(Credit:
Barnes & Noble)
When Barnes & Noble unveiled the Nook, the first Android-powered e-book reader, a lot of people were excited, because it appeared to offer some key competitive advantages over Amazon's Kindle e-reader.
First and foremost, while the Nook features the same 6-inch E-ink screen (600x800 pixels; 16 shades of gray) as the Kindle, it includes a separate, capacitive, color touch screen (144 x 480 pixels) that allows you to navigate content and use a virtual keyboard for typing searches and annotations. Furthermore, on top of its free AT&T 3G wireless connection, the Nook packs in Wi-Fi connectivity and a memory expansion slot; you get 2GB of internal memory, but can add up to an additional 16GB via the microSD card slot. And finally, Barnes & Noble offers an e-book-lending option (for participating titles) and the capability to browse the full text of e-books on your Nook if you're in a Barnes & Noble brick-and-mortar store (the latter feature is due to launch in early 2010). Unfortunately, both the lending and in-store browsing features come with some significant restrictions.
Caveats notwithstanding, those features are nice extras, but the big questions are: how much of a difference do they really make in the overall user experience, and are they enough to push the Nook to the top of the e-book reader heap? Alas, the answer, you'll soon find out, isn't as clear cut as it might seem.
(Credit:
GameSpot)
Halo has been the defining franchise series for Microsoft across two generations of consoles. After Halo 3 was released last year, it appeared the first-person epic had finally seen its last installment. Then developer Bungie hinted at a spinoff title, Halo 3: ODST.
While ODST takes place during the events of Halo 2 and 3, the campaign does not feature Master Chief. Instead, you'll assume the role of a rookie Orbital Drop Shock Trooper who is separated from the rest of his crew. With the help of a citywide artificial intelligence known as The Superintendent, you'll find out just what has happened to them.
We have had the final retail build of ODST for some time now, and here are our impressions:... Read more
(Credit:
Jeff Bakalar/CNET)
Ask any diehard hockey fan out there and he'll tell you that last year's NHL 09 was close to being the best hockey game ever made. After countless critical acclaim and 19 sports-game-of-the-year awards over the past two years, the EA Canada team is back with NHL 10.
Along with Chicago Blackhawks young superstar Patrick Kane as this year's featured cover athlete, the game promises plenty of improvements, from board play to first-person fighting.
We sat down and played a full three periods in Stanley Cup Final fashion, Penguins versus Red Wings, to find out what's new in NHL 10.... Read more
Like the iPhone, the Kindle DX will automatically rotate the screen from portrait to landscape mode when you flip the unit on its side.
(Credit: CNET)You now have a choice between two different Kindle models, and the big question is whether you should spend the extra dough on the larger DX or opt for a Kindle 2. In our humble assessment, the majority of buyers will--and probably should--favor the smaller device, the Kindle 2. Why? Well, we have some concerns over the DX being more of a two-handed e-reader; yes, you can hold it in one hand for a short time, but you really need to keep both hands on the device to support its weight for a while. Meanwhile, the Kindle 2 is easier to hold for longer periods of time with just one hand.
The other factor to consider is that when it comes to periodical reading (newspapers and magazines), the advantage of having more text and images on the screen is a nice perk, but the reading experience isn't enhanced as much as you might think.
Read the full review to get all our hands-on impressions.
Like the iPhone, the Kindle DX will automatically rotate the screen from portrait to landscape mode when you flip the unit on its side.
(Credit: CNET)Even before the Kindle 2 launched, there was talk of an even newer, larger Amazon digital reader that would be geared more toward reading textbooks and periodicals. We all assumed it would be bigger, but it was unclear exactly what form it would take. Well, now that it's finally arrived, what is a little surprising is how much the Kindle DX--bigger face aside--is a dead ringer for its little sibling.
In profile, the two devices appear equally svelte: the 0.38-inch-deep DX is just a tad thicker than the 0.36-inch Kindle 2. Obviously, the big difference here is the Kindle DX's 9.7-inch e-ink display, which technically offers 2.5 times more screen real estate than the Kindle's 6-inch display. That extra screen comes at a price, both figuratively and literally, as the DX weighs almost twice as much (18.9 ounces) as the Kindle 2 and costs $130 more, at $489.
That said, while the DX is significantly larger and heavier, when you pick it up, it doesn't feel too burdensome to carry or hold. However, it clearly isn't as portable as the Kindle 2; its larger footprint requires a larger bag or briefcase for stowaway purposes. Most women's handbags, for instance, just won't be big enough to contain the thing.... Read more
The SheevaPlug next to a pocket-size USB external hard drive.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)I blogged about Marvell's SheevaPlug computer awhile ago, and Monday I got to do some exclusive hands-on testing with the first prototype of the machine.
This is a very simple and ultracompact computer that has 1.2GHz CPU, 512MB of flash memory storage, and 512MB DRAM under the hood. The only peripheral connections it supports are a USB 2.0 port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The prototype comes with a 8GB ScanDisk thumb drive as its external storage, which makes it a very unique network-attached storage (NAS) solution.
... Read more
Last October we told you about a successor to the DS Lite, the Nintendo DSi. The DSi features two larger screens, two 0.3-megapixel cameras, and an SD card storage slot. In addition, the new DSi will allow users to download software and add-ons over the Internet from a specially designed DSi store.
