Silent Hills Game Featuring Norman Reedus Cancelled

April 27, 2015 By Deborah Campbell Leave a Comment

The new Silent Hills game that was supposed to feature Norman Reedus has been officially canned!

Last summer Konami released a playable teaser trailer featuring Norman Reedus, the star of The Walking Dead, just walking about in a foggy city. Names like Guillermo del Toro, and Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima were seen in the line-up also.

But unfortunately we will never see the project come to fruition. During the San Francisco International Film Festival, Guillermo del Toro announced to the public that his collaboration with Kojima is ” not going to happen.”.

Later on, Norman Reedus, or how we all know him by his TV name Daryl Dixon, tweeted an article regarding his future with the project. One word – bleak!

Konami also confirmed that Norman’s contract expired, and the whole project has been cancelled.

But why would someone want to cancel a game that has a huge fan base? More so, it was the perfect setting to combine 2 fandoms into one huge cluster of geeks. Well, it’s all about the messy break-up between Hideo Kojima and Konami.

Konami owns the gaming studios, and Silent Hills seem to be collateral damage. Even though, Konami has stated that the series will continue, and it will have a bright future with the company. Even Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid will see future installments – but without the loved creator.

It seemed like the perfect landscape, the perfect medium for Guillermo del Toro to shine with his incredible vision, Kojima’s superb ability to create ever lasting characters, and a story that would keep you up at night, and of course Norman Reedus’ perfect voice, face, everything for the genre. Maybe we will see the team meet up sometime in the future, but until then we only have the playable teaser available.

If you own a PS4, and haven’t played the Silent Hills playable teaser, download it quick from the store, it’s free, and it won’t last long – it will be removed on the 29th of April!

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The Whole Steam Workshop Fiasco

April 27, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

In the past week or so Steam has announced that Skyrim modders can now sale their own mods on Steam’s Workshop. It sounds amazing, right? Well, it’s definitely not, because Valve is racking in 75% of the profits. And that’s not even the end of it.

Bethesda Softwork decided to pair with Valve and offer modders the chance of selling their original work. Sounds like a great idea at first, but then, you realize that you’ve worked a month for that high-res textures pack for Skyrim, and you’re going to sell it for about $9,99 with more than half of the profits going to Valve. It’s definitely not fair. Their plan of encouraging gamers to publicly release mods has failed – mobs have gathered around the internet, and absurdly, they are fighting each-other.

Sides have been taken. Some applaud the initiative, while others see this as blatantly stealing their hard work.

Comparing what Valve is doing right now with other giants of the tech industry, kinda’ puts them in a bad bad place. Google, and Apple pay their developers 70% of the revenue, and keep only 30%. Even EA, the devil, isn’t taking this kind of horrendous tactic. Valve was supposed to be the chosen one.

The modding scene is huge. Every gamer wants to be a part of the scene, and create something. It doesn’t have to be great, sometimes the wackiest, and funniest things go viral.

Team Fortress 2 is well known for its hat addiction, and Civilization 5 for its huge fan created content – DiscWorld maps, World of Warcraft zones, even Planet Earth has been made by fans all around the world. I bought TF2 not only for it’s addictive gameplay, but because it also offered the possibility of interacting with other players through mods, and creating my very own gear. I bough Civilization 5 not only because I loved how in power I felt while destroying empire after empire, but because I could create maps, and other civilizations to play with.

I for one, don’t expect money for what I created, what I expect is a little bit of respect coming from Valve. I don’t want modding to turn into a dirty word. I only hope that we aren’t too late.

With the huge downpour of stolen content from various modding websites, Skyrim’s Steam WorkShop is filled with gamers just wanting to make a quick buck. I’m not saying that all of them are scrupulous, I’m just saying that there is a trend that seems to making its way. People are stealing content and selling it in the Workshop. How does Valve react to this? Of course, removing the mod from the store, but the whole process is incredibly tedious, and it can last a long time before your hard worked mod can be rightfully yours, once again.

This new trend can definitely lead to what I like to call microtransaction hell. If you aren’t accustomed to the term, let me succinctly explain it for you. It’s a method that casual games adopt, and a few AAA titles too, that lets the player buy additional stuff for the game. I’m not talking about hats, or a new dress for your League of Legends champion. I’m talking about game-changing items. If you buy item X your champion can level up faster, and if you pair item X with item Y, that is also available for purchase, then you can advance to the next level quicker. Smartphone games are plagued by such tactic, and unfortunately, it seems like it’s advancing each year, more and more.

But wait a minute, you may say, isn’t this a great way to get premium content and pay back modders? Yes, and no.

It’s a thin line that only time could tell if it’s going to really work out in the end, or shatter the line completely; but one can make some logical assumptions based on human nature. Anyone can be a modder, and you don’t require any certification in order to put your product on sale. As a modder, I am not required to update my mod for every game update. I’m not even require to make it compatible with other mods on Steam’s Workshop. Of course, I could do that, I could take care of the people that bought my work, but wouldn’t it be more profitable to release the same mode, but this time to be compatible with the latest patch?

How about refunds? Am I obligated to refund money? Yes, but within a 30 day window. In those 30 days it’s incredibly hard to find compatibility problems with other mods, and new game updates don’t come out every month. After the 30 day period I can keep the money even if the mod doesn’t work any more.

