I’m here at the Toshiba seminar entitled ‘Take a closer look’. When I return I will be giving you lucky people an insight into the latest technical goodies that they have on offer. I have to admit that there are some delightful little gems on offer and have some photos to prove it. It’s a hard life being jetted to Paris, put up in a swanky hotel and let loose with some toys. It’s a sacrifice I was prepared to take.
GTA 4 having issues with multiplayer on the PS3
Well I finally got my copies of GTA 4. Yes I said copies. 1 is for the 360 in the office and the other is for my PS3. While I have enjoyed a few hours playing the game on the 360 at work I could not play online as it is not wired up for some reason.
On arrival at home I immediately installed my PS3 copy and went straight to multiplayer. Unfortunately with little success. It appears that the network maybe having some issues. I should not be surprised really everyone I know has bought the game, and I assume everyone is also trying to get online.
I seem to be either having problems connecting to the network, being disconnected when I do connect, having issues with the game actually starting and when I do start everyone immediately disconnects.
I have only managed to play about 3 minutes against anyone so far. Oh sad for me.
I even thought it maybe my wireless playing up so I ran a cable to the PS3 and connected it via that. Still no joy.
Oh well looks like I am stuck playing the single player missions for a while.
Edit: There are several threads in in the Playstation forums confirming these problems.
Online Unavailable Can’t Connect to Multiplayer
LG announce the new Black Label phone - The LG Secret (LG-KF750)
As previously mentioned today saw the announcement of the new Black Series LG Phone - the LG Secret. I made the rather crap guess the name would be LG Black. Never mind.
The phone is quite high end being just 11.8mm thick while managing to pack in a 5mp 120fps QVGA video camera and DivX-certified recording and playback.
The phone itself is made from High-grade carbon fibre and tempered glass materials. Swish.
The screen is fully touch screen and has an accelerometer motion sensor, and auto luminance control.
The phone comes packaged with Mp3 player, fm radio, a reader for Word, Excel and Powerpoint and is loaded with a specialised Google Package that with a dedicated interface for Google services such as GMail, Google Maps, YouTube and Blogger.
Overall this sounds like one feature packed device especially considering its physical proportions of 102.8 x 50.8 x 11.8mm. The few images we have seen also make it sound like a very good looking phone, and the combination of carbon fibre and tempered glass probably means it will look even better in person.
Edit: LG Secret Video added from You Tube
More information from the press release after the jump.
John Lewis confirm freesat launch set for May 6
John Lewis says it will be selling the HD receiver for a price of £149, plus optional £100 installation. But there’s no news on whether this will be a Grundig or Humax box yet.
Interestingly it is believe John Lewis and its partners will be working with Sky to roll out the new service as Freesat does not have it’s own installation service yet.
Humax is expected to release its new Freesat HD receiver, the Foxsat-HD, to coincide with the launch the launch of the Freesat service on May 6th.
The specification for the Foxsat-HD box is as follows:
- Receiving HDTV signals (MPEG-4 AVC/H 264 and MPEG-2)
- Under 1w power consumption in standby
- HDMI digital interface for transmission of picture and sound
- Simultaneous playing of transmissions over HDMI, YPbPr or Scart
- Easy installation and operation
- Resolution format: 1080i, 720p, 576p, 576i
- DVB-S2 and DVB-S compatible
- Ethernet support
- Full colour, high resolution electronic programme guide
- Dolby digital audio output
- Automatic software upgrade via satellite
- Improved SDTV on a HD LCD TV
- Audio description / One-touch subtitles
- Dimensions (Width x Height x Depth): 28 x 4.5 x 20cm
- Weight: 1.5kg
If you are not aware of Freesat the following extract from Join Freesat should explain it:
Freesat is a brand new digital satellite TV service from the BBC/ITV. freesat has no monthly subscription, just a one-off payment for the digital box, satellite dish and installation. It will even come with subscription-free, high-definition TV programmes. Because freesat is broadcast via satellite, it’ll be available to almost every household in the UK.
