Gadgetory

this week on the cnet tech review we have a host of new handsets and tablets from ctia 2011 do these retro headphones recall the 80s or the aughts and everything you wanted to know and more about the Nintendo 3ds it's all coming up right now hi everyone I'm Hollywood and welcome to the cnet tech review where we collect our hottest videos of the week and tell you what's good and what's bad in the world of tech plus we offer some unique tech wisdom in the form of the bottom line let's get started with the good spring is in the air or at least it's supposed to be so people from all over the country packed up their sunblock and headed down to sunny Florida to show off their mobile devices at ctia 2011 people this here the big stories at the show our 4g 3d and of course tablets let's start things off with a pair of 4g phones including an old favorite that's making a comeback hi I'm Ken German senior editor at cnet com and here at CTI 2011 in orlando florida want to show you the Samsung Nexus S this is the new version for sprint they're calling it the samsung nexus s 4g two interesting things about this nexus s it is the first Nexus device to come to a cdma carrier it also is the first Nexus phone to be on a 4G network of course this is French so it runs on wimax 02 first really about this phone now it looks exactly like the t mobile device we saw last year it's pretty thin feels a little bit fragile in the hand like we saw last year but I think it's a nice looking phone it is very slim I just have that contour display so that means you'll see a very very slight curve it is a super amoled display so it's really bright it's really colorful a couple negative things about this phone this is no LED notification so when you get a message or voicemail and the discreteness guard there's not going to be any sort of light that pops up here you see that a lot on Android phones also the phone does not have a micro SD card slot it does have several gigs of internal storage so that should be fine but we do like it external card slide just for extra also as a personal organizer doesn't wireless hotspot of course I use that feature you will have to sign up for the extra 2999 sprint plan of 20 twenty-nine ninety-nine a month also you'll have to get the extra ten dollars a month for the score G service and that's all on top of at least a 69 99 sprint everything plan so a little bit of an investment when you get this phone as far as the monthly plan goes it's going to be able to April 199 with a two-year contract but so if you like that stock Android experience luckily sprint hasn't ruined that gingerbread stock android screen android paris definitely a good phone for you i'm kim Sherman at CTA 2011 with a samsung nexus s 4g hey everyone I'm Bonnie tuck senior editor at cnet com and we're here in Orlando for CTA 2011 taking a first look at the t-mobile sidekick 4G this is the new sidekick and it's made by samsung this time around they've kept some of the old along with the new some of the old features that will be familiar to sidekick users are these four buttons around here and it has a slight up screen now but you get this great keyboard fibro keyboard with dedicated number keys and an emoticon key I really like the keyboard it's very spacious even though the buttons look small they're they're really easy to use in tactile the sidekick 4G is the first sidekicks you have a touchscreen and measures 3.5 inches diagonally so tonight that you can also use the touchscreen to navigate the phone in addition to the shortcut keys as well as this call joystick on back you've got a 3 megapixel camera and there is also vga camera on front for video calls so that's a great new feature of course the big change here is that the sidekick 4G is now running the Android operating system they've made some tweaks to make it more sidekick ish such as the dedicated wallpaper also has enhanced messaging features including group text so you can well as text which is a web app that allows you to text and receive messages from your computer overall the sidekick 4G looks like a great device a little bit wary when they said they were discontinuing the psychic service but i think the move to android is a good one it's going to be available coming in the spring pricing is 9999 was a two-year contract with unlimited data so the very fair price they'll also offer it from 149 99 if you want get the ten-dollar data plan which gives you about 250 megabytes of data so we're looking forward to bringing the t-mobile sidekick for Dean and I'm Bonnie Tyler 1640 it is such a relief to see that the sidekick hasn't gone forever and nice update as i mentioned 3d phones or a big deal at ctia this year and no that doesn't mean you'll have to strap on a pair of goofy glasses to use your new 3d phone but you probably won't find yourself ducking to avoid flying Angry Birds either take a look I'm the Folies senior associate editor Christina calm and this is a first look at the LG thrill 4g the first ever 3d smartphone to come to the US this is essentially attn to use version of the LG optimus 