There have been rumors floating around that Nintendo was going to come out with the 3DS and they have come true now. Nintendo President Saturo Iwata officially announced the first ever 3D gaming console at the E3 press conference held by the company. In terms of looks, this new product is quite similar to the DSi but there are some new features like three and half inch 3D screen on the upper half and a standard touch screen at the bottom. On the touch screen's left, you have the analog 'slide button' which can be used a joystick and the standard D-pad is also there. The manufacturer did not reveal the technology behind the 3D feature but the president said that you can adjust the depth of 3D by adjusting the slider. You can tune it according to your personal preference. There have been lots of graphical changes in the Nintendo 3DS, the president showed all this in the conference. There is a camera above the upper screen and on  [...]

When it comes to point and shoot cameras, a high price doesn't necessarily mean that the photo quality will be superb or the shooting performance will be fast. Instead, you pay for the latest features that might have come up over a period of time and the body is too kept compact. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7 is an excellent example of this. It has 25 mm equivalent wide angle lens, the manufacturer's Exmor R high-speed backside-illuminated sensors, 3.5 inch high resolution touch screen display, and it also captures 1080i movies at 60 fps. All this in put in a body that is just 0.7 inch thick which is really impressive. The sensor along with the company's Bionz image processor can do things that are beyond the reach of your standard pocket camera. The performance is speedy, low light photos look great but the photo quality could have been better. Still, prints at 8x10 inches or less look really great and the quality is also good for Web use or watching on  [...]

Previously, I got Vixia HF S1x series in my labs but that was about an year ago and it didn't have an electronic viewfinder. You cannot live without an EVF if you are a pro. Due to the Canon Vixia HF S20's high resolution screen, the on screen buttons are really big and the interface is quite user friendly. You can view the screen well in direct sunlight too but you will have to find a sweeetspot because it is a bit reflective and shiny. Our only gripe with regards to the interface is the menu system which is a bit frustrating. Firstly, the scroll area is located on the inside edge so the screen is blocked by the hand when you scroll. Secondly, the screen supports multitouch gestures and hence it is difficult to move an entry at a time. While testing, I frequently scrolled pass the feature that I wanted to select and there were lots of wrong entries selected. I am sure you will get on with it fine after some acclimation but I still recommend you to try it before purchasing the Canon Vixia  [...]

Ok, we will get straight to the point – this is the best mid range gaming desktop we have ever had in our labs. It costs $1,149 and will be coming out by this July. The computer is powered by six core AMD processor which not the fastest in the market right but while gaming, the performances were above our expectations. The feature set is quite solid and it will appeal to budget gamers or any one looking for an entertainment centric desktop. The exteriors of the Dell Studio XPS 7100 are quite sleek but it is messy on the inside. Dell has put in a double wide 3D card and in order to keep it stable, there is a mounting bracket inside the cabinet. The drive cage on the inside has been expanded to hold two more hard drives now but we would have liked if the hard drives were accessbile from the outside since this would have made swapping more easy. Dell will have to redesign its cases for that, but we would ask the manufacturer to do it soon and make it on the lines of Origin or Gateway.

An MP3 player can serve lots of purposes apart from just playing your music. Some people use to carry their songs in the pocket and then plug it in to a high end audio system. Apart from that, there have been some players with compact sizes made for working out in the gym. We previously got to review the Sony Ericsson player which was a built in device in to the ear buds. The player is located between your ears. Apart from that, there also have been compact players like Sandisk which are tiny and hence easy to carry in the pocket. Haier America Trainer is the first player in our labs to have a small size and yet comes packed with some fitness features. This player will put you back by $60 and we think that it is fully worth the price for the features that it is offering. You normally don't expect such a compact player to have so many buttons and hence we were quite overwhelmed. Initially we thought that the player would be a bit difficult to use because  [...]

