Features

• 2TB 7200RPM SATA II hard drive
• eSATA, FW800, FW400, USB 2.0 interfaces
• White LED strobe light
• MSRP of $349.99

Pros

• Fast
• Quiet
• Sexy

Cons

• Pricey

Design

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. This could be the best-looking external hard drive on the market. It looks amazing even if you don’t have a Mac Pro. It’s housed in an aluminum enclosure with a modestly-sized heat sink on the bottom and a very bright activity light that could double as a strobe on the front. At 2.6 lbs, it’s actually quite beefy, too. The backside houses the power rocker and all the ports: a Kensginton lock port, eSATA, twin FW800, USB2.0, and the power input. It’s just an external hard drive, folks. Really nothing fancy here.

Thankfully the drive is as solid as it looks. Each piece is milled from aluminum and held together with counter-sunk screws. It’s really quite beautiful and simple but you’ll void the warranty if you tear yours apart.

Performance

Speed and sound. That’s the name of this game. Who cares if it looks gorgeous but is as slow as a snail? So I ran a few files through each one of the interfaces and came away satisfied.

A 6.7GB file

• eSATA = 1:34 @ 71MB/s
• FW800 = 1:54 @ 59MB/s
• USB 2.0 = 4:27 @ 25MB/s

Those numbers are right on par with what a 7200RPM hard drive with a 32MB cache should do. Of course eSATA was the fastest but Firewire 800 isn’t a slouch either. For comparison, a USB 2.0 bus-powered drive transferred the same file in 4:48 @ 24MB/s.

Unlike a lot of other external hard drives, the G-Drive doesn’t make that much noise. I heard occasional clicks of the hard drive but it’s definitely one of the quieter drives I’ve heard. The solid aluminum enclosure and noise dampening feet are probably to thank for that.

Features

As the Mac-inspired design suggests, the drive is aimed at the OS X crowd, but it works just fine on PCs too. The hard drive comes HFS+ formatted and Time Machine ready, but the included software, or Windows’ Disk Management tool can easily reformat it to NTFS.

Surprisingly, given the $349 price tag, there isn’t any included backup software. I guess Hitachi feels most buyers are probably Mac users and therefore will stick with Time Machine. Still, some users might appreciate and use a basic backup software program.

Overall

The 2TB G-Drive delivers. It can hold a crap-ton of data and manages to keep its transfer speeds up with the best thanks to the fast Hitachi hard drive.  Plus, it looks great next to a Mac or a PC. Too bad the $349 MSRP sets it north of most other options and therefore out of sight for some potential buyers.

Product Page

Advanced Video Communications may have a winner on its hands with the internet-connected LiveLine video camera. Simple setup, a low $10-per-month access fee, and a fairly straightforward user experience make the LiveLine worth a closer look.

Early beta testers got a free camera, which AVC claims to be a $299 value. And while the company has sold out of all its initial freebies, it’s currently restocking its inventory. The actual selling price of the system once it’s out of beta will likely dictate the overall popularity of the product.

If the actual camera itself costs $299 on top of a $10 monthly service fee, it’s not going to do well. There are plenty of IP cameras with similar features available for well under $300 that don’t carry monthly charges. So let’s keep in mind that this thing hasn’t really been priced yet. If it stays at “free camera plus $10 per month,” it’ll be compelling.

As for features, the camera uses a wired or wireless internet connection and the pan, tilt, and zoom functions can be controlled remotely through most web browsers. The system can also be set up to record video files any time it senses motion. Those files are then made available with time and date stamps and playable inside your browser (they’re Flash video files).

Setup is pretty easy. You have to first connect the camera to your router with an Ethernet cable. Then you go on LiveLine’s website and enter the camera’s MAC address as part of your account setup. Once that’s done, you can type in your router’s wireless network name and from that point on, the camera will use its built-in wireless antenna.

As far as controlling the camera remotely, take this test account for a spin. It’ll give you a good idea of what to expect.  The interface is pretty ho hum right now and the overall motion and video quality is a bit choppy, but it gets the job done. There are other relatively inexpensive IP cameras on the market, however, that promise 30 frames-per-second video. This one does not do fluid video — at least it didn’t in my tests, and I have a Comcastic 30Mbps down/7Mbps up internet connection.

Here’s an actual still from the camera. The resolution is only 320×240.

And here’s a clip of actual footage (3MB AVI) to give you an idea of the framerate and whatnot.

Apparently the camera’s capable of recording audio, but I was never able to hear any during my testing. Everything’s still in beta, though, so that functionality may not be enabled yet.

AVC also touts the ability to view your camera from your phone’s mobile web browser. You lose all of the camera controls and access to recorded clips, though. Right now it’s little more than a static still image with a refresh link underneath it. That’s fine for older phones, but it’d be nice to see a more robust offering for newer mobile browsers.

