sprites & bites

Gaming, iPads and a few biscuits on the side…

Category Archives: hardware

Xbox 360 Games Marketplace

Great idea but like everything else run by a big corporation, it is too expensive.

I really want Call of Duty 2 as I have never been able to find it again in the shops but at £20 I think that is far too expsnive for a game which is 5 years old.  If it was £9.99 I would buy it instantly but not at £20, I am not that desperate.

They should really have prices whcih reflect the market for older games.  Maybe have a tier system – new games at near full price, games over 2-3 years old should be bargain bucket.

Unfortunately I think people will accept these prices and pay them which will in turn justify them to Microsoft and they will not bother changing them.

Samsung LE40A557 Sky Remote Code

I unashamedly bought a new TV yesterday.  It is the 40 inch Samsung LE40A557 from Comet £599.  OhMyGoodNess it is an amazing television.  I previously had a Polaroid 26 inch and this is better than that Tv by a country mile.

No longer do I have HDMI issues, the sound is better (not tinny) and of course with a contrast ratio of 30,000:1 it has much better blacks.  There is one area that Polaroid beats this TV and that is the menus.  On the Polaroid I could easily switch input sources between consoles and sky by pressing source and selecting the input I wanted.  With the Samsung I can go from sky to ps3 or 360 in one button press as it detects the next HDMI source, but going back to sky I have to cycle through all the inputs to get back to sky and that is highly annoying.  But I can live with that.

Right now to set up the Sky remote code.  Press interactive on the sky remote and navigate through the options to customer services and choose to setup your remote control.  Go down to Samsung but you will find this model not in the list.  No problem, just select the closest match which is the LE40A566 – Sky code 0840

Then follow the on screen instructions to change the code.  Voila! You can now control your TV volume etc with your Sky Remote.

I have confirmed this code works with Sky HD remote controls.  I am unable to confirm it with other remotes.

Vista on Advent 4213 Netbook

So I have my shiny new netbook but it comes preinstalled with Windows XP.  Having used Vista since beta versions and got used to it’s features and way of working, I felt it was a backwards step to go back to XP and not have those extras.

First of all I installed the Vista compatibility wizard program to see if the netbook would be capable in theory of running Vista and thankfully everything passed the test.  Next I had to decide which Vista version I wanted to buy.  I didn’t think I would need all the features of Vista Home so I went for the cheaper option and purchased Vista Basic Upgrade from the Microsoft online store as it was quite a bit cheaper than the Home Premium version.

I downloaded all the files and ran the installation from the XP desktop.  It got to the expanding of files part and just threw me out with an error that it could not overwrite the boot – without the ability to overwrite the boot it would not be able to install it no matter how many times you re-try.

I searched for hours online and was even on the phone to Microsoft support for nearly an hour trying to get it to install but no joy.  That is, until while searching I happened across a forum with a topic dealing with this exact problem.

http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/netbook/ – that is the forum you want, check the sticky at the top for the Vista upgrade guide.

The problem only exists if you are doing an upgrade from the XP desktop, so if you are doing a clean install with an upgrade or full version booting from the disc this problem should not apply to you.  The problem is the boot folder hidden within XP.  This tells the computer how to boot the machine into XP.  The way to complete the upgrade is to delete or rename the folder into something else so the installation thinks it is not there.  But be warned, if you delete the folder you will not be able to reboot the machine if the installation does not work.  So I renamed mine so it was still there if I needed it.

The folder is located in the root of the C:\ drive.  Go to C:\ and then go to tools – folder options – click on the view tab.  Place a tick in “show hidden files and folders” and untick “hide protected system files” – this will ensure that you can see the boot folder and can rename it to something else.

Once I renamed the folder and restarted the upgrade it went all smoothly without a hitch at all and soon enough Vista was installed on the machine.  After installation everything worked as normal.  All the hotkeys worked and the Avantquest connection manager for the sim card worked fine.  I had to get a few driver updates but that is to be expected. The machine is very speedy and I have had no problems whatsoever.

For those who like numbers, my Windows Experience Score is 2.7 It is really only let down by its “gaming graphics” which really is not an issue as netbooks are most definitely not gaming machines.

Experience Score

Experience Score

Netbooks – Todays Tech

People will always remember the Asus eeepc kicking off the Netbook range but history books should show that it was the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project that really started the concept of a netbook – that is a small, low cost laptop affordable for all.   Asus were the first to develop such a laptop for mainstream public though so they get the credentials.

Netbooks seem to be the latest in portability solutions and most of the big companies now have a netbook range or are readily working on one.  Acer, Dell, HP, Toshiba MSI and Samsung are just a few of the companies offering netbooks all with varying specifications and varying sizes.  Some have an 8 inch screen while others offer you a 10 inch screen and are bordering on the edges of what are also known as Ultra Mobile Laptops – laptops which are higher specced and more expensive but with a small screen typically 10-12 inches.  Generally an Ultra Mobile laptop will today come with Vista pre-installed but at the moment you will expect a variation of Linux or Windows XP on a netbook.

advent 4213 netbook

advent 4213 netbook

A few weeks ago I got my hands on the new Advent 4213 Netbook.  Now Advent is not renowned for being the best company in the world and in its early days they pushed out some very flaky hardware, but the new 4213 Netbook is a delight to behold and is packed to the rafters with mobile features and is one of the most impressively packed netbook there is in the UK market today.

