Archive for April, 2008
Today I got my hands-on the Wii Fit and the Balance Board for my Nintendo Wii; over the next week I will be giving this new gadget a lot of time and doing a hands-on review over a few posts. The aim will be to keep using this device so I can maintain and improve my health and fitness. For the people that do not know, the Wii Fit is a combination of fitness and fun, by using Wii Fit just a small amount of time everyday, you, your friends, and your family will be able to achieve personal fitness goals over time.
On this page I have taken some photos of what you get in the Wii Fit box that costs £69 in the UK and around $89.99 in the U.S. When I have finished this post, that’s when I get down to business just like millions of other Nintendo Wii owners as we do a body test daily with the Wii balance board to keep an eye on your body control, Body Mass Index (BMI) and center of balance. These results then provide you with a fitness age that you aim to improve on each day.
To improve your health and fitness you can use the training modes, you have a choice of Strength training, yoga, aerobics and balance games. While I go to the gym five days a week and also to a body combat class with the aim of getting and keeping fit, the idea of extra exercise while having fun playing games is a fantastic idea. The Nintendo Wii has become boring for me many times and when this happens I just go back to playing my Sony PS3, but I am hoping that Wii Fit and the balance board changes all that because we all could do with more exercise.
Its very easy to just get on with life and forget about keeping an eye on our health and fitness level, now I have Wii Fit this will not happen as I can keep an eye on my BMI and other parts of my overall fitness.
This all sounds good, but action is the best policy, so I am now going to give the Balance Board and Wii Fit many hours of gameplay and fitness. Check back for how I get on by joining our Feed or newsletter from the links below, also share your Wii Fit stories in the comments box below.
One thing I noticed already is how stable the Balance Board is, when you put it on a hardwood surface like in the photos, the board will not move and that was tested by trying to push the board to move it…the board will not move, and that’s obviously what we want. More photos below.
The Internet has spread its web on mobiles to a great extent and to add in one more phone into its web is the Sony Ericsson Z780. Sony Ericsson unveiled its fresh new web-enabled phone Sony Ericsson Z780 into the mobile zone.
The Sony Ericsson Z780 is a tri-band phone which also proudly presents its 3G capabilities with HSUSPA and HSDPA support. Apart from the best network supports, the phone also keeps it head high in the air with its in-built GPS chip. The phone impresses the mobile user with 9.5 hours on GSM, 4.5 hours talktime and 14 days standby time. Since it is a web-enabled phone, it also accesses emails and browses the web at blistering speeds.
The phone is expected to hit the markets by second quarter of the year and the price expectation is around $400 which is before tax and subsidy.
Sony recently began offering an updated version of its mobile Internet device (MID), called the mylo COM-2.
This can access the Web on its WVGA screen and make free Skype phone calls over Wi-Fi, and it also includes some additional features, like a built-in camera.
Specifications
- 800 by 480 pixel touchscreen
- 802.11b/g
- 1.3 Megapixel camera
- Sliding QWERTY keyboard
- 1 GB built in RAM; Memory Stick Pro-Duo slot supporting up to 8 GB
- USB 2.0 connection
- Music player supports MP3, WMA, AAC, ATRAC
- Photos application supports JPG, PNG, BMP
- Video player supports MPEG4, AVC
Design
The 800 by 480 pixel touchscreen dominates the front of the mylo COM-2, along with a single joystick. A friend of mine asked me if it was like the iPhone because of its similarities at first glance.
 |
Like the iPod Touch, the mylo COM-2 has a single button on its face. However, this is directional-select button. It doesn’t bring you to Home or much anything else.
Under the screen, a slide out keyboard is available. This is something of a mixed bag. On one end, it was neat that it was a sliding type. Unlike the on-screen one of the Nokia N800, it did not get in the way; and like the sliding one of the N810, it was great for mashing out quick IMs or emails. The orange backlighting was fine for most settings, but gets a bit washed out in mid-level lighting conditions.
I would rate the keyboard feel as OK. It was something that I just had to take some time to get used to.
Because of the width of the mylo COM-2 in the landscape position, though, I did find that reaching for some of the keys, or even doing some symbols, was a bit more of a chore. Nevertheless, I did find it easy to get up to speed.
At first sight, Sony Ericsson’s mid-range K660i doesn’t appear terribly special.
Its music capabilities apparently don’t merit it being labelled a Walkman phone, and its 2mp camera means it doesn’t get a “Cybershot” badge either.
But where this phone is remarkably impressive is in its doing everything just as well as you’ll probably need it to.
