When the iPad was first announced, I really didn’t see the point. Like a lot of people, I was hoping for a tablet-style version of a MacBook; surely it wouldn’t be too hard to take a MacBook Air, put a touchscreen where the keyboard is, and sell that? But Apple had other ideas; iPhones have been so successful largely because they are so easy to use, so they decided to build on that instead.

So is the iPad simply “a large iPod touch”? After my first day of use, I’ve got to say that yes, it is-and yet, it isn’t… It’s all the good stuff we’re used to (apps, touchscreen, browser, email, ease of use) plus some extra good stuff (speed, larger screen area, better keyboard, increased battery life). There is a small amount of added bad stuff: it’s a bit heavier than I’d like; I can’t hold it in one hand for as long as I can hold my E-reader, for example. It only has one speaker, despite it being billed as an ideal way to watch movies on the go. And the dock connector is in the wrong place for using the iPad as a video player or photo frame- would it have killed them to put a second connector on the side so it could be docked in landscape mode? The last bad thing I can think of is the price- I know first versions of products do tend to be more pricey, so hopefully we’ll see the price drop by £100-£150 or so in the future.

All that aside, though, I’m pleasantly surprised by the iPad. It’s a fantastic way of surfing the web, doing email and updating a blog whilst on the sofa. I’m not convinced that it will make a good ereader- I’ve tried some sample books and as I expected, the screen is nowhere as good as the one on my Sony ereader. Add in the increase in size and weight and the dedicated ereaders have nothing to worry about.

I’ll post another blog once I’ve had some more use out of it, but so far, I’m impressed. And yes, this was written on the iPad, using the Wordpress app.

My local RC club, DMS Racing, has recently started regular heats for micro racers. Since I have been well and truly bitten by the RC racing bug, I caved in and got myself something to race. In this post I’ll be having a quick look at the Carisma GT14 1/14 scale touring car, and I’ll also be posting about the Team Associated SC18 short course truck later.

First, a bit of video. When I got my Gt14, there wasn’t much info about it, so I figured I might as well do one of those “unboxing” videos that seem to be quite popular these days…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Having spent a bit more time with it, I must say I’m really looking forward to racing this for the first time. I’m very impressed with the attention to detail of this car, especially considering it could so easily be mistaken for a toy. The shell alone is a work of art – I’ll try my best not to scratch it up too badly on its first outing, but no promises! Obviously a realistic shell isn’t super important on a car that’s going to get raced and see some hard times, but it looks like they’ve already thought of that – the wing is held in place by four body clips, and I was very surprised (and glad!) to discover that the wing mirrors can be easily removed. I had thought that the first thing to go would be the mirrors, because although they’re a lovely scale touch, they do look extremely vulnerable. However, undo a screw, and each mirror comes right off. Speaking of the shell, each shell is available as an option (see the list of Carisma GT14 bodyshells here), and there’s also a clear Mazda 6 shell for custom paint jobs.

Moving on to the chassis, it’s quite impressive how they’ve shrunk a regular 1/10 touring car down to 1/14 size. Everything you’d expect to see is right there – adjustable shocks, proper diffs, a servo saver, adjustable geometry, slipper  - there’s even mountings for anti roll bars. There are a number of upgrades available (and there’s also a “pro” spec chassis-only version, the GT14 Pro V-One) so some of the components are basic – the shocks are adjusted using clip-on rings, unlike the threaded body “Pro” shocks; it doesn’t have the aluminium adjustable turnbuckles, settling for threaded rods; the chassis isn’t carbon fibre; the tyres are scale treaded instead of slicks or foam; and the diffs are geared instead of ball. However, for a nice, easy, out-of-the-box racer, you’ve got everything you need to keep you occupied for a while.

Carisma GT14

The motor is a bog standard 370-size brushed unit, however even this has a couple of nice touches. First off, there’s a clip-on heatsink (which I’ll be swapping onto my SC18 next time I race it!), and secondly, replacement brushes are one of the option parts! I imagine a lot of racers will be wanting to swap a brushless system in, but it’s good to know that if you stick with the standard motor you’ll be able to maintain it. I wouldn’t be surprised if some clubs ran a controlled class of this car, to keep costs down and make it easier for people on a limited budget to get involved.

