Gadget Hunter

  

HP and its boutique/luxe division Voodoo deserve serious praise for what they’ve accomplished with the Firebird 803. Taking a mix of laptop and desktop guts, juicing it up with high-end components, cooling it with liquid goo instead of noisy fans, and encasing it inside a gorgeous, curvy shell that would make most industrial designers weep with envy, the Firebird is a testament to how the envelope can be pushed in the typically boring PC world.

It’s also a veritable bargain, priced at $2,100, fully loaded.

Size really does matter—especially when it comes to a new 42” Sony™ Plasma TV. But don’t wait, these are one of our most popular items. Get one now by signing up today.

Pioneer markets its Elite lineup of plasma TVs to appeal to the hard-core home theater enthusiast, and that means pricing these panels above and beyond just about anything else. The enthusiast who can afford one, however, can rest assured that the 50-inch PRO-111FD performs above and beyond anything else on the market today. This display has the best black levels (aside from OLED) and most accurate color of any HDTV we’ve ever reviewed, and it’s hard to find fault with other aspects of its picture quality. A picture mode entitled Pure is exactly that, delivering better out-of-the-box settings–before we performed any adjustments–than any preset picture mode we’ve tested, including THX on models like the Panazonic 50-PZ. A stratospheric price disqualifies the Elite from consideration as our Editors’ Choice, but make no mistake: If you have the cash to burn, this plasma or its 60 inch brother is best flat-panel HDTV you can buy today, period.

Design
Pioneer’s no-nonsense, all-black look gives the PRO-111FD an ultraserious air, backed up by the unadorned, glossy-black frame with a simple gold “Elite” tattooed on the bottom. The sharp-cornered frame is characteristically chunky for a 50-inch plasma, and unlike most HDTVs, Pioneer mounts the speakers to both sides, making for an expansive wingspan. We appreciated that the speakers can be detached, as can the glossy black, nonswiveling stand.

Including stand and speakers, the PRO-111FD measures approximately 56.9 inches wide by 31 inches high by 13.8 inches deep and weighs 88 pounds. By itself, the panel measures 48.8 by 28.5 by 3.7 inches and weighs 74.5 pounds.

Pioneer’s remote was redesigned after last year, and we really don’t like it. Gone are the different shapes for secondary functions; instead, almost all of the keys on the new remote share the same square shape, tiny size, and are arranged in a staid grid. While that may make the clicker look cooler in some designer’s opinions, it sure doesn’t help navigate the scads of buttons. Sure, we liked the direct access to each of the inputs and the red-backlit keys, but we can’t forgive the unforgiving grid.

Watch the game on a new 42” Sony™ Plasma TV—get one now!

Performance
Simply put, the Pioneer Elite PRO-111FD produced the best picture of any flat-panel HDTV we’ve tested to date. It delivered the deepest blacks we’ve seen from any large-screen display, as well as the most-accurate color. Video processing was superb, its glare-reducing screen is the best we’ve seen on any plasma TV, and we could find almost nothing to complain about in other areas. Given its superb performance, the PRO-111FD scores the first “10″ we’ve ever awarded in overall picture quality. To us, that score doesn’t represent perfection–hey, nothing’s perfect–but instead a picture that’s solidly superior to anything else we’ve seen in the flat-panel HDTV category.

Our standard calibration turned out to be a simple affair, despite the PRO-111FD’s sizable complement of picture controls. The key was the Pure picture mode, which automatically engages Color Space 2, which in turn adheres very closely to the Rec. 709 HD color standard. We tweaked the color temperature a bit, removing a slight reddish cast, and touched up Magenta and Green by three total pips in the color-management system, but that was about it. The default Gamma 2 setting measured a nearly perfect 2.181 gamma; light output and black level were almost dead-on, and our main change was to bump up saturation (Color).