The whole system needs to be re-hauled, and we hope that this isn’t Steam’s Workshop last form – you need to sell over $100 worth of mods for Valve to pay you. A complete shame.

It’s a whole fiasco at this moment. Various modding websites have closed their doors, and taken down mods because the free content offered by those sites was found in the Workshop for sale.

Youtub’er Cephei has uploaded the perfect parody to the whole situation.

UPDATE 29.04.2015 – It seems like Gabe Newell, Valve’s founder and owner, has realized what an incredible horrible thing they’ve done, and they terminated the whole project. Bethesda also is acknowledges the fiasco they put themselves in. Nice damage control, but gamers won’t forget this. It’s really great that they listened to the community, but we, the gamers, need to be aware and not let this happen next time.

You can read the official statement on Valve’s Steam Workshop page.

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Polluted Air Can Damage Your Brain!

April 27, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

City polluted air can really hurt your brain – researchers from Harvard have announced on Thursday.

We all know that polluted air is bad for you, and we always knew that it hurts our body in a way, but we always thought that our lungs were at stake here, not our brains.

A study in the Stroke journal has found that senior citizens that are exposed, or inhale on a day to day basis small particles that are emitted in form of car exhausts, have a higher risk of mini-strokes, and brain scans have shown smaller brain volumes – when comparing to less polluted areas.

The World Health Organization, for short WHO, has declared air pollution to be the leading cause of cancer. Now findings suggest that just by inhaling dirty city air, our brain ages a full year. ” It suggests that subtle but potentially harmful effects are going on: The effect on the brain of being one year older is similar to the effect of pollution.” study’s lead author, Elissa Wilker has stated. Elissa is an instructor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and a researcher at the Cardiovascular Epidemiological Research Unit at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Wilker and her colleagues have crunched data from 1995 to 2005 regarding MRI scans for senior citizens age 60 years and older. Their discovery was baffling, to say the least. Comparing from the pool of 943 adults, that shown no symptoms of dementia, or strokes who also lived in the most polluted areas, with those who lived in the most clean zones, researchers have found that those exposed to dirty city air have a 46 percent higher risk of mini-strokes and a 0.32 percent reduction in brain volume. – The scans were done as part of the Framingham Offspring Study.

But nobody knows how pollution affects our brain. “That’s the million dollar question,” Wilker said. “We think when you breathe those particles in they can cause inflammation.” But researchers are not sure. It is a mystery whether inflammation that starts in the lungs spreads to the brain, or the brain somehow sucks in all the toxic particles.

Dr. Lawrence Wechsler, an expert that hasn’t collaborated on Wilker’s study, and who is also the chairman of the department of neurology at the University of Pittsburgh, has stated that the new research ” is a little worrisome for those of us living in cities.”. And that ” this is the most solid evidence we’ve had to date that there might really be some association between the low levels of pollution people are exposed to and some kind of long-term brain injury.”

Polluted air can be our downfall, and we have just been starting to discover how much it affects our body. But more so, polluted air is the arch enemy of senior citizens. With a 46 higher risk of having mini-strokes, we need a solution as soon as possible.

Dr. Beate Ritz, another scientist that is not affiliated to Wilker’s research, who is also a chair of the department of epidemiology at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health has stated that ” Mini-strokes don’t cause as much damage as a larger stroke, but sometimes they can do nasty things depending on where they are [in the brain]. They won’t leave you totally disabled but they can make your health-related quality of life much lower.”.

And the nasty thing about mini-strokes, Ritz says, is that you don’t even know when you’re having one ” You might be a little more dizzy today and then lose a little more vision tomorrow. And people tend to attribute that to ageing instead of knowing what happened.”

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Call of Duty: Black Ops III Trailer Reveals 4-Player Campaign

April 27, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

The first trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops III has finally been set free by developer Treyarch.

The trailer sheds a light on the time frame of the franchise’s new installment – it’s somewhere in the near future.

There is a huge difference between Black Ops III and last year’s Advanced Warfare; after all, there are different developers on board this time. Even though is set a little bit further in time than its predecessor, in 2060, there is absolutely no connection between the games. The new game will focus more on robot soldiers, and cyborg enhancements – the developers probably all saw Neil Blomkamp’s Chappie, and thought what a great idea; hopefully with less Die Antwoord present.

The trailer looks amazing. It starts with Rolling Stone’s Paint It Black – with gunshots synchronized to the drum’s beat – and it showcases a world in turmoil. Man against machine, fighting to the very end of extinction.

Ow, did I forget to mention that the zombie mode will most likely be present in Call of Duty: Black Ops III? The last 3 seconds of the trailer blatantly hints us that zombies will make a reappearance in the new installment. Zombie mode will have its own experience point-based progression system, set apart from the campaign mode, and the multiplayer fiasco. I say fiasco, because that’s the truth. Everyone runs around, shooting everything in sight. At least, that what happens in pub games.

The graphics looks great, but we aren’t just excited for more eye candy games. I, for one, can’t wait to play the game with my friends. Black Ops III features a 4 player co-op campaign – and it will also include a two-player split screen option.

With that in mind, the games has taken a different path, starting with how maps are constructed – you should expect wider, and larger maps. Cinematics and cut scenes will also be somewhat new – from the perspective of both soldier-mounted cameras, and third person view. Who knows, maybe we’ll see cut scenes from a robot’s point of view. Maybe they aren’t all that bad, maybe they are all misunderstood sentient, blood thirsty beings. Who knows?!