Even the radio is quite decent. I’ve opted for a 2.4GHz model – I really can’t be doing with crystals and frequency clashes and so on, so for the extra £20 or so, it’s worth going for.  In fact, it’s really the only one that makes sense – apparently the 27MHz models have a combined ESC and receiver, so if you ever did want to go to 2.4GHz you’d need to replace both the ESC and the receiver, which would cost you more than the extra for the 2.4GHz model in the first place. Just a 2.4GHz receiver would be at least £35, so it makes no sense at all to go for an FM model. Anyway, the radio gear is not bad at all – the transmitter takes four AA batteries (supplied!) unlike the SC18’s demand for eight, and as well as the usal throttle and steering trim, you’ve got end point adjustment AND a dual rate knob. Not bad for a kit radio. The only downside is that even though it’s a 2.4GHz system, the receiver’s aerial is just as long as any FM aerial – at least 30cm or so. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to mind being coiled up inside the shell, so I’ll be racing it like that.

Anyway, that’s my first impressions – I’ll post an update once I’ve given it a run around the track!

Little and large...

I’m thoroughly enjoying my Traxxas E-Revo. It’s stupid amounts of fun. The only slight problem is that it’s too big for me to run at home – the garden just isn’t big enough for a 1/8 scale RC monster truck. Especially not one that’s been upgraded to brushless – I pull the trigger and straight away, it’s in the geraniums.

Thankfully (for my wife’s herbacious borders) Traxxas recently released a 1/16 scale E-Revo, the E-Revo VXL, which is exactly half the size of the original. Not only that, but it has a water-resistant brushless motor and ESC. So, does half the size mean half the fun?

Er… no. If anything, it’s even more fun than the big brother! If I had to pick one drawback to the larger E-Revo (note that I said drawback, not flaw!) it’s the sheer size of it – you need a lot of space to run it. It’s also not the easiest thing to carry over long distances, like from a car park to a beach. Of course, the 1/16 E-Revo VXL doesn’t have those problems – it’s half as long, half as wide, half as tall. And of course it’s so much lighter to carry – the car, transmitter and spare batteries can be slipped into a small drawstring bag and slung over your shoulder.

So, apart from the obvious reduction in size, what else is different? Not much, actually. Traxxas have pretty much simply taken the big E-Revo, and made a smaller version. It’s got the same suspension layout, same drivetrain, same wheels and tyres… The only difference is the electronics package. The ESC in the E-Revo VXL is a water-resistant model (the brushless 1/8 E-Revo doesn’t have that), and of course there’s a 1/16-size brushless motor. The receiver and transmitter are the same as the big E-Revo, but I swapped the receiver out for a 2.4Ghz jobbie that mates with my Spektrum DX3S.

So, what’s it like to use? The first outing for mine was in the heavy snow we experienced in December. Since the electronics are water resistant, I took it out and gave it a good run in the snow and on the icy roads, and it didn’t miss a beat! Gentle throttle control was the order of the day, unsurprisngly. Due to the small size it could get grounded on packed snow quite easily, and it couldn’t plough through deep snow like the big one could, but it was still a blast. Back home, I took the shell off, disconnected the batteries, rinsed it under a hot tap to get rid of the worst of the snow that had built up under the shell, and left it to dry. It had a few more outings in the snow before it all thawed…

More recently, it’s also had a run on Highcliffe beach (near Bournemouth). This is where I normally run the big E-Revo, so I know where there are some fun places to go. Although the 1/16 car is too small to really go on the shingle beach (it’d just get hung up on the pebbles), it’s quite at home on the gravel paths and grassy bits. So far I’ve run it on single battery packs (LiPo and NiMH), which are pretty fast – Traxxas quote 30mph – so I haven’t felt the need to swap the pinion and run it on dual packs yet.

However, it does need a more delicate hand – I’ve found it much easier to flip than the big one. It’s also more fragile – so far I’ve managed to break two hub carriers by doing unintended cartwheels! Fortunately, just like the big models, there are plenty of spares and hop-up parts available. I’ve fitted some red aluminium replacements from The Toyz (on eBay) which are much better. You do need to resist the temptation to fit every anodized part you can find – some parts, like the A-arms, need the flex that the pastic parts allow. I’ve also fitted the STRC aluminium front and rear skid plates – these don’t need to be plastic, and they do look quite nice… The next improvement I plan on making is some better shock absorbers;I could replace the oil and springs in the stock ones, but I might as well get some metal-bodied ones and keep the originals for spares.

