I am staring at the box of the SteelSeries Xai. It has been packed up after my review, so we can give it away to one lucky reader. Then I look back at my Microsoft Sidewinder X8 gaming mouse. A mouse that is wireless and fracking glows RED! Yet I am so tempted to deny someone the chance to enjoy the Xai mouse – I want to crack open that package and go back to it right now. I won’t of course, but that feeling shows how much of an…
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago, before the craziness of Fan Expo and TIFF, Sony Ericsson was kind enough to send us the new Xperia X10 Mini for us to review. In the video above you can see our un-boxing of the phone, and a short review, where I go over the main features of what they claim is the ‘The worlds smallest Android phone’. The X10 Mini was also recently awarded ‘European Mobile Phone 2010-2011’ by the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA). Please note that while shooting the video…
Read MoreWe first got a quick peek at Sony’s NEX-5 at a Sony event a couple of months back, and were suitably impressed with the overall design. It’s not as bulky as a full on DSLR, while having more control, than your average point-n-shoot pocket camera. We finally got a review unit from Sony a couple of weeks back and have passed it around the bullpen. Click on past the break for our impressions, and some sample images from the NEX-5.
Read MoreIt’s no secret that Plants vs Zombies from Pop Cap is one of the favourite ‘go-to’ games in the RGB Filter bullpen. Solid gameplay and great visuals, along with with a good sense of humour (and zombies) is a winning combination, and PvZ is proof of that. When Pop Cap announced that it was shambling over to Xbox LIVE Arcade, with new game modes and a truly HD visual makeover, we had our 1200 MS Points at the ready. Does the the game hold up in its console incarnation, or…
Read MoreA Fond Farewell When Halo: Reach was announced as a prequel, a lot of gamers expressed their concerns,making comparisons to Lucas’s critical failure with the Star Wars movie prequels. This totally ignores that one of the defining differences between film and video games is that it’s pretty hard to make a game worse than the original. Unless, as a developer, you’re completely phoning it in, a large part of the art of game making, as opposed to film making, is tweaking the elements of gameplay, not just making the graphics…
Read MoreThe Gateway ID59 has a glowing touchpad. I thought I should mention this, because Gateway apparently thinks it’s very important. So important that the laptop arrived with a huge sticky label hanging from the screen, informing me of this feature. You can imagine my excitement. Still, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First things first, build quality and initial impressions. Honestly? It looks good. I’ll definitely credit Gateway with a great job on the overall design. Simple and sleek with clean lines, and an unobtrusive logo set off to one…
Read MoreClifford Nass has been studying human relations by looking at how humans relate to machines. The answers coming from experiments documented in his book The Man Who Lied to His Laptop are an interesting mix of the unexpected and the familiar. You might think that it would take no time to read a 207 page book. Warning; this book makes one stop every so many pages to think about what it says. Not because it is difficult or obscure; the writing is clear and the presentation precise throughout but the…
Read MoreWhen Acer first announced their line of X3400 small form factor PCs, I don’t think they had me in mind. They were clearly targeting people with limited space, and in need of somewhat limited computing power. The initial press release announcing them was clearly shooting for dorm rooms and light-medium use, and not much more. However, when I took another look at the basic specs, I have to admit I was kind of curious. Given the small form factor, but room for expandability, could this be a good balance for…
Read MoreSamsung, who’s been a contender in the mobile and smartphone market for some time, has recently kicked it up a notch. Their line of Android based Galaxy S phones, which have launched on multiple carriers internationally, have been getting great reviews. Just a week or so ago they announced their Galaxy Tab, a 7 inch tablet also running Android, which is due to hit multiple markets by the time November rolls around. With all this Android love, one has to ask “What’s up with this Samsung Wave?” After trying it…
Read More[ Shortly after seeing Long Pigs while attending Fan Expo with rgbFilter, I found this transcript, JPEG-and-all, on my server’s HD. Hacking a server to randomly express an opinion about a movie seems unlikely, but since I pretty much agree with it, here it is. —PLQ. ] A shadowy figure says, “A painted grid of some kind. Quite large. Big enough to fill this whole pit. And again I see there is a three-jewelled sigil, on the far side. Always on the far side. More runes below the grid seem…
Read MoreWarning: The following contains mild spoilers. Machete is a damn good movie. I mean, I’m not asking anyone to be surprised by this, I’m just saying. It’s Robert Rodriguez directing a cast that includes Robert De Niro, Stephen Seagal, Cheech Marin, and Danny effin’ Trejo in exactly the kind of over the top brutal action extravaganza that Rodriguez specializes in. Of course, it’s also a movie based on a trailer that was created before the idea of actually doing the movie appeared to ever have been seriously considered. For those…
Read More“The film you are about to see is an homage to ‘no reason’, that most powerful element of style.” This is the manifesto that opens Rubber, delivered directly to the audience in a breaking of the fourth wall that is somewhat like taking a pound of dynamite to a pane of glass. Rubber is a “horror” film about a black rubber car tyre that kills people by making their heads explode. With telepathy. And when I say “horror” I do of course mean “side-splittingly funny, pitch black, absurdist comedy.” Screened…
Read More