Exo-suits won’t make a reappearance in CoD: BO III, but the player will still be able to jump high in the air, and manoeuvre himself both in singleplayer, and multiplayer.

Only 4 out of the 9 classes for the on-line mode have been announced:

Reaper – a little gun wielding robot;
Seraph – in charge of a powerful revolver that will blow you to smithereens;
Outrider – master of bow and arrow; high tech compound bow that is;
Ruin – who has his mind dead set on explosives, and how to kill you with said explosives;

If you’ve played Titanfall, you’ll be happy to know that Call of Duty has paid attention to its own community, and others as well. The new game will feature wall run, and unlimited sprint.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be available on the 6th of November for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. If you pre-order the game, you’ll have access to the multiplayer open beta.

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GameStop is Buying and Selling Retro Game Consoles

April 24, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Great news for retro game fans. GameStop is, once again, buying and selling retro game consoles, and of course games and accessories. PlayStation 1, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis – buying these will be a blast from the past for sure.

This program will commence in 2 markets in the USA – New York City and Birmingham, Alabama. Over 250 stores will take up on this pilot program, starting with the 25th of April.

A GameStop spokeperson has been reported saying through IGN that the video game retailer will start to accept consoles, games and accessories of the retro kind all the way back to the NES.

The same spokeperson has also stated that if the program is a huge success it will make its mark in all of the company’s retail stores across the United States within a year’s time.

Besides the aforementioned list of consoles that will be available through the company’s retail stores, clients will also find the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Dreamcast. This highly praised program has the goal in bringing more titles for clients to buy, or sell – passing the 5,000 mark is considered reaching said goal.

” We will bring all of the product back through the Refurbishment Operations Center for inspection, testing and repair. Time to build up a good assortment for retro games fans to select from when shopping.”, GameStop’s spokeperson has told IGN.

It is noted that from the time the company accepts trades from its clients, to the time the store will actual sell retro consoles, and games it will take 2 months. The allocated time is more than sufficient for GameStop to check the trades, repair them and put them on sale so a gamer can garner a huge collection of vintage goodies.

If you’re planning on going to a GameStop retail store some time in the near future with the intent of trying out consoles, or buying them directly then, you’ll be disappointed. Purchases of retro games, consoles and accesories can only be made through GameStop’s website or through the web-in-store system of the company.

Retro devices will have a standard warranty – the same one that all refurbished and used consoles come with if you choose the company’s services.

Be prepared to scout the official website in about 2 months time for that Battletoads cartridge that you were dying to get.

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Telltale Games and Marvel Teamed Up for a New Video-Game

April 24, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

Telltale Games went to Twitter to announce their collaboration with the Disney-owned media giant – a new video game set in the Marvel Universe is due to appear in 2017.

Announced this evening in San Francisco, we’re excited to reveal an all-new partnership with the incredible team at Marvel Entertainment. We’ll be teaming up on the development of an upcoming Telltale game series project set to premiere in 2017!

Telltale Games are the ones behind the superb interactive drama games like The Walking Dead Season 1, and Season 2, Tales from The Borderlands, and Game of Thrones – with Minecraft: Story Mode also in development, it seems that Telltale is planning on having some great years ahead. Although their latest releases – GoT and TFTB – are weak compared with the first 2 seasons of The Walking Dead, we are keeping our hopes high.

At this point we can only let our imagination go wild – there is absolutely no info regarding what the game will be about. Possibly players will take the avatar of a young super-hero that meets occasionally with our all-time favourites Iron Man, Thor, Loki, Captain America and The Hulk. It is even possible that the developers will focus more on Guardians of the Galaxy.

If we take a look at Marvel’s movie release calendar we’ll notice that these 3 will hit cinemas in 2017:

May the 5th – Guardians of the Galaxy 2
July the 27th – The Spectacular Spider-Man
November the 3rd – Thor: Ragnarok

Plot wise, it can go any way, but it would seem logical to have a game that would promote these movies. I’m not saying that Marvel’s popularity is fading, but you always need to take precautions when it involves this billion dollar industry. As a fun fact, this week MCU – Marvel Cinematic Universe – is going to surpass the Harry Potter movies as the biggest film franchise in history. When you think that 15 years ago they were on the brink of bankruptcy.

I’m curious to what they are going to achieve, hopefully something great. And on that curiosity, a thought comes into mind. What cameo will Stan Lee have? He has been present in all MCU movies, he must portray an incredibly small role in the game also.

And another fun fact. With today’s release of Avengers 2, Stan Lee will probably surpass Steven Spielberg as number one producer in total domestic gross – almost $400 million is between these 2 giants.

Us comic-book geeks can just jump in excitement that we get more goodies – if X-Men could make a great come back with Telltale’s new game I can die happy.

In February Telltale announced that they are trying something new – a game/TV show hybrid project called “Super Show”. It is unknown at this point if the M-Universe will be under this model.

I know I’m just giddy as a school-girl right now. How about you? What are your thoughts on this alliance?

