Tatum and Denim blog

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The Moss-man has gotten into a down-and-dirty review of Apple’s latest version of its Office-battling software suite iWork ‘08 (which includes Pages, Keynote, and the new spreadsheet program Numbers) and delivers a one-two punch to the new package. Apparently, Cupertino’s entry just can’t match up to Office’s triple power play of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, though Walt says that iWork ‘08 is an elegant and sophisticated solution for users looking for something with a little less power — which should come as no surprise to most. Mossberg’s not all doom and gloom though, happily noting that Pages has reined in its desktop publishing aspect and become more of a dedicated word processor, Numbers is a “refreshing innovation,” that’s more “approachable” than its competitor, and Keynote actually bests PowerPoint in ease of use. In the end, however, Mossy says all the flair and high design doesn’t make up for the succulent and unbridled power in Office — but you knew that already, right?

[Via Techmeme]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Displays

Hot on the heels of the SSD shootout comes a five-man competition stocked with some of the most prolific digital photo frames on the market, and now that prices on these bad boys are dipping down from the stratosphere, there’s a good chance you’d like to know which would look best in your den. Thankfully, GearDigest has taken the task upon itself to pit Kodak’s EasyShare SV710, Pandigital’s 7-inch Photo Frame, Philips’ 7FF1CM1, Smartpart’s Portable Picture And Video Player, and Westinghouse’s DPF-702 against each other to see who’s really the champ. After hours of viewing countless relatives and vacations of yesteryear, the group found that the obvious assumptions of “you get what you pay for” proved completely true. The four frames not labeled by Philips all featured a similar 16:9 display with a paltry 480 x 234 resolution, and while a few offered niceties not found elsewhere (Kodak’s PictBridge, for instance), all of the devices were decent at best in terms of image quality — and they all ranged from $119 to $129.95 in price. Handily snagging the gold was the $199 7FF1CM1, which upped the ante with a 720 x 480 panel and proved worthwhile if you actually want your photos to shine. But hey, it’s still your dough, so do your duty and dive into the full review below before swaying one way or another.

[Via DigitalMediaThoughts]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Peripherals

ExtremeTech, known for getting down to the nitty gritty, has just given the Logitech Wave a thorough review — and they kind of like what they see. The comfort-minded keyboard with the cheapo price point might be what you need, but only if your requirements for “ergonomics” aren’t too serious. The Wave’s keys are arranged in a U-shape design, and the heights of individual letters are higher or lower in an attempt to match hand placement (taller for shorter fingers and vice versa), but that’s about it. So while the Vista-approved input device gets decent marks from ET on feel (”soft and cushy” “high-end”), they say the actual comfort factor isn’t all that noticeable. Logitech also offers a Desktop bundle which includes the LX8, an ambidextrous mouse that ExtremeTech says is good in most respects, but can’t match the feel of a right- or left-hand specific mouse. If you really need to be sure, hit the read link for the full rundown.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

We know, you’re perfectly capable of downloading the release candidate of Windows Home Server (or just waiting it out for the finalized version), but if you’d rather a stranger’s machine be the test bed and suffer through those early adopter glitches, Terracode has done you the favor. In a fairly comprehensive review of WHS RC1, we’re shown the relatively painless setup process, numerous advanced settings for automated backup, media sharing, and remote access, and even a glimpse into the DLNA streaming capabilities. While the overview took a very visual and numbers driven approach, it was derived that the Remote Desktop function wasn’t exactly cut out for “intensive work,” but overall, the software performed admirably and could very well be awarded a few extra gold stars if Microsoft irons out the sluggish kinks that were found. So, if you’re still feeling anxious about pulling the trigger on trying this yourself, be sure and tag the read link to see what you’re missing.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Storage

Considering that solid state discs — although still noticeably more expensive that traditional HDDs — are quickly plummeting in price, it’s about time a brief roundup was executed in order to pinpoint which SSD was best for you. Granted, CustomPC’s evaluation only included a handful of options, but the in-depth testing process found a few glaring losers and even fewer runaway winners. As expected, reviewers used a number of read / write testing applications to judge the speed differences and real-world performance increases on seven SSDs ranging from 8GB to 32GB in size. Coming out on top was Samsung’s 32GB drive, which proved both “quick and silent” in their testing; however, the 18GB STEC Zeus-IOPS proved the hands-down winner in terms of sheer speed. ‘Course, we highly doubt many of you will be snagging the latter after witnessing its £7,050 ($14,461) pricetag, but a number of slightly slower performers including PQI’s Turbo Plus 2.5 could very well provide the boost you desire without (totally) breaking the bank.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