Advent have given us a 10 inch screen, Intel Atom 1.6 ghz processor, 1gb ram, 160gb hard drive, 3 usb ports, SD card slot, VGA out for connection to external monitor, webcam, ethernet, bluetooth, wi-fi and the big selling point – integrated HSDPA modem so you can pop in your sim card and have 3G broadband speeds depending on your local coverage.  It is also unlocked so you can use any network sim but beware a data package is important so you do not get unexpected high bills.  Sadly there is no optical drive, but as far as I know, no netbook has a DVD drive yet.

The netbook is very light and weighs 1.4Kg (although feels lighter than that) and is encased in nice glossy black plastic which has a tough feel to it.  It is actually so light I can easily lift the machine from the open lid with only two fingers although in practice this is not a recommended method of carrying the machine.  The battery life is a little shy of 4 hours which is better than many standard laptops, this may be in part to the new Atom processor which is supposed to be energy efficient.  The screen hinge is tight and stiff and gives a reassuring solid feel.  The only problem is the small keyboard.  This is not a problem unique to this netbook but a common problem with all netbooks.  Because of the small form factor, something has to give and usually this means a smaller keyboard than standard.  Because the keys are quite small you have to be more careful with typing to avoid errors.

The 4213 runs with Windows XP Home preinstalled and some may be wondering how they reinstall the Windows XP without a DVD drive.  Well what Advent have done is to do the usual “create a recovery disc” feature on the desktop however it does not run on a CD or DVD, you create it onto an SD card or USB stick which is 2gb or more in size.  The SD card or USB stick is then a bootable drive with your restore software on it.  The restore partition is still there though so if you lose your media you can restore the drive by pressing F10 on booting up the machine and restoring from there.

Most of the hardware can be switched on and off with function key hotkeys.  Bluetooth, wi-fi, HSDPA, webcam and touchpad can all be disabled with function key.  If you reboot the machine all settings will be saved and if something is disabled it will remain disabled until you enable it again.  Oddly though, the webcam is always enabled no matter what.  This is quite annoying as I do not use webcams and I do not want it using power and showing its light everytime I use the machine.  So I keep having to disable it although that is just me, there is no reason why I cannot leave it running except for saving battery life.

I have to make a mention of the “silent mode”.   This is an energy saving feature that will underclock the processor to 800mhz when powering from battery.  This works incredibly well.  Some reviews have said this makes no difference to the sound of the machine but I can state now that when silent mode is activated, the machine is truly silent, you cannot hear a single whirr from it.  Silent mode can also be activated and deactivated from a function key so it can also be used when powering from the mains.

Like all laptops/netbooks, the Advent 4213 gets warm underneath but from my experience it is lukewarm at best and never gets hot, it is never a problem to actually have it on your lap if a table is not forthcoming.

Most cheap laptops nowadays come with loads of junk preinstalled and takes an age to uninstall but thankfully Advent have included the bare minimum.  From what I can see there is only Adobe Reader, Flash, Microsoft Works 9, Cyberlink Webcam software and Avantquest Connection Manager software which you can use for your 3G/HSDPA sim card connection. There is also of course the Techguys recovery software which helps you to create your bootable media.

There is not a lot more I can say about this netbook.  As said before it is one of the most impressive netbooks available in the shops today and can be purchased from PC World and Pixmania amongst other places for approximately £329.  This does mark the price up from other netbooks available on the market but you do get a lot of bang for your buck.

How does the Advent 4213 perform using Vista as it’s operating system?  Well come back later for a further post on it’s Vista performance.

PS3 Mini Keyboard

Last week on a whim I bought the PS3 keyboard accessory which sits on top of the PS3 controller.

It is very strange and badly designed on so many levels I am not sure where to start.

The keyboard clips into place by a plastic hook which hooks under the front of the controller.  It sits over the start, back and PS buttons and has new buttons to replace them, it then reaches out above the trigger buttons.

The Xbox 360 keyboard sits snugly between the handle grips and it is easy to use the thumbs to type quickly.  Because the PS3 keyboard is above the controller over the trigger buttons it is not a particularly comfortable fit, I have small hands so I really have to stretch my thumbs to type properly or slacken my grip on the controller and move my hands up nearer to the keyboard.  It feels quite awkward and unnatural.

The keyboard has its own battery power and mini usb charge socket.  This is quite annoying.  If both your controller and keyboard batteries die at the same time you need two cables to charge them both.  The keyboard does have an on/off switch to preserve battery power but that can be annoying aswell – you may forget it is switched on and be happily typing away at a message only to look up and find the cursor on screen has not typed anything as the damned thing is switched off!

Now the other design flaw which I think is particularly bad is the blue and brown function buttons.  Just like on a laptop, characters not normal to numbers and letters can be found above the normal numbers and letters – you press the blue or brown function key and then press the corresponding key you want – it could be a brown character or a blue one. Under normal circumstances this is an excellent idea and works on all laptops, mobile phones and so on.  But who on earth decided to make brown and blue on a black controller?  The characters are too small as it is without making it hard to read because of merging colours.  God forbid anyone uses one that has vision problems.

And Finally…  the keyboard also works as a touchpad.  Press the button with the hand on it and the whole keyboard gets touchy feely and works like a mouse.  Except there seems to be no double click for clicking on links in the web browser so once you have touched your way to a link you then have to move away and find the enter button to click it.  Again, not very user friendly.

I am glad I bought it because it means I don’t have to fumble around for my USB keyboard if someone sends me messages, but it has so many design flaws that it is not something you would want to use on a regular basis.  Accept it gracefully as a Christmas present, but don’t rush out to buy it.