That camera’s surprisingly good, and a media button takes you to music that can be stored in the phone’s expandable 256mb memory.
It’s got Google Maps built in, which makes it the next best thing to having sat nav, and there’s superfast HSDPA web access that means this is a phone where you might actually start to use the net on your mobile.
Appealingly light, the only thing it could really do with is a regular 3.5mm headphone jack, rather than Sony Ericsson’s proprietary version.
The 3G Sony Ericsson Z750a is an absolute blockbuster of a value. For as low as $50 after rebates, you get a multimedia fashion phone with a high-speed modem that genuinely syncs with your PC in ways that many other devices struggle to accomplish.
- Service Provider: AT&T
- Screen Size: 2.2 inches
- Screen Details: 2.2″, 320×240, 262k-color TFT LCD screen; external text-only OLED display
- Camera: Yes
- Megapixels: 2 MP
- Bluetooth: Yes
- Web Browser: Yes
- Network: GSM, UMTS
- Bands: 850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100
- High-Speed Data: GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA
- Processor Speed: 177 MHz
- Special Features: Music
Sony Ericsson posted a 47% drop in first quarter profits on Apr. 23, reconfirming a slump in high end phone sales in Western Europe and North America and underscoring the challenges ahead for the company’s new CEO, Hideki “Dick” Komiyama. Financial analysts have been sounding the alarm about a drop in demand for high end phones ever since Texas Instruments, a leading supplier of semiconductors for mobile phones, set off shock waves on Mar. 10 by lowering its first-quarter growth estimates for sales of wireless chips and pinned the blame on weakening demand from a major customer for high-end chips used to power third generation (3G) phones.
The handset market is still expected to grow at 10% year-on-year in unit terms but with a greater emphasis on less expensive low-end phones, where Sony Ericsson only has a small presence. With no major new products expected in the second quarter, there is little scope for Sony Ericsson to retake lost share. The news is also negative for Samsung, which is also mainly present in the high-end of developed markets. That leads Richard Windsor, a financial analyst at Nomura Securities, to conclude that it too is likely to not fare very well this quarter.
Consumers are opting for free, lower-end devices instead of paying for an upgrade as discretionary spending is hit by an economic downturn, says Windsor.
The winners are LG, which is snapping up battered Motorola’s customers in N. America, and Nokia, because nearly 80% of its handset unit sales are lower-end models popular in high growth markets like India.
I can remember the days of the floppy disk and then that upgrade to CD/DVD media and 100MB disks, but these days to help you never lose your data from hardware that dies on you we have RAID in external enclosures. People that host websites know how important it is to have their data backed up non stop over a few hard drives and this is where RAID technology can now help home computer users and small businesses.
This is Enhance Tech’s T4H CR External RAID Tower that is the ultimate in big and fast external storage. Tweak Town have gave the device a 6 page hands-on to find out how good it is and in their review they said “I’m sure the outcome through the T4H CR’s eSATA would have been higher if we were supplied with larger drives similar to that of the WD 750GB.
Enhance Technology has given us the ability to have RAID levels achievable within the eSATA world of HDDs, in which is a cost effective alternative to SCSI setups. Having also prepared itself with multiple connection methods available makes this a very flexible external storage solution with little to no limits.
Onboard RAID cards found in motherboard devices have their draw backs; they may require more space in your case from having additional HDDs installed, and can be difficult to access HDDs in the event of failure and replacement which will have lengthy downtimes. (I.e. shutting down the PC/server to gain access and replacement). PSUs may also need an upgrade to cope with power requirements.
As for the T4H CR, it has its own independent OS and RAID controller. This baby also has its own PSU. Furthermore, it will allow you to hot swap any drives in need of replacement which is a great asset as it will not interfere with PC/server functionality, minimizing downtime as a whole.
Initiating and configuring this device is easy to comprehend for experienced users of RAID technology. On the other hand, for a novice user we found that the T4H CR is not a walk in the park. We would have liked to have seen additional features that we could benefit from such as event logging, e-mail notification and a form of GUI to obtain feedback information, as it currently would be seen to us as just an ‘external enclosure’ with some dandy features slapped in.
Another downside to the T4H CR is that it’s possible one may easily gain unauthorized access to the menu, change settings or re-initialize the disk setup, thus causing data loss as there is no lock in place to prevent this.
Enhance Tech could look into including a key lock to prevent any undesirable users opening the door and tampering with your data.