Overall, it’s a pretty solid effort from AVC so far, provided they keep the price low. If the camera stays at free or maybe $50 plus the $10 monthly fee, it’d be a much easier purchase for most people to justify.

It might also be a good idea for AVC to drop the monthly fee altogether. There’s a link on the company’s site for advertisers, which leads me to believe the camera pages may someday contain ads. In that case, AVC might consider trying to make a few bucks off of camera sales while keeping the web access free.

Product Page: LiveLine.net

I got my first real RFID sensing smartcard reader
Bought it on the Internet
Coded ’til my fingers bled
It was summer of ‘69

I just experienced that rush with the Touchatag and I’m ready to shout it from the rooftops: “Look out, world! I am using near-field technology to trigger actions on my Mac or PC using simple, web-based software and a small piece of fairly well-made hardware.”

Touchatag is an RFID and QR system that uses a web-based client to interact with your PC. The starter package with a reader and ten tags costs $39.95 and tags cost $24.95 for a pack of 25. 500 tags cost $474.95 but what the heck do you need 500 for?

When you bring the tags close to the reader it senses their unique ID and then triggers an action. Actions include sending an email, making a Skype call or, in the case of this clever app, changing the song on your media player. You can also use a Nokia 6212 NFC phone, essentially a phone with near field transmission built-in as well as use QR codes on the iPhone or Blackberry.The QR system isn’t nearly as compelling as the RFID system, though, so it’s not worth much of a look.

Obviously the coolest application is the RFID interaction. By simply waving a card or object in front of your PC you can shut everything down or trigger an action. Want to assign a houseplant to call your Mom? Use the Skype app. Want to open our bank’s website with a swipe of your hand? Easy peasy. I think the ultimate solution would be to set your co-worker’s computer to shut down whenever they brought coffee near the keyboard.

I would consider this a toy right now, however. I’m not sure it’s robust enough to run, say, a health-club membership system or a security system for an office. However, if you want folks to swipe their RFID cards when they come into an office, for example, you could feasibly use this as a makeshift solution. I’ve created a few triggers and you could feasibly add this to a PC close to the front door and sense when junior has come back from his or her barbarian warfare practice. The possibilities, as they say, are limited by the time and effort you choose to put into this kit.
Bottom Line
RFID is spooky action at a distance. It’s great fun and with a little tinkering I’m sure you nerds could figure something out. Let me know if you have any special RFID solutions you’ve created.

My favorite blogger after Jimmy Fallon, Joel Johnson, posted a video of himself fondling the Sigma DP2, a camera I would very much like to fondle myself. That came out wrong.

Joel writes:

Should you buy the Sigma DP2? Only if you’re in love with the sensor. While it’s definitely a better choice than its predecessor and is not without its manual charms, its high price puts it in range of DSLRs and other cameras that come without as many limitations.
Looking through a glass viewfinder is such a treat, though—too bad it doesn’t seem to actually line up very well with the actual pictures.

He also looks much more relaxed now that he left New York.

El Seedee

The screen itself is good. It’s 320×240, nice and sharp, and color is vibrant. It’s basically like your average mid-range cell phone screen. Viewing angle is pretty dismal, but you’re usually right in front of it and it swivels vertically anyway. So what’s on it?

Well, the screen has a few basic “channels.” YouTube, RSS Feed, song display, “my videos,” a clock, a performance monitor, a picture viewer, and a timer. Of these, the performance monitor is really the only useful one, because I can’t think of a reason you’d want or need to navigate YouTube or your pictures and videos via this tiny screen. The only situation I can think you’d do it is while in a full-screen app or game that doesn’t minimize or alt-tab well. The RSS reader is adequate, but only displays one story at a time. You’d really have to try hard to make use of this thing.

It works with some games and apps, but not many that I found. FRAPS and Neverwinter Nights 2 were the only ones that showed anything, and they were plain little displays with little information.

Squandered potential, plus it’s annoying

Where’s my bandwidth monitor for uTorrent? Where’s my ammo readout in Counter-Strike or my mini-map in Assassin’s Creed? Of course, it’s on the game and app developers to make that happen, but it’s on Logitech to press them on it. If Logitech is going to roll something like this out, they needed to roll out big or customers are going to see that they’re paying for a fantasy device.

Lastly, the LCD screen is not some self-contained little thing. It runs a bunch of processes in the background all the time, and on XP at least also had an item (or two) in the taskbar all the damn time. Come on, that’s unforgivable.

So unfortunately, that’s the G19’s primary selling point, and it’s not very convincing. Maybe in a year there will be more support for it, or a touchscreen, or what have you, but at the moment it’s just not worth it. But what about the rest of the keyboard?