Produces the deepest black levels of any large-screen display we’ve tested; extremely accurate color points and color temperature; superb antireflective screen; 72Hz refresh mode works well with 1080p/24 sources; Pure picture mode delivers superior settings out of the box; extensive picture controls; excellent connectivity, including 4 HDMI and one PC input; styling that’s all business.

Make fitness fun—the Wii™ and Wii Fit™ Bundle has over 40 exercises and activities to help improve your health and fitness. Sign-up now to get started, and get a workout while you play.

Wii Fit takes the whole concept of games as exercise to a new level with the inclusion of a balance board peripheral that can tell you on the fly exactly how well–or how poorly–you’re doing with its various activities. As such, Nintendo is heavily marketing this innovative title as a mixture of fitness and fun, and for the most part it works. It’s a decent alternative for those bored with the repetitiveness of going to a gym or too self-conscious to join a yoga or aerobics class. Unfortunately, Wii Fit is hamstrung by some odd omissions (such as not being able to create your own program from the available exercises) and questionable health advice, limiting its effectiveness both as a fitness tool and as a game.

At the core of the Wii Fit experience is the new balance board, an elegant-looking yet surprisingly sturdy peripheral which features several internal scales that can detect changes in weight and pressure as you’re standing on it. The board–which is also quite hefty at roughly 8.8 lbs (4kgs)–interacts wirelessly with the Wii, and takes four AA batteries (which are included). The board has four rubber feet to help prevent it from slipping on smooth surfaces (and even comes with four extra feet that can be used to raise your balance board higher should you have thick carpet on your floors). Like the Wii Remote before it, the balance board is intuitive to use once you get into an exercise or game in Wii Fit, with its extreme sensitivity allowing it to pick up even the most minute shifts in weight. Its sensitivity only goes so far, however, with the board able to take only 330lbs (150kg) maximum weight, locking out the particularly robust from joining in on the Wii Fit fad.

Not that plus sizes need worry that they’re missing out on a prime weight-loss opportunity. Despite its moniker, Wii Fit isn’t a total fitness solution, with its included exercises focusing more on improving muscle tone and balance than on cardio and weight loss. What it does offer is a better way to track your weight, body mass index (BMI), and time spent exercising both within the game itself and from any other external activities, giving users a clearer picture of how their health is progressing over time. It’s no more going to make you super-fit than Wii Sports is going to make you a tennis pro, but it can provide a strong anchor for a more expansive fitness regime should you have the motivation.

As a title focused on health, Wii Fit makes some fairly significant judgments about its users’ fitness. This happens right from when your Mii is first registered with the game; after inputting a date of birth and height, you’re asked to step on the balance board for a weigh-in (all guided onscreen by a cartoon version of the board). From the height and weight data, a user’s BMI is calculated, with the user tagged as underweight, ideal, or overweight depending on the BMI score. A simple balance test then occurs (usually involving having to shift your balance to certain areas within a time limit) before your Wii Fit Age is displayed in large numbers on the screen. Only one Wii Fit Age result can be recorded daily, although you can practice the variety of balance tests as many times as you want.

Exercise can be fun—get the new Wii™ and Wii Fit™ Bundle today

But as with any form of exercise, you won’t get real results by cheating. Wii Fit’s list of yoga and muscle exercises do have the potential to tone muscles and improve balance with regular use, although with only 30 moves in total, it’ll get old rather quickly. It’s puzzling, then, that Wii Fit initially locks most of the exercises, with time spent using the title the only way to unlock them. New activities are unlocked roughly every 10 minutes of use, which means you’ll need five or six hours of Wii Fit play time before you get full access to all of its activities. And any unlocked activity can only be played with the profile that gains it. That means if you have several people registered on the one console, all of them would have to unlock the activities individually. What’s even more baffling is the lack of an option for players to create their own workout programs by stringing exercises together. That means you can’t choose, let’s say, four yoga, three muscle, and two aerobic exercises to create a tailored half-hour program. Instead, you’ll have to select an activity using the Wii Remote, perform it, jump back into the main menu, select another activity, and so on. It’s jarring, and certainly not the smooth workout experience many were probably expecting from Wii Fit. 

