conferencing for effective communications.

Sony Ericsson P990 Design
The Sony Ericsson P990i weighs 5.3 ounces and measures 4.4 x 2.2 x 1 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 7.5 hours of digital talk time, and up to 340 hours of digital standby time. It runs on the 900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS and 2100 MHz UMTS frequencies.

Sony Ericsson P990 Features
The slim form factor makes the P990 easy to carry, hold and use. You can carry it comfortably in your pocket or in a bag. The touchscreen and Jog Dial navigation make using the P990i easy and intuitive, and a large, 240 x 320 screen that supports 262,000 colors is excellent for watching video, viewing images, and reading email and other messages. A full QWERTY keyboard is located below the screen. The keyboard is revealed by flipping down the P990’s dialpad. Sony Ericsson P990 comes with a 2 megapixel camera. The camera comes equipped with dedicated macro mode, autofocus, a LED flash, and image stabilizer for video recording. The P990 comes with the obligatory MP3 player, and has a dedicated music button on its side to switch the phone over to music mode. It also comes with a stereo FM radio capable of supporting 20 different channels, as well as RDS.

Sony Ericsson P990 Performance
The P990 is a 3G/UMTS data-enabled device, so you know it’s going to pack a lot of great Internet and messaging features. In addition to MMS and SMS messaging, push email is supported. With a carrier data plan, you can easily connect to the Internet and browse the Web with the included Opera browser, which supports HTML, xHTML, CSS and Javascript protocols. You can also use the P990 as a modem to provide an Internet connection to your laptop or PDA via Bluetooth or USB. As mentioned, Wi-Fi connectivity means that you can tap into wireless hotspots for fast Web browsing. Naturally, the Sony Ericsson P990 comes with all manner of useful productivity tools, including calendar, ToDo list, alarms, a task manager, calculator and general organizer. Several Office-type applications are also included, including a simple notes application for storing text (either typed or handwritten), a PDF viewer, and QuickOffice, which lets you read and edit Microsoft Office documents. The P990 also comes with a hardware graphics accelerator, which gives it the ability to play some pretty stunning games.

Whats included in the package
Sony Ericsson P990i Phone, 64 MB Memory Stick Pro Duo, Handsfree Headset, Strap, 2 Stylus, Travel Charger, Extra Flip and utility pack, Memory Stick DUO Adaptor, Sync Cradle with USB Adaptor, Li-on Battery BST33, User Manual, CD-ROM.

Conclusion
A phone, PDA and imaging machine packed with media and applications to support business and leisure activities. It takes the work out of the job.

Motorola Razr V3x (Pink)

2007-01-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

The good: The Motorola Razr V3x has a stylish and sturdy design, decent call quality, and a generous feature set that offers two digital cameras with a flash, stereo Bluetooth, and a speakerphone, as well as and support for (European) 3G networks.

The bad: The Motorola Razr V3x isn't compatible with U.S. 3G networks. Also, the volume is a tad low, the internal memory is limited, and its memory card is in an inconvenient location.

The bottom line: Despite some minor complaints, the Motorola Razr V3x is top of the line for the Razr family. It's just too bad it isn't for use in the United States.

Microsoft Photo Info tool

2007-01-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Photo Info is a new software add-in for Microsoft Windows that allows photographers to add, change and delete common "metadata" properties for digital photographs from inside Windows Explorer. It also provides enhanced "hover tips" and additional sort properties for digital photographs in Explorer (in Details view).

Features

View or edit photo metadata from inside Windows Explorer. Now, advanced image properties are at your fingertips from within Windows.
Edit images individually, or as a collection. Photo Info has two edit modes: individual and collection, making it easy to update many images at the same time.
Quick recall of recent entries. For some properties, Photo Info remembers the most recent entries you have typed. To recall a recent entry, click on the drop down arrow and select it from the list.
Generate copyright notice automatically. Photo Info can generate a standard copyright notice automatically from the Author and date Created information, if present.
Quick recall of location details. To help save time when entering location information, Photo Info can save location details under a name you provide. Recall these details by selecting the location name from the drop-down menu.
Correct EXIF capture date / time information. Photo Info can optionally update the EXIF date/time information as recorded in the image file by your camera. You can use this feature to correct the file capture date if your camera's clock was set incorrectly (for example, to the wrong time zone).
View EXIF properties. Click on the Details tab to view common EXIF properties. Click on More properties for additional details.
Preview the image. To see a larger preview of the image, double-click on the thumbnail.
Enhanced hover tips. Hover tips have been enhanced for JPEG, TIFF and other supported file types in Windows Explorer.
Custom column properties. In Windows Explorer when viewing a folder in Details view, additional sort properties are available for supported image types.

Supported file types

The initial release of Microsoft Photo Info supports the following common image file types: JPEG, TIFF, WDP, HDP (HD Photo), NEF, CR2, and CRW*. Support for additional file formats is under consideration for a future release.

* Support for CRW files requires that an associated THM file is present in the same folder as the selected CRW image. (THM files are thumbnail "sidecar" files generated by certain Canon cameras.)

source :-
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/07012304msphotoinfotool.asp

Toshiba Portege R400-S4931

2007-01-21T12:08:00.000-08:00

Toshiba's first Windows Vista laptop, the Portege R400, is a beautifully crafted convertible tablet that unfortunately is every bit as expensive as it looks. It won't be available for purchase until January 30, 2007, with a base price of $2,599. Our review unit came packed with high-end features such as built-in EV-DO, an OLED display on the front edge, and a screen that uses the new LED backlight technology. Add in Windows Vista Ultimate, and you've got a system that will strain even the thickest wallets at $3,499. We'll have to wait until closer to the release date to see what money-saving configuration options are offered. Despite its excellent design and build quality, it's hard to recommend a system this expensive, especially one that provides only a Core Duo processor, a rather skimpy 80GB hard drive, and integrated graphics. Ignoring its high price, the Toshiba Portege R400 is an impressive achievement, firmly in the same industrial design league as Apple and Sony.

The Toshiba Portege R400 measures 12 inches wide, 9.4 inches deep, and 1.25 inches high, slightly smaller than the Apple MacBook. Like the Vista-based HP Pavilion tx1000us, the Portege R400 has a comfortable full-size keyboard and a 12.1-inch screen that is a little on the small side for long-term use. The Portege R400 weighs 3.8 pounds (4.6 pounds with the AC adapter), which is just about right for a thin-and-light notebook you'd carry around on a frequent basis.

The system's base, screen bezel, and spine are black, but the lid and the keyboard tray are white, giving it an almost Mac-like look, especially when closed. The center hinge is solid and literally snaps into place, letting you know it's correctly situated. Unlike the HP Pavilion tx1000us, the Portege R400's tablet screen is of the traditional, active-stylus-type, and you'll need to use the included stylus to control it.

Turning the screen 180 degrees and folding it down over the keyboard automatically switches the display into tablet mode, although we had trouble further rotating the display orientation with the screen rotation button after that. By fishing around the various Toshiba and Windows tablet settings menus, we were able to figure out that the rotation button was assigned to another task by default, a situation easily remedied. The other controls sitting below the LCD--buttons for e-mail and locking the system, and a small thumb stick for scrolling--all worked correctly, as did the fingerprint reader.

Sitting on the front edge of the system is a small OLED readout, called the Toshiba Edge Display. This, by default, shows you the time, the battery level, and the wireless signal strength, but it can also be used with a new Windows Vista feature called Active Notification. If you set up a POP3 e-mail account with Outlook 2007, Active Notifications allows the system's wireless connection to stay active (or cycle on and off periodically) even when the laptop is closed and in sleep mode. If a new e-mail message comes in, the Edge Display can display an appropriate icon. Naturally, keeping the wireless connection on will have an impact on battery life. We haven't had time to set up Outlook yet, so we'll examine this feature's usefulness in a later update to this review.

Connections are somewhat skimpier than we're used to having with a modern laptop, and include two USB 2.0 jacks, headphone and mic jacks, a PC Card slot, and a VGA output. On such a pricey and otherwise cutting-edge laptop, we expected more ports and slots, including FireWire, a media card reader, and an ExpressCard slot. Networking equipment includes a Gigabit Ethernet jack, integrated 802.11b/g wireless, and built-in EV-DO from Verizon Wireless (which requires a separate subscription). Toshiba's proprietary connection utility makes setting up the EV-DO signal almost completely painless.

Given its $3,500 price, we were somewhat disappointed with the components on our review unit. While definitely small, the Portege R400 is not an ultraportable system, so we could reasonably expect an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, not a slower Core Duo (in this case the ultralow-voltage 1.2GHz U2500). The 2GB of DDR2 RAM is a good choice for Windows Vista, but the 80GB hard drive, at a slower 4,200rpm speed, was disappointing. The DVD burner is also shunted off to an external add-on box, something we've seen in ultraportable systems, but rarely, if at all, in a laptop this size.

Compared to HP's new Vista tablet, the Pavilion tx1000us, which costs roughly half the price, the Portege R400 did not perform as well on CNET Labs' Photoshop CS2 and iTunes encoding tests, falling behind the more powerful AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 processor found on the Vista-based Pavilion. The R400's performance was comparable to a Windows XP laptop with a Core Duo processor, such as the Sony VAIO N170.

Despite our misgivings about some of the component choices in both Vista systems, each one is perfectly adequate for mainstream productivity and multimedia use--despite the resource-hogging reputation of Windows Vista. As with the Pavilion tx1000us, the Portege R400 felt robust and speedy during our hands-on testing. We're continuing to test this system and will update this review as more results become available.

With an ultralow-voltage CPU and a lack of power-hungry components, we expected more battery life from the Portege R400 than the paltry 1 hour and 54 minutes we got in CNET Labs' DVD battery drain test. Windows Vista can be power hungry, and the secondary edge display probably doesn't help, but at least three hours is what we'd expect from tablet PCs, which are intended to be mobile by their very nature. Our review unit included a second, extended battery pack (which we have not tested yet) which clips onto the bottom of the system. That would add considerable work time but also add weight and bulk to the system.

Toshiba covers the R400 with a one-year warranty with return-to-depot service. The company's toll-free tech support line is available 24/7, but there is no online chat option. You can extend coverage to three years for $149, and upgrades to on-site service are also available.

Acer Aspire 3623WXMi

2007-01-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

Acer Aspire 3623WXMi - Celeron M 370 1.5 GHz - 14.1" TFT

Description: The Acer Aspire 3623WXMi is a 5.3-pound, thin-and-light notebook computer. Compared to other thin-and-light notebooks on the market, it is very inexpensive at around $655. Has Wi-Fi (wireless connectivity) built-in.

Pros: None noted, given available product data.

Cons: Only has a Celeron M processor. This is not out of line with the product's price, but is less efficient than the average notebook on the market today. The Acer Aspire 3623WXMi comes with basic word processing software – if you often create complex documents you will likely need to upgrade to a more powerful office suite . Integrated graphics controllers that rely on shared RAM are sometimes an acceptable trade-off for budget-minded users.

Suitability: A thin-and-light notebook, suited for business computing. If you have a wireless network at home, wirelessly browse the Web from any room in your house with this Wi-Fi enabled notebook.

Value: In view of its very inexpensive price, this notebook has great features for the money. Generally, it should be considered by serious bargain hunters.

Suggestions: (1) Given this device's Wi-Fi capability, you may want to get a wireless access point for your home, so that you can browse the Internet more conveniently from any room. (2) This laptop supports USB 2.0, which allows speedy data transfer between peripherals.