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Gioteck HC-4 Review

April 24, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

Gamers are really picky when it comes down to sound quality. I remember back in the day, in my Counter-Strike 1.6 phase, when I was absolutely addicted to professional gaming and everything had to be perfect – from the keyboard and mouse that I was using, to my headset so I can hear my enemy’s footsteps. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t had enough money to buy a proper headset and I was using a really cheap one that cost me about $5. But alas, we live in the future now and we have a ton of premium gaming headsets. One that stands out is the Gioteck HC-4.

It’s specifically targeted towards PS4 gamers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t plug it into your tablet, smartphone, laptop or any device that has a 3.5mm audio input.

How does the Gioteck stand out?

Well firstly, it’s incredibly cheap for what it offers. You can buy it for $45, while other premium headsets start at $80 – like the Turtle Beach Ear Force P12.

It seems to have garnered a fan base because it listens to the gaming community and their complaints – knowing how to take feedback is essential in a successful business. The built-in rechargeable battery makes the HC-4 stand out; not only does it amplify your sound, so you never miss an enemy sneaking up on you, but if you run out of battery while playing, the sound won’t go off, it’ll only reduce the volume. You can easily recharge it using the included micro-USB cable.

While other premium headsets offer wireless connectivity, the HC-4 prefers to promote utility.

Material wise, I can say that it ain’t cheap plastic that will hurt your ears, or strangle your head, but it ain’t the best material out there. Sure, it’s not all covered in leather, but it does its job well, and you won’t be feeling any pain using it for your gaming sessions. The mic is good, the speakers are more than enough for casual, and professional gamers alike and it works with a multitude of devices.

The Gioteck HC-4 sports a simple design!

Gioteck manufactures a lot of gaming accessories – stands, controllers, cables, various headsets – not only dedicated for consoles like PS3, and Xbox 360, but for PCs too. Their target is to undercut official products, not with sheer numbers, but offering a viable, and a cheaper, option. HC-4 is one of their most successful products.

HC-4’s design is pretty cool – mostly because it is simple.

If you’ve seen a headset once in your life, then you are well acquainted with this one. The cable leads from the left ear-cup so you can connect to any device you want, it comes with an 3.5mm adaptor used to transmit both audio and microphone signals, and its blue colour seems to hit a soft spot with PS4 users.

As a side note, you can use The HC-4 with your Xbox One too, but you will need to buy a separate adapter.

For $45 you know that it’s cheap, but you wouldn’t have guessed the price just by looking at it, because it doesn’t look cheap. The plastic doesn’t shine, and wearing the headset will not put a tacky label on your forehead.

The padding around the ear-cups and headband are pretty comfortable – yeah, you can feel the difference between them and a $100 headset, but don’t forget how much you paid for it. And weighing at about 300 grams it will not put a strain on your head, and more importantly neck – and also, it will not feel really flimsy wearing it while you move your head around.

Out of pure accident I dropped my HC-4 on a wooden floor from an average height, that a gamer can drop it, and it went on working like before.

It’s blue and black colour scheme really fits it perfectly. The company’s logos aren’t that annoying on the sides – the one that I really felt it was awkward put was the one on the headband. It could have been much more cooler without it being there. But I wouldn’t mind going out with it, only if the microphone would have been detachable, and the cable a lot longer. It’s really too short for my taste – 60 cm is not even the distance from your pockets to your ears. More so, the cable can impose some difficulties to those that have a cramped gaming space. You have been warned!

The HC-4 sports four buttons on the left ear-cup:

One button turns the headset on or off
Two buttons shift the volume up and down
And the last button turns your mic on and off

Button functionality seems to vary from product to product. Not by much, but it’s worth noting that when paired with a MacBook the button that usually turned the microphone on and off, instead gives you the possibility of pausing and un-pausing it.

The headset also comes paired with a micro-USB cable that lets you recharge the battery that amplifies the volume. Although it really isn’t required for the battery to be fully charged for it it to work, but it’s a nice touch if you want to hear everything louder – like that Rogue stealthing near you, and on the crawl to annihilate your avatar, or that demo-man in Team Fortress 2 that just put some sticky bombs in the room in front of you.

Gioteck offers slightly above the average audio quality!

Logic dictates that you shouldn’t expect high-end quality audio coming out of your headset, but that doesn’t mean its output is weak. Au contrair it’s actually good. It doesn’t have noise cancellation features, nor does it fully support surround sound, but it does its job well.

You’ll have no problems playing Dragon Age Inquisition and listening to the incredible voice-overs, or the extraordinary oriental soundtrack, paired with undead growls from Dying Light.

But the HC-4 really excels in the volume output department. It’s loud as hell if you use the rechargeable battery, and you won’t feel disappointed after using it – like some of its higher-priced competitors that just stand in HC-4’s shadow; to name one – Turtle Beach.

Even though you won’t get the noise cancellation feature, the volume output is more than enough when it comes to blocking outside noises like birds chirping, dogs growling, and people fidgeting in the subway.

The battery lasts up to 8 hours, and when it runs out you’ll just get reduced volume – no need to run to a electric outlet to immediately pump some sweet life juice into it.

The microphone is okay’ish. I mean, I’m not entirely disappointed in it – the only thing that truly annoys the living hell out of me is that it isn’t detachable. While testing it in various games such as World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2, and with software like Skype and Ventrilo, other gamers, users, have reported clear audio.

Gioteck HC-4 conclusion. Should I buy it?