PlayTV will finally arrive on the PS3 in July
Amazon have revealed that the PlayTV add-on for the PS3 will arrive in the UK on July 31st.
For those not in the know the PlayTV is a small box packing dual tuners with a seven day EPG allowing you to record shows onto your PS3 hard drive.
Granted if you have a 40 Gb PS3 it is not the most space for a PVR but it is more than enough to store a few episodes of your favourite show, and you can always upgrade your HD.
Pricing is not to bad at a reasonable £60.
GPS add-on launched for the Archos 605
No surprise to many, Archos have finally announced a GPS solution for the Archos 605. The unit is a In Car Holder for the 605 Wi-Fi PMP that turns it into a fully fledged navigational system.
The In-Car Holder will be sold for approximately $130 and in theory this will make it quite an impressive competitor to most dedicated GPS system. This is because the Archos has a much larger hard drive (30-160 Gb) and screen resolution compared to most similarly priced GPS systems.
The new system will use Tele Atlas maps and will be available as a European version cover 22 countries, a North America version covering the US and Canada, and a Chinese version.
The full Archos 605 GPS package will give you the following features:
Your Navigation
- Clear, easy-to read maps on the high-resolution 4.3-inch touch screen
- Easy and intuitive address, zip-code and POI (point of interest) markers for rapidly selecting destination points
- Precise navigation with automated simulation inside tunnels, lane assistance, advance signposts and fast and accurate route recalculation
- Traffic assistance, route planning, and speed control assistance in some countries
- Gain navigation information on any location throughout North America, Western Europe and China
- Get clear voice-to-text support through the car’s FM stereo (via the built-in line out), or the ARCHOS 605 WiFi’s amplified built-in speaker
Your Media on the Move
- Passengers can use the ARCHOS 605 WiFi to watch recorded TV shows and videos while travelling, such as keeping families and children entertained in the back seat of the car
- Record TV shows in advance for the perfectly relaxed road trip
- Rent and watch movies from the ARCHOS Content Portal
- Transfer and store photos directly from your digital camera and create slide shows
- Share your media with friends and family on their TV
- Play games while on the go
Your Internet
- Surf the web to visit favourite sites
- Stream the latest news, online videos, TV shows and sports from websites - ARCHOS devices are the only to support Adobe Flash 9 for online video streaming.
- Check email from any web-based service.
- Access hundreds of Widgets, including world maps, weather, and currency converters
LG KF600 Venus Mobile Phone Review
The KF600 is the new midrange phone from LG that has already won the iF product design award for 2008.
My sample was kindly provided by LG Blog, the official blog from LG. It is available now for free on selected plans on Orange and T-Mobile. You can also get it sim free from various sites like Play.Com for around £220-£260.
It is a tri-band slider with a dual screen, the smaller of the screens is a 1.5inch 240×176 pixel touch screen and the larger one is normal a 2inch 320 x 240 pixel screen.
The smaller touch screen has been marketed as the InteractPad and essentially acts as a replacement to the more traditional navigation and function buttons found on mobiles.
The other features include:
- 3 Megapixel Camera with video and flash
- 256k colour displays
- Touch-sensitive lower display including 256K colours
- MP3/WMA/AAC/AAC+ player
- Ringtones - Polyphonic and MP3
- EDGE: Class 10, 236.8 kbps
- GPRS: Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 - 48 kbps
- Bluetooth: v2.0
- USB: v2.0
- Messaging: SMS, EMS, MMS, Email
- Vibration Alert
- Built-in handsfree
- 64 MB internal memory
- Memory Card Slot: microSD (TransFlash)
- Weight: 107 grams
- Dimensions: 101 x 50 x 15.7 mm
- Battery Stand-by: Up to 480 hours
- Battery Talk Time: Up to 4 hours
- Office document viewer
- T9
- Organiser
- Voice memo
When the slider is not extended the only hard buttons are a camera button used for the camera and also to unlock the phone, another to launch the MP4 player, and a rocker for volume controls.
