Publication History For : Michael Fereday
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Offering users a one-stop shop for their media needs, CyberLink has released the latest version of its Media Suite product.
With the name of this games location being set in Lycan Isle, you have a clear indication that a wolf will have an important role to play in an offering from Avanquest.
Joining the Vodafone Smart family of handsets is the Smart Mini. This baby of the family is firmly entrenched in the budget market price category. This model is available for around £50 on a Pay as you Go (PAYG) basic. There is a choice of white, pink or black colour schemes with my review sample, supplied by Vodafone, being of the latter hue.
With dimensions of 115 x 62.3 x 12.2mm (H x W x D), the Vodafone Smart Mini has a solid appearance as its weight of 118g weights helps confirm. Dominating the front of the handset is a 3.5-inch screen that delivers a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels. Alright this is not the high definition that high priced models offer but the screen is easily readable. The familiar Back, Home and Multi-task capacitive buttons are arranged across the bottom of the screen.
To many a mouse is just a mouse. It is a periphery that is used to guide your cursor around a screen and select appropriate options when necessary. However for some, a mouse can be a device that can be used to carry out different actions. Recently I reported on an IRIS mouse that could perform the duties of a scanner along with its more common features. Now it is the turn of Gigabyte to come up with a mouse that can double as a presenters tool. It is the type of device that teachers and those who live and breathe PowerPoint presentations could consider adding to their must-buy list.
Arriving in a box large enough to easily contain a cut-down keyboard, this Gigabyte mouse goes by the rather impressive title of Aivia Neon. Opening this box reveals an almost presentation style of arrangement of a cloth covered insert with three cutaway sections. The wireless mouse sits between a pack containing documentation, cleaning cloth and USB extension lead on one side and a carry pouch on the other. Both the mouse and carry pouch are black in colour.
It almost crossed my mind that I had been forgotten by Acer with regards to review products when an offer arrived to check out an Aspire model. I was reasonably impressed.
In the past I have had the opportunity to look at a number of Acer computers. These models have been exclusively laptop units belonging to either the Aspire or TravelMate family. Now it is the turn of another Aspire model to supply my computing needs but this time it is a desktop system. The Acer unit in question is the Aspire XC600_W.
It is time to embark on a treasure hunt that will require a logical approach in order to succeed. Are you up to the task?
Available from Avanquest on its GSP game label, Arizona Rose and the Pirate’s Riddle is classified as a picture puzzle game. In this mixture of picture puzzles, hidden object searching and mini games, you take on the role of Arizona Rose, who is a collector of antiques, as you search for the treasure that Blackbeard looted from different vessels and attacks on other locations during his infamous life as a pirate.
Always willing to help when I am on the look-out for a product to review, Vodafones PR agency sent me a couple of handsets on which one is the subject of this next review.
My first car, purchased a little over 20 years ago, cost £600 second hand. Nowadays this is the price being asked by some companies for one of their smartphone devices that could quickly build up additional costs at a rate that can make your eyes water. Fortunately there are some handsets that are more economically priced.
Are you up to the challenge of defeating the Puppet Thief who steals the souls of children? If so then enter a fairy tale world of mystery.
Once upon a time, or so the story goes, a man travelled from town to town entertaining the population with his songs and poetry. While this might sound innocent enough to the casual observer, there was a more sinister, evil ulterior motive behind the actions of this man as he was busily capturing the souls of children. This character was known as the Puppet Thief. But that was in the past until children began disappearing from the town of Arbourshire.
Adding to the functionality of your smartphone and tablet, as if these devices did not have enough control over our every day lives, is a product developed by the US company Orbotix. This product, appropriate named Sphero, is a ball which can be controlled and also act, in certain circumstances, as a controller itself. In order to make full use of Sphero, Orbotix has developed a number of free apps for both the iOS and Android platforms that allow your smartphone and/or tablet to communicate with this magic ball.
Constructed of a tough polycarbonate material, the Sphero has a diameter of 74mm and is opaque enough so that a multitude of colours and special effects can add to the visual appeal of the device. Within the ball’s shell, Orbotix has packed an accelerometer, multi-axis gyroscope, LED lights, compass, various motors, lithium polymer battery, and support for Bluetooth – I wish I could pack a suitcase as efficiently.
It is time to pack your bags and take a trip. This journey involves a geographical location and a specific time period.