This strange lack of functionality extends to the “fun” parts of Wii Fit–the aerobic and balance games. There are scant few multiplayer options in this title, meaning players can’t directly take on family and friends in any of the games (two-player jogging being an exception). Considering Nintendo’s strong social push with the Wii, this is a strange move. Thankfully, most of the games are quick affairs, although it’s still annoying to have to kick all the way out to Wii Fit’s main menu to select another Mii to play with. Some of the games themselves are rather shallow, too, and will fail to excite most people after a couple of weeks. Perhaps the best game of the bunch is the table tilt game, which becomes increasingly difficult and can really push your balance control.

Wii Fit’s included exercises do have the potential to positively impact your health, but thanks to its lack of exercise options, poor support for multiplayer, and shallow health advice, this title isn’t a gaming fitness revolution. What it does do is serve as a great introduction to the very impressive balance board, a peripheral which is already being lined up for use in other games. But for a game that’s being marketed so heavily on fitness and fun, Wii Fit is a little underweight in both but fun none the less and can help you begin to get fit as part of a full diet and fitness regime.

Cutting-edge, stylish and pink—what’s not to love about the new Pink iPhone™? Girls will be lining up to get one, so instead of following the trend, be a trendsetter and get one now.

The BlackBerry Bold isn’t the only phone that’s getting a pink assorted with diamonds upgrade. Amosu has also taken its time to customize an iPhone 3G and now it’s available. It has a pink case and white diamonds all around. And if you’re wondering it’s a 16GB iPhone 3G version

The phone has 527 diamonds on the front side. These are all brilliant cut and they sport the color F and as for clarity they’re cataloged as VS. Bezel Carat is approximately 3.71. The price for the iPhone is 2.5 times the price of the pink Bold: £10,000. The pink 16GB iPhone 3G comes too with 2-hours one-year international concierge service. Which one will you chose?

It’s more than just hardware, Apple are promoting the fact that the iPhone 3G’s new “iPhone 2.0″ platform will have more applications, and it will also feature their “mobileme” service which includes an intelligent push email service, aimed in particular at those people who either work in small businesses or are personal users. Mobileme will also integrate with PC and Mac based calendering and email tools, and will cost US users $99 a year, and it replaces the existing .Mac service. Software for the new ”iPhone 2.0″ platform includes blogging tools, an eBay assistant, games and more serious applications such as those aimed at medical practitioners. Apple’s point is this: the new iPhone is more than hardware, it’s also about the software and services that have been designed to run on it.

While the Apple iPhone 3G is certainly a much better device than the original iPhone, a lot of flaws still exist. Many of Apple’s competitors will be breathing a sigh of relief that the iPhone 3G is certainly not as good as it should be. Still, we think that it will sell well and even the hardest of cynics were impressed by the original iPhone when they get their hands on one.

Carefully carried through the office like an unopened birthday present, the Apple iPhone 3G gently made its way to our desk. Floppy-haired co-workers eagerly huddled around, waiting for the screen to turn on and display all the new goodies the iPhone 3G has in store. Questions echoed around the room: would 3G be that much faster than EDGE? Does GPS make it a more useful phone?

There was simply no doubt that this is an exciting product, but after the hype dissolved and people went back to their desks, we had some important questions of our own to answer. If anything, Apple knows how to hype its products and for the most part it delivers, but the original iPhone wasn’t perfect and we were determined to see whether the iPhone 3G had enough to offer over its predecessor to justify an upgrade.

Features
When the iPhone first came out, many people were disappointed to see that it lacked 3G, among other things. As you may have gathered, Apple has fixed this — in fact, it’s gone one better and included HSDPA, which is an even faster version of 3G. And it makes a massive difference. Browsing the Web and watching YouTube videos is lightning fast compared to the old iPhone, which was hamstrung on EDGE. We loaded the Sky News homepage on the original iPhone in 1 minute 40 seconds. The iPhone 3G took just 40 seconds to load the same page — over 2.5 times as fast.