Yes, you should definitely buy it. It is one of the best premium headsets at this price range, the only other headset that tries to compete with the HC-4 is the Tritton Kama at roughly $38.

Pros

Works with a multitude of devices – laptops, smartphones, tablets, consoles

Volume output is incredible

Audio quality is above the average

Great battery life – that doesn’t affect the headset’s usability

Cons

The microphone isn’t detachable

The headphone cable is really short

Audio cable isn’t detachable

What headset do you use, if any, for your gaming needs?

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A Quick List of Affordable Laptops

April 21, 2015 By Michael Turner Leave a Comment

Whether you’re a student, a stay at home mom or just looking for affordable laptops you’ve come to the right place!

It’s not easy scouring the internet and reading review after review, searching for the most okay laptop that also fits in your budget. Some of us have taken to searching in stores, meddling with its physical state before deciding on whether we want to buy it or not, but I am also aware of the fact that we don’t all have this luxury – the luxury of free time.

Let’s break the ice with:

Affordable Laptops #1 – HP Chromebook 11

It goes for $299, and it’s already available in stores – so no need to wait for it to be released. It sports a slim and stylish design, with an 11-inch IPS display that stands at a resolution of 1366×768 – and it makes the Chromebook feel like a premium laptop.

The killer feature that I want to start this mini review with is that HP has built into its laptop a 4G LTE modem that frees it from the tight grip, and limitations, of WiFi coverage. It’s shocking that not all laptops come bundled with the 4G LTE modem, and its more shocking that we don’t see a trend starting. A shame really.

Moving on, the Chromebook is built from a magnesium alloy frame clad enveloped in glossy white plastic. It doesn’t look tacky, or cheap, but when you put your hands on it you can feel the low quality builds – it’s not a deal breaker, but it’s something worth noting. You can also have it in blue, red, yellow and green, but to be honest, white is more good looking.

The keyboard is slightly smaller due to the laptop being small in size, but the keys aren’t cramped together, and you can easily type all day without stressing yourself. Because it uses Chrome OS, you’ll see Chrome specific keys function keys on the top of the keyboard – a dedicated search key where caps lock used to be, and of course no Windows key. The multitouch trackpad doesn’t excel in any way, and if you used a trackpad before, there’s nothing new to it – this doesn’t mean it’s faulty, or falls down in this department, it’s quite a nifty piece that keeps the laptop feeling premium.

It makes use of a great, and unique feature that involves the power charger – it uses a microUSB connector like the majority of smartphones and tablets. Besides the power charger port, it is also equipped with 2 USB 2.0 ports, a 2-in-1 microphone and headphone jack and that’s about it. No, unfortunately it doesn’t have a HDMI port, but the microUSB connector supports SlimPort and you can use an adapter to output HDMI.

Chromebooks usually don’t have much local storage – this one has only about 16GB – but it comes paired with 100GB of free space on Google Drive.

Performance wise it’s fitted with a 1.7GHz dual-core ARM Samsung Exynos 5250 processor, 2 GB of RAM.

Pros

Battery life that consists of 10 hours.

4G LTE capabilities

Great IPS display

Cool design

Cons

Low port selection

Not too much local storage – 16GB

Affordable Laptops #2 – Acer Chromebook C720P-2600

The MSRP price puts it at $299, but the lowest price I’ve seen it sell was about $310 – not that big of a difference, but when you’re on a budget everything counts.

Made out of a polycarbonate chassis, and sporting a similar style like the previous discussed Chromebook 11, it stands out as a sleek design laptop that you can’t be ashamed with. The keyboard ain’t really that bad – it’s easy and comfortable; and the trackpad isn’t small, but it isn’t what you’re most likely used to on flag-ship devices.

Sporting a 11.6-inch, 1366×768 resolution, and a 10-point touch screen, it feels like a new kind of beast comparing it to its predecessors. You don’t have to worry about not seeing the screen while using the laptop in a darkened room, nor one filled with light, because glare control is fully present, and blended with the system’s IPS screen makes it a hard foe to keep down.

Regarding local storage, you don’t have much – only 32GB. But you can add more storage by adding an SD card – although I don’t recommend keeping it plugged throughout the day, because users have reported problems with it. The card slot is poorly made, and the SD card will stick out of your laptop making it a huge inconvenience. You get 100GB of free storage place on Google Drive – but it’s only free for your first two years.

Port wise you get 1 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0, a HDMI port, and that’s about it. Nothing else in this department.

I can’t say I’m excited about it’s performance capabilities, but for $299 I don’t expect much. A Haswell-based Intel Celeron 2955U processor, and 2GB of DDR3L RAM. Its just perfect for surfing the web, and you can also watch 720p and 1080p movies without a hitch.

Battery life isn’t really that great, and it can only last you about 7 hours and 30 minutes.

Pros

Quick boot time

Great anti-glare display

Weighs under 3 pounds

Cons

No 4G/LTE option

Low battery life

SD card sticks annoyingly out of the laptop

Affordable Laptops #3 – HP Stream 13

HP’s laptop is being sold at the shockingly low price of $229, and it’s meant to compete with Chromebooks. It’s a perfect choice for those who can’t stand browser based laptops, and want something on that price range – it fully supports Windows 8.1.