A Review of the HP PSC 1410 All in One Scanner, Printer and Copier

2007-01-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

The Hewlett Packard (HP) PSC 1410 All In One scanner, copier and printer has given me nothing but trouble ever since I first bought it. It is unfortunate that I did not take it back to the store, thinking that the persistent malfunctioning of the HP PSC 1410 All In One Scanner was a fault on my own. In reality, I just believe that Hewlett Packard has produced a bad product. And I have two friends with the same HP PSC 1410 All In One and they both have had similar problems with theirs.

The enormous time consuming issue that has been tantalizing me to no end since a week after I purchased this awful Hewlett Packard 1410 All In One equipment is that it seems to have a difficult time multitasking. More explicitly, once you start scanning, you cannot easily switch the mode to copying. Once you start copying, you cannot easily switch the mode to scanning. Printing, however, seems usually available, although it is slow, like most Hewlett Packard printers I have taken note of. But the issue with the HP PSC 1410 All In One is quite irritating, as it is not even a simple fix to restart your computer, recharge the printer or other sensible reparation solutions one might ordinarily think of. No, actually what happens instead is a window pops up and the computer attempts to switch over, cannot do it, and then as a final attempt, asks you to insert the disk that came with your HP PSC 1410 All In One machine. However, upon inserting the disk, the problem is not resolved. And you’ve wasted your precious time. It doesn’t even help to reinstall the software. This problem seems to be deep rooted.

Even worse than the product itself, though, is the fact that I do not have the extra money to spend phoning the Hewlett Packard customer service department. The last time I did so, with my last Hewlett Packard equipment, I had to spend $40 to get help and the associate not only spoke little English but I ended up solving the problem myself while he was busy reading his directions about how to guide me. (I’m still fighting for the $40 bucks back!)

Other problems known to occur with the Hewlett Packard PSC 1410 All In One scanner, copier and printer are the machine incorrectly thinking there is no ink left, a very slow printing time and ink cartridges that run out very quickly. Furthermore, the PSC 1410 All In One is seemingly a bit meek in build, as it shakes uncontrollably while operating, thereby disturbing everything that is on the same platform as it is.

Samsung S500

2007-01-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

Samsung calls its S-series cameras point-and-shoots, but these slim snappers offer controls that could help them break away from the usual crop of mindless auto-only cameras. Before you get your hopes up, we have to warn that the Samsung Digimax S500's image quality leaves quite a bit to be desired. You'd be better served eschewing the controls offered here and opting for something along the lines of Nikon's Coolpix L3, which delivers better image quality and a touch more style for about the same price.

Measuring 3.8 by 2.4 by 1 inches and weighing just 4.8 ounces, the S500 fits nicely in a jacket pocket, and its curved grip makes it easy to hold. The sparse, silver- or black-and-gray look won't turn heads but isn't ugly either. Its 3X optical, 35mm-to-105mm (35mm equivalent), f/2.8-to-f/4.9 zoom lens extends outward from the camera front when powered up and retracts when turned off.

The power button, the mode dial, and the shutter release reside atop the camera, while the zoom rocker, a four-way-plus-menu/OK control pad, and three other control buttons occupy the right side of the camera back next to the 2.4-inch LCD. The zoom rocker sits about 0.25 inch too far to the right for comfort, though the curved indent underneath it provides a perfect spot for your thumb. The three control buttons let you enter play mode and adjust exposure compensation; not to mention access settings such as ISO, white balance, and RGB intensity as well as other options, such as color modes, photoframe overlays, stitch-assist modes, and framing guides to help you line up your subjects. This last button is labeled with an E for effects, while the exposure compensation button is labeled with plus and minus symbols.

The problem is that most manufacturers place options such as white balance and ISO in the regular menu. Not only that, since the camera defaults to show current settings on the LCD (a good thing), including ISO, it's hard to notice that the exposure compensation button gives you access to adjust this and other settings. Furthermore, when in full manual mode, you have to press exposure compensation twice to access these settings-- again, not very intuitive.

Still, we were happy to see a full manual exposure mode. Not many point-and-shoot cameras let you select both aperture and shutter speed. Strangely, the S500 doesn't offer shutter- or aperture-priority modes, though it does include program and full auto modes, as well as 10 scene presets. While not as many as some of its competitors, this Samsung covers all the basics, such as portrait, night, landscape, and sunset, and even includes one called dawn in case you end up partying all night after shooting that sunset.

Exposure compensation covers a range of plus or minus 2EV in 1/2-stop increments. Most cameras offer 1/3-stop increments, for a finer degree of control. Similarly, the S500's manual shutter and aperture adjustments use 1/2-stop steps, though again, that's still more control than most cameras in this price range. If you really want to be safe, you can set the S500 to automatically bracket exposures, in which case it will shoot three shots in succession: one normally exposed, one at plus-0.5EV, and one at minus-0.5EV. Metering options include multi, which averages readings from throughout the image area with an emphasis on the middle; and spot, which measures only the center of the image.

Performance was mixed in our lab tests. The camera took 1.8 seconds to power up and capture its first image, which is actually somewhat fast, but once it started up, it took 2.4 seconds between shots without flash and an annoyingly slow 3.6 seconds with flash turned on. The shutter lag was a speedy 0.5 second in high-contrast situations and 1.3 seconds in low-contrast lighting. Continuous shooting was sluggish, capturing 39 VGA-sized JPEGs in 31.7 seconds for an average of 1.23fps, and 36 5-megapixel JPEGs in 32.9 seconds for an average of 1.09fps.

The LCD washed out in bright sunlight, though it was still possible to see enough to frame our images. It gained up in low light just enough to frame, though not as much as some of the LCDs we've seen lately. The flash is rated to provide even coverage out to about 10 feet with ISO in auto mode.

Automatic white balance produced very warm, yellowish images with our lab's tungsten lights, while the tungsten white-balance setting had a noticeably bluish cast. Thankfully, the manual setting produced neutral results, though the audience for these cameras is not very likely to set a manual white balance. Given that even Olympus's dirt-cheap FE-series cameras manage to provide a neutral white balance in auto mode, we don't understand why it should be so difficult for this camera, although it does so many things that those Olympus FEs can't even dream of. In natural daylight, the Digimax S500's automatic white balance did a good job of neutralizing colors, which were natural-looking and well saturated.

Even at ISO 50 (the lowest setting possible with this camera), some noise was visible in our test images, though it was very minor and remained so at ISO 100. At ISO 200, noise was very noticeable, causing even moderately dark colors to become mottled with splotches of varying lightness and colors, though many finer details were still unobscured. By ISO 400, the noise overwhelmed lots of detail, resulting in images unfit for print.

Exposures were generally accurate, though images were slightly soft and had noticeable fringing in highlights, especially with backlit subjects. We also noticed JPEG artifacting, which lent a choppy look to some curved edges.

Given that Samsung has shown that it is capable of making cameras that capture pleasing images, such as the Digimax L85 and the Digimax L60, there's little excuse for its S-series cameras turning in pictures that are plagued by artifacts and other noise. So, while the Digimax S500 certainly has a feature set that looks decent, you're better off spending a little more on one of Samsung's better-performing cameras, or looking at another brand altogether, such as Nikon's Coolpix L3.

Apple iphone .....first impression

2007-01-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

I saw the iPhone today at Macworld. It was playing a self running demo while slowly rotating inside a glass cylinder on a pedestal. There were two such displays on the show floor each guarded by at least two Apple reps and gathering 10 deep crowds of camera phone wielding fans. A very impressive device. The screen is gorgeous, vivid and incredibly sharp. The new multi-touch UI, if it works and is only half as intuitive and learn-able as it looks in the demos will become the standard against which any new device's user interface will be compared unfavorably. I love that the web and IP data aware apps like Google Maps were so much a part of Steve Job's presentation - the iPhone is going to introduce a lot of folks to using the web on a phone.

Still the iPhone is not perfect. A new phone of this class really should have GPS, 3G, removable storage and a 2D code reader. But features get left out to get a product to market and so a Version 2 with the missing features can be sold to early adopters as an upgrade. Still, the lack of GPS is particularly puzzling given the inclusion of Google Maps on the device. GPS chips are cheap. A $50 Boost prepaid phone running Loopt or the much superior Mologogo can find you on a Map but the iPhone costing 10 times as much requires you to key in your address!

I am also concerned about how open the iPhone will be to developers and hackers. TUAW has a piece claiming; iPhone Will Not Allow User Installable Applications! I asked two of the demo iPhone's keepers at Macworld "Does Apple support the development of third-party apps for the iPhone". One didn't know and the other said that was still being decided. Both directed me to developer.apple.com which currently has no mention of the iPhone. But it's early. Surely Apple recognizes that a mobile device this powerful, running a full desktop OS, demands a library of installable applications and that the quickest way to built that library is to open the API's and provide development tools.

Yesterday I posted some links to sites with live coverage of the Macworld keynote and said that I was going to try to follow the presentation on my phone using Opera Mini and these sites. I have to say that it worked out great. Sitting on the floor in the underground tunnel between Moscone North and Moscone South I was amazed that I had full bars on my Sprint/Nextel/Boost Motorola i855. Is there a microcell down there? Anyway I was surrounded by hundreds of the Mac faithful, most of whom had laptops and were following the keynote too. There were visible wifi repeaters in the tunnel. I had no problem keeping up with the presentation using just my phone. I mostly used the so-called mobile version of Engadget's site as it seemed to have the best commentary and gorgeous live photos. I say "so-called mobile" because Engadget's mobile keynote page is almost 2 MB in size with 64 440px wide images. Opera Mini handled it with no complaints splitting the page into 3 sections and displaying every single image beautifully - Opera Mini rocks. I glanced at my compatriots laptop screens and most of them were browsing Engadget too. Great coverage, kudos to Engadget even if your mobile page is mobile in name only.

The iPhone was clearly the star of the show at MacWorld. The faithful in the tunnel were fairly subdued during Job's Apple TV presentation but went wild when he announced the phone. There were separate hourly live demos of both Apple TV and the iPhone on the show floor. The TV demos were well attended but the iPhone ones drew much larger crowds. Well done Apple - but please open the iPhone to independent developers and sneak a GPS into it before release. Oh, and as long as I'm making demands, how about selling an unlocked "International" version without contract that we can use on any network?

taken from http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=244

Tomtom One Europe sat-nav device

2007-01-10T14:21:00.000-08:00

A touch-sensitive LCD screen and well-designed software make the One Europe easy to use

One of the better-known manufacturers of satellite-navigation devices, Tomtom has recently changed direction in terms of its approach to design. Gone is the chubby, rounded look of yore; the Tomtom One Europe is slimmer without ever looking like a repurposed pocket PC.

The One has been around for a while now and is beginning to show its age in technical terms. The 266MHz processor and 32MB of memory might be less beefy than some of its newer rivals, but the One’s lower spec isn’t particularly obvious during operation.

Tomtom’s own navigation software works smoothly, with no hangs and a fast response to touchscreen tapping. The system is easy to use. The Tomtom Home software lets you manage updates and backups from your PC or Mac.

Control of the One takes place entirely via the touch-sensitive LCD screen, leaving the unit almost entirely button-free. For the most part this works fine, although sometimes the 3.5in screen can look a little too crowded.

On the road the Tomtom One provides clear, easy-to-understand spoken directions. Should you miss a turn, the system usually re-routes you to compensate, rather than telling you to turn around.

The fact that this device has been around for a while has its benefits. The Tomtom One Europe package now represents extremely good value for money, with maps for 21 countries included on an SD card, as well as useful features such as Bluetooth compatibility and seven-digit postcode searching.