So to sum up – the 1/16 Traxxas E-Revo is a top choice for a small, fun basher – plenty of spares and upgrades options, too!

Opinion: Get it!!

You're not tied to O2

My iPhone 3G contract with O2 ran out a few weeks ago, and while I wait for the next model to be announced, I thought I’d see if the other networks were any better. Now that O2 is no longer the only network for iPhone, there’s the opportunity to switch provider – O2 has been ok, but sometimes texts are delayed, calls don’t reach me, and 3G performance has not been great.

Fortunately, O2 have made it quite easy for iPhone owners to switch provider, so anyone can give it a try. And, since I’m not actually ready to switch provider just yet, I’ve got a couple of tips if you’re thinking of staying with O2 after your contract has expired.

Read on to find out how you can set up your iPhone with another provider, or switch your O2 contract to something cheaper.

How to unlock your iPhone

First things first: you need to get your iPhone unlocked. This not as scary as it sounds – you don’t need to visit one of the dodgy little shops you find on most London streets these days, or answer some dodgy eBay advertisement – it’s dead simple, and O2 will do it for you. If you’ve heard about jail-breaking, don’t worry – this is NOT jail-breaking your iPhone; it’s perfectly OK and O2 are actually the ones doing it, so there is NO PROBLEM AT ALL.

If you’re on contract, you can unlock the phone at any time FOR FREE; if you’re a pay-as-you-go customer it will cost you £15, and if you’ve had the phone for less than a year you’ll also lose the web & wifi bolt-on. Obviously if you unlock the phone before your contract runs out you’ll still need to pay O2 for the remainder of the contract – you can’t just stop paying the monthly contract charge – but that just means you keep paying your monthly bill as normal. There’s no lump sum or sudden charge if you unlock your contract iPhone, whether it’s after 19 months or after just one month.

All you need to do is fill in this iPhone unlocking form on the O2 website and they’ll take care of the rest; you’ll receive a text a week or two later telling you that your iPhone is now unlocked. It’s that simple – no phone calls, and you can do it even if you’re perfectly happy with O2; but now, if you travel, you’ll be able to put a local SIM in your phone and cut your overseas calling costs when on holiday.

Using another SIM

Anyway, once you’ve received the “We’ve unlocked your phone” message from O2, put in another network’s SIM (use the little tool that came with your iPhone to get the SIM tray out) and connect the iPhone to iTunes – you’ll get a message confirming that your iPhone is now unlocked. You should now see the new network in the top left of your screen. If you don’t, go into your Settings screen, tap General, and then Network – try switching off 3G. I couldn’t get a Vodafone signal until I turned off 3G – this was because the 3G signal was very faint, so my iPhone kept trying to connect to it; as soon as I told it not to use 3G, I got a full-strength GPRS signal instead.

Job done? Nearly…

Vodafone data settings for the UK

Check your cellular data connection settings

There is one more step. When you put in another network’s SIM, the phone will recognise it and change the network settings for you. However, it’s worth checking the data settings for your new network – the Vodafone settings that were automatically applied to my iPhone were incorrect. I kept getting the message “you are not subscribed to a cellular data plan” whenever I tried to access the Internet.

For Vodafone in the UK, the “Cellular Data” section should have these settings:

APN: wap.vodafone.co.uk
Username: wap
Password: wap

Want to stay with O2 after your 18/24 months, but not pay as much?

Although my O2 contract has run the 18 months, I’m going to wait until the new iPhone is announced later in the year before I decide if I want to switch networks – but I don’t want to keep on paying £35 a month.

My wife and I mainly use our iPhones for texting and surfing; we don’t use all of our voice minutes, so it’s not really worth paying that much every month. Well, it turns out that O2 have a new range of iPhone tariffs called “Simplicity for iPhone”, and they’re ideal for people like us – prices start at just £15 a month for 300 minutes, and you still get the unlimited data, free wifi and visual voicemail! That’s for a 12-month contract, and from what I can tell it’s the best deal around at the moment; Vodafone PAYG would work out at £15 just for data alone, no calls (they charge 50p per day for data).