Solid otherwise

The G19 is, aside from the screen, a very competent keyboard. The keys are big, well-spaced, and have a pleasant resistance to them. They seem to project further from the base than other keyboards, but I have been using the very flat Lycosa for months, so that could just be a bad comparator. The backlighting is the best I’ve seen, and covers the entire rainbow; you can set colors to profiles so you know which you’re in. All illumination turns off with the touch of a button so you don’t have to fiddle with anything if you want a blackout while you watch a movie.

Like the G19’s predecessor, the G15, you’ve got macro keys on the left side and a hard profile switcher — work, play, movie editing, or what have you. Plus, like most gaming keyboards, it detects games you start and will automatically launch a macro/key profile. The macro editor worked well and I use it for blogging shortcuts (inserting image code, signatures, etc) and that sort of thing. I’m not a big macro user but if you are I think you’d enjoy this. The macro keys themselves (G1-G12) are easily available and organized into little blocks of four, excellent for finding without looking (the F-keys are also blocked, thank god).

The other features on the keyboard include a (thank you Jesus) Windows key disabler and the usual media controls. The media buttons worked perfectly for me, although it would have been nice to have them be able to launch the player instead of just control it. The big mute button and volume wheel are responsive and feel good.

Killer app kills the keyboard

So what we’ve got here is a failure to launch. The LCD screen has a lot of potential but is only used for mundane tasks which have no real reason to be on there, or at least don’t justify the cost. Other than that, it’s a great keyboard. I enjoy typing on it, the macros are handy and responsive, and everything works perfectly well. It’s just not worth dropping $200 on because it has a screen. Logitech makes great keyboards, and you’d be better off going with another one, at least until this one has adequate support from the community and industry.

By Brian Bray

John Biggs graciously gave his sister, my wife, an unlocked 3G iPhone for Christmas. My son, just over a year at the time, quickly realized this new piece of tech was competition for his Mom’s attention, so he sent it sailing off of our kitchen countertops onto a hard tile floor. The result was a short hairline fracture that turned into a long hairline fracture which then morphed into the blob shown here which completely obscures the iPod icon along with both the ‘m’ and ‘n’ buttons on the keyboard.

This series of events led me to directfix.com which supplies replacement parts for the iPhone as well as other phones, PDA’s, and portable gaming consoles. Directfix.com supplied me with a replacement LCD, 2 case opener tools, 2 small philips screwdrivers, and a replacement touch panel. The replacement LCD is listed for $49.99 on their website and the touch panel is listed for $39.99 and the tools are included in the cost. For $169.99 you have the option to buy the replacement LCD and touch panel already assembled with the home button, ear piece, case frame, and seals. The pre-assembled option is more expensive but should greatly reduce the amount of time and skill required for the replacement. This review will only cover replacing the LCD and touch panel.

Before you place an order be sure to watch the tutorials first. Robby Stanley is the man behind the video tutorials and he does a good job of providing the required information, but he does make the repairs appear more simple than they actually are in my opinion. There is no doubt that Robby has much more experience than me in the field of iPhone rehabilitation and the ease at which he demonstrated the repairs gave me a bit higher confidence that I should have had. But, in the end I did successfully repair the iPhone and that is the point. Since I feel the videos do a good job explaining the repair procedure I will only point out the steps that caused me the most trouble along with a few things I felt were missing in the video.

I quickly ran into my first obstacle after I removed the first two screws and tried to separate the screen assembly from the back of the iPhone. In full disclosure, I must admit that most of my difficulties were my own fault for not watching the video closely enough because I was prying at the wrong location with some force when the case opener slipped and cut my thumb. After I mended my wound I watched the video again and realized I was prying behind the chrome ring on the iPhone and I needed to be prying in front of the chrome piece. So, I started prying again and managed to separate the screen after a few minutes of effort but I did damage the rubber ring around the screen in one spot. In the video the screen practically fell out of the case in one prying motion, but unfortunately that was not my experience.

Things were going smoothly again until it came time to gently remove the LCD assembly. Try as I might, no amount of gentle was going to remove the LCD assembly, so I gradually ramped up the force until it popped out. Unfortunately, during this process I damaged part of the touch panel as shown in the image. In the heat of the repair I thought the damage would impair the function of the touch panel, so I decided to replace the touch panel as well. However, after the repair was done I had time to inspect the old touch panel in more detail and the area that was damaged was probably not critical.