It weighs about 3.3 pounds, and measuring about 0.77 by 13.25 by 9 inches, it perfectly fits your airplane, or bus tray, making it even more desirable.

Its design is quite handsome, but you can clearly distinguish it as a cheaper laptop, even though at first touch the plastic feels of a higher quality. The standard model sports, what HP loves to call, Horizon Blue – it also comes in Orchid Magenta. The one-piece touchpad is fully responsive, and the keyboard is pretty great constructed and it won’t bring you to the brink of throwing it out the window like some cheaper models have the tendency to do – also a tendency to bring out our hidden rage.

The 13.3-inch display handles a 1366×768 resolution and its just enough for usage in a normal lit room. I have encountered a couple of minor problems when the room had more than average lighting, and also some viewing angles are just awkward, and narrow – would not recommend watching movie marathons on it, unless you keep it near you.

The IPS screen is the the same one as the Chromebook 11, but somehow, while watching the screen from its sides or too far vertically speaking, the colors seem washed out or just simply put dark – of course, the text isn’t that fine and smooth.

Its tiny speakers are kind of low quality to be honest. They are good if you are in a slightly small room, but don’t expect anything to be heard if there are people talking in the room.

Storage space isn’t overwhelming and it stands at 32GB – but don’t fret, you can add more storage space by using a USB drive, or the system’s microSD card slot. If that doesn’t say anything to you, wait until you hear this. HP offers 1TB of online cloud storage with Microsoft’s OneDrive – available for free only in the first year. Besides having a microSD card slot it also sports a HDMI port, a headset jack, two USB 2.0 ports, and single USB 3.0.

HP’s laptop isn’t the best high-performance laptop out there, but it does its job well. A 2.16GHz Intel Celeron N2480 processor with integrated Intel HD graphics isn’t something gamers want to hear, but the system’s SSD helps things run more faster, and better.

Battery life is somewhat on the margins of greatness – 9 hours and 9 minutes.

Pros

Really cheap for what it offers

Kinda great battery life

Free 1 TB OneDrive storage for a year

Cons

Viewing angles are somewhat of a deal breaker

Tiny speakers that are simply not enough

Affordable Laptops #4 – Asus Chromebook C300

The MSRP price puts it at $249, but I’ve seen it at the low price of $199. It has a larger screen than the Chromebook 11, but with almost the same performance capabilities.

The 13-inch laptop sports a quite beautiful and nice textured design, enveloping the polycarbonate top lid and keyboard deck. Unfortunately the plastic looks cheap, and it shines giving it a tacky look, but if you don’t mind this factor, then by all means it’s kinda great.

Let’s talk ports. You get a HDMI port, headset jack, AC power adapter, SD card reader, single USB 2.0 port, or USB 3.0 port.

Keyboard isn’t half bad either, and it feels comfortable typing hours on it, and the touchpad supports multitouch – two fingers swipes aren’t problematic, and the touchpad does its job well.

Google offers are also include with your purchase. Free two year subscription to 100GB of storage on Google Drive, and and a 60-Day Google Play All Access subscription.

Cloud storage is a must when we’re talking about Chromebook. It’s local storage is a measly 16GB – you can add more storage with a SD Card though.

The 13-inch Asus Chromebook has a resolution of 1366×768. Even though the LCD display is top notch, it doesn’t reach the standards of an IPS screen. Trying to see what’s going on on the screen from the sides, or even vertically, isn’t going to accomplish you anything.

Performance wise it comes with an Intel Celeron N2830 dual-core processor with Intel HD Graphics, and 2GB of RAM. Not at all for gaming, but browser based games run smoothly.

Battery life is really great – 11 hours of pure joy surfing the interwebz, watching movies, listening to music, or just playing Angry Birds.

Pros

Pretty large screen for a Chromebook

Great battery life

Comfortable keyboard and touchpad

Cons

The plastic looks tacky and cheap

Can’t add more RAM to the existing 2GB

Affordable Laptops #5 – Acer Aspire E3-111-C1BW

Selling at $300, this Acer Aspire is one of the best laptops that supports Windows at the $200-$400 price range – that is dominated by Chromebooks. It has a really great design, and colour scheme that some people will absolutely love, while others will hate.

Acer calls the colours Rhodonite Pink – it would scream pink out of it lungs, if it had any. This is one major problem with the laptop. While it has been proven that some shoppers are quite fond of strong colors like Pink, others seems to run away. I for one fall in the latter part of the group – it’s not just the fact that I can’t stand pink because I see it as really tacky; it’s because I would rather prefer white, a cyan-blue, or a dark-red laptop.

The plastic laptop weighs about 2.84 pounds making it super easy to pick and go – more so if you live a hectic day to day life.

It has a 11.6-inch display that holds a resolution of 1366×768. It’s not that great to be honest, as it doesn’t even have a touch screen, but at this price, it’s pretty okay. The speakers on the Acer while do providing a mediocre quality, output low volume and absolutely no bass whatsoever.

Surprisingly the keyboard is really great, and your fingers won’t go numb typing away that report that is due in 2 hours – and it also looks apart combined with the Rhodonite Pink. The touchpad is quite big 4.1 inches across – and it also fully supports Windows 8.1 gestures.

It comes packed with 3 USB ports – 1 USB 3.0, and 2 USB 2.0; a SD card reader, an HDMI-out port, and a 2-in-1 headphone, and microphone jack. Also, you have a Kensington lock slot.

