The Atari Lynx was initially released in 1989, and was the first ever colour screened portable gaming system. The original design was HUGE, but in 1991 Atari saw fit to re-release the handheld, much in the same way Sony and Microsoft do nowadays (Slim models). The result was the Lynx II, a more streamlined version of the 16-bit beast. Hardware wise not much had changed, the screen was a bit clearer, the headphone jack was now stereo, and you could save your batteries by turning off the backlight. The heart of it was the same, but it still wasn’t enough to keep pace with Nintendo. The technically inferior (but cheaper) Gameboy was fast outselling the poor old Lynx.

Back in the day I was merely 10 years old while this battle for portable supremacy took place. Santa Claus had got me a Master System II for Christmas, and that was all I was getting! I remember seeing the Lynx for sale in the Special Reserve catalogues. I never really paid much attention as it seemed pricey, and I was just a kid.

Twenty years later, I’m (physically) no longer a child. But I do have the spare cash I once craved. Now I tend to think back to gadgets I couldn’t afford when I was younger, and load up my best friend, eBay. I did this a couple of weeks back, and through the post came a boxed Atari Lynx II: Batman Returns Edition. Not only did it come with one of the hardest games ever (Batman Returns), it also had the classic California Games, and the addictive puzzle game, Klax. Onwards with the review.

Hardware

Let me just start by saying the Lynx II is massive. I was shocked when I took it out of the box, I’d never actually seen one in real life before. Holding it in my hands I immediately thought to myself, I bet this has a lot of unused space inside it (the Apple in me). In these modern days we’re so used to the display dominating the hardware. Back in the 90′s it was get what you’re given. Taking it in hand you feel two rubber grips at the rear. If we turn it round you’ll notice what looks like a place to secure a neck strap. The battery slot is located near the bottom and takes 6xAA cells. It’s quite awkward to get the batteries in, you have to place one at either end of the chamber, then squeeze one in the middle to complete the row. In it’s day this was a well made bit of kit, nowadays though, it’s looks prehistoric.

Controls

The d-pad is big, flat and very clicky. It is surprisingly useable though. If you notice in the pictures, there are two sets of A & B buttons on the right hand side. This was one of the clever features of the Lynx. You could flip the screen 180 degrees (even during gameplay!) so left handers could hold it with the d-pad on right. I don’t think I’ve seen this feature on any other portable to date. Elsewhere, there are six buttons next to the screen, On, Off, Backlight, Option 1, Pause and Option 2. Various two button combinations also offer extra functions, for instance, pushing Pause & Option 2 flips the screen.

Gaming

The cartridges, as with most handhelds on the market, slot into the upper rear of the Lynx. There were variations of cartridge design, but all three of my games are the modern type with a curved top. I stuck Batman in for a quick blast and immediately struggled to focus in on the screen, after a tweak of the brightness dial I managed to get a decent balance of colour and visibility. It would’ve been nice to have a contrast adjustment as the colours look very washed out. Of course this could be due to the age of the device, but I can’t imagine it was that much better when new. If you’re used to playing a PSP or DS you’ll probably take one look at this screen and sigh.

Games load immediately, as you’d expect being cartridge based.  What’s funny is not seeing any sort of Home Menu. Since the original PlayStation days we’ve been greeted by a nice front end menu. None of that here, you’re straight into the game. It was clear straight away what reviews have mentioned about Batman Returns. This has to be one of the most unrewarding games I’ve ever played. I still haven’t made it to the second level, it’s just too difficult. I gave up fairly quickly with that and swapped it out for Klax, a highly addictive puzzle game. This immediately got my attention as the game used a portrait aspect, so you hold the Lynx vertically to play. It felt weird at first, as it’s slightly uncomfortable, but you get used to it. Klax is a very cool game, I’m surprised we haven’t seen it re-made to be honest. The final game in my library was California Games. I used to own this on the Sega Master System and would spend hours playing the kick up game. After a few minutes playing on the Lynx I got frustrated by it all. Was I a better gamer back then? Or did I just not know any better?!