3d as you can see on the front is a very attractive 4.3 inch WVGA display and it's 3d when you press the 3d button on the side here to enter into the 3d app mode that lets you get access to a variety of 3d apps Thank was a variety of 3d games and apps and you can also upload 3d video to YouTube the 3d on the thrill 4g looks amazing even though you can't really see it on the camera it does will you pop out in real life you don't need any glasses to view Jess your own eyes will do on the back of the phone are two five megapixel cameras that can record in 3d we can record 3d is 720p and 2d in 1080p the OS is android 2.2 froyo but AT&T has said that you'll be upgradable to android 2.3 gingerbread the LG thrill 4g as the name suggests is compatible with 1880s hspa+ or 4g network the LG thrill 4g is available later this year don't yet know the pricing and availability however the LG thrill 4g has a very speedy dual-core processor I'm Napoleon this has been a first look at the LG thrill 4g hi I'm Ken German senior editor here at cnet com i'm here at ctia 2 2011 in orlando florida and i want to show you one of sprint's new phones they're announcing to the show this is the HTC evo 3d of course it's an upgrade to the evo line is the latest in that series few think a few unique things about this phone is it does record and play 3d video and that's without the aid of glasses now we've seen a phone like this before we saw at Mobile World Congress from LG that was the LG optimus 3d this is their very much the same concept here in the back you see those two five megapixel cameras and on the front you'll have that 1.3 megapixel camera that can be used for video chat also you can take self-portraits with it as well but it's really those two cameras in the back that are the real star here on the side there's a switch for changing between 3d video and 2d video I'll see a camera control here on the top comes with a eight gig card it will hold up to 32 gigs and there's four gigs of memory on the phone now the handset does run gingerbread so that's on my assignments to see more phones coming out with Gingerbread but of course since it is that 3d video I want to give you a little demonstration of that so we'll just choose we'll just use the gallery here so the effect is going to be pretty subtle here you won't really jump out at you and of course 3d is supposed to do that it's going to be very much like the Optimus 3d it's going to be the things will kind of float off the screen you will see some depth of course you don't need glasses as so you just need a minute to watch so I'll switch for doing photos and you see it still looks like a still photo at first and then we see that 3d effect pop in I think it is kind of cool it's definitely something that I can imagine myself use and I can't imagine myself using it a lot I don't think that it really provides an experience that it's just going to blow me away and just going to change my smartphone experience but I do think it's a pretty cool thing it is really nice to have and it's good to see some innovation in that way phone is a 1.2 gig hurts processor so it will be running pretty fast as all the android applications you'd expect from google has personal organiser of course Wi-Fi Bluetooth messaging email instant messaging so all of those things you'd expect on a smartphone are going to be here this really is about that 3d shooting video so as I said shoot video on the back with the 3d camera you don't have to shoot 3d and you can take the 3d photos with those lenses on the back the I do like the effect of switching between home screens it's sort of like a cube so you can go like that you can see that they sort of rotate around it is running HTC Sense and agenda in addition to Gingerbread of course that also means that if you pinch you get the leak feature which shows you everything all the home screens you have you get up to seven and you can just then go directly to the one you want by clicking it so it's pretty nice feature anything but i'm here at CTI 2011 i'm kent german with the HTC evo 3d now yes some of the 3d effects might seem a little gimmicky but i do remember people saying the same thing when regular old cameras started showing up in phones in fact i was one of them because i am old anyway before we bid ctia ado let's check out some tablets as Jessica shows us a trio of 7 inches from ZTE and bonnie has her hands full with a pair of galaxy tabs hi this is Jessica Thalberg from cnet here at ctia taking a first look at the ZTE light now this is a family of three 7-inch tablets they're all running android 2.2 froyo right now but they may be upgradable to honeycomb in the future there are three models they go from basic basic + 4g and also a more upscale model we're looking right now at the LTE light basic model this has a 3 megapixel camera on the back a VGA camera on the front and a 600 megahertz processor the LTE late to the more upscale model has a 1 gigahertz processor plus DLNA support and a much much better screen the model that I'm holding right now has this glossy black front and the sort