GPS is another addition to the iPhone 3G’s artillery — and it blows the old model to smithereens. Compared to the original iPhone’s cellular and Wi-Fi triangulation, using GPS on the iPhone 3G is far more accurate. GPS pinpointed our location to within metres rather than kilometres. For the time being it only works with Google Maps, which doesn’t do voice navigation. Some pundits have suggested Apple isn’t keen on third-party developers creating navigation apps, but we’ll have to wait and see.

As for other apps, you’ll be glad to know that the App Store is live and already features over 500 programs. You don’t need to use the badly implemented Web-based apps anymore, or unlock your iPhone. Some of the apps come free, while others you have to pay for.

Performance
The iPhone 3G vastly supersedes the old iPhone when it comes to audio quality during calls. You can hear people loud and clear, with no noticeable distortion. The iPhone 3G’s loudspeaker is also louder than its predecessor, but still not as loud as we’d like. Compared to the Nokia N82, the iPhone 3G operates at a whisper, and isn’t great for sharing YouTube videos, for example.

We haven’t had the iPhone long enough at this point to properly test the battery, but from our usage so far, we think it should last for around a day with moderate use of 3G and GPS. We’ll update this section when we’ve exhausted the battery. There is an option to turn the 3G off if you want to save power. It’s annoying that the battery cover still can’t easily be removed, however.

Our Verdict

An Amazing phone however this is really not a revolutionary phone. It’s more like the iPhone we wished Apple made last year. But basics, like cut, copy and paste are still missing. (As is MMS, thanks for the reminder, commenters.) As well are the ability to use the phone like a hard drive. Other than that, we’re hoping for some more revolutionary changes to come by software update. And let’s take a moment to remember how many developers are making killer iPhone programs right this second. Thats the real revolution!

Between the Youtube videos, fan sites, and ever-cranking rumormills, it’s like we knew all about the first phone running Google’s Android OS before we ever got our mitts on one: a boatload of apps available through the Market, built-in Amazon music store, 3G, Wi-Fi, Google Maps with Street View, that crazy shape-driven lock code, and so on. Sure enough, all those message board stars are present and accounted for on the G1, but don’t worry: There are still plenty of surprises to keep you entertained.

Surprise #1: Android is pretty freaking on-point for a first-gen software release. Sure, it has bugs—Web pages don’t automatically re-size and the zoom feature blows—but it’s also remarkably polished, bristling with nifty tricks. Take the long touch: Not unlike the windows-born right-click, it brings up useful contextual menus. Long touch a field of text, for example, and you get the option to select it, copy it, or paste something in (take that, Jobs!). And though Android’s first home is a touchscreen phone, you can tell that the OS was designed to work with hard-buttons as well.

In fact, if you can’t abide fingerprints, you can get around the G1 quite well without ever smearing the glass. There’s a BlackBerry Pearl-esque trackball in the center of the button bank that lets you cruise menus, websites, or any other screen you can bring up. Five other buttons flank the trackball: the ubiquitous green and red phones, “back,” “home,” and “menu.” The keys are useful, but their physical location is a problem that ties into the most noticeable G1 bugaboo: its size. This is a big bitch for us—nearly a half-inch thick—and its problematic girth is made worse by an annoyingly curved-up section that makes the phone frustrating to pocket: that button bank. If you want to rock a G1, be prepared to bust out the manpurse or multi-pocketed raver jeans (sorry, Hipsters).

The phone’s main interface is a 3.2-inch touchscreen that swivels out of the way along an arced path to reveal a QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is fine, but that frakking curved button bank (which also houses the mechanics of the arced hinge) makes typing uncomfortable. Also, since the screen swings to the right, non-lefties will have to reach across the phone to flip it open with their thumbs—and no amount of soft-touch plastic is going to keep them from dropping the G1 from time to time.