My wife has switched to the £15 plan for 12 months, whereas I’ve gone for the 1-month rolling contract (which means I can cancel at any time with 30 days’ notice) in case I do want to switch network later – that’s £20 per month but don’t forget, it’s just a 1-month contract – I’m not locked in. And it’s still cheaper than PAYG. Even the equivalent contract to the £35 one we both had is now only £20 (per month for 12 months; the one-month version is £25) – and that’s with unlimited texts, not the 600 we originally had.

So, unlocking your iPhone is easy, and assuming your contract is now finished – which a lot of them will be around about now – you can either switch to another network or save yourself some cash! Simples!

You’d think it would be easy to spot when you’re about to send a very inappropriately-worded text message, wouldn’t you? For me, apparently not…

It all started a while back when I finally got around to getting in touch with a very good friend of mine, who I had been a bit lax about staying in touch with recently. She gave me the fantastic news that she was getting married later in the year, and I suggested we meet up to celebrate (and so I could vet the lucky chap). Unfortunately, family issues distracted me and I didn’t follow up. Then yesterday I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t spoken to her for a few weeks, so I resolved to get in touch in the next couple of days.

That brings us to today – a cold Monday morning. The day starts badly – the Jubilee line is down, and as a result the Bakerloo line is overcrowded so they’re not letting people onto the platforms at Baker Street. I eventually have to go via Euston and end up getting to work about half an hour later than normal. As I rush in to the office, I get a text from my friend telling me the date of the wedding – and whilst I am in mid-reply, I walk onto my floor to see my colleague on hands and knees under my desk, power cables everywhere, and not looking happy. Must be another power failure or something – a bad start to the morning looks to be getting worse, so I hurriedly finish my text, basically saying I’ll email her shortly, and get on the floor to help out.

Ten minutes later everything is sorted, and I’m waiting for my laptop to boot up – I’m still a little distracted by the power cables, though. My phone rings.

Me: “Hiya, what’s up?”
Colleague: “Morning. Can you make that design change you suggested?”
Me: “Yeah, sure. I’ll do it when I’m turned on.”
Colleague: “<snigger>”
Me: “What?”
Colleague: “<snigger> What’d you just say?”
Me: “I said I’ll do it when I’m turned on. What’s so… awww, crap, I meant when my LAPTOP is turned…” <pause> <suddenly realising why I’d just automatically used that phrase> “AWWWW, CRAP! NUTS! NOOOO! NUTS! NONONONO NO!” <buries head in hands>

Why had that phrase sprung so readily to mind? Because this is what I’d sent to my soon-to-be-married friend:

“Yay, was just thinking about you last night, will mail you when I’m turned on”

It turns out that no matter how hard you wish for it, time will not rewind to before you hit the ’send’ button on an unfortunately-phrased SMS. Believe me, I tried…

iHome IP99 clock radio

Looking for a decent clock radio that is iPhone 3G certified? So was I. So my wife gave me one of these for my birthday – but is it any good?

Although the iPhone holds all my favourite music, I still prefer waking up to the radio – mainly so I can hear the news. At night, though, it’s nice to have some iPod music, so I started looking for a clock radio that was also an iPhone dock. That way, I wouldn’t need two sets of speakers by the bed.

It turns out that there are quite a few iPod-compatible clock radios out there, but not many that are iPhone compatible. The difference is that an iPhone-compatible device has extra shielding, to prevent the annoying bip-bippy-bip-bip-bip noise that you get when a mobile phone comes near a speaker.

So that narrowed my choices down – and then when i started looking at the few that were left, almost all of them had pretty poor alarms. I eventually settled on the iHome IP99, as it had the ability to set an alarm that only worked Monday to Friday – most other clock radios only gave you the ability to set one alarm that went off every day. That might be OK for most people, but I’d spent the last few years with a Pure Bug DAB radio which let me set a different alarm for every single day, if I wanted – so I wasn’t used to turning off the alarm for the weekend.

So, after living with it for six months, what do I think of it?

Sound

The IP99 produces really nice sound. Whether it’s presenters talking, or music from the iPhone, the sound is very impressive for something that’s quite small. I can turn it up to louder-than-a-bedroom-needs levels and it doesn’t distort. I’m not an audiophile, though.

Operation

Here’s where the problems start to appear. The IP99 has a pretty simple button layout – most of the controls are on the top of the radio. A very nice touch is the little switch on the back, which instantly flips it between GMT and BST. It only gets used twice a year, but it’s so simple you wonder why more companies don’t do it. The IP99 comes with a remote control, but I don’t use it because this is a clock radio – not a home entertainment centre. It’s right beside my bed; I don’t need a remote!

