Gadgetory

coming up on the cnet tech review the best video games of spring 2010 a look at microsoft's new kin phones and the HTC incredible takes on the iphone 3gs it's all coming up right now hey everyone I'm Hollywood and welcome to the scene that tech review the show where we bring you the good the bad and the bottom line in tech videos from the week so let's get started with the good stuff shall we this week it's a video game awesome Jeff Bakalar co-host of our very own pregame show has a buying guide for us here's what he recommends in the world of video games right now hey everyone I'm Jeff Bakalar for cnet.com and today we're going to be showing you a buying guide for all things video games now we're not going to look at the three consoles because not a lot has changed since last year but what I am going to do is show you my individual pic 4 games on each console let's go start with the Nintendo Wii hey everyone we're here in the Nintendo Wii section got a few games and want you guys to check out if you own the console first game you should definitely take a look at monster hunter tri from the Nintendo Wii takes gamers to a world of adventure where they're hunting down enormous creatures very cool is very big in Japan and now it's made its way stateside definitely recommend you guys checking that out next if that's not your cup of tea check out red steel two brand new game from Ubisoft first game to use wii motionplus which is a very big deal gun slinging sword swiping action a lot of cool we had in this game as well definitely worth checking out if you've got a Nintendo Wii also coming out this summer from the Nintendo Wii super mario galaxy to the highly anticipated sequel to the original definitely a must-have for all Nintendo Wii owners also you're going to want to check out metroid other m that's due out in august so if you have an xbox 360 definitely think you should check out a couple of these games Alan Wake do out very soon to psychological thriller game very intense action uncovering a story about a small mountain town definitely recommend alan wake anyone is ready for a scare for sure another game you guys should definitely check out for the xbox 360 is prince of persia the forgotten sands prince of persia is back it's one of the strongest game franchises of all time this time around the prince has all of the elements at his disposal so he can freeze water climb up waterfalls to all kinds of very interesting stuff with the elements of the earth definitely worth checking out if you've got an xbox 360 now let's go check out what we can look forward to on the PlayStation 3 first game once you guys to check out on the PlayStation 3 is red dead redemption made by rockstar games for people behind grand theft auto red dead redemption is a Western open world game think Grand Theft Auto put out in the Old West next game everyone with a playstation 3 should be checking out is modnation racers an exclusive game for playstation 3 where gamers can create their own players and tracks race them with friends and share these tracks online with other gamers around the world very cool stuff a lot of customization opportunities here think of the game as littlebigplanet meets SimCity with a very cool that's going to wrap it up for a video game buying guide definitely check out pre game on cnet TV for all live game demos and the latest and greatest news in the world of video games I'm Jeff Beck or for cnet.com thanks for watching moving right along our console games too expensive well brian Tong has some suggestions straight from the dollar store oh yeah hey hey hey guys welcome to tap that app i'm brian Tong and this is the show where we cover all the coolest and hottest apps in the mobile space for mobile platforms now today we're talking gaming and we like our games cheap so we're showcasing a few of the top 99 cent games for the iphone and ipod touch now one of my favorites and a favorite from the Twitter world is doodle jump it's as simple as you get your a character named doodle and using the accelerometer you tilt the phone to jump onto the next platform but if you miss it's game over there are items that send you hire like Springs and applying hat or a rocket pack and the higher you go the higher you score this is a killer app now Cena editor josh lowensohn favorite 99 cent game right now is angry birds now these birds are mad at pigs that stole their eggs they want them back so using a slingshot you'll fling yourself at them to take them out there are over a hundred and five levels they get more tricky as you advance different birds can attack in different ways and it's another great pick up with a whole lot of replay value there's also a few 99 cent classics that you might already know about paki God is one of them and it lets you play God on an island where you control the environment and the fate of the pygmies let them fish help them build a fire or electrocute them and feed them to the Sharks I like doing the ladder and we all love paper toss it's simple enough just flick a paper ball into a trash can see how many you can get in a row while a fan blowing at different speeds mixes things up and the last 99 cent game that we recommend is Jason Parker's pic it's called zombie smash protect your house from a zombie invasion by flicking and throwing zombies all around special weapons that you can upgrade help you take them out and yes you will look a little crazy playing this in public because it gets really frenetic but all these games and the graphics are definitely tap worthy that's it for this week send me what apps you want to see or a theme you want for a show at tap that app at cnet com thanks for watching and we'll see you guys next time come on lazy ass out come from Oh ladies yeah good recommendations BTW but i'm not dancing with you sorry okay let's continue with the good when you think young hip and happening don't you think microsoft maybe here's a body job with a look at the kins hey everyone i'm bonnie toss senior editor at cnet com and today i've got your first look at the Kin one and the kin to these verizon bound phones were