Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Microsoft prices Kinect at $149, adds 4GB console by Josh Lowensohn
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
The rumors of a $149 price tag for Microsoft’s Kinect accessory for the Xbox 360 were true.
Microsoft on Tuesday finally announced the pricing for both a standalone Kinect bundle, which will ship with the Kinect hardware and the Kinect Adventures game for $149, as well as a bundle of the Xbox 360 hardware, a Kinect unit, and Kinect Adventures for $299.
Rumors of the $149 price tag began circulating months ago, and were all but confirmed just a week after E3 when Microsoft’s own online store listed the peripheral for that price, despite the company not yet announcing it. Earlier reports had pegged it as low as $80, and as high as $200.
Along with the pricing on the Kinect hardware, Microsoft is also releasing a replacement for its Arcade console bundle that uses the same smaller, and quieter form factor introduced at the end of Microsoft’s E3 press briefing. The new unit, which can be found in the $299 Kinect console bundle, as well as on its own for $199, ships with 4GB of built-in Flash memory, and features a matte paint job instead of the high-gloss finish found in the current Xbox 360 “S” units. The console will otherwise remain the same as the $299 Xbox unit, with front and back USB ports, a Kinect-specific I/O port, and built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi.
According to Microsoft director of product management Aaron Greenberg, who spoke to CNET on Monday, the new version of the Xbox 360 has been “selling quite well.” The console has been on the shelves a little more than a month, but it’s already jumped to first place in console sales. Greenberg pointed to data from The NPD Group for the month of June that pegged sales just north of 452,000 units, putting it on top of Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii, despite those consoles having a two-and-a-half-week lead.
As for why Microsoft didn’t announce Kinect pricing at last month’s E3, Greenberg said it was due to not wanting to oversaturate its press briefing with too much news. “We had a tremendous amount of news,” Greenberg said. “We had to unveil the Kinect name, all the experiences, and the brand new consoles. We had more than enough to talk about there.”
Kinect, and the new 4GB console are shipping worldwide on November 3.
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Up close with the Dell Streak tablet: Is it a computer or a phone? by Dean Takahashi
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Dell has a lot of catch-up to do when it comes to creating cool devices like Apple has. A key piece of that strategy is the Dell Streak tablet, a tablet device that has a 5-inch multitouch touchscreen and can make web phone calls. (more…)
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2011 BMW 335is
Monday, July 12th, 2010
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Hands-on with OnLive: Is this the future of PC gaming? by Rich Brown and Dan Ackerman
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
OnLive could be one of the most disruptive gaming technologies since Steam.
The much-hyped OnLive PC gaming service has soft-launched to a limited preview audience, and we’ve spent the past several days putting the streaming service through its paces. OnLive allows nearly any laptop or desktop to play high-end PC games, by offloading the CPU and GPU-intensive tasks of actually running the game software to a remote render farm, then beaming the gameplay back to you as a streaming video.
As unlikely as that scenario sounds, in practice the system actually works quite well, at least at these initial stages. The game selection is decent, the hardware requirements are very flexible, and the overall image quality and gameplay experience runs from acceptable to very good. The big question mark in OnLive’s future is how well the system will scale for a mass audience. (more…)
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Apple’s iOS 4
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
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The new Xbox 360
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
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Kinect: We Try Out Microsoft’s Motion Technology at E3 By Yukari Iwatani Kane
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Microsoft has been teasing the videogame industry for the past year with previews of technology that lets users play games and interact with the Xbox 360 through gestures and voice rather than by pressing buttons on a controller. The company finally unveiled what it is now calling Kinect at this week’s E3 trade show and demoed games that are expected to be available when the motion technology goes on sale in November.
Kinect requires a camera-and-microphone accessory called the Kinect Sensor that is placed by the television and console. It can tell where a player is in a room as well as differentiate between different voices. A camera in the device takes pictures of the users while they’re playing a game, while a depth sensor helps track the movements of body parts. (more…)
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What iPhone 4 means for Android by Bonnie Cha and Kent German
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Apple’s new iPhone 4 marks the company’s latest push in the smartphone wars. With a 
revamped design, an assortment of new features, and the new iOS 4 operating system, iPhone 4 is the device’s biggest leap forward since the iPhone 3G. We now have long-awaited features like multitasking, the “Retina” display puts it on par with the iPad, and Apple’s FaceTime feature has the potential to finally bring video calling into the mainstream.
Though Apple CEO Steve Jobs barely mentioned Android in last week’s keynote address, Google’s operating system has become Apple’s biggest rival in the smartphone space. Sure, Microsoft is developing Windows Phone 7, RIM continues to pump out new handsets, and Palm is hanging on, but Android is expanding and innovating by leaps and bounds. And as the two companies face off, Apple and Android fans are not afraid to hash it out in online forums. (more…)
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The HTC Evo 4G delivered respectable 4G speeds
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
Ever since it was first introduced at CTIA 2010, the anticipation and hype surrounding the HTC Evo 4G has taken on a life of its own. Come June 4, we will finally see America’s first 4G smartphone become a reality. Of course, this type of device comes with a whole set of expectations, which can either be met with joy or disappointment. Fortunately, for Sprint and HTC, it’s more of the former than the latter, but we certainly have our gripes about the handset, too. Overall, the HTC Evo 4G is, hands-down, the best smartphone that Sprint has to offer and certainly ranks as one of the best Android phones on the market today. It’s feature packed and powerful, and shows the promise of 4G. Admittedly, we had higher hopes for 4G speeds, but it made good on Sprint’s claims and is definitely a step up from 3G. (more…)
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Apple iPad (16GB)
Friday, May 7th, 2010
The good: In an act of aggressive tech convergence, Apple has consolidated your Netbook, e-reader, gaming device, photo frame, and iPod into an elegant, affordable supergadget. Features such as Bluetooth, 802.11n Wi-Fi, movie rentals, 10 hours of battery life, optional 3G wireless, and the most-celebrated App Store on the planet have us pretty worked up.
The bad: The iPad’s large size is as much a hindrance as it is an advantage. As a jack-of-all-trades and a master of few, the iPad can’t entirely mimic many of the specialized products it seeks to replace. The iPad’s limited multitasking capabilities and lack of integrated video camera, Flash support, and HD video output already have us pining for next year’s model.
The bottom line: The Apple iPad is the first affordable tablet computer worth owning, but it won’t (yet) replace your laptop. (more…)
Posted in Reviews | 7 Comments »
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