Here we take the iPad 2 out for a good old fashion video quality test.  Video quality actually is pretty good. Colors seemed to come out well and audio sounded pretty good. I would the video tops the XOOM in terms of 720p video from this current generation of tablets. The picture quality however is pretty bad which we will get more into in our final review.

PDP enter into the battle with the Versus fighting pad for the Xbox 360 just in time for Marvel Vs Capcom 3.  We give you our first impressions.

The Versus Fighting pad looks to make your fight gaming experience which some unique features that differ from most fight pads you see.  The left handle is a bit longer and the the analog stick has micro switches in it like you would see in a arcade stick.  We will put this bad boy to the test to see how good this fight pad claims to be.

In this video I respond to Lockergnome’s video talking about Tech Reviewers and their credibility.

The discussion talks about how many reviewers don’t give an honest and critical opinion about a product and says everything is amazing and good when a lot of the product are mediocre at best.  In my video I discuss the fact that may reviewers don’t ask themselves or the companies or PR teams of the products What is the Main Focus? What is the target market? What is the main goal. When these questions are not asked and the review is not focused around theses questions you can get products review completely wrong with a bad product getting a better review than it should and a good product getting a bad review.

I also go into discussion about the rankings and ratings systems out there and how i believe they do don’t the consumers out there any service.  Watch the video and leave your opinions and comments below.

The Razer Switchblade is a BEST of CES 2011 winner as a  gaming concept from Razer that suppose to make true full power PC gaming on the road a reality.

Press Release

Razer™ Announces New Mobile PC Gaming Concept Design

The Razer Switchblade powered by the Intel® Atom™ processor redefines Mouse/Keyboard Interface for mobile gamers with an all new ultra-sensitive
multi-touch screen and dynamic tactile keyboard

Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, Nevada – January 6, 2011 – Razer, the world’s leading brand of high-end precision gaming products announced today the development of an innovative concept design, based on the Intel® Atom™ processor, bringing traditional PC desktop gaming to a portable form factor.

The new Intel® Atom™ powered concept model, codenamed “Razer Switchblade”, brings an evocative level of design to gaming by replacing the traditional mouse and keyboard interface with an ultra-sensitive multi-touch screen, dynamic tactile keyboard, and an intelligent user interface that adjusts the configuration and key layout on-the-fly based on game content and user requirements.

The Razer Switchblade concept was created from the ground up by Razer designers and engineers, in collaboration with Intel; focusing on enhancing the entire user experience of playing the extensive PC game library on a handheld device.

“The main problem with mobile PC gaming so far is that no one has been able to port the full mouse and keyboard experience onto a small size portable solution,” said Min-Liang Tan, CEO and Creative Director, Razer. “By combining adaptive on-the-fly controls and display, we managed to maintain the full tactile keyboard in a miniature computer while saving valuable screen estate.”

“PC Gaming continues to attract innovation with rich 3-D graphics, high definition video, and life-like animation,” said Brad Graff, director of gaming platforms for Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group. “The Intel® Atom™ processor, combined with Razer’s expertise in bringing gaming solutions to market, will help make it possible for consumers to have a powerful gaming experience in mobile devices.”

“With our established focus on human interface devices, moving the mouse and keyboard experience to the next level was a natural step.” continues Min-Liang Tan. “Razer isn’t just about bringing innovation to the PC, but creating products that will change the future of gaming. The Razer Switchblade is one such product.”

About the Razer Switchblade Concept

The Razer Switchblade Concept is a breakthrough portable gaming device model that allows gamers to play on the go without giving up the precision and control ordinarily possible on a desktop gaming system. Integrating a multi-touch seven-inch screen and an innovative tactile dynamic keyboard, the Razer Switchblade Concept delivers the full desktop experience in a netbook sized solution.

For more information, please visit: www.razerzone.com/Switchblade

About the Razer Group:

Razer is more than just the world’s leading brand in high-end precision gaming products, perpetually defining the gaming and technology space. Founded in 1998 in Carlsbad, California, Razer is driven by the ceaseless pursuit for absolute precision and high usability in a distinctive, aesthetic design that will give gamers the edge they demand. With labs and offices in seven cities around the world, Razer dedicates user interface research and development to bring cutting-edge technology to each and every product. We live by our motto: For Gamers. By Gamers.

For more information, please visit www.razerzone.com

The Samsung Wave II is a Bada based phone from Samsung. The phone aims to give entry levels users a smartphone experience with an easy to use interface.

The Wave II comes 1 GHz processor,  3.7 inch Super Clear LCD display and a 5 Megapixel camera with flash and a VGA front facing camera.  The Wave II does come with smartphone features such as wide e-mail client support including Microsoft Exchange. Gaming is also very strong on the platform as well as 3D games look great and run smooth. 

The Bada platform is open source and allows developers to easliy create apps and port their apps over from other mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. The apps will be available in Samsung’s App store.

The Pandigital Novel received a lot of buzz when it was first announced. An android e-reader that plays videos, pictures and web was certainly appealing to many but does it live up to expectations?