Now, regarding its storage space it is the big daddy of this round-up. It has a 500GB hard drive, at 5,400 rpm. Even though Acer bundles in a couple of software, you won’t feel like storage space is taken away from you – you’ll get 30 day trials for McAfee LiveSafe Security Suite and Microsoft Office 365, also apps like Amazon Kindle Reader, Netflix, HuluPlus, AccuWeather. Plus a collection of game samples from WildTangent.

Now if we take a look at its performance capabilities the Acer Aspire E3 offers an Intel Celeron N2930 processor and 4GB of RAM. Like all budget laptops, this one ain’t for gaming, but it does good if you want to write a paper on it, watch a movie, stream something, and surf the internet. But you’ll indeed notice that it’s technical capabilities are lacking – slow performance all around will most likely frustrate you to smithereens.

Battery life ranks up to 5 hours – yikes!

Pros

Some people love Rhodonite Pink, and the laptop’s design

Tiny size that can fit anything

Cons

Some people definitely hate Rhodonite Pink, and the laptop’s design

Low battery life

Weak performance

No touch screen

Affordable Laptops #6 – HP Stream 11

At #3 we talked about the HP Stream 13 and its capabilities. Now it’s time for the Stream 11.

Cheaper than its larger brother, the HP Stream 11 is selling for about $175.

It’s another laptop designed specifically to compete with Chromebooks – but unfortunately it falls short in almost every category.

The plastic body screams I’m cheap, buy me for one hour tonight – because that’s probably how much it will take you to try it out, then feel regret and never make eye contact with devices ever again. The standard Orchid Magenta colour is just shockingly ugly on the low quality plastic. It’s somehow similar to the previous Acer we talked about, but without any of its redeeming qualities. Luckily, you can get it in Horizon Blue.

The sound quality of its speakers is somewhat decent – probably due to the fact of the sound being enhanced with DTS Studio Sound. The volume won’t be enough even when watching a movie. This means that listening to music through the laptop’s speakers is out of the question. If I were to give it a rating, I would give it 2 stars out of 5.

Keyboard is exactly like its older brother, but somewhere in the production line, the touchpad was left out, and didn’t get the same treatment. It’s way too over-sensitive, and anything that approaches its edges will make it go berserk and swipe like crazy, and open apps that you had no intention of starting them up in the first place. Turning off edge swipes in the Synaptics control panel will alleviate the problem, but you shouldn’t be doing this at all – you bought a product for its features, not to turn them off due to crazy bugs. You don’t see them in the HP Stream 13, and we hope that with some sort of driver update, the touchpad will work normally.

Don’t expect variety regarding ports, they are fairly basic, like the laptop’s entirety. So we have 2 USB ports – USB 2.0, and USB 3.0; an HDMI port, a headset jack, the power connector and an SD card slot.

Local storage consists of a shy 32GB SSD, and it tries to win you over with its cloud storage offers. 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage that will be available for free in the first year.

The HP Stream 11 also comes bundled with free apps for you to enjoy – one free year of Office 365 Personal, Netflix, Skype, and other HP branded apps like HP Connected Drive, HP Connected Photo, and of course HP Connected Music. Everything is connected at HP – even their simplicity in picking names.

The only great thing that seems to come out of this whole ordeal is that it runs Windows 8.1. Now, I said that it runs it. I didn’t specify that it works good, it just works.

Now performance wise, it is fitted with a 2.16GHz Intel Celeron N2840 processor, and 2 GB of memory. Not much. These are borderline low specs.

Now, battery life is incredible – ranks 9 hours and 30 minutes of runtime.

Pros

Runs Windows 8.1

Great battery life

Cons

Lacks performance, and lags when surfing webpages

Buggy touchpad

Feels cheap and tacky; not only due to its Rhodonite Pink

Affordable Laptops #7 – Toshiba Satellite Radius 11

The last entry in our quick list of affordable laptops will be held by the Toshiba Satellite Radius 11. Lowest price $330.

It’s not just a laptop, it’s a hybrid – meaning that it can also turn into a tablet at your will. Its Toshiba’s way of making themselves known in the hybrid market – a place dominated by Lenovo, and Asus.

The 2-in-1 design looks crisp and premium. You have 4 modes in which you can use the device – Laptop, Tablet, Tabletop meaning its folded flat, Presentation when it’s propped up like a tent, and Audience when the touch screen shown with keyboard is folded back as a base. Weighing at 2.9 pounds, you won’t have problems carrying it around, and using its 4 modes.

The 11.6-inch screen holds up a resolution of 1366×768 – nothing special if you ask me, but it’s worth noting that it will keep it in Laptop and Tablet mode. It also offers 10-finger touch support and edge-to-edge glass.

The keyboard is comfortable but there is no backlight available – it can be a pain for those who don’t know a keyboard, but it’s definitely not a deal breaker.

It comes outfitted with a USB 2.0 port and a headset jack, along with a Kensington lock slot and physical buttons for volume control, a full-size HDMI-out port, a USB 3.0 port, and an SD card slot, a power connector and an ON/OFF button.

Storage wise, you can also call it one of the top dogs in the list. It boasts a 500GB HDD. Toshiba pre-installs several apps for your enjoyment, of course. 30-day trials of McAfee Live Safe 2014 and Microsoft Office 365, Adobe Reader, Google Drive, Amazon Kindle reader, retail apps like Amazon, and Ebay, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and sample games from WildTangent.