Sadly, the rest of the iHome IP99 isn’t as well thought out.

Let’s start with the volume and tuning controls – these are large rings that surround the Power and Play/Pause buttons. If you want to adjust the volume in the dark (like if you’re trying to go to sleep, or don’t want your alarm so loud) then you end up slapping your hand onto the top of the radio and sliding it around until you find the ring, and then trying to rotate it – the rings are very smooth and you have to press down to get them to move. First off, it’s far too much work for what should be a very simple job, and secondly, it’s too easy to end up turning the radio off – and if it was in “alarm” mode, you’ve just lost your snooze capability.

Speaking of snooze, the snooze bar doubles as the control for the light intensity. The IP99 follows the annoying trend that a lot of manufacturers have jumped on recently; that of having a backlit LCD display. You have to wonder if any of them actually test these things; if they did, they’d realise that a backlit LCD is basically a big light – not ideal for an alarm clock! Even at the lowest brightness setting, the IP99’s display is too bright to have by the side of your bed. I’ve ended up turning off the light altogether. If I need to know the time in the night, I can press the snooze bar to turn it on again, which is OK, but it comes on at full brightness – I then have to press it another six or seven times to turn it off again. And, since it’s the snooze button, if you do that when the alarm has activated, you’ve just snoozed it.

The problems don’t stop there – even the seemingly simple act of choosing an input has been ruined. You can switch between radio stations by pressing one of the three radio buttons to access a stored channel. If you’re not listening to the radio at the time, pressing the button will switch over to the radio. Similarly, pressing the line-in button will switch you to the line-in socket (useful for attaching something that isn’t an iPod) or, if you’re on line-in, it will switch you back to the radio. But, and here’s the weird bit, there is no way of switching to the iPhone’s dock input. You CAN press the play/pause button, but this is less than ideal – it activates the iPod playback function; useless if you don’t want to listen to the iPod! If you want to listen to, say, internet radio via an App in the iPhone, you have to press the play/pause button, go into the iPod app, stop playing, come out of the iPod app, switch to the radio app and then play. A simple way around this would be to have the line-in button double as a “dock input” button – press once for line-in; press again for dock – simples. But no, iHome make it hard. Why do you need another way of switching to the radio?

If you’re lucky, sometimes you can get the iPhone’s non-iPod audio by launching whatever app you want, and then docking the iPhone into the IP99 – after a few seconds it will usually detect the iPhone and switch the input for you, but not always. And on some of the occasions it does switch, it will also start playing the iPod as well as whatever other app you’re running- very annoying.

Finally, there is one last problem – and it’s the biggest: the IP99 is not suitable for use with an iPhone 3G. There are two reasons why I say this: First, sometimes the iPhone will pop up that little “This device is not iPhone compatible” message when you dock the phone. Oopsy. Second, the IP99 STILL emits the horrible bip-bippy-bip bip-bip-bip noise if the radio is on while the iPhone is docked. It’s OK if you’re using the iPod, but terrible if you want to listen to the radio. And it does it LOUDLY. Even if the IP99 is turned off, you can still hear it – especially at night. When you’re trying to sleep.

So, to sum up:

Pros

• Great sound
• Remote control is pretty comprehensive

Cons

• Terrible controls
• Not iPhone-friendly
• Display is too bright for bedside use
• No way of switching to iPhone input

Opinion: Don’t bother

I’ve had a chance to try out the Ear Force X41 wireless 5.1 headphones for a while now, so here’s what I think of them.

Overview

X41 package

One of the first things you notice with these headphones is that Turtle Beach have thought them out quite well. You get an optical cable in the packaging, so no need to buy an extra one, and they’re powered by USB. This might seem a bit strange, but they’re primarily designed to be used with an Xbox 360 which has plenty of USB ports (it’s worth pointing out that this doesn’t mean they can only be used with an Xbox, – they’ll work with any optical input).The chances are pretty good that someone interested in this sort of device will have an HDTV, and probably either an Xbox 360 or PS3, but if not then a USB power adapter should sort you out. The base station has a hanger on top to hold the headphones, although there is no built-in recharging function – the headphones run off 2 AAA batteries. You can also connect a second set of headphones via the 3.5mm socket on the front, so two people can share the experience (after fighting over who gets the wireless ones, presumably). The last bit of good thinking to point out is that the gaming microphone can be removed – ideal if you’re not going to be using it with an Xbox.