of metallic backing it feels pretty good in the hand pretty smooth not too heavy and it's fairly thin so this is definitely looking like some of the other tablets that we've seen and it does have that portability although all three of these tablets have been launched globally there is no pricing or carrier information yet in the u.s. so stay tuned I'm Jessica dual cord and this is the VTE family of tablet hey everyone I'm body toss senior editor at cnet com and we're here in Orlando for CTI 2011 bayo 2 new tablets the same Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 fortunately devices don't I wanted to show you the tablets because they are the world's thinnest tablet they both measure eight point six millimeters thin so that makes it thinner than the ipad 2 which comes in at eight point eight millimeters just really beautifully designed tablet has rounded edges so it's really comfortable to hold and has a nice weight to it and it has a nice creamy and feel and like sometimes in fact a little bit plasticky I tend to like my device is a little smaller so that 8.9 inch tablet really suits me I'm really loving the design on this both tablets will be running Android 3.0 on top of that they are going to be using Samsung's TouchWiz UX user interface which is the first customizable user interface android some of the features include by panels where you do that widgets and shortcuts as well as an app tray that will help with multitasking also it will have dual core processor so should get some good performance out of these tablets they will be available this summer in the US as a Wi-Fi version there will be 16 gigabyte model and a 32 gigabyte hspa+ version and we are told that LTE and wimax will come out later this year I'm really looking forward to checking out these tablets again this is the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the galaxy tab 2 and I'm by nature from cnet com rest assured I can confidently guarantee that future versions of the galaxy tab will in fact turn on eventually i'm pretty sure i would hope all right that's enough ctia news for one day for our complete coverage from the show head over to cnet TV com and let's take a break but come right back for more tech review right after this welcome back to the Cena tech review our weekly video digest of all things good and bad we've seen here at cnet TV continuing on in the good it's time to leave Florida behind and head to New York City for the second half of this week's show first up Justin you tends to be a pretty hip guy so it's no surprise that he's a fan of this set of editors choice winning headphones that just scream retro cool hi I'm Justin you with cnet com with a first look at the cost porter pro headphones with so many headphones coming out these days it is hard to commit to just one pair without listening to them first but why not choose one that's what stood over 20 years of competition a cost porter pros actually came out in 1984 and they've since become a cult favorite for their unique design and they're excellent fidelity and they also have a lifetime warranty that makes their fifty dollar price tag even more appealing so first off there's no mystery about what decade inspired these headphones they're retro-looking ear cups may look weird to you but they do actually serve a purpose the main earbuds here are secured by this extra padding up top by your temple and there's even a comfort zone switch on the side that lets you adjust the tension against your temple now our single complaint with a physical build is that these two floating piece headbands don't have a lock to keep it in place so cost intended this piece to cut out the complicated adjustment process every time you put them on your head it's kind of automatic when you stick them on but it's also easy for hair to get stuck in the metal sliders and it doesn't happen that often but just enough to where we can't quite overlook it now the Porta pros also fold up and clip together for convenient storage and this tiny clip in the middle here keeps the two sides bound together and organized looks aside the reason why the Porta pros are still being sold is because of their upper tier fidelity the retro look is a hit or miss but you can't really argue with their ability to pump out a ton of base a costs also managed to find the recipe for an impressively well-balanced headphone that's suitable across all genres that's with excellent clarity and an overall sound that way slightly heavier in the low end and although they're not specifically designed for an isolation the over the ear or circum oral design does an excellent job of blocking out ambient noise without leaking your music to everyone else around you best of all costs backs the fifty-dollar Porter pros with a no-questions-asked lifetime warranty we actually tested this out for ourselves with a broken pair all it takes is six dollars to cover shipping and two weeks later we received a brand new set of Porter pros with a thank you note from costs All Things Considered you can certainly spend quadruple the amount on a nice set of