Conclusion

In it’s day I can imagine the Lynx being an absolute powerhouse. 16-bit architecture, colour screen, portable. It had a lot going for it. In modern days though, this is little more than a collectors item. Since writing this review I have placed everything back in the box and put it on display with my other retro consoles. I think this is one generation too far back, and that’s where I’ll leave it.

The wait is over, the much vaunted successor to the DS family is here and available in the UK. I snapped one up at launch after leaving it fairly late with the pre-order. I went for the Aqua Blue model, I just really liked the two-tone colour scheme, which is strange because I’d usually just go for plain black. After looking at the list of launch titles I couldn’t really see anything that interested me a great deal, so I went Nintendo, and got Pilotwings Resort. This was talked about as having the best usage of the ’3Dness’, as well as being a classic Nintendo IP.

The hardware itself is very nice, the Aqua finish is lovely and shimmers in the light. The lid sports two cameras, which enables the taking of 3D photographs. I was surprised by how thick the unit was. I haven’t had a DS since owning a DS lite about a year ago, and I remember that being fairly thin. Obviously all the technical wizardry and enhanced capabilities packed into the 3DS have made it grow a bit. I was especially pleased by the inclusion of a charging dock, I didn’t expect that, it was a welcome addition. I suspect it’ll be something Nintendo will ditch in a few months in order to get the price down (remember when iPods came with docks?).

On Inspection

The right side of the unit has the 3D Depth slider and a WiFi on/off switch. The left side sports a Volume slider and the SD card slot. Nintendo supply you with a 2GB card already in the slot. This is plenty for the time being, especially given the fact the eShop hasn’t been launched yet (and won’t be until the end of May!!). Up front you’ll find a centralised headphone socket. Turning to the rear we have a charging port, cartridge slot, stylus bay, infra red port and lastly the Left/Right Trigger buttons. The cartridge slot accepts both DS and 3DS games, gone is the extra slot to support GBA titles.

One thing that instantly stood out about the 3DS is that it’s absolutely plastered in LEDs! I counted five, and keep expecting more to crop up! We have the Power/Notification indicator (blue), Charge indicator (orange/green), WiFi indicator (orange), 3D indicator (green) and a lovely (lilac) Camera indicator.

Opening up the unit and you immediately feel the quality of the hinge design Nintendo have honed over the years, it’s smooth, precise and clicks into place nicely once fully open. The top screen is now wider and has a higher resolution than the older DS handhelds. (400×240 vs 256×192). This still isn’t very impressive in my opinion, games suffer from aliasing issues simply because the screen resolution is so low you can pick out each individual pixel. It’s no retina display, that’s for sure. There’s a 0.3mp (insanely bad) front facing camera for taking mugshots. I do wish Nintendo would up the quality of the cameras, I mean, a 1.3mp sensor can’t cost that much more! Can it? The lower display is a 3″ resistive touchscreen panel, also with a bumped up resolution (320×240).

Controls

The control scheme is the same as what’s gone before with the older DS systems, but with one major addition, the Circle Pad. Before you think this is a true analogue stick, it isn’t. Think of it as a cross between the almost useless PSP analogue nub and an Xbox 360 thumbstick. It has similar movement characteristics to the PSP nub, but with the lovely concave grip of the 360 pad. It is very useable indeed, and works flawlessly with Pilotwings. There’s also a new Home button (what doesn’t have one of these nowadays?) pushing this takes you back to the DS Menu from wherever you are.

3D Screen

When I first booted up Pilotwings Resort I felt a bit sick, I really did. I was having a hard time focusing on the screen. I instantly noticed what all the reports had been saying, if you move the unit even a centimetre from your direct line of sight then you’ll lose the 3D effect and experience major ghosting. My eyes got sore after about 5 minutes of playing, and 10 minutes later I was beginning to get a headache. Not a good start. I didn’t touch it until the next day when I thought I’d give my rested eyes another drubbing. I’d played about with the 3D slider the night before, but this time I seemed to find the sweet spot. I was playing Pilotwings for about an hour with no real pains. Out of interest, the slider it roughly halfway on mine, any more and I start straining my eyes.