The Tomtom One is expandable too, but this often costs extra. A month’s free traffic updates is provided as part of the purchase price, for example, but ongoing usage requires a subscription (£40 per year). The Tomtom Plus service also offers some useful extras but, again, these cost extra and many require a Bluetooth GPRS phone connection.

Casio Exilim Hi-Zoom EX-V7

2007-01-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

Casio, Inc. and its parent company Casio Computer Co., Ltd., announced today the release of the 7.2-megapixel EXILIM Hi-ZOOM EX-V7, the most powerful zoom in the stylish EXILIM® series of compact digital cameras. This new model is the world’s slimmest digital camera with a 7X optical zoom lens*. Thinness is a defining quality in the EXILIM line, and the EX-V7 is no different as it easily fits in a shirt pocket or small purse.

In recent years, a number of compact, high-performance digital cameras have appeared on the market, but the trade-off between zoom power and camera size was evident in those models. Users who wanted to capture subjects at a distance were forced to buy bulkier cameras while other consumers sacrificed zoom for portability.

“The newest edition to the EXILIM line, the EX-V7, solves this problem, giving users the best of both worlds,” said Bill Heuer, Senior Vice President of Casio’s Digital Imaging Division. “It’s an exceptionally portable, great-looking digital camera with a powerful zoom lens — just what the world has been waiting for.”

The new camera also introduces an innovative function for reducing photo blur, made possible by Casio’s mechanical CCD shift technology. It also combines Casio’s well-received Anti Shake DSP, which reduces blur due to shaky hands or a moving subject by using higher ISO sensitivity and faster shutter speeds, with new motion analysis technology that uses the most appropriate ISO sensitivity and shutter speed to capture a moving photo subject. Even at high zoom settings, the EX-V7 reduces most occurrences of image blur. Everyone from first-time photographers to seasoned professionals will love this latest photographic marvel from Casio.

Main features

The world’s slimmest* digital camera with a 7X optical zoom lens, as stylish as any EXILIM

59.8 mm high, 95.5 mm wide, and 25.1 mm thin (20.8 mm at the thinnest part)
Incorporates a cutting-edge, non-protruding 7X internal optical zoom lens.
Offers 10X-equivalent zoom without loss of picture quality (in 3.0-megapixel mode).

Four blur reduction technologies with new CCD shift system

New CCD shift system actually mechanically compensates for camera shake.
Automatically analyzes the velocity and vector of a moving subject and sets the most appropriate ISO sensitivity and shutter speed.
Anti Shake DSP reduces blur due to shaky hands and subject movement, using high shutter speeds and high sensitivity settings.
Electronic camera shake compensation function eliminates blur when shooting in movie mode.

Newly designed EXILIM Engine 2.0 image processor

“Auto Tracking AF” function follows moving subjects, keeping them continuously in focus until the photo is taken.
Tonal control lets users keep bright areas of the scene bright by limiting the occurrence of dark pixels.
Offers ability to selectively eliminate noise in designated color regions, such as the sky.
Boasts faster image processing functions that enable instantaneous color correction or angle adjustment.

High-quality movies using next-generation H.264 video encoding method

Creates movies at high compression ratios that save storage space.
Records about 1.5 times longer, with the same capacity and same picture quality as conventional MPEG-4.**
Silent lens motion enables optical zooming while recording movies in stereo sound.
Records 16:9 wide-aspect movies compatible with wide-screen TVs.

LG Chocolate KG800

2007-01-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

The good:

Innovative touch-sensitive navigation keys under screen
Minimalist black design
Plenty of customisation options
Intuitive user interface

The bad:

Easy to accidentally press the wrong key
High-gloss case is fingerprint-prone
Too "plasticky" for some

The bottomline:

While Motorola's RAZR still manages to trigger ultra-thin fashion clones, LG has moved in a different direction with the Chocolate KG800, an understated and stylish mobile phone with a beguiling design twist.

REVIEW

Design
Before we ponder LG's "Chocolate" moniker, it's the novel design of the KG800 that sets the it apart from anything we've seen before. It has an innovative touch-sensitive navigation keypad, which is inactive when the phone is closed and locked, but glows vibrantly red when you slide the screen up. Alternatively you can access these keys by unlocking the phone with two presses of the volume key when slid shut.

There are nine touch-sensitive buttons in total: two customisable shortcut keys below the screen, call and cancel keys, four-way navigation and a selection button. It's a shame the screen isn't touch-sensitive as well, but we still applaud LG for their fresh approach with the Chocolate's design.

So why Chocolate? We simply have no idea, really. LG tells us "Chocolate" is their pet name for the phone and that they thought it was about time a mobile phone came out with a name that's easy for people to remember. Before seeing the phone we thought it might be due to its colour, but there's no hint of brown on this phone. The high-gloss, black case with silver detail, while smooth, is prone to smudges and fingerprints. LG provides a small polishing wad in the case that you can attach to the upper right corner of the phone but we found it easier just to give the case a quick rub on our jeans or shirt every once in a while for a buff.

Most people we gave the Chocolate to seemed very impressed with its design and surprised to see the the quirky operation of the keypad. Others commented that it looked quite plasticky compared to what they thought it would look like. Each to their own when it comes to fashion phones, we guess.

Other characteristics of the phone include a black-and-grey checkered keypad, MP3 player and camera shortcuts on the side, and a USB port that doubles as the headset and power connection -- you can't listen to music while charging the phone. It's a rather petitie phone, too, measuring 95 x 48 x 15mm and weighing 83 grams.

Features
It's certainly a case of style over substance with the LG Chocolate phone, although there are some average mid-range features onboard.

Multimedia highlights are a 1.3-megapixel camera, video recorder, MP3/AAC player and a reasonably bright 2-inch 256K-colour TFT display (176 x 220 pixels).

MP3 files can be set as ring tones and LG pre-installs a range of polyphonic tones. Travellers will benefit from the Chocolates tri-bad connectivity, but real globetrotters will benifit more from the Motorola RAZR V3i's quad-band.

The KG800 is limited by its 128MB of internal memory, with no expansion slot for external memory cards. Still, with Bluetooth onboard and LG bundling a USB cable in the box, it's easy to download your photos and video clips before running out of memory.

Performance
Looks aside, the glowing red navigation keys are a little awkward due to their sensitivity. Training yourself out of the habit of pushing clickable buttons feels a little bizarre at first, although LG includes a couple of sound schemes so that everytime you press a key, the Chocolate produces an audible typewriter or piano sound, a chime or a blip. You can switch this off but we like the variation in pitch different keys produce.

The touch keys also de-activate when the display's backlight times out, which can be set for 10, 20, 30 or 60 seconds. You then need to hit a numerical button or a side key to illuminate the screen and use the navigation again. Or you can just shut and re-open the slider.

LG states the Chocolate KG800 is good for 2 hours of talk time or 200 hours of standby. With Bluetooth switched on and average use of the phone for voice calls and SMS, we found the Chocolate's battery to last around two or three days. Turning the phone's power save function on and killing Bluetooth generally secured us a full three days but we struggled to push past four.

The KG800 Chocolate is the first handset in LG's premium Black Label Series of mobile phones. While no release dates have been specified for future models, LG hinted there might be a 3G Chocolate in the works, among others.

If your thumbs aren't too large, you don't mind fingerprints and can live without cutting-edge geeky features, we wouldn't hesitate recommending the Chocolate KG800.

Sony Ericsson W810i

2007-01-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

Why limit yourself to only 100 songs? Sony Ericsson answers that question with the Walkman phone series that can load up a lot more tracks than Motorola's iTunes phones. And the latest Walkman phone in the US, the Sony Ericsson W810i can handle even more than the previous Walkman model the W600i. The W810i package includes a 512MB Memory Stick Duo card and is compatible with cards up to 2 GB. It has great phone reception, a bright and colorful 1.9” LCD, integrated Bluetooth 2.0 and an FM radio. The slimmed-down candy bar body is much smaller, more mainstream and more attractive than the W600i. And it’s got a 2 megapixel camera that takes even better photos than the Sony Ericsson S710a and comes close to the Nokia N90 on occasion.

The Sony Ericsson W810i is a quad band GSM world phone with GPRS for data and EDGE support. It’s available unlocked directly from Sony Ericsson’s web site and Cingular is now offering it.

Design and Ergonomics

Compared to the Sony Ericsson S710a and the W600i, the W810i strikes one as a much smaller phone. Slightly bigger in length and width than an iPod nano but shorter and narrower than the Motorola SLVR L7, the Sony Ericsson W810i is the right size for a candy bar phone at 3.9 inches long and 1.8 inches wide. Though thicker than both the iPod nano and the SLVR L6 at .8” the W810i feels very good in the hand. Contrasting from the flashy S710a and the Nike running shoe orange colored W600i, the W810i is unassuming at first glance with a matte black body that’s dotted with a few silver buttons and dark orange accents. But look closely you will appreciate the stylish and masculine design that speaks of quality.

The W810i and the iPod nano

A 1.9” bright display dominates the W810i’s front face. Below it, you will find two circular button clusters that flank the 5-way directional pad. The left circle includes the left selection key that has different functions depending on which application you are in, the music player launch key and the “back” button. The right circle has the right selection key, the activity menu key and the C key which functions like a delete key and mute button while in a call. Below these controls you’ll find the number pad which lights up in orange when you press a key. The number pad backlight is brightest in the middle and the outermost keys backlighting is a bit too faint. Naturally you will find the earpiece on top of the display and a light sensor on the right of the earpiece.

On top of the phone you will find the power on/off button and an IR port and on the bottom the microphone and the stereo headset and sync/charge Fast port. The controls on the right side of the phone include the camera shutter button and zoom in and out buttons that also function as volume up and down when not in the camera application. On the left side you will find the play/pause button and the Memory Stick Duo slot which has a rubber cover.

The back of the phone, like many Sony Ericsson phones, resembles a Sony Cybershot digital camera with camera lens on the right side of the phone (you will hold the phone in landscape mode when shooting pictures and videos). Two very bright (by phone standards) flash lights sit above the camera lens and illuminate quite well for about 2-3 feet. Below the lens you will find a three-hole speaker grill and a self-portrait mirror in orange color. The battery door is on the back and the SIM card tray live directly under the battery.

Phone Features and Reception

The Sony Ericsson W810i is a quad band GSM world phone that operates on 850/900/1800/1900MHz bands and will work anywhere in the world GSM networks are available. For data the W810i has EDGE and GPRS support. Cingular began offering the W810i at the end of September 2006 in the US. If you're not a Cngular customer you can buy the unlock version from Sony Ericsson for $499.

The Sony Ericsson W810i gets full bars reception on Cingular in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, though it didn’t surprise us since this area is ripe with GSM cell towers. The voice quality in both incoming and outgoing calls is excellent! The speakerphone is loud and should effectively handle group calls in office and moderately noisy environments. The Sony Ericsson supports popular phone features such as voice dialing (on the phone and via Bluetooth headset), speed dial (1-9, though 1 is default for voice mail), magic word, call forwarding, call rejecting, call waiting and conference calls.

The Sony Ericsson comes with 7 profiles and you can set fixed dialing options, restricted dialing options and add an additional voice line to the phone. In Contacts application you can access Options menu to find special numbers such as my number, my fax number and manage your speed dials. Should you need to silence the ringer quickly, press the # key, and you can lock the keypad by going into Settings/Locks.

The W810i has GPRS for data with EDGE support. You can access the Sony Ericsson portal for browsing and purchasing music using the bundled Netfront WAP browser. Using a Cingular SIM with EDGE coverage WAP sites loaded quickly.