Hardware

The Pandigital Novel comes with a 7 inch touchscreen display that is surrounded by a thick plastic bezel and incase in a fully plastic case. The case feels sturdy without feeling too cheap. The screen has a matte finish to help reduce glare from light and has a resolution of 600×800 pixels which should make most content look good and the packaging includes a stand to view content hands free. it comes with 2 GB of internal storage but you can upgrade that easily with the SD card which supports up to 32GB of storage. You have build in wi-fi and that is the only option available for downloading books to the Novel and its 802.11g. You also have a standard headphone jack for listening to music and video. All this weights in about 12 oz which feel fight and not too heavy in the hand. You have all the hardware specs here but does it work well with the software.

Usage

While the Pandigital Novel has some pretty decent hardware specs the software is where things can be troublesome.  The device is Android  2.x based with a skinned interface on top to make it more e-reader centric for users. The interface while useful is not very fast or responsive but that could be due to the resistive touch screen and in combination with the fact that Android 2.x is not meant for tablet and e-reader devices. Since its not meant for it it takes a lot of 3rd party effort to squeeze that functionality it and Pandigital did a good job in the effort in getting it to work and a lot of what they did is good but it doesn’t fully pan out.

Now with that being said this still makes the device accessible to non tech savvy user who may just be looking for something this simple. I think the advantage it has over your basic e-reader is that it can play video, view pictures and go on the web in full color.

Overall

The Pandigital Novel is not a bad device its just depends on the user on this one.  If a user is not tech savvy and simply just wants to read books and view the occasional picture, video and website and don’t want to spend the high price for other tablets out there such as the Galaxy Tab and iPad then the Novel should work well for them.  if your are a more advanced users this may not live up to your expectation.  I do expect with Android 3.0 coming which will have more support for tablets that the next time Pandigial comes with a tablet it will be much better with a faster processor.

I would recommend for the very simple user not looking to go overboard. If you are looking for more then look elsewhere.

Buy Pandigital Novel

Amazon.com

Sears.com

The Samsung Transform is a android phone looking to be the little brother to the Epic 4G on sprint.  Does it stand up to the challenge?

Hardware

The Transform hardware is pretty good for the most part.it has mostly a plastic build and feel. You can definitely tell its not apart of the Galaxy S line of phone from Samsung but that doesn’t mean the quality of the hardware is bad.  You get your standard buttons and ports on the site which feel good when pressed an don’t feel as though they are going to fall off. The 3.5 inch screen had a decent 320×480 resolution which is ok and pretty standard among non high end android phones. The keyboard is a full 4 row keyboard that has good separation between each key and each key is a bit sunk down which takes a bit to get used to. On the front of the phone you have your same 4 touch sensitive buttons that you see on most android phones. You also have a 3.0 megapixel camera on the back with flash and VGA front facing camera on the front for video calling.

Some other specs include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, 2 GB SD card pre-installed, 1500 mAh batter that will give you about 6 hours of talk time and 14.6 days of standby time, and an 800 MHz processor to round out the hardware specs. Good specs for a mid range android device but do the specs work out well with the software?

Usage

Calls sound clear and worked well although the dial pad is changed a bit and I don’t feel for the better.  The camera is your standard 3.0 megapixel with nothing to brag about and what you have seen with pretty much every android camera at 3.0 megapixel and the app for the camera your standard android camera app.

The phone comes with android 2.1 which look to be stock at first until you see the Sprint ID icon. The Sprint ID is suppose to be different UI packages to help you customize your phone. You have ones for work, social, play, entertainment, gaming and so on. This seems like a pretty cool idea at first but as soon as you install one of these ID packs you begin to see the drawbacks as performance takes a big hit and you get a very cluttered interface that includes software you may not need to trials. This reminds me of how lot of PCs will come with a lot of bloatware on them. The Sprint ID seem like a good idea at first but it just really gets in the way of the android experience. I would recommending the stock ID as that provided the smoothest experience.

Overall

Samsung does a great job with giving above average hardware for a mid range smartphone but the Sprint IDs from Sprint can hinder the phone greatly. I think that the idea is good but it needs to back and be cooked a bit more before seeing primetime again.  Good job Samsung but Sprint you need to go back to the drawing board on the Sprint IDs. It’s a phone that is good and will work for the non power user but you just want to make sure to stick to the stock Sprint ID.

Buy your Samsung Transform from

Amazon.com

Click to pic to by from Best Buy.com

Click to pic  to buy from Wirefly.com

Hulu Plus has come out of private preview and is now fully available to everyone for now $7.99 per month which is lower than the preview price of $9.99 and actually matches the exact same price that Netflix cost. Those that were in the preview will get $2 credit back for each month they were signed up during the beta.  This is actually not a bad price at all for all the extra content you will receive and the fact you will be able to use your account on multiple devices from gaming consoles, set-top boxes to mobile devices. Read below for the differences between a regular Hulu account and Hulu Plus   You can go to www.hulu.com right now and sign up for a 1 week free trial.

Engadget was lucky enough to get some hands on time with the Blackberry Playboy at the Web 2.0 conference.  I will save the device looks really nice and it does give me a Palm Web OS feeling when looking at it but  that’s not a bad thing as Blackberry needs to get more modern when it comes to their OS and UI.

Via Engadget

LG  announced  the LG Optimus T which will be a low cost android based devices for $29.99 with a new two year contract after mail-in-rebate.  The pone will come with a HVGA display at 3.2 inches, 3 megapixel camera and Android 2.2. Not bad at all for the price and it will be coming on November 3rd.