Set up

There’s no setting up involved – simply plug in the power cable and optical cables (the base unit has a pass-through optical port so you can still use a normal amp if you don’t need the headphones), put batteries in the headphones, and turn everything on. The headphones themselves are very comfortable – they’re lighter than the wired headphones I was using previously. There’s plenty of adjustability, so getting a good fit is easy. The volume control is very easy to find, so quick adjustments are simple – no hunting around needed.

Audio quality

Now, I’m not an audiophile – I don’t have any complaints about listening to music on my iPhone, I can’t tell the difference between a B&O CD player or a Sony player, and the thought of spending hundreds of pounds on speaker cabling is ridiculous. So, with that in mind, here’s what I think about listening through these headphones: they’re fine. Movies weren’t muffled or distorted; dialogue was clear; and there was decent bass – there’s also a bass boost switch if you need a bit more. The surround sound effect was also pretty good – I’ll do some more tests on that, though. So, they’re comfortable and sound great – so far so good. I tried them with Xbox 360 games (the surround sound aspect here was excellent), blurays on my PS3 (also good, but with a big drawback – see the next section), and also watching movies via an Apple TV (perfectly fine).

Are there any downsides?

Well, yes, actually. Two big downsides. First, they interfered with my Apple TV’s wireless connection. The base station sits behind my Apple TV, and when it was turned on, the Apple TV would drop its wireless connection if transferring a video file. If you happened to be listening to the headphones at the time, you’d hear a regular (and loud) popping noise.

The second downside is that these headphones don’t work with the newer DTS HD spec – so if I’m watching a Blu-ray on my PS3 that doesn’t have a 5.1 soundtrack (such as Transformers 2), I have to switch it to PCM and make do with Pro Logic surround.  Some discs have both DTS HD and Dolby 5.1, so you can switch to the 5.1 audio, but it’s very annoying on discs that don’t have the option.

Conclusion

The Turtle Beach Ear Force X41 wireless 5.1 headphones are pretty good, and as a replacement for my old wired 5.1 headphones, they’re fine. However, the prospect of wifi interference, and lack of DTS HD support, is disappointing. Hopefully Turtle Beach will produce a more capable product in future; for now these are good, but not as good as they could be.

Rating: Worth a look

Turtle Beach Ear Force X41

Surround sound is good. I like my surround sound system. My neighbours, on the other hand, aren’t so fond of it! So, to be neighbourly, I’ve been on the lookout for a decent set of wireless surround sound headphones, and at long last I think I’ve found the ideal solution.

Up until now I’ve been using a Creative HQ-2300D Dolby surround processor. It’s a little box of tricks that takes an optical input and enables a normal pair of headphones to simulate a surround sound experience. It works really well, too. The only drawback is that it isn’t wireless – which means I end up with cables stretched across the lounge, and the weight of the box dragging down the headphones. It’s not ideal.

Despite the fact that this technology has been around for a few years now, there are precious few ‘real’ 5.1 surround-sound headphones available. There are plenty of headphones that take a normal two-channel stereo signal and try to make it seem like surround,  and a few gaming headsets, but they tend to be dedicated PC sets which only work with a special soundcard – not a regular toslink cable. A few years ago Philips came out with a set – wireless, too – but they were quite hard to get hold of- despite being around £300…

So it seems that home cinema enthusiasts aren’t a suitable target market for this sort of thing. Gamers, on the other hand, apparently are – and one company, Turtle Beach, is just about to release what seems to be the perfect set of 7.1 wireless surround sound headphones…

The Turtle Beach Ear Force X41 Wireless Headset is due to be released in late 2009. Currently it’s listed at £149.99 at Amazon and Play. It follows on from the Ear Force X4 Wireless 5.1 Dolby Pro Logic 2 Headset, which seems to have had good reviews, so the X41 hopefully won’t suck either. Both sets are actually aimed at Xbox 360 owners, as they also incorporate a microphone for in-game chat. Fortunately the mic can be removed, so you shouldn’t feel like an air traffic controller when watching a movie. And, since they take a regular toslink cable input, they’ll actually work with any player that has an optical out for audio – in my case, they’ll probably end up connected to my PS3 more often than my 360!