At this point, the LCD repair tutorial comes to an end and you are left with an torn apart iPhone and the old LCD still in the LCD assembly. For whatever reason the video does not cover taking the old LCD out of the assembly and placing the new LCD in, but these steps were easy to figure out on my own. The LCD has an adhesive layer that attaches it to the assembly. Prying the old LCD away from the sheet metal worked well for me. The new LCD has a plastic film over the adhesive which must be removed and than the LCD is placed on the sheet-metal. There are two posts on the LCD panel that are inserted in corresponding holes on the sheet-metal to ensure proper alignment.

My other complaint about these videos is that they end and your iPhone is still disassembled. Anybody that has done and repair on there personal electronics knows that the re-assembly steps are never as simple as ‘follow the above steps in reverse order’. I would have like to have seen a least a few keys steps of the re-assembly process demonstrated, such as how much of connector 3 needs to be inserted back in the slot and how exactly is the best way to do that. Where is the best place to stuff all of the ribbon cables when closing the phone? I personally had one ribbon cable trying to sneak into the SIM card slot. Sure, I managed to get everything back together but some help along the way would have been nice.

Okay, so now onto the touch panel. Removing the touch panel from the case required a lot more heating time using my wife’s hair dryer and a lot of patience, since once again things will not go as smoothly as shown in the video. Once I got one part of the touch panel up I kept applying heat and slowly prying until the touch panel was free. There is a warning about melting parts in the video, but I had no issues with a standard house hair dryer. If you happen to own a heat gun you may want to be more careful.

After the touch panel is free from the frame it is necessary to apply adhesive strips to the frame to secure the new touch panel. The adhesive strips shown in the video did not match the ones provided, but the function is the same, so no big deal. Unfortunately, I did make a mistake when I set the new touch panel to the frame. The new touch panel has a plastic backing the must be removed and I, being in a rush to finish, thought the entire plastic backing was one piece when there was in fact a separate piece of plastic covering the bottom of the touch panel which I failed to remove. The result was that the touch panel was loose at the bottom because the adhesive I applied could not contact the touch panel. This was easily fixed by removing the plastic and adhesive from the bottom and salvaging the remaining bits of adhesive to use as a replacement.

In the end, the LCD screen is as good as new with the bonus of a new touch panel. There are some minor cosmetic flaws, such as the damaged area of the rubber seal around the screen, and maybe the phone is not as moisture resistant as it once was, but when working on Apple products I have long ago accepted that some things will not be perfect after I am done. Apple products are not designed for easy service so if it still works when I am done than I am happy, and therefore I am happy with this repair along with the parts and videos provided by directfix.com.

Yes, I did take about 4 hours to complete this repair, but that included eating lunch and running after my now 19 month old son occasionally. The numerous interruptions of life no doubt contributed to some of the mistakes I made during this repair, so if your life is more calm than you should have a smoother repair.

The Stature really isn’t anything terribly new. Motorola took the design of their incredibly popular RAZR2, and added the necessary electronics to use the i9 network. So while the Stature is by no means a small phone, it is thin enough to fit conveniently in your jeans pocket.

The phone feels like a quality device. The back is rubberized and resists fingerprints, but still provides a firm surface to hold onto. It opens smoothly and feels very solid when you hold it up to your ear.

The left side of the phone is a little busy, with the GC/DC mute button, the volume control, and the PTT button all being at the top. The bottom has the micro-USB port for charging and data transfers, however I was unable to get the phone to charge via a micro-USB cable. Instead, I had to use the standard wall charger. While this wasn’t a major issue, it could be a problem in some situations. One thing this phone does lack is a standard 1/8 inch plug. If you’re planning on using the phone as an MP3 player, you’ll have to get a USB adapter or a Bluetooth device to do so.

The right side has a menu button, and a sliding lock switch which locks all the buttons on the outside of the phone. The menu button brings up one of the phone’s more interesting features, the front screen menu. The front bezel of the Stature has several touch buttons surrounding the screen. These buttons light up depending on what function you are using at a given time. The phone provides a slight vibration when you push a button, providing a slight feedback which is actually pretty nice. The front screen is quite versatile, and provides a clear display regardless of whether you are listening to music, taking pictures, or just scrolling through your contact list to call someone.

Battery life is weak, frankly. Standby time is roughly 24-36 hours, and talktime is listed on the Sprint site as around 3 hours. This means you’ll have to charge the phone regularly.

One of my favorite features of the phone is the sound quality. The sound on this phone is, in a word, incredible. I’ve used many phones, and this phone has the clearest sound of any phone I’ve ever heard. If you’re concerned about sound quality, that alone is a reason to buy this phone.

Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks with this phone. In addition to the obvious issues with battery life, because this is a Nextel phone, the network is really slow. Like painfully, agonizingly slow. Most Nextel users aren’t all about the internet browsing on their phone anyway, so you’ll have to decide for yourself how critical this issue is for you.