As it says on the tin, the location is Paris and the year is 1925. Your role in this Iroz game, available on Avanquest’s GSP label is that of Edgar Lance, a young journalist working on the Paris Matin newspaper where he covered local events. One of these events takes you to an art gallery where the dead body of an artist is discovered. Your journalistic temperament takes over and you set about trying to solve the crime and the mystery surrounding it.
Many years ago my first scanner was a handheld device, shaped a bit like a paintbrush, with a scanning width of about 4-inches. A more modern version increases the scanning width and adds Wi-Fi capability.
When checking on a new piece of hardware, one of the first things I do is to peruse the Quick Start Guide. Unfortunately this was not immediately possible with the IRIScan Book Executive 3 product. While there was documentation regarding other IRIS products, registration and a slip of paper that explained, in several languages, that the Quick Start Guide was on the supplied CD in PDF format.
With the demands we put on our mobile devices, it is not surprising that their batteries struggle to cope.
During a recent tidying up session, it does happen occasionally in my household, I came across one of my earliest mobile phone. Unlike some other units which wee passed on to various charity organisations, this particular unit still held fond memories for me and had provided excellent service for a few years. What was special and unusual about this Samsung clamshell handset was its ability to open and close at the touch of a button.
It is Big Red Bus time yet again as two similarly specified devices arrive from different companies.
Every so often a Big Red Bus moment occurs and this is one of those situations. Recently two products arrived within a week or so of each other with similar functionality. No sooner had I completed my look at the Kingston MobileLite Wireless product than the Verbatim MediaShare Wireless offering arrived for review.
As part of its Hidden Mystery Collectives series, Focus Multimedia has bundled together a couple of Echoes of the Past titles. Belonging to the Hidden Object Adventure genre, these titles are entitled The Citadels of Time and The Revenge of the Witch.
In fairly standard fashion, The Citadels of Time allows you to adjust the volume levels of both the background music and sound effects which does include the spoken dialogue that occurs during the various cut-scenes linking together the various parts of the story line. There are also options to play the game in full screen, wide screen and using a custom cursor. Two modes of game play are available.
Giving you the freedom to listen, communicate and adjust a variety of settings are features on offer from an over-the-ears style of headset from Creative.
The Evo Zx is a member of Creative’s Sound Blaster range of headset products. As with the other models in this product range of stylish looking headsets, the Evo Zx features a choice of connectivity options. Not only do you have Bluetooth with NFC (Near Field Communications) capability but also wired options either via USB or a standard 3.5mm audio link.
When a game has the title of Fairway then there is an excellent chance that golf will be involved in some way. In the case of this next title that involvement is based around the Solitaire card game that is known as Golf.
As data files become larger we need larger capacity portable devices to store the items we need to take with us between locations.
Along with its JumpDrive S23 flash stick family of products, Lexar has also developed the JumpDrive P10 flash stick range. Whereas the JumpDrive S23 range is being promoted as being one of the smallest USB 3.0 drives currently available, the JumpDrive P10’s claim to fame is with regards to it being one of the fastest USB 3.0 flash drives that you can currently purchase.
Put on your investigative hat and be prepared to enter the world of the supernatural as you take on the challenge of three Big Fish games.
I first came across the Animal during a visit to Berlin last year. This encounter happened while walking around the citys massive IFA exhibition. There it was, this Animal, trying to look inconspicuous among the various displays and visitors. My second encounter was earlier this year in London, close to the spot where G8 protestors were making their feelings felt despite being outnumbered by the presence of the police. On this occasion, the Animal preferred to stay in the corner of the room. This brings us to our third meeting as the Animal arrived for me to check out how well this device would cope with the demands of my household.
The Animal is the title given to a vacuum cleaner developed by Bosch. If you are wondering why this device has the Animal title, it is because this vacuum cleaner has been designed to cope with the demands of those households that have both human and pet occupiers. In my case the pet is a tom cat who can be over-energetic when using his litter tray, an untidy eater and one that enjoys showing me his rodent captures when he is not busy tearing up paper into shreds.
Adding wireless capability to your SD memory cards and USB flash sticks is just one feature found in a device from Kingston.
Like many others, I struggle to fit my favourite music, video clips and photos on the limited storage capacity offered by my smartphone and/or tablet. No matter how hard I try to squeeze this content into my mobile devices, I always end up with several items waiting in a queue for space that never appears. However I do have a number of flash sticks and memory cards that are generally underused, being tucked away in drawers or gathering dust on my work space.