Display, Gaming and Multimedia

The phone has a super bright 1.9 inch screen that’s capable of displaying 262K colors. All the bundled themes look zingy and if you use the photos taken with the built-in camera as wallpapers or screen savers you will be pleased by the sharp and bright images. The display also functions as the viewfinder for the camera and will switch to landscape mode when the camera app is turned on. Photos and videos look excellent on the display.

Playing 3D games with such a lovely screen is a pleasure. Sony Ericsson bundles two games: JC Does Texas, a Western Stuntman game, and QuadraPop, a Tetris clone that uses music notes as blocks. You can get additional JAVA games from your carrier or game developers as well as from Handango.com. The 3D games performed very well on the W810i.

Naturally music is the focus of the W810i as it’s billed as one of the Walkman phones. Sony Ericsson made a strong effort to provide the best possible hardware and software possible at this price point. Like the W600i, the W810i has a dedicated hardware button to launch the music player. You can find the button easily on the left circular nav pad which is the only button in orange on the W810i. The music player has some basic features such as playlists, information about the selected track, turn on shuffle or loop and play with the equalizer. The Sony Ericsson has a bass enhancement feature called Mega Bass, and when it’s turned on, it will boost the bass volume above all other channels. How does the music sound via the built-in loudspeakers and via the stereo headphones? Not bad for a phone, but not as good as the audio quality on the iPod. The audio coming out of the speakers has good volume and decent sound. It’s great for conference calls and playing music if you don’t have a pair of stereo headset or external speakers.The audio via the included Sony Ericsson stereo earbud headphones is good by phone standards. If you mainly play rock and pop music, you will like what you hear via the headset (Candlebox sounded quite good to me). If you are into classical music, you will notice the sound via the headphones is as full and smooth on both the high instruments and the deeper brass, though Dvorak’s Symphony 9 in E Minor sounded better on the iPod nano. And that’s not the headphones’ fault either. We use the W810i earbuds on the iPod, and the headphones beats out the Sony MDR-EX71 earbuds, offering with much fuller sound. You can also play music on portable speakers using the optional phone-to-stereo cables and portable speakers sold separately.

The included stereo earbud headphones

Ripping music and transferring tracks to the W810i is part of the fun experience with this phone. The W810i supports MP3, MP4, AAC, AMR, MIDI, IMY, EMY and WAV (16 kHz max sample rate) and 3gpp streaming files. The Sony Ericsson comes with Disc2Phone software and USB cable which allow you to rip tracks from music CDs and transfer them to the phone via the cable. Very fast and simple.

Other audio features include a built-in FM radio, flight mode for playing music only without turning on the phone, MusicDJ for create your own ringtones, purchasing music and ringtones from Sony Ericsson’s web site and more.

For video playback, the Sony Ericsson supports MPEG4 and 3gp videos and comes with VideoDJ which is a video editing tool that allows you to add sound tracks and insert other clips to current videos that are ported to the phone or taken by the phone’s camera.

Camera

It might not seem fitting to chat so much about the camera on the W810i is when the phone is billed as a Walkman music phone. But the 2.0 megapixel built-in camera is one of the best we’ve seen on a phone currently sold on the US market with a sharp lens and software that give you very high quality photos. The camera software’s user interface will make sense to most anyone, even if he or she never read a word in the manual.

The built-in camera has a relatively large lens (AF 4.8mm 1:2.8) with two bright flash bulbs above and an orange colored self-portrait mirror below. You can launch the camera by either going into Menu/Camera or by holding down on the camera shutter button. The camera uses the W810i screen as the viewfinder and has two soft keys for viewing photos/videos and changing settings. The settings are easy to follow and you can personalize the settings in all features the camera has to offer.

You can take photos up to 1632 x 1224 which is higher resolution than the W600i and the S710a’s 1.3 MP cameras. The lens has auto-focus feature, and you can zoom in and out by using the volume up and down button when in the camera mode. You can take normal still pictures or panorama photos by turning on the Panorama mode. The panorama mode allows you to take a series of pictures and stitch them together. You can select macro mode for close-up shots, night mode for low-light conditions; you’ve a self-timer, special effects (black & white, negative, sepia and solaria), white balance settings (auto, daylight, cloudy, fluorescent and incandescent), picture quality settings, shutter sounds, time and date stamps and options to save the photos to the internal memory or the Memory Stick. All options are easy to access and quick to change.

Sample photos taken at the highest resolution and unedited other than resized to fit this page.

For shooting videos, you can choose a lower quality for MMS or a higher quality for viewing on bigger screens. There are two resolutions you can choose from for shooting videos: the smaller size at 128 x 96 or the large size at 176 x 144.

When we reviewed it, the quality of the Sony Ericsson S710a photos impressed us. How quickly things progress: the W810i improves upon the S710a camera not only in resolution but also the quality of the photos. Still images taken with the W810i are some of the best we’ve seen among camera phone photos with balanced colors and light in both outdoor and indoor shots. The colors are fairly accurate and have good saturation even in direct sunlight that will overwhelm most US camera phones. In low light settings the bright flashlights improve the picture quality noticeably with much less grain and noise. If you are buying the phone for the music features, you will be pleasantly surprised by how good the camera is.

The videos taken in high quality mode with the W810i in 3gp are color saturated and accurate. The camera will brighten up videos taken in low light conditions. You won’t see the ghosting or blockiness common to many camera phones. Audio is in sync with video and you can take the videos of any length as long as you have the storage space.

Bluetooth

The Sony Ericsson W810i has integrated Bluetooth v2.0 that supports many popular Bluetooth profiles including DUN, Basic Image and Print Profiles, File Transfer Profile, Object Exchange Profile, Synchronization Profile, Handsfree and Handset Profiles and more.

Transferring files from desktop to the Sony Ericsson is a breeze. It takes about a minute to transfer a 5MB file from the desktop to the phone and thanks to multitasking you can receive calls while transferring files via Bluetooth in the background. Once the file is transferred and saved, you can choose to view the file or play the sound (if your file is a music file). You can get through file transfer by following the user friendly software on the W810i.

The Sony Ericsson W810i supports both Handsfree and Headset profile headsets. We tested a few Bluetooth headsets with the W810i, all paired with the phone easily. Using the Cardo Scala 500 Bluetooth headset, the incoming voice quality was very good and volume adequate for an office and moderately noisy environment. The outgoing voice volume is on the low side, but voice quality is very good. The range reached about 15 feet before you start to hear crackling. Using the Jabra FreeSpeak BT250, the incoming voice is equally good as the Scala but the volume is much higher via the Jabra. The outgoing voice volume seems higher than the Scala 500 as well. Range between the phone and headset reached about 12 feet. The Sony Ericsson also supports the A2DP Bluetooth profile for high quality stereo audio, a feature that’s not yet popular on the phones sold in the US but should see rapid growth this year. With the A2DP support you can tunnel the music to Bluetooth stereo headphones, however we tested the phone with both the Bluetake iPhono Plus Bluetooth stereo headset and the IO Gear Bluetooth stereo headset, and neither could pipe music through, only voice calls went through the headsets.

Battery Life

The Sony Ericsson W810i has a user replaceable rechargeable battery. The 900 mAh Li-Polymer battery (Sony Ericsson standard BST-37, 3.6v) performed admirably when playing music with cell radio and Bluetooth radio turned on. We got over 9 hours of MP3 playback on a charge. The Bluetooth radio and the camera don’t use much juice, but talking on the phone and playing 3D games drain power quicker than other tasks. The claimed talk time is 8 hours, we only got about 6.5 hours of talk time. The claim standby time is 14 days if you don’t use the phone much at all, and that seems to be on target in our tests. You can charge the W810i using the included A/C charger or use the in-vehicle charger sold separately.

Software

In addition to the fun multimedia applications, you get PIM applications, a file manager, messaging and a WAP browser. The PIM apps include Contacts which supports multiple numbers for a contact, picture ID, unique ringtone and voice command; Calendar which has monthly view, weekly view and day view; Tasks and Notes application which have the very basic features.

The Messaging application works with both SMS/MMS messages and email messages. The SMS supports templates and the MMS allows you to send and receive pictures/videos. The email client in Messaging works with POP3/IMAP4 servers and allows you to download headers and set the interval for checking email.

The Access Netfront WAP browser works fine when accessing WAP sites. The speed is more than adequate for WAP sites, but don’t expect anything beyond the WAP content as the browser can’t handle it.

To sync your contacts, calendar items, tasks and notes via USB on a PC, install the included PC Suite. It’s always a good idea to check Sony Ericsson’s web site for an updated version of PC Suite which is free to download. If you haven’t used PC Suite lately, you should check it out. The software has been overhauled and it’s now a reliable method for synchronizing your phone and your desktop. Some of the new features also make it a viable application to manage, sort and add the information to your phone.

Conclusion

The Sony Ericsson W810i will make a photo buff happy and keep music junkies jazzed. The phone has a great user interface, is easy to use and is attractive. Most important, it has very good voice quality and reception.

Pro: Smaller form factor that feels very nice in the hand and a fashionable black body that will appeal to a wider audience than the W600i’s bright orange. 2.0 megapixel camera that takes great photos and videos, with strong camera software that has an excellent UI. Good phone reception. A nice set of software both on the phone and the PC make it easy to rip and transfer music tracks. Bluetooth is solid for transferring files and working with Bluetooth headsets. Very nice to get a 512MB Memory Stick Duo card with the phone and the capability to upgrade to 2GB storage for photos and music.

Con: The backlight on the number pad could be brighter around the edges. The limited features in the WAP browser won’t be attractive to the web surfers who need more than WAP content.

Sony PlayStation 3

2007-01-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

Expensive for a game console, but a great bargain for a console plus a Blu-ray Disc player, the PS3 is worth the wait.

Weighing about 11 pounds and measuring 12.8 inches wide by 3.86 inches high by 10.89 inches long, the PlayStation 3 is larger than the PlayStation 2, the diminutive Nintendo Wii, or the Microsoft Xbox 360. Like those consoles, it can be oriented vertically or horizontally. Either way, the PS3's striking design looks right at home in the living room (admittedly, however, its polished top surface is prone to finger marks). The PS3 runs more quietly than the Xbox 360 but is a bit louder than the almost silent Wii. Though the unit itself doesn't get too toasty, the air around it tends to feel warm after a few hours of continuous play.

The PlayStation 3 comes in two versions. The $599 model (which I tested) has a 60GB hard disk; built-in 802.11b/g wireless networking; and MemoryStick, SD, and CompactFlash slots. The $499 unit omits Wi-Fi capability and the media card slots, and has a 20GB drive. You can replace the hard drive on either version, and the supplied manual explains how to swap in your own 2.5-inch, serial ATA drive. Our sibling publication GamePro has posted scans of these instructions.

The differences between the two PlayStation versions end there; both provide a Blu-ray slot drive, HDMI-output, gigabit networking, four USB 2.0 ports, and built-in Bluetooth 2.0 support.

At the heart of the PlayStation 3 lies a CPU that'll impress even the most hard-core PC gamer. This powerful, multicore Cell processor, jointly developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM, runs at 3.2 GHz. An RSX Reality Synthesizer graphics engine, based on NVidia's G70 architecture, delivers the graphics. Working alongside these chips are 256MB of high-performance XDR main memory (based on Rambus RDRAM) and 256MB of GDDR3 video memory.

Getting Started

First, make sure that you come home with all of the cables you'll need. To fully experience the console's graphics capabilities--that is, to play supported games or to watch Blu-ray movies in 1080p high-definition--you'll have to purchase your own HDMI cable (and own an HDCP-compliant 1080p television). Two extras that you might consider buying are Sony's proprietary component video output cable and the optical digital audio cable required for 7.1-channel audio. For optimum Blu-ray or DVD movie playback, you could also spring for the optional $25 remote control.