As far as cost goes, you’re looking at $399 from Sprint without a contract, $199 with a contract, and $299 if you want to buy it from Boost Mobile.

Bottom line, if you’re a Nextel user looking for a new phone, I’d say buy this one. The sound quality, style, and size more than make up for the poor battery life.

Step 1. Plug in Replica (Multi-PC 500GB or Single PC 250GB).
Step 2. Click yes to all the licensing stuff and terms of service BS.
Step 3. Walk away.

Short review, huh? Well, Seagate managed to make a simple to use backup utility device for the PC that has a “set it and forget it” mantra. Plug it in once and everything gets dumped over to the Replica and subsequently backs itself up when something happens. It’s kind of like Apple’s Time Machine, but for a PC and not as pretty looking. It works though and that’s the point.

The Single PC version will be available for $130 while the Multi-PC version will retail for $200.

Spec Sheet

Replica

I’ve had the inMotion MAX for a few months now and I didn’t open it because I was worried it would be just another iPod dock. I was wrong. The Altec Lansing inMotion MAX is more feature rich, offers comparable if not better sound, and is more compact than other docks I’ve used in the past few years, including my Bose SoundDock Portable.

The inMotion is a completely portable iPod dock with built-in battery and a collapsable front tray and rear foot. It works with
almost every iPod including the iPhone. It supports aux-in devices via a mini-jack and also includes an FM tuner. It costs $200.

Before you attack my earlier comparison, I’m coming at this in the same way the average consumer would with the understanding that there are great iPod docks (like the Tannoy), good ones (like these and the Bose), and bad ones. These are in the mid-range and that’s fine for most folks.

The dock won’t buzz when your iPhone rings, a problem that plagues most docks. In terms of overall sound I’d say the inMotion is far better than the average iPod dock and on par with the Bose SoundDock. Both docks have a high level of fidelity at high volume and the treble is quite clear. This is not a dock that is designed to go load. Some distortion comes through once you get past a certain point – about 23-25 on the volume reading. It goes up to 40 which is great if you’re hosting a college frat party but not so nice for listening. However, for the kitchen or bedroom, this thing is great.

I didn’t hear a very deep bass with this dock but, then again, I haven’t heard deep bass with any other dock either. The “Expanded Sound Stage” feature adds a bit of depth to the music but audiophiles will probably turn it off.

The battery lasts about eight hours on one charge – I left it on at 8pm and it died at about 6am. The FM radio picks up RDS data and displays it on the amber LCD screen, a cool little perk.

I’ve been using this as my primary music source for the past few weeks and while I haven’t been blown out of the room I’m quite happy with the warmth of the audio and detail in the sound.

Bottom Line: An inexpensive iPhone/iPod dock with great sound and great features.

Short Version: A good, solid, cheap PMP with decent battery life and built-in speaker.

Long Version: The iVO-Sound m1050 4GB portable media player from Geeks.com is one of hundreds – maybe thousands – of entertainment gadgets on the market today and, as such, there are few surprises here. That’s probably a good thing, though, as the device plays music and video files with ease and is small enough to fit in just about any pocket.

Good: It’s cheap in price, yet it’s solidly built. The player’s got a nice brushed metal motif going and the buttons feel like they could take some abuse. For $45, it feels like it should cost more. The three-inch screen is surprisingly nice – very colorful and bright – and has a resolution of 400 x 240 in the 16:9 format. You can play videos back in their native format or the PMP will auto-stretch them to fill the screen.

The iVO-Sound isn’t short on features, either. You’ve got a more-than-capable music player, video player, image viewer, FM radio (with recording), voice recorder, and e-book reader. Battery life for music is rated at nine hours and video is rated at four hours. I was actually able to squeeze almost ten hours of music out of the PMP but video fell short of four hours by about 20 minutes at the lowest brightness setting. The lithium ion battery charges quickly.

Bad: The controls are a little difficult to get used to at first and the lack of dedicated volume buttons means that you’ll have to hit a toggle button on the top of the player if you want to control the volume. The track skip buttons serve as the volume buttons, which became a problem when I’d think I had the volume toggle selected but instead skipped out of whichever track I was listening to.

Format support is a bit limited, too, especially as it pertains to videos. Your standard DivX and XviD AVI files should work fine (all mine did) but iPod-compatible MP4 files didn’t work. Music file support is limited to MP3, WMA, and WAV formats, so plan accordingly.

Recommendation:

The market for this type of product shrinks smaller and smaller as smartphones and high-capacity microSD cards become more prevalent – your phone can probably do everything this player can do aside from the FM radio functions. But if you’re looking for a decent, inexpensive PMP for everyday use, then the $45 iVO-Sound m1050 isn’t a bad deal at all.

iVO-Sound m1050 [Geeks.com]

That “something different” ended up being a BlackRapid RS-4. I got it right before the holidays, so I wasn’t able to find the time to *really* wear it out in the field until recently.

