TheSa|nt's Blog

Well, at CES there was a lot to see. A lot of great people to meet, a lot of great tech to drool over, and a lot of great information learned. I demoed the MS Xbox Kinect and got TKO’s in boxing by a Google employee heh. It was funny to see a Google employee having so much fun with a competitors product.

Out of the entire day, there wasn’t a person I regret talking to outside of the man showing off the Sony 3d camcorder. His words were kind of rude and insulting…I didn’t care much for that. I had asked him a reasonable question and he responded like I was an idiot. Now if the question was an idiot question…I would take full credit for it, but all I asked was what the highest resolution it shot in. He was a little sarcastic to that point but at that point he got a little aggravated and explained it shot in HD. Ok….there are various levels of “HD”….back down buddy…take a breather.

Anyways, the 3d TV’s look nicer (the LEDs at least). Very little to no flicker at all (LG was good), and clear as day with light glasses that didn’t bother you while on the face. Personally though I will still wait till it looks that nice or better WITHOUT having to wear glasses. Regardless….it was nice.

Viewsonic has a few nice monitors. Their latest series are LED but 2ms response time (2x the 1ms response time of their past LCD version). Made me want to snag one though….27″s of ……mmmmmm.

Hercules has a nice DJ/mixer usb combo that fell into a somewhat decent price, Triton/MadKatz had a nice 5.1 pair of Triton headphones for the Xbox/PS3, Skype’s on all the major TV’s and the AR Drones are back as usual. Audi has some nice cars to show off, pioneer has a new deck for the car coming out (Navi series) that looks fun, Sony has one hell of a widescreen 3d display for everyone to enjoy.

Did I mention the Kinect was fun?

Well that sums up a lot I think. I’d go deeper into detail and cover all sorts of things with images but this isn’t really a tech news blog. Go to CES!! It’s well worth it.

TheSa|nt

Is it just me or does it seem like it’s going to suck? Microsoft doesn’t even know what it will or will not support. They say “it won’t support multitasking”…then “Windows 7 to support multitasking”, “Windows 7 won’t allow apps”, “well…..sortof….ok maybe it will”. Really?

It sounds like MS is simply trying to create a locked down version of Windows Mobile so that it pisses users off the same as the iphone. Well…that’s one way of looking at competition against Apple.

Windows phones have always been popular for being open, file friendly, and fully customizable. Yes a nice UI is cool looking, but will Windows Phone 7 still perform like a miniature laptop in your pocket? If not, I know I won’t be using it when it comes out. I use mine Windows 6.5 phone for both play and business. The things I use it for when it comes to business…no other phone seems to be able to accomplish.

If it turns out that the new Windows Phone 7 OS turns into a new iPhone wannabe, I will be converting over to Android. At least it is still open (for the most part) and pretty much becomes plan B. Not to mention, more developers choose to write apps for iPhone and Android before even remembering that Windows phones exist.

That Android Incredible is starting to look pretty nice :/

What do you think? Are you for or against a more locked down/limited Windows phone? Or are you hoping for a more versatile version of whats already there?

UPDATE: 01/18/2011

Hey everyone! I wanted to offer a quick update. I have spent a great deal of time messing with Windows Phone 7 and have realized it’s really not that bad. It’s a bit of an adjustment and they are indeed focusing on the general public vs the business community…but the interface is fluid, fast and filled with fun things to poke away at. The amount of apps for the phone is growing through the roof (finally a Windows Phone with a great selection of apps).

Personally I do not own one yet, but after playing with the phone in the stores, CES, etc…I have learned a lot. After keeping an eye on things online, you can see people are finding new ways to unlock, modify and/or improve the phone through various ways. As long as MS adds a little more support for the business community on top of the wonderful entertainment it currently has to offer….I might be willing to look at my options for an upgrade.

We need more phones with full qwerty keyboards though. More of an HTC selection would be nice as well but for now, the Samsung Focus takes the cake on what’s available. The screen is large, and so far has the best quality screen among them all. Second best would have to be the HTC Surround. I would like to say the HTC HD7 takes the cake there but it’s screen is quite dull compared to these other two models.

The OS is by far the best thing MS has ever done in the Mobile Market. Like Windows 7 is to the PC world, WP7 is to the mobile. Congratulations MS, and keep your promise with the painless OS updates and future features.

UPDATE: 03/23/2011:

My new review can be found here: http://www.animevortex.net/blog/thesaint/general/my-updated-windows-phone-7-review/

A great review by Steve ^^

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRcTYgEx3mI

I really hope not, but Bungie announced that although the beta for Halo Reach is running on their own servers, the finished product will be launched in partnership with Activision. Does this mean they are heading down the same road as Infinity Ward?

The beta has been out for a week now, and so far it looks like we have a lot to look forward to (keeping in mind that what they are showing us now is only a taste of things to come). The finished product should prove to be a very interesting game. I just hope That they won’t ruin things like Infinity Ward by jumping over to Activision.

I guess we will find out soon (well, September at least)

At 8:15PM PST, xbox live went down officially for all users using the new dashboard (previewing it).

Talking about another big “oops” for Microsoft. Within minutes there were dozens of posts/topics about it on xbox.com’s forums in regards to the outage. Based on everyone’s findings…only those using the new preview were affected (friends & neighbors using the old dashboard are/were still online playing perfectly fine.

In fact so many people accessed the xbox website, it has brought to entire site to a slow crawl (or for some people, timing out).

You go Microsoft!

- TheSa|nt