The standard package includes basic cords: a USB mini cable for the bundled Bluetooth wireless controller, an ethernet cable, a multi audio/video cable with composite connections, and an AC power cord (the PS3 uses a standard cord, unlike the external power brick used by the Wii and the Xbox 360).

Most new PS3 owners will fire up the console without looking at the manual--and they probably won't run into any trouble. It's just that easy to hook up. In case you feel like doing some tech reading before you go shopping, GamePro has scanned the PS3 manual to make it available for the geeky perusal of all.

Once turned on, the PS3 will ask you to choose a language and a time zone, and set the time/date. You then create a user account, sign in, and are presented with a navigation interface that Sony calls the Xross Media Bar (XMB), which closely resembles the interface employed by Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld.

My first priority was to properly configure the high-definition output. I accomplished this by navigating to the video settings and changing the unit's output to 1080p over HDMI. The difference was as if I had switched my computer monitor from 640 by 480 (480p) to 1920 by 1080 (1080p high definition).

I produce music when I'm not working at PC World, and I couldn't wait to hear what the PlayStation 3 audio sounded like through my pair of high-quality music production monitors. I attached the audio connections on the supplied composite multi audio/video cable to my speakers, and set the PS3 to send audio over that route (while still transmitting video via HDMI). The result: Easy setup and great sound.

In the PS3's system settings, I noticed that my new unit's hard disk had 52GB of its 60GB total available, and that the operating system was version 1.00. Not for long, though. The first game I loaded--NBA 07--included the 1.02 system update and installed it before I could begin playing. Though the installation took only a few minutes, having to wait at all was still a little frustrating. The PS3 manual says that some games have their required updates built-in to help you avoid having to patch via the Internet.

Let the Games Begin

Internet connectivity and high-definition movie playback aside, consoles are all about the games. And massive exclusive franchises such as Halo (Xbox), Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation), and Zelda (Nintendo) promote gamers' allegiance to a single console. Whether a PlayStation 3 launch title such as Resistance: Fall of Man becomes such a classic remains to be seen. But the PS3 games I've played so far have been ridiculously fun.

The PlayStation 3 is backward-compatible with most PlayStation 1 and 2 games, but to hedge your bets you might want to buy the optional $15 Memory Card Adaptor, which allows you to transfer saved game information from PS1/PS2 memory cards to the PS3's hard disk. Even then, early reports indicate that various problems have plagued a bunch of games. Tekken 5, for instance, is said to lose background music on the PS3.

The PlayStation 3 Controller

The new wireless, motion-sensitive SixAxis controller lacks force feedback, but it's lighter than the PlayStation 2's controller and has larger L2 and R2 triggers. And because the PS3's controller can sense motion along six axes, you can turn and tilt in three-dimensional space to steer in driving or flying games. I've had limited opportunity to test the controller's motion aspects so far. Earlier this year, I played the upcoming game War Hawk at the E3 conference, where the PS3 was shown. But a few of the launch games, such as Ridge Racer 7, should invite extensive use of the motion-sensing capability.

The controller connects to the PlayStation 3 wirelessly via Bluetooth (within a 65-foot range) and can recharge its batteries (which Sony says will last for 30 hours) when plugged in via the supplied USB cable. To check the controller's remaining battery life, you hold the "PS" button (located between the analog sticks) for 2 seconds. You'll then see a battery meter for that controller on screen, plus an option to turn the console off. You also have to press the PS button when you turn the unit on; otherwise, annoyingly enough, the console won't recognize the controller.

A second PlayStation 3 controller costs $50, and the console supports up to seven players at a time. Each controller has four little LEDs on the top; these indicate the number that the console has assigned to that controller. For controllers 5 through 7, two LEDs light up, and you simply add those numbers together.

Xross Media Bar and Web Browsing

The Xross Media Bar interface itself is surprisingly responsive, and navigating around it feels snappier than using the Xbox 360 dashboard. Though the XMB lacks the 360's colored tabs (which serve as quick identifiers of the area of settings you're in), the PS3 interface has a better, less-cluttered layout overall. That said, the XMB also has quite a few unexplained menu options that aren't exactly intuitive. Even a rocket scientist might have trouble deciphering what Key Repeat Interval (a keyboard setting) or UPnP - Enable/Disable? (Universal Plug and Play) mean without a few moments of head scratching.

Small gripes aside, Sony has made the most important features and settings extremely easy to use. The parental controls (to block access to certain games, movies, or online store content) are clear, and configuring a network connection (wireless or wired) is a breeze.

I was pleasantly surprised that you can plug in a USB keyboard (including wireless models equipped with a USB dongle) and thereby avoid the horrid pre-emptive text-entry interface altogether. Bluetooth keyboard/mouse support is supposedly slated for a future system update. I can't overstate how much easier it is to deal with network settings or to browse the Web when you use a dedicated keyboard.

Launched from the XMB, the PS3's Web browser isn't the speediest thing on the planet, but it did load pages (including Flash videos) reasonably promptly. You can set bookmarks, browse through your history, and make text bigger or smaller. I didn't like being asked whether I wanted to load a script on a Web page (seemingly) each time I visited, but I did appreciate how the PS3's controller aided my browsing experience.

For instance, you can use the D-pad to jump the cursor between page links, and one of the analog sticks functions as a mouse. You may open a maximum of six browser windows simultaneously, and the console lets you switch between them in two different ways: Pushing down on a stick enables you to preview and switch between all open windows--it's like a cross between Internet Explorer 7's Quick Tab feature and Mac OS X's Expose functionality--whereas pressing the controller's R2 and L2 buttons lets you switch between browser windows while sliding them across the screen.

The Blu-ray Experience

From the outset, Sony intended the PlayStation 3 to serve as an all-purpose entertainment console, with tendrils that extend well beyond the realm of game play. But can the PlayStation 3 hope to compete with stand-alone Blu-ray players from consumer electronics makers?

The short answer is yes. (For a more detailed analysis of the PlayStation 3 as a movie player, see "Burning Questions: PS3--The Blu-ray Movie Experience.") The PS3's movie playback experience is best if you start from scratch, inserting a disc into the front-loading slot just as you power up the unit. The unit took just 3 seconds to load the movie Underworld Evolution, followed almost immediately by the opening sounds of the PlayStation 3 start-up orchestra. The screen then blacked out and loaded the movie disc; total disc load time, from insertion of disc to start of playback, was nearly 24 seconds.

Matched side-by-side with the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player (using its original, factory-installed firmware from when it shipped last summer), the game console delivered noticeably sharper and crisper image quality, with more depth and more detail than were visible on the Samsung.

Sony's decision to omit the remote from its package seems chintzy and inconsistent with its positioning of the premium PS3 as an all-encompassing entertainment device; it's worth noting that Microsoft includes a remote in the competing Xbox 360 box. But even if you pay for the remote to make the PS3 the entertainment-centric package it's designed to be, you'll be spending a total of just $525 or $625, depending upon which version of the player you get. That's far less than you'd pay if you bought a dedicated Blu-ray Disc player today; they range in price from $899 for the Philips BDP9000 to $1500 for the forthcoming Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1.

Multimedia File Playback

Dedicated areas in the PlayStation 3's XMB handle music, videos, and photos. Two things caught my eye: Videos played in thumbnail previews as I quickly flicked through them; and one photo-viewing mode (called Portrait Slideshow) uses real-time-generated graphics to foster the feeling that you are placing photos on a surface for friends and family to thumb through.

The PS3 supports common file formats such as AAC, JPEG, MP3, and MPEG-4 video, but I had no luck with any of the numerous WMV (Windows Media Movie) and WMA (Windows Media Audio) files I tried to play. I'm currently trying to find out from Sony whether these are supported or not. It's an important consideration if you have a massive collection of music files that you've purchased on a service that uses the WMA format.

In all probability, users will be able to play back more multimedia formats than the PS3 supports out of the box if they install Linux. Already, Linux distributor Terra Soft has announced that the PlayStation 3 supports its Yellow Dog distribution.

The PS3 can play music CDs, access song information from AMG (the All Music Guide) and copy/rip songs to its hard disk. By default, it does so in AAC format at 128 kbps, but you can create MP3 and ATRAC files if you prefer.

PlayStation Online Store and Network

Sony has said that--unlike Xbox Live--the PlayStation Network will be a free service. You'll be able to see when friends are online in order to chat with them by video, voice, or text, or to join multiplayer games. We'd like to confirm this for ourselves, but early feedback following the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 3 is that currently users can leave only text messages for other gamers. Reports further indicate that you can't read messages while in a game; you simply get a pop-up notification. Again, we'll look into this and let you know what we find out.

Regarding the PlayStation Store, Sony has stated that it intends to offer downloadable game demos and movie trailers, and to sell retro games, episodic content, and perhaps eventually even full-length movies. Methods to pay your "electronic wallet" bill will include credit card and special PlayStation cards sold in shops. Downloadable games that Sony has developed will cost less than $15 apiece at launch, and you can expect new titles from a range of developers to appear regularly.

Parting Thoughts

So there you have it: the PlayStation 3 in a rather large nutshell. It truly is technologically superior to both the Xbox 360 and the Wii (which isn't really a direct competitor). But to succeed, Sony and its third-party partners must tap into their traditional strength of delivering compelling games for the console. The PS3 looks like an expensive box at first, but seems less so when you compare its cost to the cost of a stand-alone Blu-ray player, a high-end PC graphics card, the Xbox 360 with its HD-DVD add-on, or even a Media Center PC.

Microsoft Xbox 360 (20GB)

2007-01-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

The good: All games for the Xbox 360 are in high-definition, as is the excellent, user-friendly Dashboard interface. There's built-in support for wireless controllers and excellent online gaming, content downloads, and communications via Xbox Live. The console is not only backward compatible with many (but not all) original Xbox titles, but it also doubles as a superior digital media hub and Windows Media extender. The system's online Marketplace allows easy purchases of mini-games, movies, and TV shows.

The bad: The list of truly impressive next-gen games remains small. The console has some design flaws: a noisy exhaust fan, a gigantic oversized power supply, no built-in wireless networking, only three USB ports, and no DVI or HDMI output. The DVD player is rather substandard, and support for next-gen HD-DVD movies requires a bulky external accessory. Additionally, the system's customary 20GB hard drive can't store a lot of high-definition downloadable content. Online gaming requires a paid subscription to Xbox Live.

The bottom line: The Xbox 360 delivers the power and performance of a high-end gaming PC, including impressive digital media and networking features.

REVIEW

Console and PC gamers have long been divided into two camps. Sure, there are those of us who play on multiple platforms, but hard-core PC gamers tend to be, well, hard-core PC gamers and eschew "mainstream" console games, while committed console gamers can sometimes be heard bashing PC gamers as elitist nerds. While there's nothing wrong with drawing your own distinction, what's clear--at least for the moment, anyway--is that Microsoft's Xbox 360 makes the line between PC and console gaming a lot fuzzier. Yes, this is a console, with game controllers and A/V cables that are designed to interface with your TV--preferably of the HD variety--but Microsoft has essentially packed a high-end PC gaming rig into a relatively small box that fits into any A/V rack or cabinet. That the Xbox 360 also has a user interface that rivals TiVo's in terms of slick presentation and ease of use, plus a host of digital media and networking features, helps elevate the already-good Xbox experience to a whole new level. Naturally, the 360 is not without its flaws. Many titles simply rehashed their PC or console counterparts, and we're only now seeing developers shift focus away from the PlayStation 2 and Xbox1 and creating truly next-gen looking games, such as Gears of War. While Microsoft continues to amass a good library of games, it now has to contend with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii. But the $400 Xbox 360 has a major price advantage over the PS3, at least through the end of 2006--it is $100 to $200 cheaper than Sony's device (the PS3 is available in $500 and $600 versions), and it will be widely available (PS3s will be in short supply until early 2007). Moreover, the $200 HD-DVD accessory and high-def media downloads (both available in November) makes the Xbox 360 a credible HD movie box. With a year's head start, an excellent mid-range price, and a great library of games, the Xbox 360 is the yardstick against which the new Sony and Nintendo consoles will be measured in 2007--and beyond.