The strap comes packaged rather simply, in just a mesh bag. Inside you’ll find some instructions, the strap, and connectors needed to attach the strap to the camera. Also included is a short clear plastic tube, which you might be tempted to toss away. Don’t – BlackRapid only included what they had to in the packaging, and you’ll need that tube.

After connecting the camera to the strap and adjusting it, I was quite surprised to find that it fit perfectly. One of the major issues I was concerned about was length. I’m a rather tall person, so I sometimes find that I have issues with the length of straps on things — messenger bags, backpacks, etc. most the time don’t fit me correctly. So I was very concerned about the BlackRapid strap. Reading their website told me that it was 60 inches long, which according to my rough measurements would be the appropriate size, but I was still concerned — until I tried it on.

One other minor issue was trust. You’ll have your camera suspended from your body via one attachment point, the tripod mount and when you’re walking around with it, you might find yourself wanting to hold onto your camera with one hand, just to be sure. This is not necessary. The strap attaches to the camera very securely, and it’s quite stable. I’ve carried mine around for about a total of 8 or so hours, and I never had any issues. I did have that gut instinct to hold the camera for the first hour or so, but all that did was make my hand sore.

If I do have any complaints about the strap, it’s the price. Since BlackRapid is a small shop and they don’t have the manufacturing capability of say, Lowepro or Tamrac, they have to charge a little more then you might expect for their product. Hopefully they can get some kind of deal in the future, because I have to say, I love this strap.

Available directly from BlackRapid, and you’re looking at a cost of $48.00 plus shipping.

Overview and Features:

FyreTV is a set top box that streams on-demand video (perhaps not the kind of video you’re thinking of) for $9.95 per month. The box itself is free and the monthly fee gets you 100 credits good for between 50 and 100 minutes of video (the kind of video only grown-ups should watch). Standard titles are one credit per minute, new releases are 1.5 credits per minute, and premium content from certain production companies is two credits per minute.

The hardware features Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections, HDMI/component/composite video outputs, two dormant USB ports, and a remote control. The service doesn’t require a monthly contract but if you quit, you’ll need to return the box to FyreTV.

Pros:

• Really impressive video quality – videos start streaming almost instantly
• Relatively affordable provided you have some self control
• Hardware itself is small and discrete

Cons:

• You’re forever renting content, never owning it – everything is streamed
• Remote control is pretty bad – buttons are hard to press and its short, stocky form makes it awkward to use

Halvsies

• No HD content, although a firmware upgrade is coming soon. Some would argue that certain things are best left in standard-definition, though.

Check out the video above for the full review…

Product Page [FyreTV.com]

Like this video? View more here…

Quick Version: In a world chock full of streaming music devices, the Philips Streamium NP1100 blends into the crowd as a straightforward, easy-to-use network device.

Overview and Features:

• Wired and/or wireless network music playback
• Internet radio
• Rhapsody online music service
• Connects to stereo/home theater or headphones
• Uses Windows Media Player 11 and/or UPnP to stream music
• MSRP of $179.99

Pros:

The Streamium NP1100 from Philips is a relatively unassuming network music player. You plug it in, turn it on, and it finds the music on your UPnP-enabled computers. It also connects to Rhapsody’s online music service and features internet radio stations from all over the world. Lest you think that “unassuming” sounds negative, when it comes to devices that are meant to play music, sometimes the simpler, the better.

Sound quality is excellent. I tested the NP1100 hooked up to the home stereo, computer speakers, cheap headphones, $100 headphones, and $400 noise-cancelling headphones and the music, whether streaming from my computer, an internet radio station, or Rhapsody, sounded great. If I had an awesome home stereo system, the likes of which you’d see in fancy houses with things like “fireplaces” and “recessed lighting,” the NP1100 would sit handsomely next to the other high-priced audio components and push out high-quality music for me to listen to while I read the evening paper over a snifter of brandy-flavored beer from the gas station.

Rhapsody users, especially, would do well by this device. You can stream all of your personally downloaded Rhapsody tracks as well as search for and play music directly from Rhapsody’s enormous library. You’d literally have an almost unlimited music collection at the ready without having to download a bunch of files.

Cons:

The interface is a little “blah,” which is unfortunate because the device itself looks nice, with a sleek black finish and handsome translucent edges. It’s kind of like buying a nice, shiny new flat panel TV and then hooking up an old VCR to it and watching movies from the 80s that you taped off of network TV. It just seems out of place.

