Just a few posts ago I was blabbing on about how I had my fingers cross for the Olympus Sp-570 and I come across the Sigma DP-1. This little camera has no release date and no zoom but it as a sensor as large as a D-SLR and a wide angle lens. Which essentially means its great for low light shots taken indoors, and great for street snaps which i like to take. So I guess another set of fingers crossed!
Olympus SP 570 UZ - fingers crossed!
First off let me say that I've owned 2 Olympus digital cameras in the past. Once upon a time I did own a Canon Eos 50 SLR and did took some photography classes in University, but I am by no means a great photographer.
One of the few things that stuck with me from those university classes was this; learning how to use a camera and all those picky details is something that you can learn on your own time but nothing is more important than framing an composition.
Like everyone else I'll go to dpreview.com and read some reviews on any camera I'm considering but when it really comes down to it, I can't tell the difference in quality. I end up chucking all my photos on my hard drive, never taking them out and only very occasionally putting some photos up on facebook.
I'm not one too scrutinize my photos to the extend where I appreciate the difference in purple fringing or better noise reduction. But I am very keen on good performance on convenience. I've always liked Olympus for packing a whole lot of punch into a small form factor and now with the whole super zoom compact trend I'm hoping this is the next camera for me.
Let me explain, I want a camera with wide angle for interior photos, good performance in low light (which might mean me buying the Fuji S800fd instead) big zoom, so that I can take pictures when i go climbing, and easy to carry around (no lenses,no hassle).
If you hope onto flickr and look at photos taken with similar super zoom cameras you'll notice that they are amazing and often look as good as D-SLR photos. With 4 Months till my honeymoon I've got to decide on something, will this be my all in one iPhone like digital camera or will i cave in and get a Canon 400. Really hope this is the camera for me, fingers crossed!
Logitech Harmony 880 - this looks like a winner
Now I'll be the first to admit I'm not always on top of tech so for a lot of people this is very old news. I first came across this controller walking around some in some computer mall in HK and noticing the price tag. WTF!!! a remote control that cost 2k Hong Kong Dollars!! I could buy a Wii for that kind of money. Now this was all before I actually knew what this remote was all about.
Long story short at the press of 1 button you can turn on your TV, 5.1 surround sound and your Xbox 360. Not only will this remote turn everything on but it will tune the channel to the correct channel, tune your surround sound, and I believe it can even open the DVD tray of your DVD player if you so desired that to be the default. Seems everyone these days wants the ultimate home entertainment set up, but if your busy competiting with the Jones or just know someone who has a mess of a home entertainment gear, this could be a fantastic gift idea for Christmas. Check out a review here
GameWebsite Review
When it comes to hard hitting news on the game industry lets face it blogs just don't cut it. Real reviews with lots of pictures, videos and exclusive interviews with developers are what we want to read about then add our own special sauce and write about the 2nd hand news in our own blogs. When it comes to game sites I've been checking out a few consistantly so I thought I'd put my thoughts down about them.
I've been reading this website for YEARS!!! I must have been reading it for at least a decade and a full member for about 5 years. When it comes to good hard reviews Gamespot can not be beat. They're not as up to date as some of the other review sites and there import reviews are rather weak but on the whole if you could only check one game site out before you made a purchase this is the stop. There video content is a real mixed bag, lately they've become a lot more profressional in presentation but the reviewers themselves in front of camera still need a few acting/drama lessons on how to be in front of the camera. I suppose due to the fact that I've been reading their very critical opinions for a decade, I feel as if they are almost friends and don't mind their somewhat sloppy presentation.
When it comes to content of there reviews they are for the most part bang on, they are a bit slow on reviewing systems that aren't favourites of the hardcore gamer such as Nintendo DS but they've still got the most accurate reviews overall and now that they also seem to run www.gamefaqs.com they really are the one stop site for all hardcore gamers.