Design of Microsoft Xbox 360 (20GB)

When laid horizontally, the 8.8-pound Xbox 360 is 12.15 inches wide, 3.27 inches high, and 10.15 inches deep and is actually slightly smaller than the original Xbox, which also weighed in at 8.8 pounds. Unlike the original, the Xbox 360 can also be propped up in a vertical position and, as you're probably aware, can be customized with interchangeable faceplates that cost up to $20. Neither the original Xbox nor the 360 are terribly sexy, especially compared to the slimmed-down PlayStation 2, but at least the 360 is less boxy than the original, and you can always slap on a funky faceplate to liven things up. Custom faceplates aside, it's worth pointing out that the beige color of the system tends to clash with the silver and blacks of typical A/V components.

One of the reasons Microsoft was able to keep down the 360's weight is that instead of building a standard, desktop-style hard drive into the unit itself, it's gone with a smaller--and more expensive--laptop-style hard drive that's detachable from the main unit. The hard drive (included with the $399 Xbox 360 premium bundle, sold separately for the $299 Core System) is 20GB, but we assume significantly larger capacities will become available from Microsoft--or more likely--third-party manufacturers.

As part of the $399 bundle, you'll also get a wireless controller--the 360 has built-in wireless capabilities but only for controllers, not Wi-Fi (more on that faux pas in the Features section). Each 360 console can support up to four wireless controllers, and unlike with third-party wireless controllers for earlier consoles, you won't have to have to plug any dongles into any ports. You'll also like that a green LED on both the 360 itself and the controller indicates exactly which controllers (1 through 4) are connected. This is also true if you are playing with a mixture of wireless and wired controllers; you know who has which controller. All in all, we really like the design of the new controllers. They feel good in hand, and the shift of the Start and Back buttons to the top middle of the controller is a good move, as is the addition of a set of shoulder buttons on top of the right/left trigger buttons. And no, Xbox1 controllers do not work with the 360.

On the front of the unit, you'll find two USB ports hidden behind hinged doors in the faceplate, as well as two memory-card slots that allow you to take saved games and other content on the go. Those ports are where you'll plug in any wired controllers and other USB accessories that will become available, as well as cables to connect a digital camera, MP3 players, or even your iPod or Sony PSP. Many USB keyboards are compatible, but for the most part, they are strictly relegated to communication and data entry functions, not gameplay. While Microsoft clearly hopes you'll go wireless and thereby free up USB ports for other accessories, we were disappointed there was only one USB port on the back of the unit--and that one is meant for Microsoft's optional wireless networking adapter, which conveniently clips on to the back of 360. Another small design gripe: You won't be able to connect some thumbdrive-style MP3 players, such as the Apple iPod Shuffle, to the USB port in back. You'll need a USB extension cable to connect them because the entryway to the port is too narrow.

The 360 sports an infrared (IR) port on the front panel, which lets you use compatible remote controls without the need for an external dongle. Furthermore, you can power the console on and off and open the disc tray with a remote or a controller--another convenient improvement over the old Xbox.

The Xbox 360's onscreen Dashboard interface is truly stellar, and it's clear that the folks at Microsoft looked less toward Windows and more toward the vaunted TiVo interface for their model. Yes, the 360 interface certainly has some ties to that of Windows Media Center PCs, but it's slicker and more user-friendly, with color-coated tabs for the system's various features, including gaming, media, system settings, and Xbox Live. To page through the various activities, you simply move the directional keypad on your controller (or the remote) left to right. With the increased processing power, windows open quicker than they do on the original; the system and interface as a whole just feels zippier. Like the faceplates, the Dashboard is customizable, with a host of themes preloaded on the hard drive and many more available to download.

Continuing the Xbox 360's customization kick is the Gamer Card, which consists of a personal avatar--a picture chosen from a batch of Microsoft approved images or an image you've captured using the Xbox Live Vision Camera--as well as a motto 21 characters or less in length. The centerpiece of the Gamer Card is the Gamerscore: a point-total representative of predetermined goals, known as Achievements, met in each and every game. It's a nice way to foster offline competitiveness between gamers, as even completely single-player games such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion include Achievements.

Not to end the Design section on a down note, but we would remiss not to mention the Xbox 360's power supply. There's a reason they call these things power bricks--this one truly is the size and weight of a real brick. We're not kidding. Furthermore, the 360's exhaust fan is audibly noisy in a quiet room--not a problem when gaming, but it could be a factor when you're using the 360 for media playback.

Features of Microsoft Xbox 360 (20GB)

As mentioned previously, there are two versions of the Xbox 360 available. The $299 Core System delivers the bare basics: the console, a single wired controller, and a standard composite A/V cable. The $399 "premium" bundle (known officially, and confusingly, as simply the Xbox 360) includes the console, along with several key accessories that you'd otherwise have to purchase separately: a wireless game controller, a communications headset for Xbox Live, a component A/V cable, an Ethernet networking cable, and--most important--a snap-on 20GB hard drive. Though it's more expensive, the premium bundle is easily the better deal in our book. With it, you're getting at least $210 worth of accessories for only $100 more. The hard drive--which alone retails for $100--is a must-have accessory. Not only is the 20GB hard drive a far more capacious solution than the memory cards that will set you back $40 apiece and hold only a paltry 64MB of data, it's absolutely necessary if you want to play games designed for the old Xbox console and enjoy the 360's more advanced media features.

Unlike previous game consoles, the Xbox 360 was designed from the ground up to be ready for the HDTV era. As such, all the games have been designed to at least 720p resolution (1,280x720 wide-screen), with many titles available in 1080i. A system update in October 2006 added 1080p (1,920x1,080 wide-screen) support, but games at that resolution won't start rolling out until 2007. Furthermore, not many HDTVs can handle 1080p via component. To see the graphics in HD, of course, you'll need to be connected to an HD-ready TV or monitor via the component-video adapter, which is included in the premium $399 Xbox bundle. Alternately, you can pick up VGA video adapters from Microsoft ($40) or Joytech ($20), which let you connect to HDTVs and PC monitors that offer a standard 15-pin VGA/RGB connector. The VGA adapter offers a handful of other PC monitor-friendly high-def resolution choices, such as 848x480 and 1,024x768 as well as the traditional high-def resolutions available via component. At this point, however, the 360 offers neither DVI nor HDMI digital video connections--unlike the Sony PlayStation 3, which includes 1080p-capable HDMI on all models. Don't worry if you don't have an HDTV--the Xbox 360's component adapter includes a fallback composite output, and the system can output good ol' standard 480i resolution with formatting for squarish 4:3 (non-wide-screen) sets.

Just like the old Xbox, the new system offers top-notch Dolby Digital audio. In-game soundtracks are rendered in full real-time surround, creating an immersive sound field that envelops you in the game world. All of the A/V cables include an optical audio output, but you'll need to supply the optical cable, as well as the compatible A/V receiver or home-theater system. Each A/V cable also comes with standard analog stereo connections for connecting to a TV or stereo, but you'll lose the surround effect, of course.

While it's primarily a game machine, the Xbox 360 is a formidable digital media hub as well. Plug a digital camera, a flash card reader, a thumbdrive, or a music player into the Xbox 360's USB port, and if it's compatible with a Windows PC, you'll likely have plug-and-play access to browse your photos, listen to your MP3s, and play WMV videos. Digital media on your home network are similarly accessible: just install Microsoft's Windows Media Player 11, Zune software, or Windows Media Connect (all are free downloads) on any PC running Windows XP, and the 360 will be able to stream music, and access photos and WMV videos from the remote PC. If your PC is running Windows Media Center Edition (and presumably, forthcoming versions of Microsoft Vista), the integration is even tighter. The 360 doubles as a Media Center Extender, letting you access your TV recordings--including those in high-def--from the networked MCE PC.

One of the major successes of the original Xbox was Xbox Live. The online gaming and communications network is an even more intrinsic part of the Xbox 360. Every model (assuming access to a broadband Internet connection and a storage option--either the hard drive or a memory card) has a base-level membership called Xbox Live Silver. That offers the ability to create a list of friends, view their gamer cards, and communicate with them outside of a game via voice chat and voice messaging using the headset; text messaging is also possible. Later this year, an EyeToy-like video camera will be released for the 360, allowing face mapping and video chat in a few games. Silver members also have access to the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's online bazaar. In order to play multiplayer games, you'll need to upgrade to Xbox Live Gold, which is basically the same $50-per-year service from the old Xbox. Existing Live subscribers can easily transfer their subscription to their new 'box. While the Xbox 360's online experience is quite impressive, Sony promises to deliver a similar-scale service for free on the PS3, though it remains to be seen whether the company can deliver (a few of the PS3's original features have been scrapped). For its part, Microsoft periodically offers free full subscription weeks and weekends to Xbox Live Silver members.

The Xbox Live Marketplace offers up free movie trailers and game demos, as well as premium content, such as Dashboard themes, gamer tag pictures, and extra content for full-featured games. Items are purchased by using Microsoft points, which is the proprietary 360 currency that's purchasable through the system or via prepaid cards (the going rate for 1,600 points is $30, for example).

Arguably the biggest draw for the Xbox Live Marketplace is the wide range of titles available for Xbox Live Arcade. There's a healthy mix of completely original titles and classic PC and arcade games freshened up with high-def visuals; some even include online multiplayer options. All of the games are playable as free demos, but to compete online and earn achievement points, you're going to have to pony up the Marketplace dough.

Microsoft has added another feather to the 360's Marketplace cap with the addition of TV show downloads and feature-length movie rentals. Available in both standard and high definition, videos will run 400 to 800 Microsoft points ($5 to $10). While we welcome the addition of high-def shows and movies to the Xbox 360's downloadable wares, it highlights an increasing concern among Xbox 360 owners--the size of the system's hard drive. After necessary system files are installed, the 20GB hard drive has only 13GB of storage left to fit game files, demo downloads, and Xbox Live Arcade titles. While you can delete and re-download shows and games without incurring a second charge, the 20GB hard drive isn't nearly sufficient, especially when compared to the high-end PlayStation 3's 60GB drive.

While the 360's library is constantly growing, it can also play more than 250 games designed for the original Xbox. The backward compatibility is enabled through downloadable emulation profiles; they're free, but you'll need the hard drive to install them. In fact, the software for Halo and Halo 2 compatibility is preinstalled on the hard drive. Unfortunately, while 250-plus sounds like a high number, that leaves more than 400 old Xbox titles unplayable on the 360 for the time being. Microsoft is working to broaden the list--it's added about 50 new titles since launch--but there's no announced timetable as to when the remaining games will be ported over, and it certainly seems as though not every game will be included.