The editors at CNET sister-site GameSpot were able to get their hands on a DSi and performed an in-depth analysis of the device as well as a physical comparison to the DS Lite. Check out some select photos from their feature in our slideshow.
While the DSi is already on sale in Japan (which is where GameSpot snagged the model shown here), we still don't have a definitive release date for North America beyond the vague label of "2009." However, online chatter points to an April release along with a $180 price tag although those details have yet to be confirmed by Nintendo.
At the end of October, TiVo and Netflix announced that Netflix's streaming service would be coming to TiVo DVRs by the end of 2008. The companies have made good on their promise, and the service is rolling out to TiVo HD, HD XL, and Series3 boxes today. TiVo turned on the service for us over the weekend, and we've had the chance to give it a full workout. The short story: this is an awesome added feature for TiVo HD owners.
The interface is significantly different than what we've seen on the Netflix Player by Roku. Rather than offering up large box shots to scroll through, the TiVo's interface instead lists the names in text, with smaller box shots showing up on the right side. We preferred the TiVo's interface, as it allows us to see more titles at once, which is convenient if you have a large queue. On the other hand, we felt the TiVo interface was less responsive, which is a problem that affects almost all of the extra services on TiVo.
While the interface is an improvement over the Netflix Player, we still saw plenty of room for improvement. Now that Netflix has added a lot of content to the Instant Streaming service, our instant queue is getting pretty full. The current interface simply lists titles in the same order as your Instant Queue, which, if you're anything like us, is kind of haphazard. While the queue system makes sense for the traditional Netflix mailing service, we'd rather have more categorization options--such as by genre and star rating--for online streaming. We were also disappointed that there was no way to tell from the TiVo screen which movies were available in "HD" quality.
Like on the Netflix Player, video quality is determined by the speed of your connection. While the Netflix Player uses a "four dot" graphic to indicate video quality, the TiVo HD has a more granular meter, with about 14 bars. We generally got all 14 bars filled up, using a wired Ethernet connection and a standard cable modem.
Although the term "near-DVD" is often abused with video-streaming services, it accurately describes the video quality offered by Netflix streaming on TiVo. We fired up a bunch of movies and we were never disappointed by how they looked. Pan's Labrynth was available in "HD" and in most cases it looked as good as a well-mastered DVD--occasionally we could see some blockiness to the image or the background would be soft, but nothing to take us out of the movie-watching experience. Next up was Ratatouille, which wasn't available in HD. This looked slightly softer than DVD-quality (and much softer than the excellent Blu-ray), but not by much. Only the pickiest videophiles would turn up their noses at the image quality. In short, there's room for improvement, but it's darn good already. (You can read more about the technical details behind Netflix's streaming service here.)
... Read moreThe Nikon D90 arrived on Wednesday, and since we've had some great weather this week here in NYC, I immediately headed out to Madison Square Park to shoot a few hundred photos and start to get a feel for the camera. Then I passed it back to Matt F. for some initial performance testing. (Here's a slide show with some photo samples.) My first impression? For a sub-$1,000 model, the D90 is verrrrry nice.
First up, the D90's movie capture. I shot the flags blowing in the breeze and a fountain that I typically use to test camcorder and camera video. (Unfortunately, I can't display those here without compressing them in a way that defeats the purpose of showing them.) The clips themselves look OK, although for some reason Nikon bumps up the saturation beyond the photo settings, and I wish the camera shot 30fps instead of 24. You also need three hands if you plan to use the zoom--which requires manually focusing--because it's hard to hold this relatively heavy dSLR out in front of you steadily while videos shooting in Live View. But I like the creative potential of the mode and look forward to shooting with it some more.
... Read more
(Credit:
Ubisoft)
We had sly grins on our faces. Not because we were here chatting with Ubisoft at the company's NYC showcase. Not because we got our hands on one of the most anticipated games this year. We were reveling at the destruction, you see.
We took our flamethrower, lit up a patch of dry brush in the African savanna, and observed as the flames spread to a small bungalow from the prevailing winds. Just as a group of enemy soldiers ran over to investigate the damage, we ambushed and mowed them down with our M16. We're not in the tropical island jungles anymore.
Far Cry 2 throws you into the swamps and jungles of the African continent this time around with a new cast of characters and a new setting, further drawing players into the open-ended first-person game that the first game pioneered. While Crytek (developer of the original game), is off working on the sequel to Crysis, Ubisoft Montreal came to the helm for this game, developing a brand new engine, dubbed Dunia.
Yes, we enjoyed lighting him up too.
(Credit: Ubisoft)We were first shown a early mission in the game. The premise of the game, as already covered by Video Games Blogger, leads up to the "assassination of 'The Jackal,' an arms dealer who has been selling weapons to both sides of the conflict that's tearing apart a small fictional African country. The way to complete this task is entirely up to the player. There are various factions involved, where a player can do missions to earn influence."
As we were told during the demo, for example, at the beginning of the game your character is infected with malaria. The only way to alleviate the symptoms (as there is no cure) is by receiving medicine from an underground faction for doing missions and also subsequently earning reputation.
However, if you wreak too much havoc, such as killing innocent civilians, to the countryside and thereby draw attention to the faction, expect to be shunned and lose your precious supply of drugs.
... Read more