These guys I've only been reading a few years and the cool thing about IGN is that they have a bit of everything on there. I guess the best way to put it is a guy's mag like Maxim that heavily focuses on stuff that used to be nerdy. Once upon a time people who played video games and read comic books were losers. After the marketing campaigns of Sony's Playstation and big movie adaptations of everything Marvel suddenly its cool to have been a comic geek who would rather play Final Fantasy Adventure on the Gameboy during lunch break than play baseball.
In terms of game content IGN seems faster than Gamespot and they have more import reviews/ hands on articles which is great for me seeing I live in Hong Kong and I'm constantly battling with the decision to buy Japanese games or American games. On the video content side they are a lot more professional in there presentation but at the same time it doesn't have that same personality you get when you watch Gamespot reviews. They definately update everything a lot faster, I often find reviews popping up a day or two faster than gamespot reviews, and they have a lot of content everything from cars, dvd new releases, movie releases, babes, comics, you name it. The primary focus still remains games, however the one thing I would have to say about there reviews are they are a bit too generous maybe thats why gamespot spends that extra day reviewing a game before releasing the review. I suppose for the casual gamer its a good indication but if your picky like me gamespot reviews are more accurate.
This is the new site I've been checking out a lot. They're going on a completely different angle. Basically everything on there website is downloadable videos. There are NO written reviews so if your going to check out this site you'd better have a swift connection. I only found out through a friend that they are either owned by MTV or affiliated with MTV which would explain the very high polish on all video content. They produce great documentaries on games, check out the 6 part mini documentary, 'Legend of Zelda Retrospective' to see what i mean.
There reviews are a bit wishy washy sometimes they're very accurate then sometimes they're very generous, but its their features such as 'Bonus Round' and 'Gamer 2.0' which has got me hooked on the site. Bonus Round is a round table discussion with important game industry people and sometimes the stuff they talk about is pretty candid. Gamer 2.0 just has a bunch of interesting stories covering gamers in general. I've only been hooked onto this site a few days but once i found this site I was browsing it non-stop, but that was more to see their archeived content.
When it comes to gaming these are the sites I read and my opinion on their content, click on there logos and you should be redirected to the sites so you can read them yourselves (if you don't already) and decide on your own.
Earphone Reviews: B&O A8 vs Pioneer Cl30 vs Sennheiser CX300
A8
CL30
CX300
Over the past 3 years I’ve owned only these 3 earphones so I’ve
decided to write a brief review on them.
I’ve had the B&O A8 the longest, they have great sound
quality, bass is full, mids are clear and highs are just about right. They look pretty nice but there are a few
problems I have with them. Firstly the
earphones come with foam covers for the actual ear buds, they make the whole
experience of wearing these headphones more comfortable. However these foam covers are thin and are definitely
going to tear, and when you wear these earphone without foam covers it can get
painful.
The second problem I’ve got with these earphones is that if
you wear them for a really long time, it gets kinda
painful, but that might just be my ears. When using them for a short
time you can barely feel them on your ears and its fantastic but for me I just
can’t wear them that long.
The last little gripe I have with these earphones is that well they’re difficult to take on and off. If you expect to yank out your earphones to answer a question or two every few minutes these earphone can become quite troublesome to be using. As a result the A8’s have been relegated to the earphones of choice when I go out for a jog or a work out because they stay put when your moving about.
The first in-ear channel earphones I’ve ever owned is the Pioneer CL30. I bought these in Japan while I was living there and I had read no reviews at all. I lucked out. The first thing you notice with in-ear channel earphones is that you don’t need to turn the volume as high and the base is a LOT more full than other earphones.
The sound quality is great I’d have to say that considering these earphones are quite cheap they have really great mids and really crisp highs, however now that I’m used to in-ear channel earphones I can say that the bass is a bit on the weak side, but overall these ear phones are very well balanced when it comes to sound quality.
The gripes I have with these earphones are that it comes with the short cable design with extension cable. My extension cable died on me a few months ago then recently my short cable died on me forcing me to research and but new earphones, more on that in a minute. Some people may like the short cable design but I personally don’t like hanging my mp3 player around my neck so the short cable doesn’t do it for me at all.