The first reviews of Sony’s new top-of-the-line ultraportable, the Vaio TZ, are are starting to trickle in, and they’re surprisingly mixed. While there’s no doubting the overall hotness of the industrial design, the older, non-Santa Rosa chipset, 1.1GHz Core 2 Duo ultra low voltage processor, and integrated GMA 950 graphics don’t seem to provide all that much bang for your $2,200 bucks, and the system seems to be preloaded with tons of crapware — Laptop Magazine straight up says the TZ ran “as if it were broken” until they cleaned it up. Still, most reviewers found the design, battery life, available 32GB SSD, and WWAN options to be intriguing enough to rate high scores — either that, or this thing is even sexier in person.

Read - Laptop Magazine
Read - CNET UK
Read - TrustedReviews

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

Get ready for a taste of Xeon power without the premium price kids, Intel just released their 3.0GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6850 quad core processor for standard Intel Socket T (LGA775) boards. Better yet, the performance scores are already in after detailed reviews posted by Hot Hardware and PC Perspective. The latter calls the QX6850’s performance “absolutely amazing” for a consumer level processor thanks to the Kentsfield XE class (65-nm) processor’s 8MB (2x 4MB) L2 Cache and 1,333MHz front side bus. In fact, you can expect performance gains on the order of 2 to 13-percent (depending upon application tested) when compared to Intel’s former consumer speed champ, the 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6800 with 1066MHz FSB. Look for the QX6850 to pop on-line for $999 over the next few weeks where it’s expected to hold the performance title until the year is out.

Read — Hot Hardware
Read — PC Perspective

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Robots

Although you may expect all of WowWee’s creations to start to bleed together at some point, reviewers over at PC Mag would be quick to deny such a claim, as it deemed the Roboquad a creature “unlike any toy or robot it had seen before.” In a few hours of at-home testing (you know, with rambunctious children), it managed to get everyone involved and keep them from bouncing off the walls, and while controlling the critter wasn’t always simple, it’s “Autonomy” mode proved most exciting anyway. Overall, the Roboquad fits best into families where unusual and unique are commonplace occurrences, and if you think your offspring (or yourself, it’s okay) could spend hours on end tinkering with a robot akin to a “drunken crab,” WowWee’s latest just might be worth your $99.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

Those looking to snag a new lappie while not breaking the bank may not be inclined to look Lenovo’s way, but the budget-minded 3000 N200 just may provide the rigidity and oomph you need for just over a grand. Making sure your hard-earned dollars don’t go to waste is TrustedReviews, who has taken the time to break down this newfangled machine and even post benchmarks for your analyzing pleasure. Initial impressions seemed to harp on the relatively modest innards, a keyboard that was deemed just “sufficient,” and the trackpad buttons that were actually compared to “putting your fingers in jelly.” Nevertheless, the N200’s display was dubbed the best they’d seen on a lappie of this caliber, and it was said to be a satisfactory choice for those needing a basic business-oriented machine on the (somewhat) cheap. For those still hangin’ in there, be sure to visit the final page of the writeup for the benchmarking results.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Features

The first solid info anyone heard about the iPhone was in December of 2004, when news started to trickle out that Apple had been working on a phone device with Motorola as its manufacturing partner. About ten months later, under the shadow of the best-selling iPod nano, that ballyhooed device debuted — the ROKR E1 — a bastard product that Apple never put any weight behind, and that Motorola was quick to forget. The relationship between Apple and Motorola soon dissolved, in turn feeding the tech rumor mill with visions of a “true iPhone” being built by Apple behind the scenes. After years of rumor and speculation, last January that device was finally announced at Macworld 2007 — and here we are, just over six months later — the iPhone, perhaps the most hyped consumer electronics device ever created, has finally landed. And this is the only review of it you’re going to need.

We’ve gone into serious detail here, so here’s the review split into multiple parts. Trust us, it’s a quick read. Enjoy!