custom earphones or a pair of headphones designed to compliment your home theater but if you don't want to spend a lot and just need a set of durable dependable headphones and listen to on the go or at work the versatile cost Porter pros earn our solid cnet editors choice award and are sure to impress you as well you can read the full review on cnet com but that's going to do it for me I'm Justin you these are the costs Porter pro headphones and that sounds good to me in fact Justin likes these headphones so much they've been on the editor's choice list since he first reviewed them three years ago that's like a lifetime in the tech world sadly I don't think we'll be able to say the same thing about the laptop in our next video it's time for a dan ackerman and this week's entry in the bag i'm dan ackerman and we are here taking a look at the gateway NV 51b now listen we don't really like cheap laptops but we like inexpensive laptops the difference is a cheap laptop is made of cheap components and really underperforms inexpensive laptop spins its budget wisely using reasonably priced components selling it to you for a reasonable price and keeping your expectations in check this is one of the first handful of laptop so use amd's new fusion platform which combines a cpu and a discrete GPU usually we've seen these in 11 inch ultra portables where they're sort of a nice step up from that old Intel Atom model better performance and better built in graphics these in battery life putting that kind of low power chip however in a bigger 15-inch laptop is potentially a recipe for disaster we saw a toshiba not too long ago that use the slower e250 version of this AMD cpu and that was a complete disaster this system however uses a faster III 50 version so it passes that bar remains a pretty usable 15-inch budget priced laptop it's not going to knock out as long as you keep your expectations modest it's going to do pretty well the first thing we noticed even though it's made completely of plastic looks and feels like a plastic laptop there's kind of this weird woodgrain pattern built right into it you can see it here in the wrist rest and also on the back of the lip it adds a little visual flair not sure it's really super necessary you get the same sort of flat key keyboard that you find on a lot of gateway laptops these days this room for a number pad because the chassis is nice and wide but you've got this little rinky-dink touch pad right here with the rocker bar instead of separate buttons that's always a no-no in our book we would have liked to see a much bigger touchpad because this is a fairly large screen laptop performance wise as long as you keep in mind this is an under 500 our 15 inch laptop you shouldn't be too disappointed the multitasking was a little bit slow but those AMD built in graphics were good enough for some basic casual gaming and even streaming HD full screen video we checked out some Netflix we checked out some YouTube trailers and it played that HD video pretty well which is not something you can say about every sub 500 15 inch laptop so as long as you keep your expectations modest and you don't mind getting a little bit of an odd woodgrain pattern in your plastic this is one of the cooler budget 15 inch laptops a category there are not too many entries in these days that we've seen in a while i'm dan ackerman and that is the gateway NV 51b it's nice to know that Dan can appreciate a nice wide chassis but the takeaway here seems to be keep your expectations modest hardly a ringing endorsement alright with that let's go ahead and check out this week's bottom line is it just me or does it feel like we've been talking about the Nintendo 3ds for ages we have but as much as we've covered it already it finally goes on sale this weekend and now Jeff Bakalar can have his final word please settle in for Jeff's definitive review of the new handheld what's going on everyone I'm Jeff Bakalar for cnet.com and today it is our final first look at the Nintendo 3ds portable gaming system now as you all know the 3ds is the follow-up to the DS which believe it or not is the best-selling portable gaming console of all time they've sold 145 million units of this thing so Nintendo had a lot of work cut out in designing the 3ds 3ds is the first portable console to ever display a 3d image without the need for special glasses now the big question is does it actually work and yeah it does and it works really well actually the best way I've been able to describe the illusion for people is to imagine those old magic I images where you're sort of how to cross your eyes to see the 3d image there's no I crossing needed for the 3ds but it does work and it works really well now will it make you sick maybe it depends on how sensitive you are to 3d there's a 3d slider up here on the top screen which allows you to adjust the intensity of the 3d effect so if you're feeling a bit nauseous maybe you have headache and you're not really digging the 3d just turn this off and the image will go into 2d and you can play fine no problem the 3d doesn't give you an