introduced by blanco soft in april and unlike windows phone 7 which is designed for a very broad audience the Kin devices are aimed at a very specific group the group of people who are constantly on their social networking sites checking out what everyone else is up to and also updating their own status and whereabouts and both these phones are centered around that social experience obviously the Kin one and can to offer two different looks which I'll talk about a bit later but they're a lot more alike than different first off they both offer the same user interface which consists of three home screens on the left most screen shows all the phones different apps such as email browser music and video meanwhile the right pane is where you can add all your favorite contacts the center pane is called the loop screen and it's where all the action happens you can see in both your phones with Facebook MySpace and Twitter accounts and when you've done all that the Kin will pull all your contact status updates leaders picture uploads and tweets to this loop screen but the kins aren't just about seeing what other people are doing is also about sharing both devices have the spot feature which is this little green dot stays at the bottom of the screen if there's a story or status or even a web page or map you want to share with family and friends you can simply do a long press and then drag it down to the spot then you navigate to your contacts page and drag and drop everyone you want to share it with and then send it via text mms or email there's more to the kin one and two than just social networking though these will be the first phone to ship with zune to port including zune pass where you'll be able to stream music / verizon's 3g network and the kin one here offers 4 gigabytes of internal storage while the kintu offers eight gigabytes but neither have expansion slots the phones also don't have any gaming capabilities or a calendar app which is kind of baffling to me one other difference between the two models is that the kin one has a 5-megapixel camera while the kintu has an 8 megapixel camera and can also shoot HD video obviously they differ in design to the kin one is more interesting of the two with its square shape but you lose a little bit in the screen and keyboard sighs since it's smaller meanwhile the kintu has a more traditional design but has the advantage of a higher resolution screen and more spacious keyboard the microsoft kin one and two will be available for pre-order starting may six and will be delivered within 48 hours and will be in all stores starting made 13 I'm Bonnie jaundice has been your first look at the kin one and Kim too well so I guess those phones weren't as good as I thought except maybe the cameras those are good okay everybody let's take a break in when we come back the actual vat for your daily dose of tech news check out C nuts loaded it's packed full the latest tech news highlights that matter to you find out the latest gadgets or the coolest gizmos all that more monday through thursday at cnet com flash loaded welcome back everyone and let's get right to the bad or should I say the iPad I hope this week the apple ipad 3g which is more expensive and has monthly fees wonderful hey I'm Donnell bell for student calm and this is a first look at the apple ipad 3g probably already familiar with the original version of the ipad which came out a month ahead of this model the ipad 3g is essentially identical to the standard ipad with the added capability of connecting to the internet using a built-in 3g cellular connection for a broader rundown of the ipads capabilities you can take a look at my comprehensive review on cnet com but for this video I'm just going to zero in on the details to make the 3g model unique first off you have pricing the ipad 3g comes in the same three capacities as the original only their price set an extra hundred thirty dollars each there's a 16 gigabyte version for 629 dollars 32 gigabytes for 729 and 64 gigs for 829 on top of that extra upfront costs users also need to purchase a monthly data plan from AT&T which you can activate directly on the device under the settings menu there's an option for cellular data where you can choose between an unlimited plan for thirty dollars or a fifteen dollar plan with a monthly cap of 250 megabytes if you go with the capped plan you can always buy more data as you need it now just because you have the 3g wireless connection doesn't mean you need to use it the Wi-Fi capabilities of the ipad 3g are just as robust as the original model and typically provide better speeds than 3g in fact if the ipad recognizes a familiar Wi-Fi connection it will automatically switch over to it and use the 3g as a last resort ultimately what this model gets you is the added freedom to access the web on the go anywhere 3g coverage is available the 3g model also includes an assisted GPS chip not found on the standard version which makes it easier for maps and other apps to track your location for some these advantages are a huge deal but we expect most people will find the lower priced Wi-Fi only model just as practical there are some other small distinctions on the ipad 3g the back has this two-tone design with a streak of black plastic that helps the internal 3g antenna work more effectively there's also a tiny tray on the side here that holds 18 T's micro SIM card another telltale sign is the little AT&T call out up here at the top of the screen if you're using this over Wi-Fi Apple race the ipad 3g at the same 10 hours as a standard model surfing over 3g will knock you down to 9 hours which is still exceptional for a device that is as light and powerful as this so that's the ipad 3g a more expensive better connected fraternal twin of the original ipad for cnet.com on Donald Bell now regardless of which model you get kids seem to love the ipad so here's how to make it kid friendly and keep them away from all that bad stuff on there hey I'm Donnell bell for cnet.com and today I'm going to show you how to make an iPad safe for kids my two-year-old goes berserk for this thing with