In terms of availability, we contacted two resellers, which were unable to locate the T4H CR in their inventories, thus not being able to give us a price either. However, we did some brief searching on the interweb and came across a handful of places in the U.S. that distribute some of Enhance Technology’s range (including this model), and at anywhere from $900 to $1,200 USD, you’ll need to be REALLY serious about your storage if you feel comfortable forking out for this puppy”.
Read the 6 page hands-on.
3K has decided to unveil their new Longitude 400 Notebook and weighs in at just under 2Lbs. This ultra lightweight ultra mobile PC has a 7-inch LCD screen, it seems as we are looking at yet another Eee PC knockoff.
The Longitude 400 Notebook is perfect if you are on the move or if you are a student who needs a cheap and small alternative to a standard laptop. Do not think for one moment that the new Longitude 400 UMPC will be slow and useless as you would be wrong, you are able to do all your everyday tasks like you would normally do on your standard size notebook from browsing the net, sending messages, playing movies and music and much more.
The 3K Longitude 400 Notebook UMPC uses an energy saving 400Mhz CPU, there is also a full size keyboard as well as 1 Ethernet 10/100 LAN port and 3 USB ports. The UMPC comes with the Linux Operating System and will be combatible with programs such as AbiWord, Excel, GNUMeric as well as Word.
The 3K Longitude 400 Notebook UMPC will cost $399 and will be available by late May, so if you want one you should reserve your order now as there will be a high demand.
Source - Business Wire
It seems that no matter where you go you are always finding out more details about the new Palm Treo 800w Sprint, the latest details on this Palm Treo smartphone is that it will be Wi-Fi enabled. It is now thought that the new Treo 800w Sprint is in its beta stage and the new Windows Mobile-powered smartphone was rumored to be able to have sent an email to a certain amount of people who use Wi-Fi, so if this is true it has given the smartphone a whole new customer base.
We do hope that the WiFi rumor is true as the new Palm 800w Sprint would be the first Treo to have this feature. Treo’s in the past have not embraced Wi-Fi, instead they have preferred to use EV-DO and EDGE which are not as good as Wi-Fi. T-Mobile has never been a fan of the Palm Treo and this is due to the lack of the Wi-Fi feature, which is why they have never wanted to sell the smartphones in the past. Well you never know what the future might hold; we could see the new Palm Treo 800w in T-Mobile stores when the smartphone is launched.
Would you now purchase a Palm Treo just because it has Wi-Fi.
Source - Crunch Gear
If you are looking for a cheaper processor the AMD might just have the answer with their Phenom X3 Triple Core CPU. Tweaktown tell us that the X3 is in fact an X4 processor but with one of the four cores disabled, this is why AMD are able to offer the Phenom X3 Triple Core CPU at such a cheap price.
In theory a three core processor is still new and it was left to AMD to be the first to use it. The current speeds of the X3 is 8450 clocked at 2.1GHz as well as the 8650 clocked at 2.3GHz, there is also a 8750 clocked at 2.4GHz.
Tweaktown’s final thoughts on the AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core CPU are “AMD may have had a few hurdles with the K10 architecture in the beginning, but so far we have found it to be a good replacement for the K8, and it’s about time too. AMD has fallen behind Intel quite a bit since the Core 2 architecture managed to wrangle the performance crown from AMD two years ago. Since then, AMD has tried to keep up with Athlon 64 X2, but it simply can’t. Its architecture can’t handle what Intel has designed its Core series to do.
Now AMD has managed to follow in some regards what Intel has managed to do. However, K10 is still a direct descendant of the K8, and from this comes a few of the inherent weaknesses in design, making it slower than Core 2 on a clock-for-clock basis as well as its limited core speeds. So far we have only managed to see official parts hitting 2.5GHz, and while overclocking has given us 2.7GHz, this has been done with voltage increases. AMD’s design will soon have to switch to 45nm processes to survive.
Phenom, while being a good processor is in no way a replacement for the Core 2. If you’re still after the highest performance you can get, Core 2 is the choice for now. However, if you’re after a more affordable option with an upgrade pathway for quite some time, Phenom is what you’re after. If you’re an AMD Athlon 64 X2 user with an AM2 board, a Phenom X3 will slot in with a BIOS update to recognize it; you won’t get the benefits of HT3 but you will get a triple core or quad core processor without having to change board, memory and graphics card.
The X3 series of Phenom is a more affordable option, making it a perfect choice to replace Athlon 64 X2s, pushing them back towards the Sempron market area. In all, the X3 fills a good void for AMD and will be a definite hit for from our prospective”.
For the full review visit: Tweaktown