I’m looking forward to the Ear Force X41 – and I suspect my neighbours are, too – and as soon as I have a chance to try them out I’ll be posting a follow-up.

For more information, check out the product page on the Turtle Beach website or watch their YouTube video below…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Professor Layton and Pandora's Box

Today’s a great day for Nintendo DS owners – a new Professor Layton game is out! Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box gives us another dose of the charming gameplay found in the first game, Professor Layton and The Curious Village.

The games basically involve you solving lots of puzzles whilst investigating a mystery. The actual story itself is pretty much irrelevant, and only serves to move you from puzzle to puzzle, but it’s a nice change to all the frantic action games that seem to make up most of the charts these days! In addition to the puzzles, there are also places to explore and items to collect along the way. The game is presented in a hand-drawn cartoon style, with voice actors playing the various characters, and the occasional animation clip for key scenes.

The puzzles range from the amazingly easy to the mildly difficult, and if you do get stuck there are hints to nudge you in the right direction. As with many Nintendo games, it’s clearly aimed at entertaining all ages. Younger players will still be able to solve many of the puzzles on their own, with or without hints, and older players will get just as much satisfaction from getting them right first time, or without any assistance at all. We had great fun playing three or four puzzles a night for a few weeks, although some of the trickier puzzles can end up in tussles over control of the stylus for “just one more go, I think I’ve got it this time – oh, no, I haven’t, just one more go”…

Amazon currently have the best prices – the first game (Professor Layton and The Curious Village) is around £18, and the new one (Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box) is around £28 – everyone else seems to be doing it for £30+ as of 25 Sept 09 – even Play, which was a surprise.

I thoroughly recommend both these games! Buy them! NOW!

There’s been a steady increase in interest around Ebook readers in the UK recently, and since I’ve switched back to reading instead of watching video on the tube to and from work (no, really, I must be growing up or something), I decided it was time to have a proper look and see what’s what.

What is an Ebook Reader, then?

Ok, let’s start with a quick explanation of exactly what an Ebook Reader (or Ereader) is. The simple answer is: it’s a battery-powered screen you can read books on. You buy electronic copies of books online, transfer them to the device, and read them on the screen.

However, the simple answer is not the best answer. The key thing about Ereaders is the type of screen they have, and how this makes an Ereader a viable alternative to a normal book.

Normal computer displays are backlit, and this can make lengthy reading sessions uncomfortable since you’re basically staring at a light all the time, which can make your eyes tired. Ereader displays, on the other hand, aren’t backlit – so, just like paper, there’s nothing to strain your eyes.

Not only that, but Ereader displays look very similar to printed paper – they’re black and off-white (just like paper), and have a similar resolution to print. In fact, the first time I saw an Ereader in a shop I had to check that wasn’t just a non-working mock-up – the display really does look like it’s printed text. A few people have commented on the lack of colour, or lack of a backlight, but that’s the whole point – it really is just like a book, only more convenient (and I’ll come back to that point later).

There is one final important thing to note with Ereader displays, and that’s how little power they use. Normal LCD displays constantly use power to keep the picture on the screen. Ereader displays, on the other hand, use something called “E-ink”, and these displays only use power to change the screen – so when you “turn” a page, the display uses power to change the text – but once the text has changed, it will stay on the screen without using additional power. This means that Ereaders can last a very, very long time without needing to be recharged. Indeed, rather than measuring battery life in hours (like a laptop), it is measured by how many times you can turn a page on a single charge – and this is usually in the thousands. You could probably read at least eight average novels on a single charge – that’s not bad going!

How much do they cost?

Well, that’s the bad news about Ereaders – they’re not cheap. You’re looking at over a hundred quid for an Ereader – currently the Sony PRS-505 is going for £150 from John Lewis, which is cheaper than most other retailers, but still quite pricey for a book! The books themselves are pretty much the same price as normal books – which is odd, when you think that there’s no printing or shipping involved, but then there are websites to run so perhaps it balances out…

Where do I get the books from?

At the moment the main retailers for Ebooks in the UK are WH Smiths, Waterstones and Borders. There is also BooksOnBoard, a US website which sells to UK customers, but due to different licencing deals between the US and UK, not all books on their site can be bought if you’ve a UK customer. However, BoB do have books which aren’t available from the other three sites. It’s worth checking all four sites for a particular book, as prices often vary – for example, I bought The Lost Symbol for around £7 from Waterstones, the others were charging anywhere between £9 and £16. Ok, in this case it was more of a P.R. thing – like Amazon and Asda selling the hardback for £4.99 – but you get the idea. Shop around.