Part 1: Hardware, interface, keyboard

Part 3: Apps and settings, camera, iTunes, wrap-up

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Paul from MoDaCo has our envy today, having recently taken possession of HTC’s pièce de résistance — the HTC “Kaiser” — which looks to make a self-branded debut bearing the model number P4550. As he points out, HTC left virtually nothing out of the P4550 as Windows Mobile-based QWERTY sliders go; the 256MB of onboard Flash, 128MB of RAM, 3 megapixel cam, HSUPA, and trick flip-up display all set new marks for lustworthiness in the category. What’s more, the device is said to be really snappy with Windows Mobile 6 and a 400MHz Qualcomm MSM7200 core, picture quality from the camera is superb, and voice quality is apparently top notch. The conclusion? “It’s quite simply awesome.” Too bad it’s also quite simply not available yet.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

We witnessed the birth of TurboLinux’s Wizpy, watched it strike out in earnest and eventually earn a living on the mean, PMP streets. So how has the wee, bootable Linux distro cum PMP fared? Well, according to a review over at LinuxLookup, it’s a nice piece of kit and all although a bit finicky. 1GB of the 4GB is reserved for the OS and fully functional desktop (Firefox, OpenOffice, Skype, etc.) with the remaining 2.8GB allocated to OGG/WMA/AAC/MP3 audio and DivX video. However, as the reviewer points out (and we agree) the $290 price tag will limit its appeal to early adopters and Linux fanboys. Actually, strike the latter, any fanboy worth his salt will build his own bootable DAP (without the tiny 1.7-inch screen) for less than $40. Poor poor Wizpy, why’d you have to become such a snob?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Buying into less-than-standard gaming controllers is never an easy ordeal, but the kind folks over at IGN have managed to spend some quality time with the SplitFish FragFX PS3 in order to break down the gizmo before you break out your wallet. Besides being quite pleased with the overall feel and design, reviewers gave props to the intuitive reassignment system, impressive accuracy and precision, and the host of useful extras that gave them an edge when engrossed in a deathmatch. Notably, the only “real complaints” heard throughout revolved around the smallish mousing surface and somewhat “clicky” mouse buttons, but it honestly felt like they were grasping for negatives at that point. Overall, IGN was mighty pleased with the offering, and while it’s hard to say if your experiences will mimic these, there was “no question” that it improved the gameplay of those reviewing.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The good people over at TMCnet want to keep you covered with their lengthy review of Redmond’s five-camera foray into the teleconferencing game, which, as part of Microsoft’s Unified Communications Platform, will probably be seeing a lot of action this year. And what are their feelings? Well, they get stoked on its resemblance to the ships in the 1953 version of War of the Worlds, dig the “head-size spatial equalization” (which makes everyone’s head the same size, seriously), and think that maybe $3000 is a fair price. The only thing they weren‘t quite as excited about was the inability to use the panoramic features with non-Ballmerware, but even that appears to be a minor complaint. Still not sure you need one for your startup? Maybe you’d better read the whole thing.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras

The chaps over at PhotograhyBLOG have an extensive (as in six pages) review of the handsome Ricoh Caplio GX100 that we told you about in March. Opinions from the experts concerning this 10 megapixel camera seem largely favorable, with high marks for design, features and ease-of-use, and only a few minor quibbles in the image-quality department. They seemed particularly excited about the Caplio’s use of a RAW storage format, which the competition has apparently been moving away from. But hey, it’s your $700, so if you really want to know all the details, follow the link to the full review.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras

It’s tough to not get all worked up about a live LCD on a DSLR, but if you’ve managed to hold off until a thorough review came your way, your patience has paid off. The discerning folks over at DPReview were able to crack the whip on the E-410 EVOLT, and after the dust settled, it seemed like a pretty good buy. Initial praises included its light weight, outstanding out-of-the-box results, effective dust remover, low noise across the ISO spectrum, and the speedy auto focus / shutter performance. Notably, the list of digs was rather puny compared to the cheers, as the disappointing dynamic range performance and counterproductive Noise Filter were the only major qualms that reviewers felt were worth mentioning in detail. Overall, it seems the E-410 should fit the bill quite nicely if you’re looking for a relatively advanced entry-level DSLR, but be sure and visit the read link to make absolutely sure this is where you want your $800 or so to go.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

Here it is, the first complete review of Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Pro. You know, Santa Rosa platform, LED backlighting, and new nVidia 8600M GT graphics. Right, that one, launched just a few days ago. The kids at Notebook Review took the unit ’round the block with an emphasis on reviewing it for “people considering the MacBook Pro as an alternative option to a Windows based laptop.” In fact, it’s the reviewer’s first Mac review. So how did it go? Well, to start with, the “screen is without a doubt the best I’ve ever seen on a laptop, and better than a lot of desktop monitors I use,” says the reviewer. The MBP also came away with “impressive scores” whether running OS X or 32-bit Vista via Boot Camp. The new nVidia GPU smoked the old ATI X1600-based MBP by a factor of three in 3DMark06 tests — well above the 57% increase claimed by Apple. Unfortunately, the review did not go head-to-head with same-spec’d Santa Rosa models from say IBM or Dell to see how Apple’s tweaks to the gear compare. The case remained “mostly cool” throughout use although it did pickup a “good bit of warmth” while benchmarking. Still it was not enough to remove the MBP from the reviewer’s lap with average temps for the CPU cores kicking right around 49-degrees centigrade. During normal usage at 50% brightness (which is not very bright as we’ve seen), the battery eeked-out about 4-hours which dropped to 3-hours after dialing up the brightness to 100%. The only real nit is the weight, which at 5.4-pounds (2.45-kgs) is becoming rather pathetic by modern standards yet remains the smallest offering in Apple’s pro laptop lineup. Still, the reviewer now considers himself “one happy switcher” and that’s about as good of a rating as you can get.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Features, Peripherals, Storage