the help of some sesame street videos or coloring games I can keep him from bouncing off the walls for at least a few minutes that said I would never leave him alone with the iPad partly because he would delight and throwing this thing down the stairs but mostly because the internet is a nasty nasty place you never know when an innocent google search could turn into a lifetime of therapy there's also the fact that the itunes store and the app store on the ipad are tied directly to my credit card and might offer content i object to even in preview form so how do you sanitize the ipad to make okay for kids to use unattended well Apple thought of that just dive into the settings and select general from the side menu you'll see an option for restrictions click it and hit the enable restrictions button you'll be prompted to create a four-digit passcode that you'll need to enter if you ever want to change these settings later on once enabled you can selectively kill up access to the Safari web browser the YouTube app the iTunes and App Store and make it so that the ipad doesn't report its location to any of your installed apps you can further lock it down to disable purchases from within apps determine which countries age appropriate rating system you want to use disable playback of explicit music and podcasts and select rating requirements for movies TV shows and apps after you're done just hit the home button in all of your settings will be saved just remember if you try to access the restriction settings again to make any changes you'll need to remember the four digit password you created so that's how to make the apple ipad safer for kids you can also use the same technique on the iPhone or the ipod touch for cnet com on Donald Bell if you don't want your kid hogging your iPad maybe your kid will settle for this as a substitute hi I'm Scott Stein senior associate editor at cnet com and this is the new Intel classmate now there's not a laptop you're going to see in stores per se but for many years before the netbook there were the Intel classmate line of computers that are meant for the educational market for kids to introduce them using computers and to use globally now this laptop looks a lot like a netbook and it really is underneath there's an intel atom n450 processor 160 gig hard drive really the things that are in a basic current netbook so what exactly makes an educational laptop well Intel's classmate program has about 300 different partners that make a variety of software tools and hardware tools that plug-in Lego has a robotics kit those also a weather app and and peripheral that takes humidity levels and temperatures and there are a number of other devices currently they will mcgraw-hill as a partnership with them as well and in addition intel has decided to partner with a number of different manufacturers across the world to take this design and get it out there to as many people as needed the cost of this laptop is 499 this is not meant to purchase on your own in fact you're going to really have a hard time trying to buy it it's going to go through institutions so you're probably it is a good chance you might see your own kid take on one of these one of these days or maybe you already have this laptop again it runs windows 7 professional in the version that we looked at but it has a really cool software interface on the screen where educators can put a lot of the apps and applications they're going to be using to teach there's a math wizard app on here there's also a great art app and there a couple of others that we found pre-installed that were pretty fun to use and this is a convertible netbook tablet the screen rotates around and flips down and there's a stylus the tucks into the back that pulls out now it's not like an iPhone or iPad it's not really meant to be touched basis meant to be used with the stylist a pressure based but it's actually really nice for taking notes or annotating there's even an e-reader app that reads epubs and pdfs and allows you to take notes on them we saw this in use in a setting of the Central Park Zoo where students ran around use it for every testing temperature levels to drawing pictures of the animals and they seem to enjoy using it the case is pretty holdable it's a it's a ruggedized rubberized type feel which should help not have a drop out of kids hands in addition Intel tells us the edges are shock absorbent and the hard drive will also detect shock and be able to detach when needed and there's a really nice handle that comes out the back which is not new for the classmate but it's a little more integrated unless you to hold it like a little school tote it's pretty fun and while it does have a very institutionalized look it's actually pretty attractive and we enjoyed using it and hay net bookmakers this is one of the largest trackpads we've ever seen we'd love to see that on some other netbooks to the keyboard and the screen are spill-resistant which is smart a lot of the keys and side controls here are rubberized rubber coated so hopefully this is a kid proof of laptop as you'd need a conclusion looking at it it's a kind of cool little device and particularly it's a relationship with a number of software makers out there and peripherals make it very tempting for educational use there are a couple little nice tricks to built into the hardware the rebbe cam rotates which is a nice touch for when using it tablet mode and it actually has a 1366 x 768 10.1 inch screen which is higher res than normal for 10 inch netbooks now the real question is at 499 would you get this or would you get an ipad for educational use had to bring it up because I even know people in education that are considering getting an ipad for their school students it may sound impractical but that debate between whether get a tablet or to go with the netbook will be one they'll be had for quite some time i'm scott stein and is the intel classmate the 2010 generation see it sounds pretty good but the bad part is that you can't even buy it anywhere which is a letdown and with that let's get to the bottom line shall we the last android