The effect really is rather nice, and with a game like Pilotwings it’s really beneficial. It actually aids in calculating distances to rings, balloons etc, and also gives a good perspective for landing your craft. You genuinely appreciate that added dimension.

Software

The launch lineup wasn’t the strongest, the usual mix of rushed titles with a couple of first party games thrown in. The two games that stand out for me are Pilotwings and Street Fighter IV. I went for Pilotwings because I already own Street Fighter on my 360. There’s quite a bit to mess around with even if you don’t buy a game though. The first thing I did was went to setup a Mii character, this is basically essential. I then went into Mii Plaza to turn on StreetPass. There’s a built in game called Face Raiders, a 3D Camera app (quality is terrible) an MP3/AAC player and even a built in Pedometer tracker that earns you coins for walking. I had loads of fun playing with the AR Cards, seeing a dragon come out of your desk is crazy, the effects are rather brilliant!

Conclusion

In the future we’re promised a Web Browser (the icon is already there) and the new Nintendo eShop. These will be added via firmware upgrades. I really think the eShop should have been ready for launch, they’re crazy for not making that happen. When it does arrive we’re promised some classic games, including some old Game Gear titles, ace! I am also looking forward to the remake of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I never played the N64 original, and would like to see what the fuss is all about.

It’s hard to know what to make of the 3DS at the moment. It’s a fantastic piece of technology, 3D without any glasses is no mean feat. But a part of me feels it’s a tad gimmicky? Could it be the fact none of the launch titles have used 3D with any real value? Could well be. I think I will refrain from judging until the next wave of games fall in. If 3D continues to be of no real value to the gaming experience then I can see myself saving my eyesight and using it as a more powerful DS.

Until then though, it’s up, up and away ….

After ditching my mostly unused iPad on eBay the other day, I was pleased when my recently ordered MacBook Air turned up to fill the void. I’d fallen out of love with the iPad. It was neither here nor there. I couldn’t get productive on it. Initially the lack of Flash wasn’t a problem, but I soon found out there was always one site you needed to view that still used it. I also grew quite frustrated with the various inconsistencies when form filling on web pages, sometimes selection boxes would be unusable, the keyboard wouldn’t pop-up etc. I think I should save the iPad rant for another blog post to be honest. Anyway, onward to the replacement, the gorgeous 11″ MacBook Air.

Maxed Out

Slightly worried about the speed of the 1.4GHz model, I was pleased to see an option for a 1.6GHz upgrade. This might not seem like a massive boost, but I believe it was worth the cost, especially for future proofing the machine. I also boosted the RAM from the paltry 2GB standard config to a much healthier 4GB. Basically I pushed the 11-inch as far as it could go. Ooo-er.

Small Footprint, Big Personality

This is the first time since the much loved PowerBook G4 12″ that Apple have put out a sub 13″ laptop. I know people today who still swear by their 12″ PowerBooks, portability is the key for them. Sadly, the PowerPC architecture is long gone, as is it’s performance. So in steps the 11″ MacBook Air (or 11.6 to be precise) Does this mean Apple have given the public what they were craving, an Apple Netbook? Well yes and no. Yes, as in it’s small, it’s light, it’s ultra thin, and most of all, very portable. No, as in it doesn’t use a dreadful Atom CPU, it doesn’t have a laughable GPU, and it doesn’t have a keyboard and trackpad that make you want to shoot yourself in the face. I’ve been using it for a couple of days and it’s a joy to behold. If you like browsing the web or even blogging in bed, this machine is a dream, the full size keyboard makes typing comfortable and proficient. The large glass trackpad is as wonderful as ever, and the sheer weightlessness of the unit makes it very comfy to use.