Also, while the NP1100 worked really well over a wired connection, when hooked up wirelessly there was just enough lag and buffering to sometimes make navigating with the included remote kind of a pain. I’d end up trying to skip backwards to earlier tracks on an album only to restart playing the same track over and over again until I could finally double-press the back button quickly enough to get to the previous track.

Finally, an MSRP of $179 seems a bit expensive, especially given the sheer number of competing devices on the market. The NP1100 can be found for less online, though.

Recommendation:

If you like music, want it to sound good, and don’t want a bunch of extra fluff, the Streamium NP1100 is easy enough to set up and use that serious music lovers – especially Rhapsody subscribers – might find the device to be a good fit. The design of the hardware itself is sleek, although it’s evened out by a boring, dated UI. In a world full of music streamers, the Streamium NP1100 falls somewhere in the middle.

Network Music Player – NP1100 [Philips.com]

Short Version: As music games go, both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour are impressive, fun, and either would make a great addition to any gamer’s lineup. But which one is best for you?

Overview and Methodology

We’ll take a look at Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour, both for the Xbox 360, and break things down within various categories. Both standalone games cost around $60, with full band kits going for just under $200. I have the full band kits for Guitar Hero World Tour as well as the first version of Rock Band – not Rock Band 2. Since the instruments have been updated somewhat for the Rock Band 2 kit, I’ll try not to make too many detailed direct comparisons aside from overall general differences.

Since music is a pretty subjective issue, keep in mind that your tastes might differ greatly from mine. I’m coming from the point of view of a 29-year old who’s formative years consisted of Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, AC/DC, Megadeth, Anthrax, Bon Jovi, and bands like that. In high school and college I listened to harder alternative and punk. So the viewpoint for some of the opinions in this guide is coming from someone who likes hard rock, metal, punk, and heavier/grungier alternative music.

As far as instruments go, I grew up playing drums, bass, and guitar — in that order of skill — and I played in 15-20 bands throughout high school and college. I sang, too. So now you know, and knowing is, indeed, at least half the battle. Now let’s get started…

Song Lists

Surprisingly, there’s a rather large amount of identical songs featured between the two games, yet I found the overall experiences to be quite different. Rock Band 2 has 75 famous songs plus nine bonus songs from relative no-namers, while GHWT has 86 famous songs. Here are some of the overlapping songs found in both games:

• American Woman – The Guess Who
• Everlong – Foo Fighters
• Eye of the Tiger – Survivor
• Feel the Pain – Dinosaur Jr.
• Float On – Modest Mouse
• Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac
• Lazy Eye – Silversun Pickups
• Livin’ on a Prayer – Bon Jovi
• The Middle – Jimmy Eat World
• Mountain Song – Jane’s Addiction
• One Way or Another – Blondie
• Our Truth – Lacuna Coil
• Ramblin’ Man – The Allman Brothers Band
• Today – Smashing Pumpkins

I personally enjoy the music in Rock Band 2 better than the music in Guitar Hero World Tour. I found most of Rock Band 2’s songs to be songs I liked and if I came upon a song I hadn’t heard before or didn’t necessarily love, I found that most of them fell into some sort of hard rock category, so at least they appealed to me somewhat.

GHWT, on the other hand, had some true musical gems here and there but I found myself agitated at having to play through long songs like Hotel California (which I believe to be one of the worst songs in the history of American music – can’t stand it), The Joker, Sweet Home Alabama, Stranglehold by Ted Nugent, and stuff like that. It’s harder to keep the adrenaline pumping with GHWT than it is with Rock Band 2.

If you’re looking for variety, GHWT has a diverse song list. You’ll find a little bit of everything, which will appeal to plenty of people. Personally, I wanna rock (rock!), which I found to be much more consistent in Rock Band 2. Oh, and you can import songs from the first Rock Band into Rock Band 2. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Presentation

Both games feature an animated group of musicians performing at some sort of venue. GHWT’s presentation is a bit more cartoony and fun, while Rock Band 2’s seems more gritty and semi-realistic. Once you get into a song, though, you’ll be concentrating on the notes far more than you’ll be checking out the visuals and animations.

You start out at small parties and dive bars and then work your way up to arenas as you progress throughout the game. GHWT features plenty of surprise guests in the form of actual musicians – Billy Corgan, Jimi Hendrix, Zakk Wylde, Ted Nugent, to name a few – which is kind of cool, although it seems more superficial than anything. Rock Band 2 has some guests as well, but not nearly as many or as famous.

Venues and locations in GHWT are relatively more elaborate than in Rock Band 2: you’ll play at a frat houses, a state fair, a farm, a church, recording studios, Times Square, AT&T Park, Ozzfest, the House of Blues, and other famous locations, so there’s definitely an air of realism as far as GHWT’s visuals go.