advantage over 2d you can't look around corners or anything like that it just enhances the experience so on the outside of the 3ds it looks a lot like the DS lite on the front lid are the two cameras there point three megapixel cameras same cameras you had on the dsi and the dsixl kind of bummed out wish they would go a little bigger with that but they didn't these two lenses side-by-side or what allow you to take 3d photos also has a gyroscope and a motion sensor which is pretty cool on the back you'll see the stylus the game card port an infrared port left and right buttons on one side is the wireless switch and on the other side is the volume slider and the SD card slot on the inside once again looking a lot like a nintendo DS lite except this time around we've got an analog stick on the left side of the unit which is really cool there's a select home and start button at the bottom below the touch screen and the power button is in a new location and it looks a little different now to overall aesthetically speaking that's all there is different in this model it also comes with a charging dock which allows you to place the D at the 3ds in a dock and charge which is pretty cool online functionality isn't really enabled yet but in May it's coming and it will come with a virtual console that's going to let you play gameboy games Game Boy Advance games and classics that Nintendo will redo in 3d also there's going to be support for Netflix not sure about 3d video but the 3ds can play 3d video so we would expect some sort of marketplace where studios are offering content and you probably pay a price and download the videos you want to watch also there'll be the 3ds eshop so no more Nintendo points they're going for a straight cash pay service what we really like is connecting to the internet with the 3ds is easier than ever you pick your wireless ID you enter your you're connected it can save up to a couple SSIDs so if you leave your house where it's connected to Wi-Fi and you come to someplace else where you have inputted the information it'll know to switch right over and you'll be connected all the time and we really like what they did with friend codes even though they're annoying and you will have to enter them they're 12 digit code you only have to enter them once so once you have a friend's friend code you entered it into your friends list and you're done you'll never have to enter it again what we really like about the system software is this home button down below it lets you suspend any app or game you're using and you can go and check out some of the features that are available in the home screen like your friends list and something they're calling game notes which essentially allows you to take notes while you're playing a game so if there's something you don't really have pen and paper for you want to write down about a specific game you pop it in the game notes and you can access that at any time the 3ds launch lineup isn't amazing it's about 16 games not including the ones that come bundled in we really like the pilot wings resort game and also super street fighter 4 3 d edition that's a lot of fun to play as well now some games you will be playing in 3d and you're going to be button mashing and you'll realize that you accidentally synced out the 3d effect that's the problem the 3d viewing angle on the 3ds is very sensitive so if you're moving it around which some games do require because of the gyroscope and the motion sensor you're going to sometimes take yourself out of that 3d effect which is kind of upsetting everyone knows the old nintendo DS games came in a sort of a brown box the new 3ds games come in a slimmer white box so just side by side the new 3ds game cartridge as opposed to the old ds1 the new one is grey and it's got a little nub at the top that's really the only difference overall the 3ds is a worthy successor to the DS franchise but as we all know the gaming market continues to evolve and we're just not sure how much longer Nintendo will be able to get away with offering a device that focuses on gaming only there's not too much other functionality here it's a music player and stuff like that but it's not making phone calls anytime soon so it'll be interesting to see what the 3ds does in the mobile gaming market now that it's become such a popular franchise we're just not sure how long Nintendo is going to be able to get away with offering a gaming centric device especially considering there's a lot of competition and they all seem to be making all-in-one devices so Nintendo certainly has an interesting road ahead I'm Jeff Bakalar for cnet.com and this has been the Nintendo 3ds the bottom line this week will it make you sick maybe congratulations Jeff I think you just found nintendo's new slogan for the 3ds and maybe all those 3d phones coming out of Florida good times all right folks that's our show for this week we'll be back next week with a brand new edition of cnet tech review until then there are tons of great videos available every day at Cena TV com see you next time and thank you for watching you