Glossy Screen, High Resolution

One of the main problems with the slew of 10-inch Netbooks on the market is their lack of screen resolution. Most go with 1024 x 600, it’s just not dense enough to show enough on screen. Apple have upped the ante with the 11″ Air by throwing in an 11.6″ 1366 x 768 resolution screen, that’s higher def than 720p. The result is great, a 16:9 ratio full widescreen display with a higher DPI than any other Apple MacBook, and even higher than a 27″ iMac. There’s no ‘edge-to-edge’ glass here, they’ve kept the aluminium screen bezel, and I honestly quite like that. Contrast ratio is high, colour reproduction top notch, and the viewing angle as good as can be expected. Overall the screen is a beauty. One point I would like to add, Apple have not fitted these Airs with an Ambient Light Sensor, so you’ll have to manage your screen brightness manually. This is obviously a cost saving move, but I can’t say I’ve missed it as a feature.

Questionable Spec, Snappy Performance

What about performance? Many people, myself included, questioned the 1.4GHz processor’s credentials. That was the main reason I upgraded to a 1.6GHz. But after using the machine for a few days, I can safely say I would probably have been happy with the 1.4GHz model. Having said that I’m glad I took the decision to upgrade, as you will see below.

Benchmarking

I ran the CINEBENCH tests and got a CPU score of 0.91. If you want a comparison, the 1.4GHz scores 0.80 in the same test. Putting these scores into perspective, the 2009 MacBook Air 2.13GHz got a score of just 0.83. Many people are wondering how these slower clocked processors can outperform faster ones? The reason seems down to heat. The older proccessors ran too hot and would automatically throttle down their speed to manage the heat. The new ULV (ultra low voltage) CPUs can stay full speed and still remain cool. Infact, it’s a struggle to actually get the fan spinning at all! I also ran the GEEKBENCH 64-bit test and ended up with a score of 2519. This score is on par with the 2009 1.86GHz Air. Interesting that Geekbench didn’t seem to show up the improved processor performance as much as other tests did.

In real world performance these machines are very snappy, aided by the fast SSD drives they open apps quicker than my i7 iMac on most occasions. Talking of the SSD drive, benchmarks show they haven’t got the quickest drive controller on the planet, but they certainly aren’t the slowest. Close the lid and let the machine go into standby mode, when re-opened the screen comes to life in an instant, and you’re right back where you left off. Boot times are excellent, I counted 15 seconds from cold start to being in a usable desktop environment, not to shabby eh?

Netbooks Aren’t Meant For Gaming

In the past I have tried running a few games on Windows based Netbooks, most notable the Samsung NC10, for which I made a video podcast of it running Half-Life 2. It was more of a tech demo, just to show it could actually run it, I wasn’t about to play the whole game through again. The MacBook Air comes with a GeForce 320M GPU with 256MB of shared DDR3 memory. This is Nvidia’s successor to the very successful 9400M, which made its debut in the original Unibody MacBooks. I didn’t really hold high hopes for this latest GPU, I’ve seen a lot of people ridiculing it on internet forums. I was quite surprised though, it runs Half-Life 2 flawlessy at native resolution (1366 x 768) with all effects on high (and even a bit of AA thrown in for good measure). Sure, HL2 is an old game, but I always test my computers with it, so I’ve built up my own benchmark in my mind!

I also loaded up EVE: Online, and that also ran fine in native resolution (and looks spectacular with it). The most recent experiment was Left 4 Dead 2, again it played great at 1366 x 768 with all settings on High. I’m not saying this machine is a polygon pushing powerhouse, but it can certainly hold it’s own on the gaming front. It’s always nice to have the option anyway. What would be nice to have as an option, especially on the 4GB models, would be a choice of upping the VRAM to 512MB. I could see that helping out immensely in texture hungry titles.