It does rather well in the performance department with an Intel Celeron N2840 processor and 4GB of RAM. But take this with a grain of salt – it has performance issues, but they are nothing compared with what you can find at this price range.

Battery life doesn’t shine. It doesn’t shine at all. It only lasts up to 5 hours and 10 minutes.

Pros

Hybrid laptop for $330

Variety regarding ports

More than enough storage space

Cons

Really short battery life

A ton of pre-installed apps

Hopefully you’ll manage to buy a device that will make you happy. If you have something in mind, whether it is a question regarding one of the devices in our affordable laptops list, or one device that didn’t made the list, feel free to post in the comments section below.

Image Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

The Little Rolling Robot From the First Star Wars Trailer is Real!

April 21, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

You definitely remember the little rolling robot that resembles a soccer ball, don’t you? If you don’t recall it, let me refresh your memory – it’s already fast forwarded to the :30 mark; or you can just watch the whole Star Wars: The Force Awakens official teaser trailer.

Somewhat astonishing that J.J. Abrams, the man in charge with directing and co-producing the next installment in the epic space opera franchise, has not used CGI for this little cute robot named BB-8 Droid – instead they built it!

Don’t believe me? Take a look here. It looks a lot more derpier than the trailer, and I was gripping my fists the whole time the little droid was moving – it gives this false sensation that its head is going to fall down. It was officially unveiled as a real robot at the Star Wars Celebration event. It’s a real robot as R2 D2 is. Clearly, someone behind the scenes is controlling the BB-8 Droid; but hey, at least there’s no Kenny Baker inside actually moving it.

” Neil Scanlan and his incredible team… built and puppeteered BB-8 in the movie, and did an extraordinary job. It was better for the actors, better for the film itself — you’ll see their work. It was amazing.”, said director J.J. Abrams.

Some of us die hard Star Wars geeks won’t be waiting just for the movie to hit cinemas, but also for behind the scenes footage – my curiosity is reaching critical levels just thinking about this.

It’s more than obvious that it will sell like warm bread – not just the movie, but merchandise portraying the new Droid face of Star Wars. But before you go out and spend a gazilion dollars on toys, pillow cases, probably even undies, keep in mind that you can build your very own BB-8 Droid!

Christian Poulsen is an industrial engineer student, and also a Star Wars aficionado, that managed to build, in his very own home, the little robot. A video is available for you to be aww struck.

As a real Victor Frankenstein, Christian got the carcass of a remote-controlled robot ball toy, which one can control through a smartphone, reshaped it, meddled a little bit with its internal circuitry, and presto!

As a little farewell gift, I’ll leave with you the latest trailer of Star Wars: The Force Awakens!

Are you going to tune in at your local cinemas on December the 18th? Or you think it’s going to have the same faith as the last trilogy?

Image Source: 1, 2

Google Handwriting Input – a new app for Android

April 17, 2015 By Deborah Campbell Leave a Comment

Google Handwriting Input is a free app that has just been released, and it’s designed for those butterfingers among us that hate to type messages on a smartphone – you can write notes instead of typing.

Available for any device running Android 4.0.3 or higher, this cute little app transforms your handwriting into a typeface.

Google Handwriting Input supports 82 languages in 20 different scripts. It works with both printed and cursive writing input – with, or without a stylus.

It seems like a life saver for those who just hate typing messages – I know I can’t stand replying to e-mails, or texts with my smartphone, and I would rather call the person that I wish to talk to.

It can also recognize emojis, meaning you can draw your very own smiley face, and send it as a text – or you can make a terrifying angry face and scare Timmy who borrowed some money from you 5 months ago and hasn’t paid it back; it may be only $10, but it’s your money!

You needn’t worry about having a permanent connection to the internet. The app can choose from local or cloud-based handwriting recognition. Although, Google has recommended that the latter should be used by default, because it contains a ton more algorithms, and probably some magic too, that are more accurate.

This isn’t the first time Google meddles with handwriting recognition tools. You could have used this function in the Google Translate app, on mobile search and the Google Input Tool. But it’s the first time Google offers full support for Android devices.

It feels kinda sluggish to be honest. I don’t think it will be as used as Google wants it to. It’s not faster than typing, and sometimes it even misinterprets your words – it’s probably just me and my horrid handwriting, but I suppose I’m not the only one in this world.

All in all, it’s a free handwriting app and we shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth.

For more info, check out Google’s blogpost.

Plan on using it? Take some screenies with your beautiful, or horrible handwriting and share them with us in the comments section below!

Image Source: 1

How does the Gioteck stand out?

The Gioteck HC-4 sports a simple design!

Gioteck offers slightly above the average audio quality!

Gioteck HC-4 conclusion. Should I buy it?

Affordable Laptops #1 – HP Chromebook 11

Affordable Laptops #2 – Acer Chromebook C720P-2600

Affordable Laptops #3 – HP Stream 13

Affordable Laptops #4 – Asus Chromebook C300

Affordable Laptops #5 – Acer Aspire E3-111-C1BW

Affordable Laptops #6 – HP Stream 11

Affordable Laptops #7 – Toshiba Satellite Radius 11

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