The capacitive touchscreen is fine—neither the best nor the worst we’ve seen in terms of appearance or sensitivity. G-Mobile uses a half-assed haptic feedback mechanism (the phone vibrates) to confirm touches, but you can (and should) turn it off.  —Joe Brown

WIRED Android is legit, and future iterations should get even more impressive. 3G on a T-Mobile phone. Tons of apps that will keep you entertained for the duration of your 2-year contract—and all of them are free until Google decides on a way to charge. Relatively cheap, and data plans include T-Mobile hotspot subscriptions. Snappy processor never seems to get bogged down, even with multiple apps running. Decent battery life: a day of heavy use or three if you have no friends. Mounts on both Mac and PC as an external drive, allowing you to drag-and-drop music or videos.

You might easily be fooled by the Aluratek Internet Radio Alarm Clock’s dowdy, low-tech design. It’s easy to dismiss as one of those cheap, gray market knockoffs usually found on drug store appliance shelves. But the beauty of this feature-laden radio lives beneath its skin. Yeah it’s an alarm clock. Yeah, it’s an FM tuner. And yeah, true to its not-so-creative moniker it’s also an Internet radio with access to more than 11,000 channels around the world. But like those late-night infomercials (the kind you might half expect to see this radio advertised on) we gotta say: “But wait, there’s more.”

Aluratek had the forethought to include a connection for your PC media player as well as a 3.5mm jack suitable for most MP3 players. Plus there’s even a USB port on the front panel let’s you listen to tracks stored on a USB 2.0 flash drive.

Setup is about the same complexity as turning on a lightswitch. Power up the radio and the available Wi-Fi networks appear on the 3-by-1.5-inch LED front panel display. Using the surprisingly well laid out remote control you scroll to the one you want. Until it’s reset, this network is automatically connected. There’s also an Ethernet port for an optional wired connection.

While there are navigational buttons on the top of the radio along with the that vital snooze alarm button, the remote controls all of the radio’s features. Choosing from the more than 11,000 Net radio stations is a tad overwhelming but a little help narrowing them down is offered by categories such as country and city locations, genre, popularity, and so on. Click the remote’s heart button and your favorites are stored for easy retrieval. Of course with hundreds of stations in each genre (most with arcane, unhelpful names) it can take some digging to find what you like. That’s not exactly excruciating, mind you; we found some cool ambient stations in South Korea and unexpected country music channels in the Czech Republic and Sweden.

Music streamed smoothly without hiccups or static even on the outskirts of a Wi-Fi network. When we plugged in a USB memory drive loaded with MP3 tracks the four-line LED display immediately displayed a directory and file listing, each accessible by scrolling on the remote. Playing music loaded on our PC required Windows Media Player 11 and a few settings to allow sharing the music with the clock radio.

Fortunately you can add external speakers to the Aluratek because its what comes out of its integrated 2-watt speakers sounds like, surprise, a bedside clock radio. Still its vast capabilities make the Aluratek Internet Radio Alarm Clock worth considering, especially if you want to travel the world without leaving your house.

Record labels, hammered by ever plummeting CD sales, see a ray of sunshine in the recent minor renaissance in vinyl records whose sales and production continue to steadily expand. The reason for this 33 1/3 RPM nostalgia? The feeding of a demand from a growing minority of audio geeks who have been bitching about the cold sound of digital reproduction since the first compact disc was released. (And don’t even get them started on the sound quality of MP3s.) Records, they claim, have warmer, more natural sound. Okay, so what’s this gotta do with Sony’s Digital Noise Cancellation Headphones? That all depends on how you like the sound reproduction of the music you listen to: Analog warm or digital cool.

Until now, the Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones have set the benchmark for superior noise cancellation. Could Sony out-Bose Bose with its new digital headphones? After comparing both on a Southwest Airlines flight, a noisy commuter train and a quiet living room, we found that yes, Sony has outdone Bose…but not necessarily for the better.

