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iPad Plants vs Zombies

Dower — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:33:47 +0000

I lost count of the days I’ve had the iPad (actually I’m too lazy to recount them). In my few days with the iPad, I’ve bought more apps than I ever did for my iPhone. Why you may ask? It’s because I’ve always suspected that the new form factor would open quite a number of opportunities for developers and I wasn’t wrong. I guess for some it may be a “no-duh” comment, but honestly though, without the developers the iPhone wouldn’t have been what it became, and it’s the same with the iPad. On its own, it’s a fine device, but I wouldn’t say the first party offerings are stellar. It’s all the apps that made the first platform, and are now helping the iPad. Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t an enormous amount of shovel-ware on the iPad app store, but there are some shining stars, many are rebuilds that take advantage of the larger screen, and many to good effect. I purchased one today, and that’s Plants vs Zombies. Now, I’m not a stranger to this game, it’s the first Pop-Cap game I bought through Steam when it first appeared on my PC. My 6 year old and I played it extensively, and to say we enjoyed it is an understatement. I didn’t rush out to get this on day one, partly because I went through a cheap phase ($10! Grrr), but I caved today. My son was interested in it, and I decided, why not. The game looks fabulous on the iPad, and the screen size and touch mechanic fit the game perfectly. I’d say it plays better on the iPad then the PC. Now, I’ve not played too much, but I did notice some minor slow downs during some ending animations, but otherwise it plays nicely. For $10, it’s pretty good, and one of the better purchases I’ve made on the iPad so far.

Klipsch Image S4 earphones Impressions

Dower — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:28:19 +0000

Klipsch Image S4

Today, I had a real desire to pick up some new earbuds. Partially it was for my trip to Boston, but I didn’t want to settle for just any old earbuds. I have plenty at home, ranging from the ones that Apple gave me with my iPhone to others I’ve gathered over time that came with various media devices I bought, and even some I got from my trips to Hong Kong. I’ve always seemed to like the sound that came out of the Bose headphones, but I’ve never tried their earbuds, and they don’t offer demos of them (for obvious reasons — hygene). But I’ve been hesitant to plunk down $100 for a set of earbuds. I’ve read plenty of reviews for the Shure earbuds, and they all tout how incredible they are, but if I can’t get myself to shell out $100 for Bose, I sure as hell am not about to shell out $300 for Shure. One of the nicest sounding earbuds I did buy were some Philips ones, which ran $20 (yes I’m cheap), but sadly broke because they went cheap on the cable. So I Googled around for top rated earbuds, and CNet gave the Klipsch very high marks, and at $80! The price is still more than I ever paid for earbuds, but I wanted something that would make my music really pop. So, off I went searching the internet like a good frugal, money conscious, shopper and I noticed that no one sold these for any less than $80, so I just stopped into my local Best Buy and I happily picked them up tonight.

The first thing I noticed was how small the earbuds were, very unassuming, in a nice glossy black with silver finish. Once unboxed, I did notice what other reviewers on the web commented about, which is the cheap feel of the chord, but the cord is not the worst I’ve experienced, at least it’s not stiff. I’ve got a set of earbuds where the cord is stiff and manages to stay in awkward angles, curling in funny spots on your neck and head — no fun.

The default pads they had on were too small for my ears, so, opening the nice tin case that came with the earbuds I pulled out some slightly bigger pads, which allowed the earbuds to sit comfortably in my ear. It’s important to note here that these are not noise-cancelling earbuds, they are noise-isolating, big difference. The pads did a very nice job keeping out the exterior background noise around me, this’ll hopefully be nice on my plane ride tomorrow.

Now I had to hear what they sounded like, so I plugged them into my iPhone, got to my playlist, and played the “Roll Call” song from the Halo 3 soundtrack, it’s a nice tune that has plenty of drums, acoustics, and even vocal components… I was quite amazed! The music really did come to life! The bass really came through and the music was brought to an entirely new level for me. But I had to be sure if it just wasn’t a reaction to having spent $80 on earbuds, so I had to compare these to my other headsets and earbuds lying around my house.

First, I played the same song with my Audio Technic’s ATH-A500′s which are a nice sounding over the head headset, which is pretty well rated for it’s sound quality. For me, the S4 held up nicely and even surpassed these, mainly because the music was more in my head, due to the earbuds blasting the music directly into my eardrums.

Second, I tested them against some decent no-name earbuds I bought from Hong Kong. These no-name ones are pretty decent sounding, but I didn’t like the overall design; this is one with a stiff cheap feeling cord. The S4 blew them away, no contest.

Lastly, how did the S4′s compare to the earbuds Apple gave me? There was no contest. The Apple earbuds seemed so absolutely flat in comparison to the S4.

In summary, I’m quite impressed with these earbuds. Sound quality is unsurpassed in anything I’ve used so far, but then again, I’ve never tried a Shure, but I think this will suffice until someone wants to share their Shure’s with me.

Things Coming Soon

Dower — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:04:10 +0000

Just a note about things I plan to write about in August.
My wife bought me the Logitech MX Revolution. It’s not a new mouse, in fact, it’s over 2 years old, but Logitech doesn’t seem to have anything new or better in their lineup. How does it hold up to my expectations? Digging in my basement I discovered my still boxed Logitech CyberMan 3D mouse! I’ll also delve into some gaming, by reminiscing about my MMO experiences as I search for the next time sink. Lastly, maybe I’ll get my act together and properly theme my web site!

One week with my iPhone 3GS

Dower — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:36:37 +0000

It’s now been a little over a week since I picked up the new iPhone 3GS for me and my wife. Having been a Windows Mobile user for so long, I must say using the iPhone is such a breath of fresh air. The experience using this device is lightyears ahead of any device I’ve used to date. Only the Palm Pre would be close. My wife is loving it because it’s such a capable phone, and she’s enjoying the Internet in her pocket. I’ve been impressed with how well it works as a phone; all I can say in summary so far is this phone just works. I’m enjoying the ability to really browse the Internet and write my blog from this device with so little effort. Using the on screen keyboard isn’t as fast as a query keyboard but Apple did a nice job making it very tolerable with it’s spelling and word recognition that makes corrections as I type. Next for my upcoming cpmmentary; configuring my Blueant V1, review of the camera, and my future endeavors in iPhone development.