Anyone who’s ever futzed with a drive array on the fritz or tried to upgrade their large home storage system knows the plight well — disks will eventually fail and/or run out of space, and when they do, neither scenario is particularly pleasant for a RAID user. (Trust us, we have the horror stories to prove it.) Even though the Data Robotics Drobo isn’t ready to take the place of your NAS, if you’ve been looking for a simple, convenient, reliable method of keeping vast amounts of data in one spot, this may be the way to go. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a Drobo of our own to fool around with for the past few weeks, and we’re pretty excited about how it’s gone. Read on for our thoughts.

Continue reading Drobo review

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Storage

The list of internal Blu-ray burners hitting the test bench just keeps on growing, and if you’ve been holding off on picking one up as prices begin to sink, here’s yet another to mull over. Lite-On’s LH-2B1S Blu-ray writer doesn’t deviate too much from its major competitors, sports a 2x maximum write speed to BD-R and BR-RE single-layer discs, and toasts up to 8x on certain formats of writable DVDs. The unit was tested using Nero CD/DVD Speed v4.70, and was primarily pitted against Sony’s own BWU-100A. During traditional transfer rate testing, the Lite-On lagged behind in average transfer speeds, random seek times, and full stroke times, while actually using more CPU power all the while. Interestingly, the LH-2B1S’ write performance was better on vanilla DVD+Rs, marginally slower on DVD+R dual-layer, and a wee bit less quick than the Sony burning to BD-RE. As expected, reviewers weren’t mauling crowds at their local retail shop in order to grab on of their own as the ho hum performance really wasn’t groundbreaking, but if you’ve got to have such a unit this very moment in time, the comparatively cheap $499 pricetag still makes the LH-2B1S a viable option.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Panasonic’s 7.2-megapixel Lumix DMC-FX30 doesn’t hold any world records in terms of size or amenities, but the point-and-shoot does manage to offer up some fairly decent innards for a relatively modest price — none of which matter if performance suffers. To find out just how worthy Panny’s wide-angle, OIS-equipped snapper is of your cash, DigicamReview took it for a spin and threw in its two cents (er, pence). Interestingly, the device was generally hailed as an excellent choice for those in the market for a pocketable camera, as the highly-regarded Leica 3.6x optical zoom lens, effective image stabilization, versatile 2.5-inch LCD, logical menu structure, and respectable image quality all took home praises. The only real digs on the shooter came from high amounts of noise when shooting with a cranked ISO (and even some at ISO 100) and the inclusion of red-eye in some snapshots, but both negatives aren’t strangers to the handheld camera realm. Overall, reviewers seemed overly giddy about the FX30, and while we’d certainly give Canon’s SD800 IS a glance before plunking down on this wide-angled digicam, the low price of the Panasonic just might help make up your mind.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Wearables

Check it hipster, Urban Tool has some new gear bent on turning you into a, well, urban tool. Meet the $50 hipHolster. Besides featuring that super trendy, non-conformist alterna-capitalization in its name, this modern “fanny pack” (apologies to our more sensitive British readers) comes loaded with plenty of concealed pockets for your iPod, mobile phone, wallet or camera. Pocketnow went to town with a unit and came away generally impressed without so much as a single geek-pummeling. They gave it a 4 of 5 rating even though that elastic leg strap (which can be removed) caused some chaffing. Eww.

[Via Pocketnow]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio

Leave it to iriver to take a chance with their industrial design. While their unconventional T50 and T60 DAPs aren’t yet available Stateside, the good people of pocketables still mananaged to import the devices for a full review. Their take? Well, besides the interesting pocket bulge created by the Toblerone-shaped device, the “wobbly” joystick “more often than not” resulted in miscues when navigating the menus. Incidentally, the GUI on the devices is unlike any other iriver device out there so even brand-loyal customers can expect a slight learning curve. Overall they found the players to be of exceptional value for the audio quality and feature set. Really, what more can you ask for? Oh right, usable controls. You can check the players in action after the break.