Every so often, and it does seem to roll around far too frequently for my liking, I have to venture into the cupboard under the stairs and remove the various house-keeping paraphernalia that can only mean one thing. It is time to face up to the pile of freshly laundered clothing and bedding by making use of the ironing board.
With its extensive range of white goods, it is not surprising that our friends at Bosch have a number of irons within their product catalogue. Included in this particular product range is the Bosch Sennixx’x DA50 EditionRosso model. My review sample of this steam iron is predominately black in colour with red highlights and flashes to embellish the product.
Over the years I have played, and enjoyed, a large number of games that belonged to the Match 3 genre. In the most part, these games took various approaches as they set out to make the playing experience as challenging and enjoyable as possible. Unfortunately sometimes there were exception and this next Match 3 title was one such offering as it failed to engender any semblance of enjoyment when I was checking out the product for this review.
Match 3 Mega Pack, as its titles indicates, brings together a collection of Match 3 titles. In fact there are eleven games in total. I almost wrote “eleven different games” but thought better of it. What the title of Match 3 Mega Pack does not make clear is that all the eleven titles making up this collection have all come from the same source. The development team at Anawili Condento Medino were responsible for all these games.
For those looking for a large widescreen television, but lack enough space to accommodate the 55-inch UE55F8000 model I reported on recently, the Samsung UE46UF7000 product may be a viable option.
As with its larger sibling, the 46-inch UE46UF7000 SmartTV is not the kind of device that you could hide away in a corner. It will tend to dominate any normal household room in which it is sited. Although it is possible, as I proved despite the protestations of my back, to unpack and set up this widescreen television on your own, the operation is recommended to be carried out by two people.
Taking advantage of the latest USB technology, Lexar has released a range of flash drive devices with the promise of speedy operations.
Lexar, a leading company in the development and manufacture of award-winning memory solutions, has recently added two new offerings to it JumpDrive range of flash drive products. Both of these products support the latest USB 3.0 technology. These recent additions are the S23, which is claimed to be one of the smallest USB 3.0 flash drives currently available, and the P10 which comes with the tag line of being one of the fastest USB 3.0 flash drives available for purchase.
Well known for its audio products, Creative has developed a 2:1 speaker system with a difference.
While the Creative T3150 speaker system has the familiar look of your standard 2.1 speaker system, it does possess a feature that I had not normally associated with such a product. This combination of a subwoofer and two satellite speakers have gained an attribute that I have been advocating to be included for a number of years.
Real characters, ghostly apparitions and live jigsaw type videos all come together in a Mystery Case File title.
Shadow Lake, part of the Mystery Case Files series, is a Hidden Object Adventure game. Originally published by Big Fish Games, this title is now available from Focus Multimedia in Collector’s Edition format. Usually when a game is released in this type of format, most of the bonus items, apart from the immediately available Strategy Guide, are locked until the main game has been completed. Shadow Lake is, in some ways, an exception to this rule.
As one of the original market leaders in the mobile phone sector, Nokia is now facing a massive battle from the forces of iOS and Android. As part of the Nokia offensive is a new Lumia model.
Like other models in the Nokia Lumia series, the Lumia 620 smartphone offering is a Windows Phone 8 device. This latest model is being targeted at the more youthful, fun-loving market sector. To this end, the Lumia 620 will be available in a range of colours that could include, depending upon your location, lime green, orange, magenta, yellow, cyan, white and black. My review unit was the white model.
Not only does this next product add speaker capability to your smartphone but it can also act as a backup battery.
Before moving on from the summer aspect of this product I have to state that the appearance of my review sample could hardly be considered summery, and I hope it is not an indication of what might be in store for us in the coming season, with its totally black and splash resistant casing.
Continuing my look at various Canon printers, it is the turn of a model more suited to an office environment.
The PIXMA MX925 product is another model in Canon’s family of All-in-One devices. One look at the overall size of the product should be enough to convince the casual observer that this model is more suited to an office environment rather than for use in the home. It is not that this unit is particular large but it does have a substantial and impressive presence.
When the words Happy and Nightmare occur in the same title, you could be forgiven for wondering just what you were letting yourself in for.
Farm Mystery The Happy Orchard Nightmare is a Hidden Object Adventure game that is available from Avanquest’s GSP catalogue of titles. Firing up this game gives you the opportunity to create your game profile. You can adjust the volume level of the background music and sound effects plus select whether to use a custom cursor (its green in colour), play in full screen mode or not and make use of a tutorial.
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