Great Looking, Amazingly Useable

Let’s get this straight, the MacBook Air does not choose form over function. It has both. Over the years I’ve seen a slew of good looking Netbooks with decent spec and small form factor, but the minute you start using it, it doesn’t feel right. Cramped trackpads, squashed keyboards, out of line keys, all little annoyances that’ve plagued many a Netbook in the past. Not so with the 11″ MacBook Air. This thing has a full size Keyboard, and a huge (by Netbook standards anyway) Glass Trackpad. Both of these input devices feel absolutely spot on. I could type all day long on this thing, in fact, this entire review was written on it. The Trackpad is typical Apple quality, the Glass is so smooth it’s just perfect, and that reassuring ‘click’ you get when selecting something, brilliant.

Use your laptop in bed? If so, then you will love the 11″ MacBook Air. Lying down with your knees up it sits there perfectly and feels almost weightless. Typing feels great, but the lack of backlit Keyboard can sometimes be an issue. Luckily Apple seem to have made the lettering on the keys very reflective, so the light bouncing off the screen is enough to make the keys visible.

What’s Missing

The new low price of these MacBook Air’s hide some interesting omissions. The most obvious being the lack of Backlit Keyboard. But that isn’t the only thing they left out. There’s no sleep light on the front anymore, the official reasoning behind this is that it doesn’t actually go to sleep, it goes into standby. I think it’s just money saving myself. Also missing is an infra-red port, so no using your Apple Remote. I find this a bit of a let down, but it wasn’t really a feature I used all that much on my old MacBook. As I mentioned earlier, there’s no Ambient Light Sensor, so you will have to adjust screen brightness manually. Lastly, it lacks the SD card slot of it’s big sister, the 13-inch MacBook Air.

Conclusion

I could not be happier with this machine. The battery life is great, I regularly get 6 hours of web browsing, tweeting etc, and today even managed around 7 hours. It’s quick enough for everything I’ll be throwing at it, and it’s very portable. If you’re looking for a machine you can throw in your bag and take out and about, the 11″ MacBook Air is perfect. Okay the price might be high for the specs, but isn’t that always the case with Apple. It’s the all round quality that counts.

After all the pain in waiting, my Apple TV finally made an appearance on Friday 8th October. The reason for it’s delay over other pre-orders was I’d made the mistake of ordering the Apple Battery Charger with it. This meant the dreaded ‘Merge In Transit’ had to take place, something I’ve found to completely mess up the tracking in the past. I basically didn’t know it was getting delivered till the night before. Not something to appease a die hard fan!

Anyway, was it worth the wait? Well, yes and no.

The first thing that struck me was how tiny this thing was compared to the older model. The only way I could distinguish which box it was in (over the Charger) was the fact it was heavier. Once unpacked I had doubts this thing would stay in one place next to my TV, it seemed a stiff enough HDMI cable would just move it where it wanted to go! Luckily though, this thing is still weighty enough to hold a sure footing.

When I actually came to plug it in I was wondering where on earth the ports were. Apple have shipped these with a protective black strip around the perimeter of the unit, not entirely sure why, but I suppose it’d prevent any minor marks during transit?

Setup was pretty straight forward and I was soon hooking up to my Time Capsule and logging into Home Sharing. First impressions of the main menu were, sparse. Gone are all the links to buy Music and TV Shows, it’s Movie Rentals or nothing. I thought once I’d connected to my iMac that it’s content would beef up the main menu. Wrong. Instead you are given a Front Row style menu in which to browse your computers content.

That is pretty much it feature wise. Us UK folks have no additional features worth mentioning, no Netflix, no iPlayer, nothing. One thing of interest is I’ve recently read that these units have 8GB of flash memory in them. That seems odd to me, I cannot see streaming a video requiring 8GB of buffer space? Have Apple secretly prepped this for an AppStore? I certainly hope so.

One of the gripes with my old Apple TV was that it would frequently crash my Time Capsule when syncing, and sometimes even when streaming Music. I’m pleased to say the new model hasn’t done this once. I also love the fact it doesn’t get scorching hot. The old one would almost burn the wooden TV unit it was sitting on.