My initial impression of the InteractPad was a money saving exercise by LG as touch screens cost more and this phone is a mid range model. However after using it for a while I have been quite impressed. The important thing to realise is that this is not a cheap alternative for a full touch screen but a intelligent replacement for hardware buttons. If we look at the LG Shine the navigation is handled by a roller and 2 hard buttons, therefore to access most of the phones functions it requires a physical click on the menu button, then find the application/function you want and a click into it. As the KF600 uses a screen it can offer dynamic options and therefore I have 6 options rather than just 2 as soon as I open the phone. Ok I know it is being lazy when I like the fact it requires less clicks to achieve something but it is a usability improvement which is always good.
The only slight issue I had with the InteractPad is that it was not quite as intuitive at a full touch screen. When you get to the main menu you want to click on the actual icons rather than select them with the InteractPad. Once you realise this it becomes quite easy, you can slide your finger to scroll through menus rather than just tap the screen so navigation can be quite fast and simple.
As this is a mid range phone at first I had expected LG to leave the haptic feedback of the touch screen off, however reassuring vibrate is still there when you tap an icon.
When you slide out the keypad on the KF600 you are greeted with a rather good looking keypad. The advantage of this keypad is that it makes sending texts much easier. While the Viewty is not as you might expect when sending messages it still is not perfect, I quite frequently mis-hit the screen getting the wrong letter/word and therefore being able to use a real keypad is a pleasant addition. Another small feature of the keypad I liked was its reassuringly firm slide. On the LG Slide I used I found the sliding out keypad to be a bit springy, so much so it almost feels like it could dislodge the battery or something so the KF600 is much more improved on this.
The phone is 101.2mm long 50.7mm wide and 14.1 mm in depth weighing 107g. This makes it lighter than then Shine and Viewty and slightly larger than the Shine but smaller than the Viewty.
The itself is very attractive and uses the Black styling of the Viewty etc. It has a matt black rear, silver edges and a shiny black screen. The phone comes with various different themes, with 5 of them being based on Keith Haring designs. The themes are very nice and use both the main screen and the InteractPad.
The phone comes with the usual set of applications you would expect to find. This includes:
- 2 Games (both making the most of the InteractPad)
- Alarm Clock
- Calculator
- Calendar
- FM Radio
- Memo Maker
- Stop Watch
- Unit Converter
- Voice Recorder
- World Clock
The music player on the phone is a similar set up to the Viewty. The player itself good, it allows you to create playlists, set to shuffle and change the equaliser settings. As with my Viewty review I did not have a decent quality pair of earphones to see what the quality was really like. Unfortunately you are required to use the LG connector to attach a normal pair of earphones to the phone. This is a pet peeve of mine as I have a tenancy to lose little things like this but it is quite a common issue with most phones. The memory card is awkward to get to as you need to remove the battery to get access to it, this shouldn’t really be to much of a problem unless the card pops out when walking which I sometimes found with my Viewty. I think this could be a problem with my buying cheap memory cards rather than an issue with the phone itself.
The camera on the phone is 3-megapixels and the flash is decent enough to take pictures in the dark though this is not a xenon flash. You can also mess about with the various settings including white balance, timer, shake reduction, multi shot, auto focus, colour effect, quality and resolution. It is definitely not as good at the Viewty camera but again this is a mid range phone so it is to be expected. I think the biggest let down is the lack of a xenon flash.
Call quality and battery life were good. I got a couple of days out of the phone, though I probably did not charge it up fully before I started to play with it.
I think overall the phone is very good, especially for a mid range phone. I think Sim free it is in the same price range as the Nokia 6500 Classic but offers more functionality and a bit of a quirky side to it. Obviously the deciding factor when buying this phone is the InteractPad and I would suggest trying it at a store before buying it. I can imagine for a lot of people it is a love or hate thing. For me personally I would not say I love it but I do like it and it provides a pleasant break from the norm.