based phone to take down the iphone 3gs was the nexus one now the very similar HTC droid incredible is trying to deliver a second iphone knock out let's see how it turns out what's up prize fight fans i'm brian Tong and this is a special people Choice prize fight the droid incredible is out and you the cnet readers and viewers pick the Challenger it's a prize 5 push out between the HTC droid incredible and the apple iphone 3gs our judges for this fight our senior editor Bonnie boom boom cha associate editor Nicole ice-cold Lee and myself will do the honors we'll take all three judges scores and average them out to the nearest tenth each round the final prize fight score will be an average of all rounds using the same decimal system which phone pushes your buttons so right because it turns you on round one is sexiness the droid incredible has a sleek and slender profile is display is crystal clear it's rubberized surface can take a beating but what's up with its backside bonnie likes the topographic design but I don't and all they had to do is just smooth it out now the iphone 3gs is still as minimalist as it gets and its curvaceous booty still gets me I know I need some help but it's curved corners and clean lines can get a little old and the scene that staff wants something new but it's still a sexy beast this rounds at I and both phones get a 4.3 next round is controls and user interface the incredibles HTC Sense UI is the best looking phone OS to date and it's a snappy device say goodbye to track balls and welcome the optical joystick I found it easy to use when the colon Bonnie didn't like it as much the touch buttons were pretty responsive multi-touch is here and unique settings like different scenes for using your phone and quick access to any panel without having to scroll through it every page is slick there will be a small learning curve that's easy for geeks but not for my mom we can't say it any more than we already have but the iphone is the easiest mobile OS to use power users might mock it and want something more but navigating the menus and applications are a breeze multi-touch runs smoothly across all apps and we know new features are on the way but it's still just as easy as it was from day one the iphone 3gs gets a perfect five and a droid incredible gets a four so after averaging two rounds the 3gs leads by half a point and the incredible has some work to do if it wants to live up to its name next round is features both phones have the core features like 3g Wi-Fi Bluetooth and GPS but this is where the incredible shines it still has the best voice search and commands pigs feet turn-by-turn directions a multitasking pulldown voice to text integration hey you want to workout and customization with widgets and themes are unmatched the only thing we're still waiting for is hands-free calling now the iphone 3gs is still running the iphone OS 3.0 voice commands are here but they're not even on the same level call arielle and there's no voice search or text integration we still have to purchase a turn by turn GPS solution and multitasking is limited to listening to music while using another app and customization goes as far as arranging your app icons the iphone has all the core features but the incredible kicks it up a notch and it gets the perfect five and the 3gs gets a four next round is web browsing to multimedia the incredibles web browser finally brings a smooth-running multi-touch it's multiple windows take a cue from coverflow and it's bookmark previews have put it on the level with Safari flashlight is here but I didn't find any sites that worked well with it HTC's Sense UI has done wonders with the media player interface that I actually enjoyed videos look great with its high res display doubletwist syncs your media and then you just throw in an 8 megapixel dual flash LED camera with video capture this is incredible indeed now the iphone has been the standard for entertainment and multimedia on a mobile phone it's media player is still one of the best movies look great but it's iTunes integration whether you love it or hate it is what brings it all together podcast support is extensive anna match its web browser is still a top notch mobile experience its multi-touch and zoom and accuracy plus it's cut copy and paste is better executed and it has a 3 megapixel camera without a flash that's dated but serviceable but the incredible has finally stepped up its game for all android phones and this round is a tie at four point three apiece so after averaging four rounds we are tied at 4.4 going into the final round which phone has enough gas left in the tank the final round that decides it all is called quality and performance the droid incredible is fast Bonnie feels it's the fastest phone she's ever used it snappy across the board and I had no issues with lag then you talk about its call quality on verizon's network that was clear on both sides of the line and no one experienced a drop call the iphone 3gs is a great performing phone that's snappy in its own right but the incredible showed off how fast the next beat of phones are compared to the 3gs call quality wise AT&T network is hit or miss depending on where you live there are times where the call quality was warmer than the incredible but I experienced a few hiccups and then you guessed it we all had the same issues connecting calls or those lovely drops so after entering the final round tied the droid incredible takes this round five to three point seven so let's average out all five rounds and in our first People's Choice prize fight the HTC droid incredible comes out victorious 4.5 to 4.3 and is your people's champ we all know Apple's newest contender is just around the corner but take nothing away from the incredible this is the best phone that we've seen in this prize fight ring i'm brian Tong thanks for watching we'll catch you guys next time on another prize fight the bottom line android it's a contender and that's our show for this week everyone as always you can find these videos and a whole lot more over at cnet TV com see you next time and thank you for watching