Overall I’m fairly happy with the purchase, streaming content from the iMac works flawlessly, the unit is nice and cool, it’s more responsive than the old one, it works great as an AirTunes (or should I say AirPlay) device. I would’ve liked to have seen more content available, ie BBC iPlayer, especially with the lack of TV Show purchasing. Anyway, the fact I sold my 1st gen unit for £150 and got this for £99 has made me happy enough to not be too disheartened!

Let the Apps commence..

Since Bungie announced they were making their last game in the Halo series, the world has been waiting for Reach, Halo: Reach. The final chapter in the legendary franchise goes back to where it all began, a prequel of epic proportions. Not to be content by signing of with a great game, Bungie went all out and created a customised Xbox 360 Slim, much in the same way they did for the first [image] and third [image] games in the series. I went out and bought one. Well, I say went out, I ordered from GAME.co.uk who shipped it to me in barely over 24 hours, good work folks.

Unboxing

Once I got the new console setup, I used the Hard Drive Transfer Kit I’d got with my Elite to transfer all my files over. It was fairly easy to do. It kind of went like this..

1. Start new Xbox and go through initial setup phase
2. Create generic offline profile, then turn off Xbox
3. Connect Elite HD to new Xbox with Transfer Kit
4. Turn on new Xbox and say yes to transferring data
5. Delete the generic offline profile, and you’re good to go

The console itself is very nicely detailed, the paint job looks very tough wearing, and I love the little decals here and there. Not exclusive to this Halo model (feature of new Slim model), the touch sensitive Power and Eject buttons are a nice addition, and make it feel futuristic. What is exclusive to this model though, are the sound effects played when you push either button. Both make sounds straight from the Halo universe. I made a little video, just to give you an idea of what to expect.

Pretty neat eh? If any of you were wondering, while turning on/off you are treated to the Invincibility Power-up sound, while hitting eject plays a Shield Charging effect.

Anyway, on to what you actually get inside the box, and it’s less that I thought:

• Xbox 360 Slim 250GB Console
• Two custom designed Wireless Controllers with Batteries
• A/V Cable (don’t!) and Power Brick
• Halo Reach Standard Edition
• Code to access Limited Edition Elite Armour Set

Overall it’s a pretty sparse set for the price, would’ve been nice to have included a limited edition copy of the game. Instead you get the standard edition, emblazoned with ‘Bundle Copy’, and a disc lacking any form of artwork.  What really does stand out to be an utter joke in my opinion, is that you get a standard A/V composite cable! Yep, that’s right, in the day of High Definition and 3DTV, Microsoft ship this with a cable from the 90′s. Absolutely ridiculous. No component, and no HDMI anywhere in sight. Well at least you get batteries for the controllers…

Pros
Quiet, Loads of storage, WiFi, Halo: Reach paint-job,  2 Controllers.

Cons
No HDMI or Component Cables, Standard Edtion of Reach, tad pricey.

Conclusion
Overall this is a nice set. The console itself has built in N-spec WiFi, is a lot quieter and has a smaller footprint. These are just benefits of the ‘Slim’ upgrade though. If you’ve been looking at upgrading to a Slim console (like I was) and love Halo, then it’s well worth a look. If, however, you already own the newer Slim model, then I don’t think this bundle offers enough to warrant an upgrade.

When I first saw the deal O2 were offering I was very tempted to take them up on it right away. For £29 a month they were offering Mobile Broaband with a free Laptop. Now I didn’t need a Laptop as I already have my MacBook. But what I was interested in was a Netbook. I thought to myself, no I don’t need one, but I sure would like one (isn’t it always the same)

Anyway, I finally gave in, and after thrashing out a deal with O2, I got the price down to £22 a month. Add to that Quidco were offering £100 cashback if you ordered through their site, and it suddenly felt like a bargain!

I’ve always looked at Netbooks online and thought of them as being somewhat cheap looking. If only Apple would make a Netbook, I kept telling myself. With this deal though, I thought to myself, even if I don’t like it, I could always just sell it. I could then just use the Mobile Broadband Dongle on my MacBook, so I wouldn’t be losing out. Well as it turns out, I do like it, a lot.