With the death of my CL30’s I elected to purchase the
Sennheiser CX300s. They’ve been receiving
great reviews and they weren’t as expensive as the really
expensive Shure or Ultimate Ear earphones.
I listen to a lot of bass heavy music such as drum and bass and hip hop. However when I was listening to broken beat music I found that the Pioneer’s had better sound quality in the mid and high range. Another thing I’ve noticed is that with the CX300’s you don’t really need to turn up the volume as much, I’ve read in some review that they are more efficient and I can confirm that as on my Sony NW-E507 I could turn the volume down a notch. However the battery life on Sony’s saving a little bit of juice really didn’t make that big a difference to me.
In conclusion I’ve got to say that if you don’t mind the short cable/ extension cable configuration, the larger size and chrome finish look of the Pioneer CL30’s. I would give the edge to the CL30’s over the Sennheiser CX300’s. The CX300’s have a better built quality and a robust bass, however the sound quality of the CL30’s over all is slightly better and oh yeah they’re cheaper but I'll probably forget about the comparison in another month or so
Zune the iPod of Social Networking??
Zune has been floating around the internet for a while now. Seems that this Microsoft driven product is not only an iPod killer but its going to create for Microsoft yet another bridge for there new ‘Live Anywhere’ platform, portable social networking. Not too sure how this will work but basically it will be able to play mp3, look at “MySpace” type social network pages and one would assume some basic video gaming if its ‘Live Anywhere’. News on the street is that this machine will cost $399US!! That's the cost of an Xbox 360, but a lot cheaper than a mini notebook. Is it me or are all new portable products aiming to be slick looking, simple access portable computers. Read more here and here (via Engadget & Joystiq)
B-Flex Hi-Fi Stereo USB Speaker
B-Flex Hi-Fi Stereo USB Speaker
We all love useless USB plug in gadgets, as an ex road warrior who
lugged his labtop all over the place this sort of speaker really appeals to
me. Basically you get a 2-Watt speaker
that will do much better then your notebook speakers (well in most cases
anyhow) and seems to be really handy. I
guess now all we need to do is look for notebooks with USB plugs on either side
of the keyboard and your set!
Here are the specs:
Input Power: USB 5V
Drivers: two 36mm paper cone drivers
Output: 1 W per channel
Freqency range: 200 - 20,000 Hz
Resonant frequency: 200Hz
Signal to noise ratio: >80db
Weight: 2.8 oz
Dimensions: 3.25in W x 7in H x 1.25in D
Requirements: PC or MAC with free USB port
No drivers needed for use with Win 98/2000/XP (R), MAC OS(R), and GNU/LINUX(R)
Kernel 2.4 and above.
Interested parties should
check it out here. I’d get one but I
don’t travel as much as I used too (via: Gizmodo)
Privacy tech scarf
This is something at an all new weird level. Supposedly designed for privacy by a Joe Malia a graduate of he Royal College of Arts in London. This design seems more like a silly joke then something you'd really want to be caught dead in. Its just porn your watching on your psp or computer screen, and if your using that scarf more people are going to realise! Read more here (via:Kotaku)
Caplio R4 – Monster Zoom
I’ve been wondering when a compact camera like this would drop, its got a 28-200mm equivalent 7.1x barrel lens. No clue if its fully manual or if it's a decent snap, but finally a compact which can get some decent depth of view portrait fuzziness! (via:engadget)
AlphaGrip AG-5 - All in one keyboard trackball
This is what a keyboard would look like if your keyboard and trackball were all jammed into your 360 controller (front and back). This crazy looking keyboard and trackball in one requires you to learn a new way of typing, BUT you sure will look like some super hacker from the future, even though anyone who buys this is most likely going to be sitting in an easy chair plugged into WoW. Maybe one of the next generation systems should look into this sort of controller. Check it out here (via:Oh!Gizmo)
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