Noise cancellation: Sony’s analog-digital conversion cut out the omnipresent annoying drone of a jet engine, screaming babies, and background conversations. The ‘phones literally put you in your own cocoon of silence. Bose does the same but Sony let us to optimize the noise cancellation mode to three diverse environments: airplane, bus/train, and office. By simply pressing an artificial intelligence button on the right ear piece it was possible to cut out external sounds effectively. Sony also added a handy monitor button that lets you hear external sound such as a flight attendant asking if you want a drink. With Bose, you must power down or remove the headphones entirely to hear sounds from the outside.

Audio reproduction: We threw everything from the Alpha Twins to Yo Yo Ma to Abba to ZZ Top at both headphones. Bose reproduction was analog warm without any distortion at higher volumes or with heavy bass. Sony’s sound was the epitome of digital cool but performed best with midrange reproduction. Some heavy bass tracks at higher volumes caused enough headbanging distortion to make us actually throw the headphones off.

Portability and Comfort: Check it out — Bose QuietComfort 3 fit inside its 2 inch thick carrying case weighs in at one pound, Sony’s MRD-NC500D check in at just over 1.5 pounds. Its case is 3 inches thick with bulk that exceeds the Bose package by more than inch in either direction. Of course, there is more packed in the Sony case: an AC-power recharging cable with a mini-brick plug and a alternative two-AAA battery case to power the headphones when the built-in rechargeable batteries have no juice left. The Bose QuietComfort 3’s feather-light, ear cup features a soft foam which fits on top of your ears whereas the Sony set surround your ears, not putting any pressure on them. Comfort of course is subjective but after wearing each for more than one hour, we preferred the softness and material of the Bose more.

Does digital make a difference? Sure it allows for customizing noise cancellation based on the “noise” around you but the analog Bose still does the job well, too. Of course, in the end it’s whether you like your sound digital cool or analog warm. For us at the G-Lab, we’re content to stay toasty.

Despite being one of the first netbooks we had a look at this year, the 2133 still feels more fully cooked than many its bretheren. Price-wise, HP kept it competitive with a $600 for the Vista Business version. A Linux OS is available for $100 less while a Windows XP “upgrade” will cost you $100 more. And unlike many of its compatriots, this is one of the few netbooks that doesn’t feel cheap and flimsy in our hands, due in no small part to its fetching brushed aluminum and plastic outer shell.

Even more impressive is the fact that HP flat-out nailed the QWERTY keyboard on its first try. In fact, we found the (almost) full-size keyboard to be one of the most responsive and comfortable we’ve used on a netbook thus far. The only drawbacks? A decidedly feeble 1.2-GHz Via processor and less than acceptable two hour battery life.

Prices aren’t the only thing dropping in HDTV land these days. Due to some larger, backlight-banishing OLED sets on the horizon, it’s ex-lax and Ephedrine time for LCDs.

JVC no doubt saw this war on the bulk coming when it announced the LT-42SL89, a 42-inch LCD with a svelte 1.5-inch waistline (2.9-inches in the middle), earlier this year. And while the set can no longer lay claim to the “world’s thinnest LCD with a built-in tuner” title belt (that goes to the 10mm Sony Bravia ZX1…for now), no one’s going to be cracking any fat jokes at this set’s expense.

Slenderizing aside, what really got our gadget sense tingling was the set’s formidable video processor. Turns out you don’t have to make many compromises for a Nicole Richie-esque figure after all. Picture quality was consistently sharp and clear with impressive color saturation. Equally noteworthy was the TV’s ability to scrub out noise without completely killing detail.

The LT-42SL89 didn’t dazzle us with its jaggy-smoothing prowess — and it did occasionally choke on some 24 fps HD video sources with noticeable moiré and flicker artifacts — but for the most part we found very little to complaint about. At the end of the day, this rail thin LCD delivered what turns out to be stone solid performance in an almost disturbingly skinny package. Oh and that price? With tough economic times descending upon us like an avalanche, there should be enough cash under your matress to shell out for this set.