Continue reading Iriver T50 and T60 DAPs reviewed

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras

If you (or your wallet) aren’t quite ready to succumb to the DSLR urge just yet, but yearn for a solid megazoom to bridge the gap between your pocket-friendly P&S and that future money pit you’re sure to eventually end up with, Sony’s DSC-H9 offers an enticing list of options including a 15x optically stabilized zoom lens. Reviewers over at Megapixel were quite pleased with the “comprehensive bundle” that Sony includes in the package, and while the svelte three-inch flip-up LCD monitor, ridiculously long zoom, and “good image quality for printing past the widest angle” were praised, there seemed to be a negative vibe about the whole shebang. Among the lengthy list of digs were complaints that the compression was too strong, noticeable barrel distortion, purple fringing, and pincushion effects marred image quality, and a “convoluted menu system” kept operators on the verge of frustration. As if those weren’t damaging enough, the battery was said to drain faster than other Sony digicams, and the plastic enclosure was dubbed “too slippery” for their preferences. Of course, it’s not unusual to see these megazooms suffer in one area or another while still offering incredible closeups for a relatively low price, but we’d recommend perusing the read link for yourself before pulling the trigger on the H9.

[Via PhotographyBlog]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: GPS

The crew over at GPSMagazine has certainly been busy of late, as just days after putting the Maestro 3100 through its paces, reviewers are now giving the same treatment to LG’s LN740. The device seemed to handle the challenges fairly well, and while the options in the four-inch NAV category are nearly endless, the LN740 did a decent job of standing out. One of the most noticeable praises came from the “unsurpassed routing engine” that was said to outdo competitive offerings from Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom. Moreover, the GUI was highly regarded, and the sheer multitude of POIs and flexible routing options made the unit “a top contender” in the oversaturated realm. Of course, LG’s device did suffer from a few drawbacks, as the lackluster display, omitted Bluetooth, and the “virtually useless” music player and photo viewer weren’t looked kindly upon. Still, reviewers found enough here to love to dub the LN740 “impressive,” and if you just so happen to be eying a mid- to high-end GPS with a manageable size, these reviewers suggest you give this one “serious consideration.”

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Storage

We’ve seen some mighty rugged flash drives put to the test in our day, but Corsair’s Flash Survivor GT 8GB managed to withstand a well-planned and carefully executed attack on its life like none that have come before it. This soldier of a USB drive not only performed great when tested against more fragile alternatives, it somehow escaped sans injury after being submerged in a pool, cooked in boiling water for ten solid minutes, and being creamed with a hammer numerous times. The torturers expected the CNC-milled anodized aircraft-grade aluminum housing to hold up fairly well under duress, but even they were utterly amazed at how invincible this thing really seemed. The $130 drive earned a much deserved 10 out of 10 rating from the flabbergasted review crew, and while we’re not quite sure if it could withstand a nuclear attack like one of its competitors, it can apparently live through just about anything that you yourself could.

[Thanks, Rodger]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: GPS

Magellan’s recently unveiled Maestro 3100 probably caught quite a few eyes that were looking everywhere for a decent GPS system under $300, and GPSMagazine took the time to put it through the paces in order to give you a better idea of its true value. One of the biggest praises was (unsurprisingly) the price, as reviewers noted that the street price on this bad boy was actually closer to $250 at the time of posting. Furthermore, the thorough NAVTEQ maps, small and portable design, “improved UI over previous Magellan units,” potent integrated speaker, commendable routing engine, and potentially most important, the complete lack of bugs or crashes garnered quite a few pats on the back battery compartment. Unfortunately, a budget navigation unit is bound to disappoint in at least a few areas, and the shorter than average battery life, chintzy windshield mount, lack of Bluetooth / text-to-speech / real-time traffic data, and quirky backlight left much to be desired. Of course, at the end of the day the folks managed to get where they were going without any major mishaps, and while it may not pack the luxuries found in high-end alternatives, the crew still chose to dub it “a bargain,” but didn’t hesitate in suggesting the Garmin nüvi 350 for those who can scrounge up an extra Benjamin.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Craving a BlackBerry 8300 “Curve” review with a little more journalistic juice to it than, say, John Mayer’s? Look no further, friends; we’ve got you covered with a three-pack of previews for the device. Sentiment for Waterloo’s latest QWERTY handset is overwhelmingly positive, focusing on a few key points: great keyboard, great media support (a 3.5mm jack sure doesn’t hurt there), and surprisingly good battery life. The camera seems to be decent — all 2 megapixels of it, anyway — and none of the lucky previewers seemed too bummed about the EDGE-only data speeds. Throw in what might be the most attractive case on a RIM phone to date, and it seems the Curve might do the seemingly impossible by filling both Pearl and 8800 owners with envy when it launches on AT&T in the not-too-distant future.