Build Quality & Design

Ok so the build quality isn’t going to win any awards, but it is a very rugged little thing. There’s no flex in the casing when you pick it up, neither does it creak like many Laptops do. The screen hinge has a nice feel to it. I especially like the little rubber feet underneath, they really grip the machine to your desk. The edge of the unit sports a nice chrome effect bezel that flows around the front and sides, then makes another appearance on the hinges. The power button is accommodated in the hinge on the right hand side, similar to a new Apple Wireless Keyboard. When the unit is powered on this switch glows blue, a very nice effect that works great with the chrome. The underside of the unit is very basic, many vents and bumps, a memory access door, and the battery latch. The battery fills the void between the screen and the base, a nice touch, as I don’t very much like the Netbooks which have a great big gap there.

Screen & Storage

The 10.2″ screen is a joy to behold, it’s an LED backlit jobby with a 1024 x 600 resolution. Most websites I’ve visited fit the width fine. The screen is lovely and bright aswell, easily on par with my MacBooks, and actually surpases it in a brightly lit room (that hurt to say) Another area where it trumps my MacBook is viewing angle. The new Unibody MacBooks are known to have a terrible viewing angle compared to their big sister, the MacBook Pro. The Samsung easily beats my MacBook here, with an excellent viewing angle. Storage wise the model I got has a 160GB Hard Drive, this is a lot of storage for a Netbook, more than a MacBook Air. I don’t mind the fact it isn’t an SSD either!

Connectivity & WiFi

There’s a fair few options here for you to connect peripherals. The left side of the machine houses the Charger point, Ethernet port, and two USB 2.0 ports (from back to front) On the right hand side we have VGA out, single USB 2.0 port, Microphone, and finally Headphones (again back to front). At the front there’s an SD Card slot, and a bunch of blue LED status lights. I’ve found the SD reader to be very handy, the 16GB SDHC card I use for my Kodak Zi6 is picked up effortlessly. I haven’t had any problems using the WiFi either, it may only be G-spec, but it offers great range and good speed.

Keyboard & Trackpad

The keyboard is very good for a device of this size, Samsung state it’s 93% full size. All I know is it’s nice enough to type on and has good tactile feedback. One thing that catches me out is the ‘A’ key, it isn’t as far in from the left as my MacBook so I’m constantly hitting ‘S’ instead! Onto the trackpad, this is possibly the only major gripe with the unit. Size wise it just isn’t big enough. There are virtual scroll bars on the vertical and horizontal axis to aid with browsing. The trouble with this is, it leaves very little room left to navigate the cursor. I found a great little hack for this though. It enables two-finger scrolling, thus you can disable the virtual scroll bars, freeing up precious trackpad space!

Battery Life

The Sammy comes with a 6-cell battery as standard. Most Netbooks make you fork out extra for one of these. With a full charge expect a class topping 6 hours of battery life. Now I’m not saying you’ll get 6 hours of watching a Movie, or browsing YouTube, but for general Web Browsing, Email, Blog posting etc, it easily makes it over 5 hours for me.

Performance

Spec wise this Netbook uses the same sort of hardware that many on the market today do. That is, an Intel Atom 1.6GHz N270 Processor with Intel 945GSE Integrated Graphics. While the GPU isn’t very good, this machine is still nippy enough for most multimedia needs. Watching Standard Def movies or streaming YouTube videos is pretty effortless. I upgraded the 1GB PC6400 RAM module in mine to a 2GB version from Play.com, only cost £14.49 and was well worth it. I was actually surprised when I tried running a 720p trailer from the Apple website, it dropped a few frames here and there, but was still watchable. Lower it down to 480p and it’s absolutely fine. One thing that bugs me though is the tearing, quite noticeable with HD movies or if you run a game. I guess after all’s said and done, these are not Gaming/HD machines. Look out for my Podcast when I launch it later this week, first episode is this very machine running Half-Life 2!

