Tag: REVIEWS

The best way for me to start off my hands-on with the Nintendo 3DS is to be completely honest about my relationship with the Nintendo DS; I love the little split-screened device. I have a white Lite from 2007, and have never found the need to upgrade. That was until the E3 Expo last year, when Nintendo trotted out these little guys to a crowd practically electrified with excitement. But the 3-D ...

There's another streaming media box on the market, but you won't be able to find the 'Scooby-Doo' movie on it. Oh, wait -- yes, you can. That is, if you're looking for the version that features Shaggy and Fred double-teaming Velma inside Old Man Withers' haunted dildo factory. Those meddling kids! But seriously, the FyreTV streaming porno box (NSFW link, obviously) is perhaps the best gift ...

It's a fact of life that too many of us learn the excruciatingly painful way: hard drives, like humans, have an unpredictable lifespan. Sometimes they last a long time, but sometimes, well, they die suddenly. Now think of all the physical goods we used to store in shoeboxes and drawers that in today's world exist only in digital form on our PCs: photos, music, home movies, Hollywood movies and TV ...

The poor, issue-laden Boxee Box has had a rough go of it. The streaming media box has been in a seemingly constant war with Hulu, and, after announcing at last year's CES that Boxee would launch using NVIDIA's Tegra 2 hardware, the manufacturer had to switch to an Intel-based solution, since getting the software running on NVIDIA's hardware proved to be too difficult. Despite of all the obstacles ...

The NOOKcolor is the first of its kind: a serious, full-color e-reading device. Sure, the iPad and Galaxy Tab have found some success moonlighting as virtual readers, but they're first and foremost devices for apps and browsing the Web. Plus, they're a lot more expensive. The NOOKcolor is $249 of straight-up, reading-focused hardware and software. You can still browse the Web and do other things ...

The Galaxy Tab has been positioned by Samsung to be the first serious competitor to the iPad, and it's quite successfully living up to the hype. On paper, the seven-inch Android tablet (essentially a super-sized Galaxy S phone) has a lot going for it, like its impressively wide carrier support. Although Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T are offering versions of the Tab at different prices ...

Gosh, fashion quizzes are incredibly awkward. Those endlessly clickable little surveys of your likes and dislikes are often so broadly wrong in their attempts to translate something so nuanced, particular and personalized into a "type." We had trouble with this when we sampled Like.com, because the fashion world -- suddenly rocked by DIY bloggers' and street style fans' indie "curation" -- is ...

Google isn't satisfied to dominate Web searches and virtually all online advertising. It's not content being the gold standard for productivity-based Web apps, a serious player in the browser field, or being the only smartphone OS maker capable of challenging Apple. No, Google's apparently been thinking too small -- or at least too small screen. But now, the Mountain View mammoth is eying our ...

A reader asks: With winter coming, my girlfriend has tasked me with buying a humidifier so her skin and sinuses don't dry out when she stays over. I went to the electronics store, and there were at least 40 models churning out mist with all sorts of options, buttons and assorted craziness. I know two things: I have no idea what I'm shopping for, and that I better pick a winner, or else. So, ...

While the original Apple TV had a few admirers among die-hard Apple fanatics and tinkerers, the company always considered the device to be a "hobby," and it never found mainstream success. The newest iteration, however, reflects Apple's first serious attempt to nail the living room media experience, and it's making a serious attempt at becoming a must-have accessory, thanks primarily to its ...

Roku made a name for itself back in 2008, when it launched the world's first standalone box designed to stream movies from the then-new Netflix Instant Play library. At the time, the Roku was a compelling device, but was regarded by many as a novelty. It was, in fact, a one-trick pony. It couldn't pump out high definition images, and many Americans didn't have access to the speedy connections ...

What it is: The robot cleaning revolution apparently has arrived. Years after the first Roombas were introduced into homes around the world, Neato stepped up to the plate with its impressive XV-11. Now, just a few months later, Evolution Robotics has launched its own proprietary floor-cleaning robot, the Mint, and it has some solid sweeping skills of its own. Why it's different: In some ways, ...

Hey Condé Nast! Did someone hear our plaintive cries about your app ventures? Because we're happy to report that 'The New Yorker' iPad app, released today, resoundingly does not suck. Well, it's got some issues (of which the editors seem to be aware), but we'll save those for last. We were worried when we heard that The New Yorker was coming to iPad, because it's a medium that is simply ...

Solitaire is one of the few computer games not to have seen much in the way of improvement or innovation. In fact, since it became the world's most popular timewaster with the release of Windows 3.1, electronic versions of solitaire have become pretty much indistinguishable from one another (outside of the occasional fresh coat of paint). 'Awesome Solitaire' for the iPhone doesn't mess with the ...

Yesterday, the Information Architects (iA) team, which you may know from its Web Trend Map, officially released the 'Wrıter' app for iPad. We've seen many attempts at moving writing interfaces away from the toolbar-overloaded interfaces of apps like Microsoft Word, and iA's new project continues this trend with an emphasis on your writing. We fired up the app to write this review, so read on to ...