Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

MSI have announced that its laptop ranges will be modernised with the latest Intel Core i5 and i7 chips and Windows 7 improving them by a minimum of 30%.

The Classic ranges will come in 3 models of CR420, CR620 and CR720 and will have LED screens starting from 14” to a massive 17.3”. These will be the general all round laptop you need for everyday work and web use and will pack the i5 chips within. No details on release for these or prices yet.

The Gaming range will come in 2 models. The GX640 and GX740 will contain the more powerful i7 chipsets and will also come bundled with ATi Mobility Radeon HD graphics chips supporting DirectX 11 gaming and will really make good use of the HD screens.  Release is looking at March 2010 and prices will start at £999

The gaming lappies will also benefit from what is called “Turbo Boost Technology” which will efficiently distribute system power and resources with Intel Hyper-Threading Technology. They’re also packing Smart Cache and Graphics Media Accelerator HD to improve multimedia operation. The top end GX740 will also have 5 speakers for surround sound gaming but also a 7.1 optical out.

With the Android explosion on phones and tablets, its no surprise that the next thing the versatile OS would be doing branching out even further. In South Korea, this new hand-held has been flying round the developers but Odroid has now got the green light on a worldwide developer release for £210 with free shipping.

Obviously powered by Android the console packs a 3.5” 320×480 capacitive touchscreen, Wi-Fi connectivity alongside Bluetooth connnectivity. It also has a microSD slot for memory expansion but the best thing its packing is a HDMI out slot allowing you to output the video at 720p to your TV.

Click Here for a YouTube video showing it in action with its “tilting” control system. It just shows though that Android could in future be a real competitor for the mobile games market not only on phones but now in the handheld world. Maybe we can see a similar tech being used in future games console controllers.

The King of Fighters XII (KOF XII) is the latest instalment of The King of Fighters series and is currently available on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

King of Fighters XII is very Street Fighter esque though it uses a 3 on 3 team system with each fight consisting of up to five rounds. Though it is possible to play in a versus mode where you can either have 3 on 3 or 1 on 1 against another player or against a CPU opponent.

One of the main things I noticed about the game were issues with the graphics. All the backgrounds in each fight are colourful and well drawn but the actual characters are blocky and have very poor detail, it was certainly not something I would expect on the PS3 unless it was a PSN game.

KOF XII has a slimmed down roster than previous versions of KOF and this has come under quite a bit of criticism from fans.

In terms of the game play it does play well and the animations of the characters are fluid and if you are not used to fighting games you can chose a simple mode which allows you to pull of character moves without pressing a ridiculous combination of buttons, or if you are more used to fighting games you can play it normally.

The game also has some issues with lag that comes with online multiplayer though I suspect this will eventually be fixed with a patch.

This game without a doubt is focussed on the more seasoned fighting game player and I am sure they will play it, however for other gamers I am unsure how appealing it is. One of the main problems I have with it is the £39.99 asking price. For a game with questionable graphics and problematic online multiplayer this is extortionate.

If the game was £10-£15 and available to download on the PSN I would say go for it, it could provide quite a lot of fun while playing against your friends on a LAN, but as a £40 game I just don't think it is worth it.

For those of us that didn’t know, Toshiba helped develop the Cell processor with Sony which powers the PS3. Now Toshiba re taking the tech into its new TV, the “Regza 55X1” LCD TV. The processor improves the quality of the image with better colours, brightness balance and improved picture quality around the edge of the screen.

The Cell chip is actually housed in an external box which also houses a 3TB HDD to save up to a whopping 26 hours from up to 8 simultaneous channels. Yes that’s right 8 simultaneous channels. Just to show off you can show 8 separate channels at one time on the screen. These can then be flicked through without any delay like a standard HDTV.

Throw in 55 inches of LED backlit screen, a 240Hz display and a contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1. A 7 speaker sound bar attached under the screen, network functionality with DLNA support and an Opera based web browser you can see this TV packs just about everything. Now what will it cost?? The TV was on show at CEATEC in Japan where it will be released this December at a cool 1 million Yen. That’s around £7000 to you and me…… Ouch

After announcing it earlier this year, from the middle of October, Sky will be coming to your Xbox 360. Inside the Sky Magazine an article from Rupert Murdoch’s men confirmed the date and gave some info on this upcoming feature.

Already up is sky.com/xbox360, now it hasn’t got anything on the site as of yet but the article in the magazine gave us plenty of info. Basically if you have an Xbox Live Gold Account, you can receive basic access to the “Sky Player” If you are a Sky customer to boot you will be granted access to “premium content” probably live streams of the football and Sky’s exclusive programmes and movies.

We have no details on the pricing as of yet and overall this could cause the service to stumble but once again Microsoft are pushing the boat out with the content supplied through your xbox and obviously teaming up with a media giant like Sky it surely can’t disappoint.

Recently Alienware were telling us that they were planning some new rigs for us to drool over but were keeping tight lipped on the details. However those lovely father figures at Dell let slip some details on the first of those that we’ll look at that. The Alienware M15x Laptop is the epitomy of a max power gaming laptop. As with all Alienware kit (who doesn’t love building ridiculously good PC’s that we could only buy with monopoly money) its a bit pricey. The barebones laptop starts at £1,199 but this can skyrocket with added features. Read on for more

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The Spawn Labs “Spawn HD-720” is a set top box that allows the user to play their console on their PC via a WiFi or broadband connection. No more waiting for the wife or parents to go to bed so you can get some time on the console. Just plug your console to this and you can sit at your PC in another room and not get into trouble for destroying “soap time”

The Spawn HD-720 supports the Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Gamecube. You can have up to 2 of them connected at once and with an adaptor, another three people can play from another location.

The HD-720 will be out in the US in November for $200 and Spawn Labs have confirmed that the UK will be seeing this gadget at some point in the future(not entirely sure when). The idea behind it is brilliant but no doubt a great WiFi network will be needed and I’m sure it will gobble up bandwith like no other.

It’s been only 2 weeks but a big UK retailer has let slip that a 250GB version of the PS3 Slim is scheduled to come out in October. An anonymous source has claimed Sony will unleash full details of new bundles at the end of September. A release date will be revealed in October.

The rumours are the details will come from the Tokyo Games Show, and will be along the lines of a bundle of console and a game from Assassin’s Creed II, Gran Turismo 5 or Uncharted and will retail at £299.