Once you’ve bought a book, you’ll be given a link to download the file, and once you’ve got it you can load the file onto your reader. Each reader can hold a large number of books at once, so you don’t have to worry about deleting books when you’ve finished them (unless you really want to).

The only thing to be careful of here is that you buy the correct format of book. Just like PCs and Macs use different software, some readers use different formats of books. However, recently a consensus has been reached between most of the manufacturers to support the “ePub” format, so this should make things simpler.

Some readers can also handle normal Acrobat PDF files – useful for taking a copy of your posh digital camera manual on holiday with you!

So why on earth would I buy an Ereader?

This was the question I asked myself a month ago. My first thought was that the average book costs around a fiver (from Amazon), so why not just keep buying normal books, the normal way? What’s so special about an Ebook reader that makes it worth that sort of money? Well, in my opinion, I can sum it up in one word – convenience. I was reading a 400-odd page novel on the tube the other week, and it was a bit awkward and uncomfortable trying to hold it with one hand (and I hate holding books with two hands for some reason). It was just too thick, and every time the train jolted it slipped in my hand. An Ebook reader, however, is slim enough that it can be held with one hand easily – no matter how many pages are in the book! Also, it takes up hardly any space in my bag (unlike the latest Dan Brown hardback would), which also means that, when we go on our cruise, it’ll be so much easier to take a load of books loaded on the Ereader rather than trying to fit real ones in my luggage.

Aren’t real books just, y’know, better?

I’m actually going off real books. As far as I can see, the only way real books are better at the moment is in the way you can very quickly flick through them to see what’s on each page. You can easily jump to the start of a chapter, or even a specific page, in an Ebook, but you can’t quickly flick through every page, front to back, to find that diagram or whatever. Ereaders take a second or so to turn a page, so fast flicking, in current models at least, is out. But it’s not like I do that all the time, so actually, it doesn’t bother me. There are a few other possible drawbacks, but I guess it just depends on your personal opinion as to whether they’re dealbreakers – to me, they’re not:

Sure, if the battery runs out, you’re kinda stuffed – but as I said earlier, you could easily read eight novels on a single charge, so the chances of you having to go that long without a chance to top it up are pretty remote (and if you were going to carry eight novels around with you, you might just as well carry the Ereader and a spare novel in case the battery runs out…!).

And of course, since it’s electronic, if you drop it in the bath it’ll probably be ruined – but then so would a normal book (albeit slightly cheaper to replace).

And finally, you wouldn’t be able to lend a book to someone else once you’d read it – Ebooks are tied to the buyer.

So, compared to the hassle of carrying ruddy big books around, I think an Ereader is pretty neat!

And finally – what’s the deal with the Amazon Kindle?

There’s been a few mentions of Amazon’s Kindle Ereader in the press this year, which is odd considering it’s not available in the UK yet. It’s been out in the States for over a year, though, and has proven to be quite popular.

The main thing with the Kindle is that you can easily buy books for it from Amazon – straight from the device itself, without having to use a computer. However, unlike readers from other manufacturers, you can’t buy books from other websites for it (and Amazon books won’t work on other readers). Is this a bad thing? Well, yes and no. The downside is that there is no competition – you can only buy the books Amazon sell, at their prices. The upside is that Amazon do seem to have a wider selection of books available (in the US anyway) and they seem to have a bit more influence over publishers than smaller retailers. And there’s also the fact you can browse and buy books on-the-go, and even download a sample chapter to see if it’s worth buying that book from the writer you’ve never heard of.

Anyway, until the Kindle is available in the UK – and currently there’s no firm date – we won’t know how the UK service compares to the existing offerings from Borders, Waterstones and WH Smiths.

Answer the question, then – are Ebook readers worth buying?

In my opinion, yes. I like that they’re smaller and more convenient to carry than real books, and you can slap a bunch of different books (and other documents) on an Ereader so you’ve always got a choice of what to read. I don’t like that they are relatively expensive, and the convenience may not be worth it to some people, but I’m not one of them!

I’ve bought the Sony PRS-505 and – so far – I’m happy with it. I’ll be writing another post on it soon.