Performance of Microsoft Xbox 360 (20GB)

The guts of the Xbox 360 comprise what is, for all intents and purposes, a very powerful computer. The customized IBM PowerPC CPU boasts three processing cores running at 3.2GHz each, each offering two hardware threads, while the ATI graphics processor is said to be able to pump out 500 million triangles per second. We could go on, recounting the 360's supposed 16 gigasamples-per-second fill rate using 4X antialiasing and 48 billion shader operations per second--not to mention, of course, the 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines and the 9 billion dot product operations per second. But, frankly, even if we understood what half those impressive-sounding specs meant, we'd have no way to verify or benchmark them.

What we can say is the Xbox 360 graphics varied widely from game to game. With its amazingly lifelike cityscapes and photorealistic Ferraris, Project Gotham Racing 3 offers what's probably the best example of the 360's HD-enabled graphical prowess--you could almost smell the exhaust of the cars as they darted over a dead-on re-creation of the Brooklyn Bridge. The expansive environments of a game such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or the amount of characters on screen at one time in Dead Rising put the graphical output of previous consoles to shame. Similarly, Call of Duty 3 had us ducking for cover as we slogged through some of the toughest firefights of World War II. Meanwhile, in the more intimate confines of the ring, the boxers in Fight Night Round 3 looked astonishing--when a knockout blow was landed, a close-up replay would reveal the copious amount of spit, sweat, and blood emanating from the victim of pugilistic brutality. On the flip side, though, are plenty of games that were developed to lesser consoles and given little else than a bump in resolution--titles such as Samurai Warriors 2, The Godfather, and Lego Star Wars II carry over the now-substandard visuals of a previous generation of consoles.

While the Xbox 360's jump to 1080p takes a bit of the wind out of the PlayStation 3's sails, we haven't really been impressed with its implementation. As mentioned above, the lack of HDMI severely limits the amount of people that can experience the Xbox 360 in 1080p. Not many 1080p-capable televisions can produce the resolution via component, forcing many to use the VGA adaptor. Furthermore, none of the downloadable videos are available at resolutions higher than 720p, and it may take some time until we see a game produced in a resolution above 1080i. We tested the 1080i game Dead Rising on an HDTV capable of 1080p (the Westinghouse LVM-47w1), and found the same issues apparent at 1080i. In the game's opening flyover scene, we still found a lot of flickering and aliasing in faraway fences, street posts, and crossing lines.

The backward compatibility on the Xbox 360 has its benefits and drawbacks. Microsoft claims that it's pumping up the resolutions and adding antialiasing effects to the older games, and both tweaks seemed in evidence while playing Halo 2. Also, playing an online-enabled Xbox1 game (such as Halo 2) lets you seamlessly interact with other Xbox Live players still using the old console. On the other hand, some games such as Fable: The Lost Chapters have brought along new graphical glitches and none of the Xbox1 custom soundtrack-enabled games (for example, the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy) will recognize the songs imported onto your 360. Finally, there is no way to transfer your Xbox1 saves to the 360, so you'll have to reconfigure your workout regimen in Yourself Fitness.

Xbox Live is much more integrated throughout the 360 than it was in the old Xbox. At any time, you can punch the Home button on your controller to bring up the Live message center. In theory, you can be playing an offline, single-player game of, say, Enchanted Arms, get an invite from a friend (think instant messaging), and quit out back to the Dashboard while you swap over to F.E.A.R..

The in-game Xbox Live experience hasn't changed drastically, but then again, the service was already near-impeccable on the Xbox1. By virtue of the system's processing power, games should be able to support more players online. Perfect Dark Zero, for example can handle 32 players, more than all but a few Xbox1 games. Test Drive Unlimited transforms the open roads of Hawaii into a gaming lobby, where you can pass by potential opponents on the road. Then there are games that support video chatting, like the Xbox Live Arcade's Texas Hold 'Em. As developers have learned the ins and outs of the 360's hardware, we're starting to see more players and less lag in the many online-compatible 360 titles.

On the media front, the 360 worked as advertised. We were able to pull photos from several digital cameras, as well as a camera phone Memory Stick Duo plugged into a stock Lexar USB card reader. We were also able to stream music and view photos stored on our Creative Zen Vision:M. And true to its word, Microsoft is playing nice with its competitors; we were able to access audio and photo files from the 20GB Apple iPod and the Sony PSP. Unfortunately, you don't get access to the iPod's playlists, and you can't play back copy-protected songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store--the result of Apple's intransigence, not Microsoft's. Digital media streamed just as easily from XP PCs on our local network, but those with Media Center PCs will find the best experience: the 360 is a full-fledged extender, giving you access to the Media Center's look and feel, as well as access to its recorded videos, music, and photos.

Of course, the 360 is a capable CD/DVD player as well. You can't copy music files from connected or networked devices, but you can rip CDs straight to the 360's hard drive, then use those songs as soundtracks for pretty much any native Xbox 360 game. On the DVD front, the 360 finally plays movie discs in 480p progressive scan (via component--the 360 can play DVDs in higher resolutions via VGA) and without the need for an additional remote à la the Xbox1. But 480p is so 2002, especially for a box that touts its HD street cred. This is where the lack of HDMI or DVI output hurts because those connections would offer the possibility of upscaling DVDs to 720p or 1080i resolutions. Moreover, DVDs represent the pinnacle of the 360's optical disc capabilities, meaning these next-gen games will need to be squeezed into just 8.5GB of space unless they're supplemented by downloadable content or made into a multidisc game. By comparison, the PlayStation 3 will use the next-generation Blu-ray format, which holds at least 25GB per disc--the potential for significantly more high-def graphics, gameplay, and so forth. The Xbox 360 won't work with Blu-ray or HD-DVD discs in a game-playing capacity, although movie fans can pick up the external HD-DVD drive, which is available for $200 with a movie and media remote and plays the 1080p-capable HD-DVD movie format. The bigger mystery remains in regard to the HD-DVD player's output--no HDMI or DVI cable exists for the Xbox 360 thus far, leading many to believe that Microsoft may be hoping that studios don't use image constraint to clamp down on component-enabled next-gen video.

With the system's growing pains largely behind it, the Microsoft Xbox 360 has hit its stride just in time to compete with the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. With titles such as Call of Duty 3 and Gears of War available now, though, it's obvious developers have become more accustomed to the challenge of programming for the 360, and we'll see much more impressive titles--such as Halo 3 and Mass Effect--as a result. Once those games begin to comprise the majority of the new releases, the Xbox 360 will be a hard opponent for the newer consoles to topple.

Nintendo Wii

2007-01-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

The good: Revolutionary controller design offers unique motion-sensitive gameplay options; built-in Wi-Fi delivers free online services and (eventually) gameplay; Virtual Console has major nostalgia appeal; compatible with all GameCube games and controllers; built-in SD slot for storage and photo viewing; includes Wii Sports game; most affordable of all next-gen systems.

The bad: Controller eats batteries and takes some time to get used to; lacks the advanced HD graphics and surround sound found on the Xbox 360 and the PS3; requires a wired receiver unit placed near the TV to interface with wireless controllers; can't play CDs or DVDs.

The bottom line: It lacks the graphical prowess and rich media features of the Xbox 360 and the PS3, but the Nintendo Wii's combination of unique motion-sensitive controllers and emphasis on fun gameplay make the ultra-affordable console hard to resist.

REVIEW

Nintendo has ventured off the beaten path with its newest system, and the company knows it. While the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360 both emphasize their impressive graphical capabilities, Nintendo downplays the importance of graphics on its new console. While the Sony and Microsoft consoles keep the branding of their respective predecessors, the oddly named Wii is a semantic departure from Nintendo's more literally named 2001 console, the GameCube. And while the PS3 and the Xbox 360 both use conventional gamepads bristling with buttons, control sticks, and directional pads, the Wii uses a device that looks more like a TV remote than a gamepad to control its games.

These strange choices could have spelled failure for Nintendo's newest endeavor. Underplaying processing power, using a strange new controller setup, and giving the whole package an odd name could have been major mistakes for Nintendo. (Consider some of the company's earlier attempts to go against the grain: the Power Glove and the Virtual Boy.) But if our early experience with the Wii is any indication, this particular Nintendo gamble seems likely to pay off. It's strange, it's new, and it's not as powerful as its competitors, but the Nintendo Wii succeeds in its primary mission: it's fun to play.

Opening the box
The Wii box includes everything you need to hook the system up to a standard television: the Wii console, a wireless controller with nunchuk adapter, the sensor bar, a cradle (for mounting the console vertically), the Wii's modestly sized power adapter, and a set of composite A/V cables. Unfortunately, composite cables don't support the Wii's top resolution of 480p, so HDTV owners will want to also purchase a set of Wii component cables (sold separately).

The Wii console itself is downright tiny--easily the smallest and lightest of the new generation of game machines. At 1.75 inches high by 6.25 inches wide by 8.5 inches deep (when oriented horizontally), it is--as Nintendo promised--about the size of three DVD cases. The initial model is available only in iPod-white, but it's a safe bet that we'll see plenty of other colors become available as the months and years progress. Like with the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, you can lay the Wii horizontally or stand it vertically (either by itself or, for added stability, in the included plastic cradle). Like the PS3, the Wii uses a slot-loading mechanism; it accepts the Wii discs (full-size 12cm) and older GameCube discs (mini 8cm), without the need for an adapter.

The Wii includes 512MB of internal memory for storing saved games, downloaded Virtual Console titles, and other data. If that half-gigabyte of onboard storage isn't enough for you, the system has a standard Secure Digital card slot for additional storage. SD cards are cheap and plentiful, and the Wii's support of them is a refreshing change of pace from the proprietary memory cards used by older game consoles.

While it doesn't come with a memory card or component-video cables, the Wii does include one pleasant surprise in the box. The system comes with Wii Sports, a simple but infectious sports game that lets users get a feel for the Wii's capabilities without investing in additional games. Wii Sports uses the system's wireless controller as erstwhile sporting equipment, letting users swing and mock-throw it to play baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, and boxing. The different games can support up to four players at a time, but most modes require more than the system's single controller for multiplayer options. Players can swap the remote back and forth for golf and bowling, but players who would like to box or face each other in a tennis match or a baseball game will need to purchase at least one more controller. Wii Sports feels more like a collection of five minigames than a fully fleshed-out title, but it lets users have fun right out of the box and showcases the system's potential.

Setup
The Wii's simple design makes it very easy to hook up. The back panel of the console has only five ports: one for the power adapter, one for the proprietary A/V cable, one for the sensor bar, and two USB ports for future accessories. Just plug in the sensor bar and put it either on top of or under your television, plug the video cable into your TV, and plug the power cable into the wall, and you're ready to go.

Once everything is hooked together, just turn on the Wii to go through the software setup. Settings such as time and user name can be easily selected with the remote control's pointer. The only remotely technical setting most users will have to deal with is the network connection, and the menu system practically walks users through the setup. The Wii's Wi-Fi connection can work with secure WEP and WPA encrypted Wi-Fi networks, so you don't have to make your network vulnerable just to play online. We had no problem connecting to our open wireless router, though we couldn't test the network connection beyond that. If you don't have Wi-Fi at all, Nintendo is said to be offering an Ethernet adapter that interfaces with one of the USB ports.

Once the Wii's network settings are set up, the system is designed to be constantly online through Nintendo's WiiConnect24 service. The Wii can use WiiConnect24 to automatically download system updates, additional game content, and even weather and news.

Wii Channels: Media and online capabilities
The Wii's navigation is done through a series of pages called Wii Channels that take advantage of the WiiConnect24's always-on design. Among the Wii's default channels are a weather forecast channel, a news channel, a message channel, a photo channel, and the cute avatar-generating Mii channel. The channel home page is the system's default gateway, which also provides access to the disc-based Wii/GameCube games and Virtual Console titles.