Read - LAPTOP Magazine (4 / 5 stars, “…this is the best BlackBerry…”)
Read - PC Magazine (”…an extremely promising BlackBerry for folks who want a fun device with a full keyboard”)
Read - Airtime Manager (”…we’re convinced that the new BlackBerry 8300 will have been worth the wait”)

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio

It doesn’t take much to figure out who Creative is slinging this Zen Stone at, and Anything But iPod seems to think Creative has scored a direct hit. The player is comfortable in the hand, features a switch to toggle between track-by-track or shuffle all tracks, and to jump to the next folder of music, is similar to the shuffle in size, and best of all: goes for about half the price. It’s hard to go wrong with $40 for 1GB of DAP action, especially since Creative allows UMS/MSC access to the player, letting you load files and songs in a cross platform drag-and-drop manner. Most people aren’t going to be able to use a screenless player for primary DAP usage, but as a secondary player and fashionable accessory, the Zen Stone should treat you nicely.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

We still haven’t seen anything beyond BTest-2 of OLPC’s impending XO laptop, but Jürgen Rink over at heise mobil has an in-depth rundown of the project, the laptop and the competition. There’s much to be said, eight pages of it, in fact, but Jürgen provides some interesting insights into what sets the XO’s tech apart from current laptops and other entrants in the educational laptop space. He also makes it quite clear that the XO has a ways to go, with power consumption — which Nicholas Negroponte is targeting at 2 watts — currently ranging from 6.5 to 9.1 watts, and the battery life at 2.5 to 3.5 hours falls far short of the projected 10 hours. Also MIA is the back light sensor, and that much talked about pull-string power generator hasn’t even hit prototype stages yet. There are concerns that the convertible display hinge will prove to fragile under heavy use, and software holes like security and missing apps will need to be fixed before the laptop is ready for prime time. That said, the laptop provides some pretty interesting advancements in the realm of hardware and software, with notables like the reflective display, mesh networking, stylus-friendly trackpads and the “kids teach themselves” concept differentiating the XO from edu-PC wannabes. The project still hasn’t reached its moment of truth, when verbally-committed governments have to start ponying up cash, but the first order of business is wrapping development on the XO, and we look forward to peeping the final product.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Just over a year ago, Nyko busted out a lucrative solution to the world of overheating problems that hordes of Xbox 360 users were experiencing, and even after being lambasted for causing consoles to draw an unsafe amount of electricity, the company hasn’t learned a thing. Unlike Pelican’s attempt at a snap-on cooling solution for the PS3, Nyko’s two-piece Intercooler (larger picture after the break) holds tight to the problematic power pass-through design which could presumably put undue stress on your machine’s power supply when running things in high gear. Nevertheless, IGN’s review saw no scorching problems during the time it was used, and while it did manage to cool the unit down during hardcore gaming sessions, it came at a cost. The noise level experienced a noticeable increase, but they were impressed by the user-controllable fan speed knob that allowed them to ratchet things down whilst watching a Blu-ray movie. In a brief comparison between the two current options, there didn’t seem to be a decisive winner, but judging by Nyko’s previous mishap and its refusal to update the design, the choice should be fairly clear.

Continue reading Nyko’s PlayStation 3 Intercooler gets reviewed

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

In an unprecedented attempt to shore up any possible flaws in its counties’ electronic voting machines — the same machines that have been examined and criticized nationwide on many occasions — California will undertake a so-called “top-to-bottom” review of numerous systems from some half-a-dozen vendors, who must meet a set of seemingly rigid criteria if they want to receive certification for the 2008 election. Giving the proposed three-pronged approach — initiated by Secretary of State Debra Bowen in collaboration with the University of California — some real teeth is the fact that each of the three teams tasked with the actual work will be spearheaded by respected academics and leading private sector consultants, including none other than Princeton’s Ed Felten, whose tireless efforts to expose the dangers of these shoddy machines are well known to readers of this site. Specifically, each system from manufacturers such as Sequoia, ES&S, and yes, everyone’s favorite whipping boy Diebold will see a thorough review of their source code and documentation, along with what are being referred to as “red team penetration” attacks to test the terminals’ hardware and software. Since companies are required to submit equipment for testing if they wish to partake in future elections, we could be seeing Diebold make the same begrudging exit from the Golden State as it did from North Carolina, for what we are not alone in suspecting is fear of exposing its flimsy code. Anyone who does choose to participate still risks being forced to make significant changes to their gear or perhaps even complete decertification, so when you Californians go to cast your votes in about eighteen months, don’t be surprised if you have to mark up a piece of paper and drop it into a Equalivote-brand ballot box.