However, I found the actual feeling of playing in a band to be more realistic in Rock Band 2, overall. When you get cranking along on a song, the crowd starts to cheer louder and sing along with the words, which I think represents the feeling of playing an actual show more realistically. Again, there’s more adrenaline with Rock Band 2. The emphasis in GHWT seems to be on the venues and guest stars, while the performance experience tends to be emphasized with Rock Band 2.

Guitar Experience

Hands-down, I find the Rock Band guitar (I have the guitar from the first version, remember – the second version is apparently similar, with the added feature of being wireless) to be much, much better than the GHWT guitar simply because the buttons aren’t separated on the Rock Band 2 guitar. I was having trouble on easier skill levels with GHWT guitar (below, left) until I tried using the Rock Band guitar (below, right) instead. After making the switch, I was able to beat songs on the harder skill levels that I’d been failing before when using the GHWT guitar on easier levels.

Anyone who’s played guitar before knows how much you rely on sliding your fingers along the frets. With GHWT, the buttons are far enough apart that sliding doesn’t work too well. The included guitar does have a trackpad-like section higher up on the neck that’s used for tapping, which is kind of cool, although I didn’t use it all that often. The Rock Band guitar has identical-but-smaller versions of the colored buttons higher up on its neck, which I found useful for soloing and complicated runs.

Drumming Experience

I much prefer playing drums in GHWT — above all, the way drumming is handled and scored, in general. I can’t speak to Rock Band 2’s actual drum kit, as I only have the first version, but my argument isn’t for or against the drum kits of either game, it’s more for how drumming is handled. Allow me to explain…

In Rock Band and Rock Band 2, you’re expected to hit each drum note in order to score – fair enough. Now let’s say you’re playing a song you know really well but you’re playing it on the Medium skill level and there’s a section of the song coming up that contains a certain fill-in or triplet or double-kick in the real-life version of the song but the Medium version in Rock Band/Rock Band 2 calls for a less elaborate fill or a single kick or something like that. If you play the more advanced, real-life rhythm, you’ll be docked points. Play the real, true version of a song but at a lower skill setting, and you won’t make it past the first thirty seconds of the song.

GHWT, on the other hand, lets you flail around to your heart’s content as long as you keep the overall general rhythm between the snare, kick, and hi-hat going. You won’t build any star power this way, but you won’t kill the song either. So it’s more fun for  drummers who know that real-life drumming is mostly about keeping songs popping along in four-four time, while just about any fill-ins, doubles, or triples are fair game.

There’s been a fair amount of discussion about the GHWT drums being faulty, but those issues were apparently linked to some manufacturing problems with early hardware. The drums I got didn’t have any trouble and current kits should be fine.

Singing

Ever done Karaoke? That’s about the extent of the singing experience in both games except your own voice is potted way down, volume-wise. The actual singing part is pretty similar between the two games. I found Rock Band 2 to be a little easier to follow but I found the star power feature in GHWT to be a bit cooler. All in all, though, don’t buy either game based solely on the singing feature unless you check out the each game’s song list first. Then buy whichever game has more of the songs you like.

Online Features, Extras

Online multiplayer is actually pretty similar on both games as well. You can hook up with your friends and play songs together and/or up to four of you can take on another four in a battle of the bands scenario. 

As far as downloadable content is concerned, the Rock Band franchise has a ton of songs right now. Guitar Hero’s list is slowly growing and will likely eventually catch up. If you want to download extra songs right now, though, Rock Band games have the most stuff available (as of December 2008).

Guitar Hero has GHTunes, though, which consists of user-generated songs created with the game’s music studio feature. You can create your own songs and upload them to share with other GHWT players. Rock Band 2 doesn’t have a music creation system but it does have a feature called Drum Trainer, which basically teaches you how to play drums. I’d give the edge on “extra” stuff to GHWT thanks to the music studio, but downloadable content currently goes to the Rock Band games. Both games’ online multiplayer features are pretty much a wash.

So Which One’s Better?

Probably Guitar Hero World Tour. No, wait, Rock Band 2! No, wait… this isn’t working!

If you’re looking for rock, rock, and more rock, you might enjoy Rock Band 2. If you’re looking for a more diverse selection of music, Guitar Hero World Tour is probably more up your alley. If you’ll be playing guitar most often, I prefer Rock Band 2 but if drumming’s your thing, I like how GHWT handles everything. Singing and online stuff can go either way, while there’s more to download with Rock Band 2 but more to create and upload with GHWT.

I happen to love playing the drums in GHWT but I like the music in Rock Band 2 better so, clearly, I’m no help at all. But this isn’t meant to choose one game over the other – they’re both great games. Hopefully there’s some information here that can help you choose which one would be right for you.

Rock Band 2 [Official Site]

Guitar Hero World Tour [Official Site]