Qantas subsidiary and Australian discount carrier Jetstar said that they will be introducing iPad into their planes as an in flight entertainment solution. The trials for this will start from June for domestic flights and the company is later planning to make this feature available on all international and domestic flights later in this year. It is not free of cost though, you have to pay a rental fee of $10. Jetstar says that they are one of the first airlines to bring iPads as an inflight entertainment solution. The company is starting with Australian domestic flights first. Using iPad while you are in the flight is really cool, you can use it to access CDs, games, music videos, eBooks, TV programs, movies and lots of exciting stuff. Bruce Buchanan, Chief Executive Office of Jetstar said that they are expecting a rise in ticket sales with the introduction of this service. He also said that the company is looking to enhance user experience with this. Low  [...]

We have reviewed quite a lot of HP laptops in the past and we have liked the stylish look of its multimedia centric notebooks. This too looks stylish and the feature set is also good. The design might make you think that this is a high end laptop but it is really a down to earth computer. Our review model costs $979; if you are looking for alternatives, there is the Lenovo IdeaPad Y460 which comes at $1,050. It has the same specs but comes with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphic card as well. HP system can be customized for a graphic card but it will take the price up by $200. On the bright side, dm4 has a 7,200 rpm hard drive where as Lenovo’s hard disk has 5,400 rpm speed. If you are looking for best value for money deal, check out the 15-inch Samsung R580 which comes at a price of $829 and has both Blu-ray drive and graphic card. However, if looks matter a lot to you, stick with the dm4 as it is the sexiest amongst the three. HP Pavilion dm4’s keyboard is the same as that  [...]

Amongst the tons of laptop speakers that I have tested in the past, I can confidently say that hardly 1 or 2 of them have good sound quality and they are all high end notebooks. So what about the low end laptops or Netbooks? Do I have live with the tinny speaker quality for ever? Well, Logitech is here to rescue you with the Z 205. You can easily mount it on the top of you screen and with them facing you, the music will sound better than the in-built below par notebook speakers. The best thing about this device is that it is easy to carry around and store in your backpack. Considering the price and size, they sound awesome. There are no compatibility problems with the Logitech Z 205. You can use them on both Mac and Windows through USB cable. A single USB port is occupied on your computer and both the audio signals and power is taken from here. Logitech also gives you a good looking carrying case in order to keep the speaker safe while you travel.  [...]

This is a 14 inch laptop which runs on Intel Core i5 CPU. Along with that, you have a fast and powerfull graphics card. Priced at $899, this laptop is costly. There are other notebooks in the market offering the same specs at a much lower price. Once a notebook goes past the thousand dollar price mark, we compare it with 2 big wigs – 13 inch MacBook Pro and HP’s Envy 14. Presence of a fast graphic card makes the Lenovo IdeaPad Y460 0633 good for gaming. Don’t expect out of the box gaming experience; if you are looking for that, get the Alienware notebooks. Being a gaming notebook, we would call it an entertainment centric laptop. However, unlike other such multimedia entertainers, there is no Blu-ray drive. Another major gripe is that the battery life is pretty small. 14 inch notebooks are made for guys who travel a lot. So how will they survive if the battery dries up quickly? Above the keyboard, there is a touch sensitive button strip which  [...]

HTC EVO 4G has an impressive specs list: 4.3 inch WVGA display, eight megapixel camera which can record 720p HD videos, WiMAX compatibility and HDMI-out jack. If this doesn’t impressive then the tag of being the first 4G phone ever surely will. To start off, we really liked the packaging of this phone. You might not care much about this but we still want to mention it here. The box looks a lot like microwaveable meal and feels like steam will come out of it, if you peel off the cover. There are no moving parts inside the cell phone and this makes the device quite light. But we had one gripe with the quality of the build. When the capacitive touch screen buttons light up, the bottom edge of the phone suffers from leakage. You might not notice this in bright environments but will be apparent in low light surroundings. The light leakage definitely makes the phone look cheap. This is not a deal breaker but HTC could have done this better. On the edges, the HTC EVO 4G is quite simple.  [...]