[Via Slashdot]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

Gateway’s C120X, which is curiously also dubbed the E-155C and S-7125C, didn’t look like a half bad option for the convertible fans in the crowd from the start, and while the weight and less-than-enthralling LCD may turn some folks off, NotebookReview found it a “solid” tablet for the money. One noticeable perk was the stylish, professional design and the sturdy nature of the enclosure, but opening it up put a sudden damper on things when peering at the “grainy, washed-out” touchscreen. Reviewers did admire the Wacom-enabled stylus, the lack of heat and noise while in use, and “impressive” speakers, but a bevy of minor quibbles kept it from excellence. The biggest digs came from a loose screen hinge, keyboard flexing, and just “normal” battery life from a ULV-equipped machine. Essentially, this tablet looks to be a classic example of ho hum, as it offers no real standout features that can’t be found elsewhere, and provides just enough quirks to turn off the picky consumer, but feel free to give the full scoop a read if you’re still perched on the fence.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras

One might wonder if Sony packed a little too much into the relatively compact DSC-G1, but as we’d already seen, even the CNET review crew didn’t really think so. The only noticeable digs were the slightly larger-than-usual frame and additional weight added on, and unfortunately, the “slow-going” WiFi wizardry. To its credit, the WiFi features did seem to elicit quite a bit of smiles once the initial kinks were worked out, and while they weren’t crazy about the “narrow, slow zoom lens” per se, the image quality seemed on par. Additionally, the digicam’s 3.5-inch LCD monitor was dubbed “a television” in an of itself thanks to the impressive resolution, and the 2GB of internal memory along with an additional Memory Stick expansion slot was also highly regarded. Another seemingly minor thumbs-up was given to this unit’s ability to accept “drag-and-drop” music file transfers to play back on the built-in media player, which is a much appreciated departure from previous cams that forced users to rely on Sony’s SonicStage software. Still, $600 isn’t chump change for a pocket-based camera, so be sure and read up on the full skinny before throwing down on the (admittedly flashy) G1.

[Thanks, Antipathy]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

The folks over at PC Perspective finally got their hands on the Asus G2 gaming lappy we first saw all the way back in October, and while it’s got a couple trick features, it’s also hot, heavy, and held back by a midrange GPU. Based on the massive Asus A7J, the G2 bumps the processor to a 2GHz Intel T7200 Core 2 Duo and the GPU to a 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1700, repackaging the whole deal in a slick metal case with an integrated OLED screen (no SideShow though, bummer), 1.3 megapixel webcam, and side-mounted red LED strips that throb with DirectX activity. Flossing all that gamer style doesn’t get you anywhere if you can’t run with the big boys, though, and that’s where PC Perspective found that that X1700 just wasn’t always up to the task, slowing down considerably during some of their tests. But despite this and some other potential dealbreakers (like being the heaviest 17-inch laptop PC Perspective has ever tested and requiring near-total disassembly to upgrade the RAM) the G2 left a favorable impression, offering competent, if not great, performance with more than a dash of style for $1900. Peep the read link for the full review.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals

Product reviews are typically a welcome nugget of knowledge when trying to make a critical purchasing decision, but we’d probably succumb to just picking a power supply at random before actually wading through 105 reviews to find out which one was king. While this could all very well be a completely impractical prank, Stéphane Charpentier of MatBe has apparently put just over one hundred PSUs on the testing bench in order to find out which is worth your cash, and he went through a variety of flavors and wattages to make sure the very one you were eying was thoughtfully included. Without getting into specifics, Akasa’s Power80+ took home the gold in the nonmodular category, Antec’s Neo HE notched first place in the modular realm, the Fortron Zen won in the fanless arena, Cooler Master’s Real Power Pro ruled the “powerful” division, and Antec’s Earthwatts proved the most “valuable.” Of course, there’s a good bit of detail surrounding the 100 other losers in the crowd, so if you’re down with skimming through 140 pages of PSU reviews, the read link awaits your attention.