Conclusion

Overall I am delighted with this Netbook. On the way to work in the morning it’s the type of device you can just quickly throw it in your bag. I can see myself taking it to work with me nearly everyday because it’s so light and convienient. The excellent battery life means you barely have to worry about carrying a charger around with you. To top it all off you also get a 1.3MP webcam, which seems of reasonable quality, built in stereo speakers, and a microphone. The speakers aren’t the loudest I’ve ever heard, but they do the job. If you’re in the market for a Netbook then you’d do a lot worse than pick up a Samsung NC10.

Since the App Store opened there’s been a flurry of games added every single day. I’m sure you would all agree, many games are cheap and nasty. Now I’m not disrespecting any particular developer out there, because I know how hard it is to code these apps. But a lot are merely tech demos showing what the iPhone is capable of, without any real depth to their gameplay. Prices have been constantly falling since the store opened, can anyone remember paying £5.99 for Super Monkey Ball? I can.

Up steps Chop Sushi, I bought this game towards the end of January, and basically spent the whole of February playing it! Whenever you boot up the game it gives you the option of whether or not to enable sound, I find this a very nice touch, especially if you fancy listening to your own tunes while playing, instead of the ingame music. What immediately hits you once the game has loaded is it’s excellent presentation, menu’s are slick, colourful and well laid out.

The Game Modes consist of ‘Adventure’ ‘Quick Battle’ and ‘Challenges’. Obviously Adventure is the main quest which takes you to a variety of islands where you battle against odd looking characters. By beating them, you release them of their Demons, and they become Shop keepers who will sell you Challenges and Recipes. You use Fish as the games currency. You can either catch your own fish (at start of every island) or you can earn Fish ingame by matching three or more in a row. Challenges can be bought using Fish, and come in Easy, Medium or Hard difficulties. Challenges involve matching all the Sushi onscreen in a predetermined amount of moves.

Onto the main game then, it works by matching three or more of a kind. But the way you match the Sushi is a bit strange to get use to at first. When I first started I expected it to be along the lines of Bejeweled, merely swapping pieces around. It’s a bit tougher than that, and requires a lot more careful planning if you are to pull off combos to earn extra turns.

Take the picture above, I can line up four green blobs (Wasabi’s) by picking up the stray one and sliding my finger to the right, this sends it all the way to the end of the row, and shuffles everything else to the left. Because I made a line of four, I automatically get given another go, which is very handy! Whenever you line up three or more Wasabi it takes health power off your opponent. You win the match when your opponents health is depleted, likewise, you lose if he clears your health. The orange coloured Fugu build up your experience points, the more you collect, the higher the experience multiplier is at the end of each match. You may notice from the screenshots there are Stones mixed in with everything else. These cannot be matched, but once you run out of moves, instead of the game ending, these Stones all crack open revealing more Sushi, Fish, Fugu or Wasabi!

So why do we need the Sushi? Well, once you’ve won a couple of matches you slowly get introduced to Recipes. These consist of Boosts, Traps and Specials. If you activate a Boost ingame, it has a negative effect on your opponent. If you activate a Trap, it has a negative effect on you. You activate the Recipes by matching up Sushi in the order and amount shown on the tabs to the left of the screen. Sometimes you will find there is no other move left but to activate a Trap, and this puts you out of luck!

Graphically the game is a joy to behold, excellent artwork is backed up by great character design and nice animation. Sound wise the game is very quirky, personally I find the battle music to be very catchy and am sometimes left with it stuck in my head all night. It’s very much like the soundtrack to a Bruce Lee film!

Overall there enough lasting appeal to make this game well worth the £1.79 asking price. Compared to many games on the App Store, this is packed full of enough Levels and Challenges to keep you occupied for weeks to come. This is easily one of the best puzzlers on the iPhone, so I am awarding  it my App of the month award for February, go buy it! [iTunes Link]

If you would like to ask anything about the game that I may not have fully covered in the review, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.