T-Mobile Dash Reviewed

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Handhelds, Product Reviews,

Looks like my boy John over at CrunchGear got his hands on one of the new T-Mobile Dash phones, and is reporting back with his impressions of the unit. The Dash is the new Moto Q-esque phone by HTC, which runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and has a full QWERTY keyboard. While John’s lack of love for Windows Mobile 5.0 may seem unfair at first, we can totally sympathize. That said, CrunchGear seems to think the phone is an all around good experience, WinMo 5.0 notwithstanding. If you are looking for a consumer-level phone ($199 with 2-year contract) that does more than just play fancy ringtones, this one might be worth a look if you are on T-Mobile (or looking to switch.)

Read More | CrunchGear

Bleeding Edge Byte 033: Nintendo DS Electroplankton Review

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Design, Features, Music, Product Reviews, Video Games, Videocasts,

Read More | The Bleeding Edge

LG Chocolate VX8500 Review

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Features, Portable Audio / Video, Product Reviews,

The LG Chocolate VX8500 debuted in the United States to much fanfare. Verizon pushed it as the next big thing in mobile entertainment phones, and even went all out with a television commercial campaign. Focusing on a cool music playing experience along with V-Cast entertainment over 3G EVDO, the hype machine seems to have paid off, as quite a few people that we know have ended up with an LG Chocolate phone. We took the VX8500 for a spin, and report back with our full review which you can check out after the break.

Click to continue reading LG Chocolate VX8500 Review

Bleeding Edge Byte 029: Tom Bihn Archetype Review

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, PC / Laptop, Product Reviews, Videocasts,

Read More | The Bleeding Edge

Diamond Viper X1600 PRO Reviewed

Posted by Brian Viele Categories: Corporate News, PC / Laptop, Product Reviews,

I think I was ten when my father and I bought our first PC at a computer show around 1992.  We pieced it together from parts from each vendor who had the best deal on a given peripheral.  I remember looking down at the video card selections at each vendor booth, seeing the DiamondMM (Diamond Multimedia) cards at the top of the list. Diamond, at the time, had the best performing video cards in the market, the Stealth 24 VLB just preceding the top of the line Viper P9000.  This scheme carried on for years with the Stealth series featuring mainly less expensive S3 series chipsets including the Virge and Savage4 while the Viper carried exclusively high end nVidia Riva chips. They also added in the Monster3D which made use of 3DFX Voodoo line. This trend continued until 1999 when Diamond merged with S3 Graphics, and all of the ensuing cards released carried the unimpressive S3 Savage2000 line of GPU’s. These cards were a market failure, and the Diamond name disappeared from the video card market.

In 2003, Best Data purchased what was left of Diamond MM creating the current iteration of Diamond Multimedia as an independent division of Best Data.  They used the newly created division to market products such as video cards, tv-tuner cards, sound cards and various connectivity devices in true DiamondMM fashion. The new video cards now carry exclusively ATI series chips.

HardOCP has put together a nice review of the Diamond Viper X1600 PRO 512 MB PCI-Express which is Diamond’s current mid-high end line, second only to the flagship Viper X1900 line of products. Be sure to check out www.diamondmm.com to see details on the new DiamondMM line of products.

Read More | HardOCP

Bleeding Edge Byte 026: Big Brain Academy Review

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Product Reviews, Video Games, Videocasts,

The Nintendo DS platform has simply taken off like no one could have imagined. One of the draws is the games that challenge the mind in ways that don’t involve needing to memorize button combos or require lightning fast reflexes. Some games claim to even make you smarter. In the interest of developing a sharper wit, Andru and Jake go one-on-one in Big Brain Academy for the Nintendo DS. We give you a detailed look at the game, and provide our thoughts in our full review.

Here’s how to get the show:
Subscribe: iTunes iPod / H.264 | iTunes MPEG-4 | RSS iPod Feed | RSS MPEG-4 Feed

|Download| - iPod-formatted H.264 (Mirror)
|Download| - DivX (Mirror)
|Download| - MPEG-4 (Mirror)
|Download| - PSP (Mirror)

IMPORTANT: We are surveying the viewers of our show to see what it is that people like, and more importantly, what they don’t like. It is anonymous, and just takes a couple of minutes. If you have the time, we would appreciate it! As always, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.

Picture Porter Elite: Portable Photos, Video, Music

Posted by Dave White Categories: Handhelds, Portable Audio / Video, Product Reviews,

It fits in your hand, and it’s much more than a pretty face.

It’s the Picture Porter Elite from Digital Foci, and it’s being billed as a multimedia convergence device. You can listen to MP3s or pull in the nearest FM radio stations with the built-in FM tuner. Video functions include the digital photo album and a video player. You can see MPEGs, WMV9s, and even MJPEGs. You can see all manner of still image formats. And you can even record directly from a TV.

The resolution (320x240) is rather good for such a small screen (3.5 inches). A memory card reader accepts virtually every format. You can also print those beautiful photos directly to a PictBridge-compatible printer. Windows, Mac, or Linux? It doesn’t matter because this device can connect to computers running all three operating systems.

The two models are the same except for their memory capacity and their price tags. The 40GB model goes for US$449, and you can pick up the 80GB model for not much more, US$549.

Read More | CNET via UberGizmo

Sony NW-S205 Network Walkman Reviewed: For The ‘Active’ MP3 Crowd

Posted by Dave White Categories: Portable Audio / Video, Product Reviews,

This might look like a flashlight or a microphone, but it’s the latest generation of the Sony Walkman.

The venerable music player has been reborn so many times that it’s hard to keep track of them all. This one is the most technologically advanced yet, featuring an MP3 player, FM tuner, and—amazingly enough—a pedometer. Sony calls it the G-Sensor, but a pedometer it is, able to track how long you’ve walked or run. The memory capability is a little slim, at just 2GB, but that’s still a lot of songs.

The whole shebang will set you back just US$150, and it runs well right out of the box. For those keeping score at home, the full name of the product is the Sony NW-S205 Network Walkman, and you can check out a review at CNET.

Read More | CNET

Motorola RAZR V3c: Six Months Later

Posted by Mark Harrison Categories: Smartphones, Features, Product Reviews,

About 6 months ago, with great anticipation, we picked up the Motorola RAZR V3c for Verizon.  Boy, were we ever excited!  Unfortunately, our high expectations led us to great disappointments.

Our biggest complaint half-a-year ago was the phones battery life.  That annoyance has grown into a huge problem.  Six months ago, twelve hours of marginal use cost us half of our battery life.  These days it is more like ten hours of minimal use sends the phone into the annoying Motorola “can’t turn off the stupid low-battery alert even though the phone is on silent and helps run down the remaining battery life even faster” chime.

Click to continue reading Motorola RAZR V3c: Six Months Later

Gear Live Review: iRiver clix Review

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Design, Features, Portable Audio / Video, Product Reviews,

We are glad to see that there are finally PlaysForSure MP3 players being released that can match up to the iPod not only in features (easy to do), but in form factor and ease of use as well (hard to do). At first glance, the iRiver clix looks like such a device. The clix is a redesigned iRiver U10, remixed with input from both the Windows Media Player 11 team and MTV, and is currently one of the only three PlaysForSure devices that is compatible with WMP 11 and the MTV URGE service. Does that make it good? We give you our full iRiver clix review after the jump.

Click to continue reading Gear Live Review: iRiver clix Review