[Via Inquirer]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio

It’s no secret that the Sansa lineup of music players have fared pretty well in crunch time, and according to a glowing PCMag writeup, the diminutive (and simply titled) 1GB Express is no different. While it’s difficult not to draw obvious connections between this pack ‘o gum sized DAP and Apple’s first-generation Shuffle, the built-in OLED alone gives it a serious edge. Additionally, reviewers raved over the included niceties (you know, the FM tuner, voice recorder, and microSD expansion slot) that aren’t usually found on bottom-end players. Both the clean menu navigation and pocket-friendly size were also commended, and while the “crappy earbuds,” unsurprising lack of an AC adapter, and “a modest 14 hours of battery life” were looked down upon, that still wasn’t enough to stop the crew from handing out a 4.5 out of 5 rating.

[Via ChipChick]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

Although preliminary testing proved that ATI’s R600 architecture wasn’t messing around, DailyTech added another layer of proof to the pudding as it benchmarked a bonafide Radeon HD 2900 XT against NVIDIA’s 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS. The DirectX 10-capable card is a notch above the HD 2600 XT that was snapped in the wild, and the tested unit featured 320 stream processors, 512MB of GDDR3 RAM, a dual-slot “blower-type heat sink,” dual dual-link DVI ports, and a serious desire to crank out impressive FPS numbers. While the marks weren’t the end-all answer to the ATI vs. NVIDIA question, the Radeon managed to best its opponent in every single trial, including Call of Duty 2, Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., Oblivion, 3DMark06, Maya 02, Cadalyst C2006, and a few more for good measure. Of course, we’re sure NVIDIA will be hitting back with something of its own, but feel free to hit the read link if you take pleasure in graphical beat downs with ATI escaping victorious.

[Thanks, Mathieu]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

Panasonic’s TH-103FP9 103-inch plasma may have been dethroned at CES this year by Sharp, but it is still the king in our hearts, at least untill Sharp starts shipping its 108-inch LCD, that is. TrustedReviews had a chance to review the massive TV, and after the three-hour install by the crack specialty team — including the use of an interior crane that we’d also like to get a look at — they were very impressed with the picture quality. They were amazed that a TV this large didn’t sacrifice contrast or color, and in fact, the only thing they could complain about was how bad it made some content look after enjoying 1080p in all its glory. Of course, they didn’t like the $70,000 MSRP, but we suppose that is the price you have pay to watch a 103-inch screen in a well lit room.

[Via Digital Media Thoughts]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Storage

You’ve seen it announced and in the wild, and you’ve probably been wondering if the $400 or so required to procure the 1TB beast was indeed worth it. Thankfully, TomsHardware has the guidance you’ve been yearning for, as it opened up its test bench and welcomed Hitachi’s 7K1000 with open arms. The 935.5GB of usable space brought smiles to all involved, provided the highest transfer rate of all 7,200RPM drives that it was benchmarked against, and it was even said to “outperform the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10.” Truthfully, it was difficult to find any negatives on the behemoth in terms of sheer performance aside from its (forgivable) inability to keep up with the 10,000RPM WD Raptor and its toasty nature, but the reality set in when the review crew began to evaluate the value presented in such a dense, albeit expensive, HDD. Frankly, reviewers claimed that picking this drive up over a pair of cheaper 500GB drives “wouldn’t make a lot of sense,” but if you’re in dire need of cramming 1TB of, um, PowerPoint presentations onto a single unit, it’s far from a bad option.

[Via DigitalMediaThoughts]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras

While we could the quality issues coming, it’s hard not to hope that somehow Casio was able to cram a 7.2-megapixel sensor and a 7x optical zoom into a point-and-shoot enclosure that produced astounding (or at least good) results. Sadly, we’re still waiting for that day, as reviewers at PopPhoto deflated our hopes that a wicked zoom could in fact be stuffed into an ultracompact without sacrificing image quality. As expected, the sleek, sexy frame of the Exilim Hi-Zoom EX-V7 was adored, the anti-shake technology was appreciated, and the choice to rely on H.264 compression in video mode was praised, but those tidbits weren’t enough to overcome the “shaky” feel, questionably designed menus, unsteady cradle, and most importantly, the “pitiful” results. It was noted that the 7x zoom was quite impressive when shooting video clips, and without concern to the actual images produced by the EX-V7, the digicam was shown an “A” rating; unfortunately, the overall score was lowered to a (generous) “C” with all things considered, but feel free to hit the read link and read the painful writeup for yourself.

[Via DigitalPhotographyBlog]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!