The Mii Channel lets users create and modify Miis, cute little avatars for use online and in certain games. The Miis are cartoony and extremely simple, but the Mii Channel includes enough customization features for users to create Miis that look like themselves, their friends, or even celebrities. (Our Wii is currently populated with characters from The Big Lebowski.) Miis don't seem that useful, but they can be used as characters in games such as Wii Sports, and as avatars in the Wii's Message Channel. Since Miis are so simple, players can use their Wiimotes' 6KB of storage to carry around as many as 10 Miis and use them on their friends' Wiis.

The Photo Channel was a pleasantly useful surprise, though a bit of a misnomer. The channel can display and edit photos. Nintendo claims that the Wii can also play MP3 music files and QuickTime videos, but these features feel like afterthoughts; MP3s can be played only in a photo slide show, and we were unable to load a QuickTime movie on our Wii. Fortunately, the Photo Channel's emphasis is clearly on image viewing and editing. Once up to 1,000 of your photos are loaded through the SD card slot, you can view them individually, browse them in an album view, or watch a slide show of them. The Photo Channel also includes a basic image editor, though it's clearly built more for fun than serious editing. With its upbeat background music and some very cute image options, the editor feels a lot like the old Super Nintendo classic Mario Paint.

While on the subject of media, it's worth noting that the Wii does not play audio CDs or video DVDs, which is something of a disappointment. Yes, everybody already has a DVD player, but with DVD playback capability being standard-issue since the last generation of game consoles, its omission here is something of a conundrum. Nintendo claims it was to keep the price down, and the company's last-generation console, the GameCube, also lacked DVD playback. Nintendo also hasn't indicated that it's going to launch any sort of downloadable video or music store, and--with the Wii's lack of a built-in spacious hard drive--that doesn't seem like it would be on the docket anytime soon.

The Message Channel is the Wii's system message and online communication center. It's used to send messages to other Wii owners online using their systems' unique Friend Codes, but we were unable to test that feature without Nintendo's online service. The Message Channel can also give players a variety of reports about changes in their Wii system settings, how much time they spend on different games, and other interesting pieces of information.

Virtual Console
Shopping for old-school games with the Virtual Console is easy. If your Wii is online, just go to the Wii Shop channel and browse. These games cost Wii Points, which can be purchased in card form at stores such as Electronics Boutique, or with a credit card directly through the Wii Shop. Regardless of how you get your points, you'll need to enter them into your account through the Wii Shop. If you have a Wii Points card, you can redeem it by entering a code through your Wii. If you want to buy the points directly online, you have to enter your credit card information with the Wiimote through the Wii's software keyboard.

Once you have your points, you can start shopping. Go into the Wii Shop and select Virtual Console, then browse through the various games available. Each game has a title screenshot and a short description so that you can learn a bit before you decide to buy. When you're ready, just click Download, and you can confirm the purchase. The Wii will tell you exactly how much space you'll have left on the Wii and how many Wii Points you'll have left in your account after the download. After you confirm the purchase, the Wii begins downloading your chosen game automatically. The progress of the download is shown by a cute animation of the 8-bit Super Mario Bros. Mario chasing coins and hitting blocks. The downloads can take less than a minute for NES games, or as much as 10 minutes for Nintendo 64 games. Once the game is downloaded, the program will boot you back to the Wii Shop's main menu.

Downloaded Virtual Console games appear as individual channels in the Wii's main menu, and playing those games is as simple as selecting their channel and pressing start. The VC emulator loads the game, and your retro fun begins.

VC games are essentially perfect emulations of their original versions, which is both good and bad for gamers. Classic purists will be thrilled at the genuine, old-school gameplay experience, but more casual players hoping for the enhanced graphics or online play found in some XBLA retro games will be disappointed. For extra old-school experience, the Wiimote itself can be turned sideways and handled like a conventional controller for NES and Turbographix-16 games. For SNES, Genesis, and N64 games, however, you'll need either an old GameCube controller plugged into one of the system's GC ports or the Wii Virtual Console controller plugged into your Wiimote.

Wide-screen users will notice the one fatal flaw of the Virtual Console: old-school games have no wide-screen support. If you play on a wide-screen TV, your retro game will be stretched noticeably. Though a firmware update may be in the system's future, the only way to fix this issue currently is to set your television to a 4:3 aspect ratio for Virtual Console games and set it back to wide-screen for regular games.

The Wiimote controller
Wii Sports also doubles as a tutorial for familiarizing yourself with the system's unique wireless controller, which is what really sets it apart from competing consoles--and all the game systems that have come before it. The Wiimote, as it's been affectionately dubbed, is a sophisticated motion-sensing controller that connects wirelessly to the Wii via the Bluetooth wireless protocol.

This revolutionary design isn't completely wireless: to function, it requires the placement of the Wii's sensor bar either on top of or beneath your television screen. Fortunately, the sensor bar is extremely unobtrusive, and we forgot it was even there minutes after setting up the system. The sensor bar is a small and light plastic rectangle about the size of two pens laid end to end, and it connects to the Wii with a very long cord (about eight feet), so its setup is simple and flexible. The sensor bar comes with a tiny, clear plastic base with adhesive squares on its feet, so you can stick it securely on the top of your television, even if it's a narrow flat-panel screen.

Accelerometers inside the remote sense how the device is being held and if it's being moved in any direction. These sensors control actions such as baseball bat and golf club swings in Wii Sports, Link's sword slashes in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and even steering trucks in Excite Truck. Moreover, you hold the Wiimote differently depending on the game: grasp it like the hilt of a sword in Zelda and Red Steel, as a baseball bat or tennis racket in Wii Sports, or hold it horizontally as a steering bar for Excite Truck. Because the Wiimote is so light, these controls and movements can take some getting used to. Fortunately, a speaker and a force-feedback module built into the Wiimote can provide additional tactile and audio feedback for your actions and add an extra bit of immersion to the Wii experience. For example, the remote's tiny speaker makes an audible "Clang!" when Link swings his sword, and it rumbles when Link strikes an enemy. Even menu selections on the Wii are signaled by helpful little vibrations of the Wiimote.

The Wiimote also uses a set of infrared sensors to determine the remote's orientation in regard to the television. A set of IR diodes in the Wiimote communicate with the Wii's sensor bar to serve as a pointer for navigating menus and aiming weapons in first-person shooters. Again, this control system takes some getting used to, but once you adapt to the control, pointing with the Wiimote feels much more natural than using an analog stick. It doesn't quite replace the beloved mouse-and-keyboard combination for FPS games, but--after getting acclimated to it--we found it worked better than traditional console controllers.

While the new control system is both fun and innovative, the pointer gets occasionally jerky or twitchy, and the tilt controls require a light and subtle touch. Part of this can be attributed to the Wii's learning curve, and after a few hours we barely noticed those quirks. Unfortunately, the Wii doesn't currently have a way to manually calibrate the Wiimote's controls; you're forced to trust the Wii's generally accurate automatic calibration.

The remote's stand-alone abilities are impressive enough, but it also has a device port so that accessories can be plugged directly into it. The Wii comes with a nunchuk attachment, a small device that plugs into the remote and contains an analog stick and two additional buttons. The nunchuk augments the Wiimote in many games, such as controlling characters' movements in Twilight Princess or Red Steel. The nunchuk also contains motion-sensing equipment, so it can be shaken and rocked to perform additional actions. For example, shaking the nunchuk in Twilight Princess executes a spinning slash attack.

The nunchuk will probably be the most commonly used Wiimote accessory, but others will also be available. Currently, the only other confirmed accessory is the Virtual Console controller, a conventional gamepad with dual analog sticks. The VC controller will most likely be used with the Wii's Virtual Console to play older games, though some Wii games will support the pad's more conventional controls. We also saw at E3 2006 a pistol grip accessory that the Wiimote slides into to offer more controls with shooter games. The pistol grip hasn't been confirmed for retail release, but it offers an example of the flexibility and potential the control configuration offers.

This wireless, motion-sensing goodness doesn't come without a price. The Wiimote uses two AA batteries, which must power the remote's accelerometers, IR sensors, Bluetooth radio, speaker, rumble module, and any attachments you plug in (the batteryless nunchuk draws its power from the Wiimote). The Wii doesn't come with any sort of charger, so you'll almost certainly want to pick up a set of at least four rechargeable AA batteries and a battery charger. Another factor to consider is that extra controllers a pretty pricey: $40 for additional Wiimotes, plus another $20 for the nunchuk.

Gameplay and graphics
The Wii's biggest and most obvious appeal is the ability to use its motion-sensing controller to play Wii-specific games. The Wii's release lineup includes the highly anticipated Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and the addictive pack-in party game Wii Sports, as well as a variety of more traditional third-party titles (many of which have been enhanced to use the Wiimote control). But while you're waiting for some more innovative Wii titles to arrive, there will still be plenty of games to play. The Wii is fully backward compatible with the Nintendo GameCube and includes four built-in GameCube controller ports and two GameCube memory card slots for gamers who want to enjoy their last-gen games.

If Wii and GameCube games aren't enough, the Wii also features Nintendo's Virtual Console, a library of games from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, and Turbografix-16 systems. Games can be purchased and downloaded over Nintendo's online Wii Store, where they are stored on the Wii's system memory or SD card. Virtual Console game purchases are tied to the Wii's network ID, so you can't pop your Virtual Console games onto an SD card and take them over to play them on a friend's Wii. On the bright side, Nintendo is pledging that already purchased games can be downloaded again free if you accidentally lose or delete your data. Games are purchased with Wii Points, which can be purchased via credit card or gift card (100 Wii Points equals one U.S. dollar)--the system is essentially identical to Microsoft's tried-and-true Xbox Live Marketplace (Sony's fledgling PlayStation store will denominate purchases in real currency, but is functionally the same). NES games will cost the equivalent of $5 (500 points), Turbografix-16 games $6, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games $8, and Nintendo 64 games $10.

While the Wii's controller is very advanced and innovative, its processing power is not. The system uses a more powerful version of the Nintendo GameCube's processor, and it doesn't have nearly as much polygon-pushing power as the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3. While Microsoft's and Sony's consoles support high-definition outputs of up to 1080p, the Wii can hit only the GameCube's ceiling of 480p, and even that mode can't be used with the Wii's included composite A/V cables. (Most if not all of the Wii's games will, however, be optimized for wide-screen TVs.) The Wii also lacks advanced surround sound, instead sticking with the GameCube's Dolby Pro-Logic II matrixed surround (based on a stereo signal, not native 5.1). In other words, if you're looking for state-of-the-art eye candy, you're going to want to opt for the PS3 or the Xbox 360--either of which will take a significantly larger chunk of your bank account.

Conclusion
Is the Wii worth picking up? It all depends on what you're looking for. If you've been clamoring for an all-purpose next-generation multimedia box with blinding HD graphics, the Wii will be a disappointment. But Nintendo was never competing in that arena anyway: the Wii is focused squarely on delivering fun and innovative gameplay, leaving Sony and Microsoft to battle it out at the high end. The Wiimote and its motion-sensing, pseudo-virtual-reality controls are the biggest draws of the console, and its online capabilities, Wii Channels, Virtual Console, and GameCube backward-compatibility are just a thick, sweet layer of icing on an already tasty cake. With a price tag of just $250--far less than those of its competitors--and the included Wii Sports disc that provides mindless fun out of the box, the Nintendo Wii won't disappoint. Whether it will be merely a short-lived novelty or a sea change in video gaming, only time will tell.