Nintendo DS Lite intelligently designed hand-held games console
Nintendo really shouldn’t be here now. Its Game Cube console, if you believe some areas of the press, has been a total failure, while the Nintendo DS was all set to be completely overwhelmed by Sony’s PlayStation Portable hand-held.
And yet here we are. After the PSP’s strong start, Nintendo’s DS has shot ahead in sales, the Game Cube has still managed to ship over 20 million units worldwide and the forthcoming Wii console has been garnering the kind of positive buzz that money alone simply can’t buy. And it’s arriving on time.
Nintendo has, to be fair, been arguing for some time that there’s more to games machines than sheer brute force. Certainly on paper the PSP eases ahead of the DS in terms of sheer performance potential.
But in the same way that the original monochrome Game Boy saw off the colour Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear, the DS is winning many friends, and rightly so. For Nintendo has focused, wisely, on the software.
And that doesn’t mean retreading as many old franchises as you can dig up. It’s about games that may not have the best graphics, may not look the finest in the shop window, yet in terms of playability and originality, they’re simply fresh.
Tagged Under : Console, DS Lite, game, game console, Nintendo, PSP, SEGA
Canon PowerShot G9 12-megapixel digital camera
Canon’s PowerShot G9 shoots still photos at a maximum resolution of 12.1 megapixels. That results in huge file sizes. At the best quality you are looking at about 5MB per file, sometimes more, sometimes less. Shooting at that quality gives you the potential for getting prints at up to A2 size: large enough for you to make posters from your photos.
You can, of course, scale things down in several increments, to 640 x 480 if that’s what you want. And you can scale up too, with the camera capable of shooting uncompressed RAW format files.
Video footage comes in at a maximum of 1,024 x 768 pixels and 15 frames per second, or 640 x 480 and 30 frames per second. (more…)
Tagged Under : Camera, Canon, Digital, Digital Camera, LCD, megapixel, powershot, USB
Canon Digital IXUS 960 IS high quality 12-megapixel digital compact
It’s becoming increasingly difficult, when buying compact digital cameras off the shelf, to tell one from another, as the standard rectangular silver casing seems to be the norm for the majority of the market. It therefore comes as a pleasant surprise, when removing the packaging from the latest Canon Digital IXUS, to see a more ‘battleship grey’ tone of titanium and a sexy, indented curve to the front and sides.
It feels solid and comfortable to hold, too, measuring 90 x 57 x 26mm and weighing 165g. One slight annoyance, however, was the frequent appearance of fingerprints on the circular surround encompassing the lens on the front. (more…)
Tagged Under : Camera, Canon, Canon Digital IXUS, digita camera, Digital, LCD, megapixel
Pentax Optio S10 stylish compact 10-megapixel digital camera
Pentax has been onto a winner since starting the Optio S series back in 2003, and with each succeeding model the company has been refining, improving and embellishing, so that you feel you own one of the most stylish and versatile compact digital cameras around.
For a start, the all-silver aluminium casing looks ultra-cool, with the camera logo etched into the front and further embossing on the top. It also feels satisfyingly weighty for a compact (130g with battery and memory card loaded) and the controls are designed to make it as simple as possible for you to point and shoot with the minimum amount of adjustments.
As with all the Optio S cameras, the lens is an SMC Pentax 3x zoom sliding lens that fits snugly into the body and takes seconds to become ready for action. Round the back is a 2.5-inch, 232,000-colour screen, a D-pad style control panel, zoom buttons, separate playback and menu plus a delete button.
Less than £150 is good value for a 10-megapixel camera using a 1/1.8-inch CCD sensor. (more…)
Tagged Under : Camera, Digital, Digital Camera, megapixel, Pentax, SD
Casio Exilim Z1080 10-megapixel compact digital camera with large display
We’ve been pretty impressed by the consistency and quality of Casio’s Exilim range, which has recently been updated with the release of the 10.1-megapixel Z1080. It mimics the rather minimalist design of much of the rest of the family, which is no bad thing, with a small array of effectively laid out controls and a back that’s dominated by the 2.6-inch, 479 x 240-pixel LCD display.
There’s no viewfinder, so you’ll control everything through this screen, but we were particularly impressed by its clarity, colour accuracy and refresh rate. In both bright and low light environments you can still pick out essential details, although the viewing angle isn’t particularly generous so you’ll need to be face-on to see these benefits.
Accompanying the screen is a simple directional pad and two menu controls which give you access to the wealth of features on offer. (more…)